Congressional Page Scandal

[Daniel]

This story is only getting more interesting as it unfolds. Mr. Foley had plenty of opportunity to leave the darkness of the closet- and plenty of warning about pages.

http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid37249.asp

Do you have any regrets about outing people?
Yes, my inability to get the nongay press to pay attention. I really got blasted for outing these congressman. We weren’t outing them as gay; we were outing them as hypocrites. Either people thought it was sensational or they were pissed off. Most of the people who were angry at me were gay. I’m still angry that we couldn’t get people interested in this.

[Steven E. Webster]

Friends,

Reading Andrew Sullivan's blog again, I came across a couple of more interesting URL's:

Here's Tony Perkins of Dobson's Family Research Council making the claim that homosexuals have infiltrated the Republican party in Congress and have sabotaged the Christian Right agenda.

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU06J06&f=PG03I03

From what I've read so far, Jeff Trandahl, the gay former House Clerk was a good, responsible guy. We'll being hearing more about what he did or didn't do as the investigation proceeds. I don't think Tony Perkins is being fair to him.

Andrew also links to an interesting commentary in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...100901037.html

The Post article contains this quote (attributed to Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media):

"House leaders permitted homosexuals to infiltrate and manipulate the party apparatus while they publicly postured as friends of family values and traditional marriage. The facade is now in ruins."

Again, I hope the truth will come out in the investigation and that the Christian Right will be confronted for their constant bearing of false witness against their lesbian and gay neighbors.

Steven Webster

[revtj]

The age of consent is NOT the same in every state. Foley DID hit on some guys who were considered legally underage.

It isn't the pivotal part of the scandal to me either, except that legally it changes the entire situation. That is what will prevail in the case against him.

PS It is far more true that Andrew Sullivan infiltrated the gay civil rights movement in order to destroy it than it is that gays infiltrated the Republican party in order to destroy the christian right agenda. What hyperbole! Sullivan is an authority on almost nothing to do with gay civil rights, except as a sterling reminder of how hypercapitalism can seduce and divert a noble cause. Grrrr....

[NathanATX]

Originally Posted by revtj

The age of consent is NOT the same in every state. Foley DID hit on some guys who were considered legally underage.

I didn't realize that.

Do you think all the Log Cabin Republicans are second-guessing all the compromising they have done?

[revtj]

I think the religious right and the our-numbers-are-in-the-ditch Republicans are desperate to put ANY spin whatsoever that they think will work to get this mess off of them before Nov. 2nd. We may hear that aliens from outer space, or those damned immigrants, or who knows who actually caused it.

It would be funny except that Foley's political life is ruined. Nathan, your letter to him is really how the church should be reaching out to him. I pray 100s of gay christians (or whatever faith he aspires to) seek him out & offer him the truth of repentance & new life. He could turn this around through faith and I truly hope he sees that. I can only imagine how depressed he must be.

[Steven E. Webster]

Friends,

As I've said before, I consider myself something of a fan of Andrew Sullivan's, though I strongly disagree with his stance on the war, his neoconservatism and his affiliation with the GOP and probably several other things. Nevertheless there are things I like about him that keep me reading his blog.

Anyway, today he raises the specter of a GOP purge of gays from their ranks as a reaction to likely losses at the polls this November.

Here's a link.
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/200...d_the_s_1.html

I apologize to those who have strong anti-Andrew Sullivan feelings--consider this "opposition research," and let me proclaim once again that I am a liberal democrat at heart.

Steven Webster

[revtj]

Steven,

I appreciate your perspective. It is clearly more objective than mine.

I am 47 years old, came out in 1980, and I was in my late 30s before I ever heard views like Sullivan's coming from a gay man. I should be more open- minded, but, it's kinda like, I never drink gin because I threw up on it when I was 21 at a lake party and spent the night on the pier alone. Sullivan is like gin to me!

Thanks for not taking my ad hominem attack on Sullivan personally. I'm just a pure (dirty?) idealist I guess.

As for the question of will gays be purged from the GOP, it does look like a witch hunt has begun. Just in time for Halloween!

T J

[BruceChris]

Becomes material for a popular Halloween costume. One year it was Extra Strength Tylenol, another year it was Bill and Monica. This year it seems to be a toss-up between Hastert, Foley, and President Kim. In Wag-The-Dog style, Kim has unfortunately taken the first two off the front page, all too often. Hey, don't let me distract you, TJ and company, this is a good thread.

P&L, BC

P.S.: The Republicans tried to use the sex thing to beat the daylights out of Bill Clinton, It is my impression that the Democrats are just returning the favor. It is hard to have much of ANY kind of a Christian point of view on Washington politics, all too often.

[Giancarlo]

I'm so sick of both political parties. The republicans are bad, but the democrats are hypocrites. They both have had a fair of sex scandals... and they both cover it up. There is no excuse for this irresponsibility.

[Giancarlo]

And this supports my disgust:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061011/D8KMO6NG0.html

Both parties are hopelessly corrupt.

[Steven E. Webster]

Originally Posted by Giancarlo

Both parties are hopelessly corrupt.

How would we look at this situation through our Soulforce principles? What concerns me most about Giancarlo's post is the word "hopelessly." I guess my feeling is that we can never give in to hopelessness. I heard two political commentators (not politicians) comment on our current situation. They spoke of a need for a new Progressive era (and by "Progressive," I don't mean "liberal Democrat"). The Progressive era of the early Twentieth Century was an era of major reforms that aimed at removing not only corruption, but the control of "Big Money" in politics. The Progressive movement was a movement and not just a few lone voices of reform. There was even a third party movement called the Progressive party that was influential for a time.

Big Money and Corporate interests are flooding our political system with money that corrupts the whole system and both parties. Hopelessness, however is not the answer. The answer is for citizens to become active and involved, informed and ready to vote.

We have a two-party system--provided we don't allow one party (either the Dems or the GOP) a free-ride to power. We need, occasionally, to change parties. The Republicans have tried to establish one-party rule in Washington, and as a consequence Congress has been ineffective in serving it's important role of being a check on a President who is making a mess of the Middle East and the rest of the world, and who is undermining our Constitution.

There is a time and a place to throw out the Democrats, too--but right now I think we need them. There is also a time and a place for third-party movements, and non-partisan movements--all these serve their purposes and contribute something to our Government. Hopelessness, however, will help us very little.

Steven Webster

[Steven E. Webster]

Friends,

I'm getting close to done reading Mel's book. It turns out he talks a great deal about Progressives in the last part of the book. He paints a picture of a struggle between Fundamentalists and Progressives rather than one of a Republican/Democrat split. Mel, obviously, identifies with the Progressives and seeks to encourage Progressives in the struggle against a Fundamentalism that is seeking to dominate our church, society and government.

I want to point out, too, that Soulforce is a non-partisan group. Something us liberal Democrats in the group need to keep constantly in mind. We need to keep our individual partisanship from blinding us to Progressive allies who belong to another political party--they exist.

I had a friendly conversation this last Sunday with a pro-gay Republican at a coffee hour at the (progressive) Presbyterian Church where I'm employed (I'm a church accountant). The trouble with the GOP, right now, is that Fundamentalists have succeeded controlling the party to a very large extent--something my GOP friend at the Coffee hour would not approve.

Steven E. Webster

[NathanATX]

Originally Posted by Steven E. Webster

Friends,

I'm getting close to done reading Mel's book. It turns out he talks a great deal about Progressives in the last part of the book. He paints a picture of a struggle between Fundamentalists and Progressives rather than one of a Republican/Democrat split. Mel, obviously, identifies with the Progressives and seeks to encourage Progressives in the struggle against a Fundamentalism that is seeking to dominate our church, society and government.

I want to point out, too, that Soulforce is a non-partisan group. Something us liberal Democrats in the group need to keep constantly in mind. We need to keep our individual partisanship from blinding us to Progressive allies who belong to another political party--they exist.

I had a friendly conversation this last Sunday with a pro-gay Republican at a coffee hour at the (progressive) Presbyterian Church where I'm employed (I'm a church accountant). The trouble with the GOP, right now, is that Fundamentalists have succeeded controlling the party to a very large extent--something my GOP friend at the Coffee hour would not approve.

Steven E. Webster

Much like they have done with the Christian Church.

[Giancarlo]

Originally Posted by Steven E. Webster

How would we look at this situation through our Soulforce principles? What concerns me most about Giancarlo's post is the word "hopelessly." I guess my feeling is that we can never give in to hopelessness. I heard two political commentators (not politicians) comment on our current situation. They spoke of a need for a new Progressive era (and by "Progressive," I don't mean "liberal Democrat"). The Progressive era of the early Twentieth Century was an era of major reforms that aimed at removing not only corruption, but the control of "Big Money" in politics. The Progressive movement was a movement and not just a few lone voices of reform. There was even a third party movement called the Progressive party that was influential for a time.

I think we need some moderates, not left or right. I think we need to get back to the center, because that in my mind is where rationality is attained. Rationality is not done by radicals on either side. We moderates have been responsible for a great deal of reforms of this century. Not the left and certainly not the right. The progressive party that the respectable President Teddy Roosevelt was a part of is no more. I can't side with progressives or conservatives because I feel these days they are much too radical for reality.

I'm a libertarian, and I'm also against a great deal of what these "progressives" stand for when it comes to economic values.

Big Money and Corporate interests are flooding our political system with money that corrupts the whole system and both parties. Hopelessness, however is not the answer. The answer is for citizens to become active and involved, informed and ready to vote.

I really don't agree with part of this, as I believe in the free market. But I do agree with the fact that people should be involved.

The Republicans have tried to establish one-party rule in Washington, and as a consequence Congress has been ineffective in serving it's important role of being a check on a President who is making a mess of the Middle East and the rest of the world, and who is undermining our Constitution.

Really? I think this is exaggerating the situation. I mean the Senate has what? A few seat majority? It isn't a one party rule necessarily, especially when many of the republicans break with their party a lot.

There is a time and a place to throw out the Democrats, too--but right now I think we need them. There is also a time and a place for third-party movements, and non-partisan movements--all these serve their purposes and contribute something to our Government. Hopelessness, however, will help us very little.

Steven Webster

I don't want them because I think they are just as bad... if not worse than the republicans when it comes to financial corruption. I want a libertarian movement that reduces the size of government and gets rid of the excess. So please, I have my views and you have yours.

And I'll say this upfront, Governor Schwarzenegger has done a lot more for gays and lesbians than his democratic predecessor did. He recently signed three LGBT positive bills, one is the income tax equity act. I actually support Arnold (and he has done a successful job at being a moderate and that is why he is 10-20% ahead in the polls).

I don't want them or republicans.

[revtj]

Steven

I haven't read Mel's book yet but indeed the history of fundamentalism dates back to the rise of progressivism. Many people see it in Chicago as the progressive ideas of people like John Dewey were in vogue while Dwight Moody took a hard-lined stand against modernist or progressive views of the bible. Clarence Darrow was in Chicago as a hero of the Scopes trials as Moody began to preach against the notions of science being tolerated by the mainline churches.

Thank God the progressive movement is in revival. It is sad to look at what happened to the social gospel movement after WWII. But it needs to be revived also! And as far as I'm concerned it is happening as we speak as christians of all denominations choose loving their neighbor over theology stuck in the middle-ages.

[Giancarlo]

I must apologize. I don't want to come off as defensive. I just have serious trust issues when it comes to politics.

[Dash]

I haven't said much about this issue. I must admit, that I was battling a good bit of schadenfreude over the Republican trouble.

Now that I'm past that, my thoughts are more compassionate...as well as identifying.

I did talk about it with my friend Shannon. She mentioned how she is giving voice lessons to a 16 year-old-guy. She says it intimidates her, because he "oozes testosterone from every orifice!" We talked about the erotic beauty of youth. In fact I first heard that statement from a straight, married physicist at a bible study several years ago. He was not one of those people that you would associate with virility or strongly sexual interests. He was intense, mathmatical and dry. I thought he was wonderful!!! But he commented one day on the power of youthful beauty--and he was talking about young girls. I don't care whether you are male, female, straight or gay...young people are often incredibly beautiful, and it is no shame to recognize beauty. I wish that we wouldn't make demons our of our attractions. Be wise, careful, restrained and concerned about the welfare of those younger and weaker than us...yes! But there's no need to hate ourselves, or engender further hatred toward the beauty of sexuality in the process. Ugh!

Anyway... I remember teaching the high-school Sunday school class in my old Mennonite Church for awhile. I hated myself at the time, and believed all the sterotypes about gays being predators, and evil. Teaching those young, vulnerable and often obviously troubled young guys was scary. Not only were they beautiful, but they were needy and hungry for attention. As a closeted gay, I too was troubled...yet I also knew more than they, and wanted to help them. Of course, I couldn't deal with the tension, and quit teaching...well, actually, I quit Church, gave my students all my Christian CDs and walked away.

So, if not for whatever grace and good will that follows and protects me, I could BE Mark Foley.

Politicians will use this scandal to gain or retain power, but I think we need to ponder it differently. There's a lot of wisdom to be gained, but we'll have to sift through the lies and political rhetoric to find it.

Just read an article from Salon today by Bill Maher. He hightlights the foolishness of a nation that worries about congressional pages being propositioned by a congressmen, but ignores or supports military recruiters collecting youngsters as cannon fodder in Iraq.

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by Dash

Just read an article from Salon today by Bill Maher. He hightlights the foolishness of a nation that worries about congressional pages being propositioned by a congressmen, but ignores or supports military recruiters collecting youngsters as cannon fodder in Iraq.

Yes. I saw Maher mention this very idea on his HBO program last night (the one reason I still have it after watching Angels in America and Rome).

That said, I identify with your remarks very much regarding youth and beauty: I have always thought that, no matter what the age of the student, if the teacher violates what amounts to an essential breach of trust, damage is frequently, if not always, the result. In the end, it is an abuse of power: sex is just the means.

But it's still Ok to send young men off to die. I think that's an even greater abuse of power.

[Daniel]

Frank Rich, the one time theatre critic and now at large op-ed writer for the NYTimes (he's straight!) has grown into a potent advocate for Gay Rights. This op-ed is a brilliant.

The Gay Old Party Comes Out

By FRANK RICH
Published: October 15, 2006
PAGING Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council: Here’s a gay Republican story you probably did not hear last week. On Tuesday a card-carrying homosexual, Mark Dybul, was sworn into office at the State Department with his partner holding the Bible. Dr. Dybul, the administration’s new global AIDS coordinator, was flanked by Laura Bush and Condi Rice. In her official remarks, the secretary of state referred to the mother of Dr. Dybul’s partner as his “mother-in-law.”

Could wedding bells be far behind? It was all on display, photo included, on www.state.gov. And while you’re cruising the Internet, a little creative Googling will yield a long list of who else is gay, openly and not, in the highest ranks of both the Bush administration and the Republican hierarchy. The openly gay range from Steve Herbits, the prescient right-hand consultant to Donald Rumsfeld who foresees disaster in Iraq in Bob Woodward’s book “State of Denial,” to Israel Hernandez, the former Bush personal aide and current Commerce Department official whom the president nicknamed “Altoid boy.” (Let’s not go there.)

If anything good has come out of the Foley scandal, it is surely this: The revelation that the political party fond of demonizing homosexuals each election year is as well-stocked with trusted and accomplished gay leaders as virtually every other power center in America. “What you’re really seeing is the Republican Party on the Hill,” says Rich Tafel, the former leader of the gay Log Cabin Republicans whom George W. Bush refused to meet with during the 2000 campaign. “Across the board gay people are in leadership positions.” Yet it is this same party’s Congressional leadership that in 2006 did almost nothing about government spending, Iraq, immigration or ethics reform, but did drop everything to focus on a doomed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The split between the Republicans’ outward homophobia and inner gayness isn’t just hypocrisy; it’s pathology. Take the bizarre case of Karl Rove. Every one of his Bush campaigns has been marked by a dirty dealing of the gay card, dating back to the lesbian whispers that pursued Ann Richards when Mr. Bush ousted her as Texas governor in 1994. Yet we now learn from “The Architect,” the recent book by the Texas journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater, that Mr. Rove’s own (and beloved) adoptive father, Louis Rove, was openly gay in the years before his death in 2004. This will be a future case study for psychiatric clinicians as well as historians.

So will Kirk Fordham, the former Congressional aide who worked not only for Mark Foley but also for such gay-baiters as Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma (who gratuitously bragged this year that no one in his family’s “recorded history” was gay) and Senator Mel Martinez of Florida (who vilified his 2004 Republican primary opponent, a fellow conservative, as a tool of the “radical homosexual agenda”). Then again, even Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania senator who brought up incest and “man-on-dog” sex while decrying same-sex marriage, has employed a gay director of communications. In the G.O.P. such switch-hitting is as second nature as cutting taxes.

As for Mr. Foley, he is no more representative of gay men, whatever their political orientation, than Joey Buttafuoco is of straight men. Yet he’s a useful creep at this historical juncture because his behavior has exposed and will continue to expose a larger dynamic on the right. The longer the aftermath of this scandal continues, with its maniacal finger-pointing and relentless spotlight on the Republican closet, the harder it will be for his party to return to the double-dealing that has made gay Americans election-year bogeymen (and women) for so long.

The moment Mr. Foley’s e-mails became known, we saw that brand of fearmongering and bigotry at full tilt: Bush administration allies exploited the former Congressman’s predatory history to spread the grotesque canard that homosexuality is a direct path to pedophilia. It’s the kind of blood libel that in another era was spread about Jews.

The Family Research Council’s Mr. Perkins, a frequent White House ally and visitor, led the way. “When we elevate tolerance and diversity to the guidepost of public life,” he said on Fox News Channel, “this is what we get — men chasing 16-year-old boys around the halls of Congress.” A related note was struck by The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, which asked, “Could a gay Congressman be quarantined?” The answer was no because “today’s politically correct culture” — tolerance of “private lifestyle choices” — gives predatory gay men a free pass. Newt Gingrich made the same point when he announced on TV that Mr. Foley had not been policed because Republicans “would have been accused of gay bashing.” Translation: Those in favor of gay civil rights would countenance and protect sex offenders.

This line of attack was soon followed by another classic from the annals of anti-Semitism: the shadowy conspiracy. “The secret Capitol Hill homosexual network must be exposed and dismantled,” said Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media, another right-wing outfit that serves as a grass-roots auxiliary to the Bush administration. This network, he claims, was allowed “to infiltrate and manipulate the party apparatus” and worked “behind the scenes to sabotage a conservative pro-family agenda in Congress.”

There are two problems with this theory. First, gay people did not “infiltrate” the party apparatus — they are the party apparatus. Rare is the conservative Republican Congressional leader who does not have a gay staffer wielding clout in a major position. Second, any inference that gay Republicans on the Hill conspired to cover up Mr. Foley’s behavior is preposterous. Mr. Fordham, the gay former Foley aide who spent Thursday testifying under oath about his warnings to Denny Hastert’s staff, is to date the closest this sordid mess has to a whistle-blower, however tardy. So far, the slackers in curbing Mr. Foley over the past three years seem more straight than gay, led by the Buffalo Congressman Tom Reynolds, who is now running a guilt-ridden campaign commercial desperately apologizing to voters.

A Washington Post poll last week found that two-thirds of Americans believe that Democrats would behave just as badly as the Hastert gang in covering up a scandal like this to protect their own power. They are no doubt right. But the reason why the Foley scandal has legs — and why it has upstaged most other news, from the Congressional bill countenancing torture to North Korea’s nuclear test — is not just that sex trumps everything else in a tabloid-besotted America. The Republicans, unlike most Democrats (Joe Lieberman always excepted), can’t stop advertising their “family values,” which is why their pitfalls are as irresistible as a Molière farce. It was entertaining enough to learn that the former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed wanted to go “humping in corporate accounts” with the corrupt gambling lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The only way that comic setup could be topped was by the news that Mr. Foley was chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. It beggars the imagination that he wasn’t also entrusted with No Child Left Behind.

Cultural conservatives who fell for the G.O.P.’s pious propaganda now look like dupes. Tonight on “60 Minutes,” David Kuo, a former top official in the administration’s faith-based initiatives program, is scheduled to discuss his new book recounting how evangelical supporters were privately ridiculed as “nuts” in the White House. If they have any self-respect, they’ll exact their own revenge.

We must hope as well that this crisis will lead to a repudiation of the ritual targeting of gay people for sport at the top levels of the Republican leadership in and out of the White House. For all the president’s talk of tolerance and “compassionate conservatism,” he has repeatedly joined Congress in wielding same-sex marriage as a club for divisive political purposes. He sat idly by while his secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, attacked a PBS children’s show because an animated rabbit visited a lesbian couple and their children. Ms. Spellings was worried about children being exposed to that “lifestyle” — itself a code word for “deviance” — even as the daughter of the vice president was preparing to expose the country to that lifestyle in a highly promoted book.

“The hypocrisy, the winking and nodding is catching up with the party,” says Mr. Tafel, the former Log Cabin leader. “Republicans must welcome their diversity as the party of Lincoln or purge the party of all gays. The middle ground — we’re a diverse party but we can bash gays too — will no longer work.” He adds that “the ironic point is that the G.O.P. isn’t as homophobic as it pretends to be.” Indeed two likely leading presidential competitors in 2008, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, are consistent supporters of gay civil rights.

Another ironic point, of course, is that the effort to eradicate AIDS, led by a number of openly gay appointees like Dr. Dybul, may prove to be the single most beneficent achievement of this beleaguered White House. To paraphrase a show tune you’re unlikely to hear around the Family Research Council, isn’t that queer?

Of course, Rich is referencing Sondheim's Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music.

"Isn't it rich? Isn't it queer? Losing my timing this late in my career?
And where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns.
Well. Maybe next year."

The GOP is losing its timing perhaps?

[NathanATX]

Originally Posted by Daniel

Frank Rich, the one time theatre critic and now at large op-ed writer for the NYTimes (he's straight!) has grown into a potent advocate for Gay Rights. This op-ed is a brilliant.



Of course, Rich is referencing Sondheim's Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music.

"Isn't it rich? Isn't it queer? Losing my timing this late in my career?
And where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns.
Well. Maybe next year."

The GOP is losing its timing perhaps?

The look on the boyfriend's face is priceless. "If she even thinks about touching me..."