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The Vice-President cant get a burger with Lisa Murkowski without arousing suspicion or, possibly, himself? After the Washington Post pointed out, last week, that Mike Pence once told a reporter that he never dines alone with a woman who is not his wifea variation of the so-called Billy Graham rulepeople had a lot of questions. Are after-sunset encounters allowed if they dont include food? Do canaps count? Pretzels on an airplane? It seemed like a good time to get on the phone, for some perspective, with Billy Grahams forty-two-year-old evangelist grandson, Will.

Im going to give you a little history, is that O.K.? Will said, speaking from Pachuca, Mexico, where he was preparing to lead a revival. Think about 1948the times were different, but one of the things that my grandfather was dealing with was the image of an evangelist, which was kind of synonymous with what youd think of as a used-car salesman. Will pointed out that two decades earlier Sinclair Lewis had published Elmer Gantry. His grandfather, fighting that huckster stereotype, asked three male colleagues to help him make a list of things that could hurt evangelism. One of them was sexual immorality. In what became known as the Modesto Manifesto, Billy and his team pledged to avoid any situation that could create even the appearance of impropriety. When my grandfather would check into a hotel, a man would go inside the room and look under the bed and in the closets, Will said. What they were afraid of was that someone had snuck in the room, like a naked lady with a photographer, and shed jump into his arms and hed take a picture, and theyd frame my granddaddy.

Times have changed, and so has the rule, meaning that today a righteous man must think about how to avoid female company even in scenarios that dont involve a honey trap. But the jezebel mentality persists. For one thing, if Im meeting with a woman, then theres a temptation that maybe it could be something more, Will said, when asked why dinners posed a risk. Another thing, he said, is that I want to do everything I can to protect my wife and my marriage. He continued, I think Mike Pence loves his wife so much that he never wants anything to jeopardize his marriage to what he believes is the greatest woman hes ever been with.

In practical terms, this means that if a man and a woman need to ride in a car together someone else should come along. (The collective evangelical sexual imagination accounts for infidelity, but apparently not for threesomes.) Breakfast is out. So is coffee. We have glass offices, so that you can see everything, Will said. What would he do if he were on a train and the only other person in the car was a woman? Thats why I always travel with a friend, he said. What if his wife is at home and a workman is coming to the house? I always have someone from my office go there and be with her. There are certain exceptions. Have I been in an elevator when theres been only a woman? Yes. He went on, When Im on that elevator, its, like, Ugh. Not that I dont want to be around a woman, but, actually, I feel uncomfortable.

Back to Pence. Isnt his line of work a little different from an evangelists? Isnt it unfair to offer men a point of access that is closed to women? We believe that a woman could meet with another woman, but a woman couldnt meet with a man, so it would go both ways, Will explained. Just take another person into the room. Of the Vice-President, he said, I dont know Mike Pence, but I think hes just trying to protect that nothing could ever be used against him. Hes got so many pressures on him that thats the last thing he wants to deal with.

At ninety-eight, Billy Graham is still upholding the Billy Graham rule. The problem is, hes got twenty-four-hour nursing care at home, Will said. There are always two nurses, for accountability purposes. Will told a story about his grandfather invoking the Billy Graham rule with Hillary Clinton. In 1989, when Graham was in Little Rock for a crusade, Hillary invited him to lunch. As Graham recounted in his autobiography, he told her that hed be delighted, but, he said, I dont have private luncheons with beautiful ladies. Will said, I dont think anyones ever going to suggest that Billy Graham and Hillary Clinton ever tried anything. I heard she was so surprised that he still kept to those rules, but I think she respected that. In the end, Hillary persuaded him to join her in the crowded dining room of the Capital Hotel, and Graham wrote that he left the encounter greatly impressed by her.

Final question: Is the Billy Graham rule purely about physical proximityin other words, is it O.K. to have a one-on-one telephone chat with a female reporter (who, incidentally, was quietly eating some salt-and-pepper shrimp at her desk)? Thats why Ive got a guy sitting right here beside me, Will said.

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Virtue and Vice: Mike Pence's Dining Policy - The New Yorker