It's time for gay Republicans to be more like Barney Frank and less like Mark Foley.
In the midst of an emerging scandal, Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) abruptly resigned from the House of Representatives on Friday. News leaked out this week that Foley had been sending suggestive emails and engaging in sexual online chat sessions with underage congressional pages. The story was made public by one of the former pages on an anti-Republican headhunter website CREW. It was then picked up and investigated by ABC News.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - RJ Elliott
Hebephile = One who is sexually attracted to teens 13-17.
Pedophile = One who is sexually attracted to children 1-12.
Roughly...
27 - Matthew T. Sussman
Never use the word "roughly" when referring to sexual attractiveness.
28 - Baronius
Who infiltrated whose party??
Christian conservative Republicans are loud and proud. It was Newt's agenda that took the House in 1994 and has held it since. The religious right has been manning the phone banks and making the $20 donations that enable Republicans to win elections.
Whatever you may think of the Christian conservativees, they're not infiltrators. It's the homosexuals within the party who've been quiet about their identities. They snuck in quietly because they know their sexual preference would be a political detriment.
If you really believed your claims, you'd be calling for them to come out before the election. Instead, you counsel them to keep lying to the voters until they get re-elected. That's politically and morally sickening.
29 - Jet In Columbus
Portions of the CNN report
...The lawmaker who oversees the page program, Rep. John Shimkus, a Republican from Illinois, said that he learned about Foley's e-mails in late 2005 and "took immediate action to investigate the matter."
He was notified by Rep. Rodney Alexander, a Republican from Louisiana, in whose office the page had worked. Alexander forwarded the e-mails to the clerk of the House...
...An aide to Rep. Tom Reynolds, the New York congressman who heads the National Republican Campaign Committee, said he knew about the matter a year ago
I wonder if they kept it a secret so they wouldn't lose that seat in congress?
Perhaps an investigation into the leaders in congress that knew about this and said nothing is in order?
30 - Alec
Dave " some of the inaccuracies in your post are odd, since you are usually more careful about these things. D.C. law does not specify an age of consent for consensual homosexual conduct, so you cannot just assume that age sixteen applies equally for straights and gays. Some of Foley’s conduct was consensual, but other pages complained, one of the page’s parents’ clearly complained, incoming pages were warned about him by their peers, and his behavior was against Congressional rules. His pattern of increasingly reckless behavior despite warnings from his superiors suggested that he was about to cross all kinds of ethical lines. I can’t find any news source that even suggests that Barney Frank was involved with his lover’s prostitution ring. There is also no money trail that connects him. I am not a fan of Frank, and while it is possible that Congress was reluctant to press to hard on this, the public record is the public record. Given Internet sources like “the Smoking Gun,” etc., anyone who claims that there is more to the Frank case than was released to the public is duty-bound to either put up or shut up.
In or out of the closet, Democrat or Republican, Foley’s behavior is inexcusable. However, you make a very good point about the vulnerability of Gay Republicans, even though this also affects heterosexual politicians who don’t espouse squeaky clean family values, such as Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan, whose political career was ended over accusations that he wanted his actress wife to have sex with him in a sex club while others watched.
Gay Republicans are in a bind. The official dogma of some conservatives is that homosexuality violates Christianity, and must not be tolerated, and also that gays are psychologically damaged and should seek a cure (here, these conservatives reject current medical opinion about gays as being another example of liberal political correctness and a failure to acknowledge both human nature and religion). We even have the absurdity of the military preferring straights with criminal records over qualified, blemish-free gays.
It will be interesting to see whether Foley decides to become a candidate for the priesthood.
31 - Clavos
Imagine that, Jet:
there are gays who are Republicans!!
32 - Peter J
RJ, note the key words "consenting adult",
not a 16 yr old.
another great problem with the right, they see what they want to see
33 - Clavos
another great problem with the right, they see what they want to see
Weird, isn't it?
Wonder why the left doesn't do it?
34 - Matthew T. Sussman
"RJ, note the key words "consenting adult",
not a 16 yr old."
Ah, but:
"The legal age of consent in DC is 16."
Owned.
35 - Jet In Columbus
Clavos, it's called the Log Cabin Society. I myself used to be republican, and my biggest presidential hero is still Gerald Ford for pardoning Nixon because it was the only way the country could move on even though it ruined his career.
36 - Jet In Columbus
It's a conspiracy damn it... can't you see? The republicans set him up so those damned fags would feel sorry for him and the GOP would get the sympathetic gay vote!!!!!
Those fiends!!!!
37 - Dave Nalle
Dave - some of the inaccuracies in your post are odd, since you are usually more careful about these things. D.C. law does not specify an age of consent for consensual homosexual conduct, so you cannot just assume that age sixteen applies equally for straights and gays.
Actually, DC considered and rejected a measure to raise the consensual sex age to 18 for gay sex and it was rejected. That shows a clear intent that the same age apply to both gay and straight sex.
Some of Foley's conduct was consensual, but other pages complained, one of the page's parents' clearly complained, incoming pages were warned about him by their peers,
These details weren't available yesterday afternoon when I wrote the article.
and his behavior was against Congressional rules.
Likely true. But he did not have direct authority over the page, and by all accounts didn't start bothering him until after he left the page program.
His pattern of increasingly reckless behavior despite warnings from his superiors suggested that he was about to cross all kinds of ethical lines.
Yes, I do agree that he showed incredibly poor judgement.
I can't find any news source that even suggests that Barney Frank was involved with his lover's prostitution ring. There is also no money trail that connects him. I am not a fan of Frank, and while it is possible that Congress was reluctant to press to hard on this, the public record is the public record. Given Internet sources like "the Smoking Gun," etc., anyone who claims that there is more to the Frank case than was released to the public is duty-bound to either put up or shut up.
From what I've seen there's a lot more information on the Frank case than came out at the time. It seems to be connected to another sex ring scandal from the same period involving people in the Reagan whitehouse. I'm not fully read up on it, but do a search for Paul Bonacci who was one of the kids passed around as part of the pedophilia ring and who testified about it some years later, and who testified to Frank's involvement in orgies and child sex parties. There was a pretty detailed investigation of the scandal by the Washington Times, but it's too old to be archived on their website.
Dave
38 - Alec
Dave " RE: “… But he did not have direct authority over the page, and by all accounts didn't start bothering him until after he left the page program.”
This is not relevant and actually makes it worse in some ways. Foley’s actions here were not remotely consensual or welcomed. According to the news reports, “After the boy returned to his Louisiana home, the congressman e-mailed him. The teenager thought the messages were inappropriate, particularly one in which Foley asked the teen to send a picture of himself. The teen's family contacted their congressman, Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who then discussed the problem with Reynolds sometime this spring.”
ABC News reported Friday that Foley also engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant messages with current and former pages, writing to one of them, "Do I make you a little horny?" In another, he is discussing masturbation techniques.
What is particularly troubling about this is that pages apparently warned newcomers about Foley. This suggests an ongoing pattern of behavior. This also tends to underscore the unwelcome nature of many of Foley’s actions, as well as the possibility that pages felt that they had to put up with it, that they did not feel that they could prevent Foley from pestering them or go to anyone else about it, whether or not Foley had “direct authority” over them. The news reports also suggest that Foley would lie about his actions as just friendly mentoring, again undermining any view of his actions as generally mutual or consensual.
RE: Paul Bonacci, Barney Frank, et al.
Sorry, this sounds like conspiracy nutcase stuff, especially since one web site claims evidence of child prostitution and Satanism “with connections to the drug distribution/money laundering operations known as "Iran"-Contra which goes back to then Vice-President George Bush.”
RE: “They can't go out to gay bars for fear of being identified and they can't have an openly gay domestic situation, so they look for whatever outlet they can find - which is likely to be at work. If they weren't in the closet the whole problem would be much less severe.”
I don’t think that this is not entirely true. Sometimes a politician’s “upright” behavior is a mask for the benefit of the rubes back home. Reporters and others often claim to know which politicians are drunks, have mistresses, are gay, etc. Also, gay publications like “The Advocate” have long debated the issue of outing closeted gay politicians who are either neutral or hostile to perceived gay interests even as they frequent gay bars, nightclubs and other venues or keep gay lovers on the side while pretending to be happily married heterosexuals.
Columnist and blogger Andrew Sullivan’s recent post about Foley suggests the existence of a gay underground, many of whose members are known to each other: “I don't know Foley, although, like any other gay man in D.C., I was told he was gay, closeted, afraid and therefore also screwed up.” However, while Sullivan goes on to express an idea similar to yours that Foley’s inability to live openly as a gay man may have contributed to his self-destructive behavior, I don’t completely buy it, just as I don’t buy any of the pathetic excuses offered up by the openly heterosexual men caught in a pedophile sting by “Dateline” as they chase after women who they thought were pre-teen girls.
39 - Bliffle
Dave: "But wait, there's more. The legal age of consent in DC is 16. So even if he were having orgies with pages it would still be legal.
There's no crime here. Even if he had actually done anything he wouldn't legally be a pedophile. End of story."
Thank god for the Legal Parsing of Dave Nalle! Now we can safely conclude that Foley committed only the Venal Sin of Homosexuality, not the Mortal Sin of Pedophilia!
But wait! Has this passed the careful inspection of the other BC inmates who a few days ago were stridently asserting that Monica Lewinski was a mere child at 20-something? Several years older and of Legal Age in every state in the union?
And is this a case of the Venal Sin of Moral Relativism or the Mortal Sin of Flipflopping? Or is it the other way around?
What we need is a sort of Republican Pope to sit Ex Cathedra, wave his Holy Sceptre, and resolve these important points. Perhaps Monsignor Nalle will volunteer.
40 - Jet In Columbus
I thought Jerry Falwell filled the position and that Pat Robertson filled in when he was on vacation?
41 - Scott
"Plus, he's by far the better candidate, though he's no Jeb, unfortunately"
Crist is creepy.
42 - Richard Rothstein
It just gets keeping getting better and better: Republicans are like chocolate cake.
43 - RJ Elliott
Sounds credible to me, actually. If the GOP had "outed" this guy, I would fully expect the next news cycle to be full of stories subtling calling Republicans "homophobic" and the like...
44 - RJ Elliott
Er, "subtly" ...
45 - Michael J. West
20 years ago, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) got caught with his gigolo boyfriend running a male prostitution ring out of his apartment.
As long as we're talking about honesty, political and otherwise, perhaps this should be clarified.
There was never any evidence produced that Frank himself was involved in the prostitution ring. Only his boyfriend, Steve Gobie, was running the ring, and in fact, before the story had even become public, Frank had found out about Gobie's extracurricular activities, dumped him, and kicked him out of the house.
In fact, what the Portland Mercury story you linked to gets wrong is that Frank wasn't even censured. The 408-18 vote earned him a formal reprimand. Because, as I said, there was no evidence that he had had any knowledge of the prostitution ring.
But perhaps your statement was poorly phrased, and you didn't actually intend to implicate Rep. Frank?
46 - RJ Elliott
This is, um, interesting. I don't know whether to laugh or cry:
Congressman Foley - "get a ruler and measure it for me"
Underage Page - "ive already told you that"
Congressman Foley - "tell me again"
Underage Page - "7 and 1/2"
Congressman Foley - "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"
Congressman Foley - "beautiful"
So he's a size queen, too? :-/
47 - Michael J. West
I hadn't read comment #37 when I made my last comment, so apologies for being largely redundant. Although, my point about Frank being reprimanded, not censured (due to lack of evidence), still stands. And that, like the pedophile vs. hebephile that RJ pointed out, is an important distinction.
48 - Michael J. West
Columnist and blogger Andrew Sullivan's recent post about Foley suggests the existence of a gay underground, many of whose members are known to each other: "I don't know Foley, although, like any other gay man in D.C., I was told he was gay, closeted, afraid and therefore also screwed up."
When we talk about "D.C." is and a "gay undergroudn," are we just talking about Congress, or the whole city? The D.C. that I live in has one of the largest, loudest, and most vibrant gay communities on the East Coast, not to mention the two openly gay men on the City Council.
49 - Matthew T. Sussman
RJ,
When something almost reads as a parody, you know it's rather twisted.
50 - RJ Elliott
Speaking of (allegedly) closeted gay Republicans...
Matt Drudge is on the air right now DEFENDING Foley...
51 - Jet in Columbus
We're everywhere...
Skulks away with an evil laugh and a pair of binoculars.......
52 - Michael J. West
We're everywhere...
Except Utah, anyway.
53 - Jet in Columbus
... Uh Michael... The Utah Pride Celebration is a five-day festival held in downtown Salt Lake City in June, celebrating Utah's diversity. It includes the state’s second-largest parade. In 2004 an estimated 50,000 people attended, the largest since the festival began in 1977 when the "Salt Lake Coalition for Human Rights" sponsored a three day conference. In 1977, the keynote speakers were David Kopay, the first NFL player to come out of the closet, and Air Force Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, an ex-Mormon who was the first out gay person ever to appear on the cover of Time Magazine. Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons (then called "Gay Mormons United") was also founded during this conference, on June 11, 1977.
However, in 2005, the first year in which an admission was charged attendance at the festival was between 15,000 and 20,000. Some have contributed this decline to patrons not wanting to pay for the festival. Utah Pride organizers, however, argue that 2005 was the first year in which accurate method of counting the attendance were employed, and that the numbers did not reflect a drop in attendance.
54 - MCH
"He'll have plenty of time talking to little boys when you're living in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!"
- Matthew T. Sussman
And while you're gazing in a trance at the enlarged, framed letter to Sports Illustrated on your wall.
55 - RJ Elliott
MCH, don't you write about sports for a living? You know, high school volleyball games and such? Why won't you provide a link to your Magnum Opus?
Or do you prefer to anonymously cyber-stalk Blogcritics contributors?
56 - Clavos
RJ,
Or do you prefer to anonymously cyber-stalk Blogcritics contributors?
That's a rhetorical question, right?
57 - MCH
Methinks thou art being a little hypocritical, Clavos, since you're anonymous also.
58 - RJ Elliott
Well, Foley's "safe seat" looks pretty much lost at this point...but the Democrat who is likely to replace him, Tim Mahoney, better vote like a moderate once in office, or else his tenure in DC will last all of 2 years...
59 - Dave Nalle
In fact, what the Portland Mercury story you linked to gets wrong is that Frank wasn't even censured. The 408-18 vote earned him a formal reprimand.
Thanks for clarifying this, Michael.
Because, as I said, there was no evidence that he had had any knowledge of the prostitution ring.
You seriously think the guy had a gay prostitute living with him and didn't know he was involved in gay prostitution. Are you suggesting that Frank is monumentally stupid, because from what I've seen of him he seems pretty sharp.
Dave
60 - Alec
RE: Underage Page - "7 and 1/2"
Congressman Foley - "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"
Congressman Foley - "beautiful"
So he's a size queen, too? :-/
More like a size princess, I think.
Michael " RE: “the existence of a gay underground…” Andrew Sullivan says that he was told that Foley was gay and closeted, not that he was surprised to learn that Foley was gay and closeted. Neither Sullivan nor anyone else ever revealed what they knew about Foley. I presume that D.C. is like Los Angeles, New York or any other major city with a sizeable number of gays in that it is possible for a politician to be in the closet for the sake of the ignorant rubes back home, while also having an active gay social life, with most people being discrete or actively protecting the politician’s secret.
61 - Jet in Columbus
Re:RE: Underage Page - "7 and 1/2"
Congressman Foley - "ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Wouldn't the fact that the Page answered the inquirey make him a willing participant in the conversation, in fact by giving his measurement fact or fiction wouldn't it make the Page out as encouraging the congressman?
62 - Michael J. West
You seriously think the guy had a gay prostitute living with him and didn't know he was involved in gay prostitution.
We're all about making distinctions on this thread, so let's point out the distinction between "involved in gay prostitution" and "running a prostitution ring out of the house." As for Frank, I'd also suggest a distinction between "monumentally stupid" and "willfully naive."
I'm suggesting that even the most partisan and staunchest supporters of Frank in Congress would have voted for a full censure if they'd had reason to believe he was helping to run a prostitution ring. As it was, the reprimand they voted on was in response to Frank getting Gobie's parking tickets dismissed.
63 - Michael J. West
Jet #53:
It was a joke. Not a very good one, obviously.
64 - Jet in Columbus
Uh, considering that Barney Frank also lives and works in D.C. it's completely possible that something could be run out of his home hundreds of miles away and he wouldn't know about it.
65 - Jet in Columbus
So am I too trusting of you and your sources, or just naive there Michael?
66 - Michael J. West
Well, it was Frank's house in DC, out of which the ring was being run...
I don't understand, Jet. Are you asking me to list my sources? Or am I stupid and missing the point?
67 - Matthew T. Sussman
"It was a joke. Not a very good one, obviously."
Well, Mr. West, the following diagram will prove this statement is untrue:
Humor
----------
Jet's Head
68 - Michael J. West
I appreciate it, Suss, but I'm pretty sure it was just a lousy joke.
69 - Dave Nalle
I'm suggesting that even the most partisan and staunchest supporters of Frank in Congress would have voted for a full censure if they'd had reason to believe he was helping to run a prostitution ring.
I didn't say he was helping to run a prostitution ring, just that there's every reason to believe that he was aware that a prostitution ring was being run under his roof. Remember that he invited Gobie in with the knowledge that Gobie was a prostitute, and probably with an awareness that Gobie had a criminal record which included the sale of drugs and of underage pornography. If Frank did NOT know these things, that's almost as irresponsible as living with Gobie while knowing of them.
Dave
70 - Clavos
emmy:
Methinks thou art being a little hypocritical, Clavos, since you're anonymous also.
With a very few exceptions, we're ALL anonymous, since you have no way of verifying that those with "names" (or what appear to be names) for handles are actually using their real names.
And except for you, emmy, I don't stalk.
71 - Nancy
In Hawaii, Idaho, and South Carolina, the age of consent is only 14 - but that it's legal doesn't make it RIGHT. Anyone pursuing someone under the age of 18, or someone who is subject to them for future references, etc. is indeed a skank & a maggot. Even less excusable are those in the GOP leadership who have deliberately sat on this information, hoping against hope it wouldn't surface, apparently.
VOTE GOP - the party with NO principles, it would seem
72 - Jet in Columbus
Suss, I know it's getting more and more difficult to bury and disguise the love you have for me, but please keep trying...
73 - Jet in Columbus
Michael... it was meant as a straight out compliment that I take you at your word. That's not sarcasm it was respect... well at least it was.
74 - JustOneMan
So...Nancy now its your anti-gay bias showing...
Hey all the guy was doing is what all healthy normal gay men do...look for some action and recruit some new members...
75 - Michael J. West
Jet, now you're just picking on me. :-)