I did a post last week trying to make the argument that the fact Mark Foley had to live a life of shame because he was a member of a party that would not accept his sexuality. In turn this life of shame leads down a dangerous road that can lead to the behavior that caused Foley’s downfall. This is not a result of him being gay, but rather a result of the intolerance by people in our society – namely the Republican Party and Christian right.
Aravosis has found an article in today’s L.A. Times by gay writer and activist Michelangelo Signorile that echoes my same thoughts:
Foley’s closet wasn’t just about protecting his political career. He seemed to be filled with shame. According to one gay man quoted in the Washington Post last week who challenged Foley on his voting for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, Foley justified marginalizing gay marriage by saying, “I could never compare any relationship I have ever had to the nature of my mother and father’s relationship.”
For Foley, homosexuality meant second-class status.
That kind of self-loathing is bound to play out in harmful ways. Would Foley have made online sexual advances on teenagers if he were openly gay or if he’d been reported on, truthfully, by the media as a gay man long ago, and faced the consequences? It’s quite possible the answer is no.
The radical right is of course trying to say that child predators are a by product of homosexuality. Nothing could be further from the truth. Simply search for cases of child molestation/internet predators and you will quickly see that almost all cases involve a predator preying on someone of the opposite sex. Watch Nightline’s “To Catch a Predator” and you will notice one thing in common amongst all the people caught – they were going after the opposite sex.
Foley was forced into leading this secret life. There are rumors that he did have a partner, but even if that is the case the fact remains he still had to live a life of secrecy. He could not openly talk about his private life in front of his own colleagues. To make matters even worse, Foley was being forced to continue this charade by people within his own party. He wanted out of Congress, yet key players in the GOP (including Karl Rove) refused to let him resign. They kept him there by threatening his future career of lobbying. In other words, Foley is a product of the system the Republicans want to create, and that product is very dangerous.