Like anyone accused of sexual harassment, now-former state Sen. Jack Latvala deserves to have his version of events heard and reported — and he is entitled to due process if a criminal investigation of corruption results.

The allegations of at least one accuser, a member of the Senate staff, were strong enough for the upper chamber's leadership to hire a "special master" to investigate. According to the special master's report, he found the allegations of verbal and physical harassment — including groping — credible. The investigator also determined that the charges of a lobbyist, who said Latvala offered support for legislation she was hired to promote in exchange for sexual favors, were sufficiently reliable to be "immediately referred to law enforcement for further investigation."

The state capital in Tallahassee has long been a place where male legislators, most often married, and others in power made sexual advances toward women and had affairs with their aides or lobbyists. The record is well established and troubling.

Just recently, Sen. Jeff Clemens, a Lake Worth Democrat, resigned after admitting to an extramarital affair with a lobbyist. Ritch Workman, Gov. Rick Scott's nominee for a plum job on the Public Service Commission, withdrew his nomination after Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, blocked his confirmation — because, she said, Workman had accosted her physically and verbally at a political event.

On Oct. 30, Benacquisto and her colleague Sen. Lauren Book, a Democrat from Broward County, issued an unusual, forceful joint statement on sexual harassment. It stated, in part: "Sexual misconduct — whether in action or in spoken word — has no place in our world and certainly not in our places of work, nor in the halls of power."

That should have gone without saying, but sadly it needed to be said.

Apparently Latvala didn't get the memo. The Republican from Clearwater denied the most serious allegations — groping, sexual advances and the like — but in a Nov. 9 media interview, cited by the Senate investigator, Latvala was quoted as saying: "Do I let my mouth overload my good sense every now and then and maybe say, 'You're looking good today? You've lost weight? You're looking hot today?' Yeah. But I haven't touched anybody against their will."

Then Latvala added, "perhaps I haven't kept up with political correctness in my comments as well as I should have."

Equating comments made to subordinate women or lobbyists, such as "you look hot," with political correctness is a sign of cluelessness, arrogance or both.

It's been a long time since it was correct, period, to use that kind of loaded language in any workplace — especially when it is used by bosses and other authority figures. Ignorance of that fact makes Latvala or anyone else more susceptible to allegations such as those that have been made.

Latvala tendered his resignation effective Jan. 5, and his candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor has been derailed.

Let's hope the attitude that has prevailed in the capital — and in the entertainment and media industries and elsewhere — also finds the exit.