Reply #155: Foley: A typical Republican pedophile [View All]

[Alcibiades]

I reserve the right to call Republicans to account when they "stray" from their "family values agenda." I am just as disgusted by the adultery and other sexual misdeeds of other Republicans, as well as their other instances of immoral behavior--the worst one I can think of is Newt Gingrich's serving his wife with divorce papers while she was on what could have been her death bed. These sorts of things do reveal the Republican "pro-family" agenda for what it is: not a sincerely held set of beliefs that they uphold and live, but a hypocritical and self-serving attempt to appeal to bigotry, hatred and fear.

First off, the Studds scandal arose in 1983, and it concerned Studds abuse of a 17 year-old back in 1973. I was 15 at the time, and I don't think my own failure to really express much outrage in 1983 at Studds' behavior in 1973 should preclude me from being outraged at Foley's apparently recent -if not ongoing- sexual solicitation of minors.

I, for one, never defended Clinton's choice to have sex with "that woman." As a matter of fact, I supported Jackson in the primary, in part because I knew all about Clinton's "zipper problem," and anticipated that it would be a national distraction. The Clinton and Foley cases are similar in that you have a case of an authority figure and a younger person, but the age difference makes a big difference: Monica Lewinsky was 22, whereas the boy Foley solicited was 16. There's a big difference between the maturity of a 22 year-old and a 16 year old. (There is also the matter that Clinton consummated his relationship with Lewinsky, whereas Foley apparently did not. Yet, just as it was predictable with Clinton in 1992 that there had been and would be other women, in Foley's case it is very, very probable that there have been and will be other boys).

The case is also relevant to a pattern that has emerged in this administration and Congress--just as they put timber industry people in charge of federal land, oil industry people in charge of the environment, and wall Street people in charge of the money supply (granted, wall street people are always in charge of the money supply), they put a pedophile in charge of policy on sex offenders. Of course, this has its precedent as well--remember that the Republican serial rapist and killer Ted Bundy worked with rape victims.

Homosexuality and pedophilia are two separate issues. Nonetheless, Foley does raise the issue of gay Republicans in general. A quarter of self-identified gays voted for Bush. This is incomprehensible, at least given the Republican Party of today. There is no room in the Republican Party for gay people. It is the party of homophobia, bigotry and hate, and it uses the label "pro-family" as a fig leaf to cover its ugliness.

Foley's not gay, he's a pedophile who likes boys. There is a big difference between gay people and pedophiles. Gay people have consenting sex with other people of an appropriate age. Pedophiles "groom" their victims, just as Foley did, and use the normal confusion of adolescence as well as their own power as a "caring" and "understanding" adult figure to get kids to do things they would not do otherwise. Republicans like to confuse the issue between pedophiles and gay people in their attacks on gay people--we would do well to understand the difference.