Mark Foley: Bad for the gays?

The New Republic Online

Mark Foley: Bad for the gays?
Boy Crazy

by Kevin Arnovitz

Post date: 10.04.06

Mark Foley's lust for the cute bouncing butt of a former 16-year-old page began on Friday as a salacious boondoggle for both a scandal-obsessed public and a hungry press corps eager to write the next episode in an intriguing electoral campaign. By and large, the Wow Factor on Friday night was driven more by content than context--and it's no surprise, because the content was a priceless send-up of yet another pol whose career was ultimately defined by his hypocrisy. Among my small circle of gay friends, Foley's instant messages were the comedy segment in our Sunday brunch forum. Schadenfreude reigned over egg-white omelets in Silver Lake, the East Village, and Adams Morgan.

Some of the only voices that spent the weekend connecting Foley's offenses with his homosexuality were fundamentalist Christian outfits like the Concerned Women of America. But, by Monday, more mainstream voices like MSNBC's Chris Matthews and NBC correspondent Mike Viqueira began to cite rumors of Foley's homosexuality as evidence that the Hill should've known this was coming. "Of course, in 2003, Mr. Foley--there were some questions raised about his sexual orientation as he was preparing to run for the Senate," Viqueira reported in an exchange with Matthews on "Hardball," as if Foley's presumed orientation were somehow evidence that he would hit on 16-year-old employees.

By Tuesday morning, The Wall Street Journal editorial page got into the conflation act, lamenting that

in today's politically correct culture, it's easy to understand how senior Republicans might well have decided they had no grounds to doubt Mr. Foley merely because he was gay and a little too friendly in emails. Some of those liberals now shouting the loudest for [House Speaker Dennis] Hastert's head are the same voices who tell us that the larger society must be tolerant of private lifestyle choices, and certainly must never leap to conclusions about gay men and young boys. Are these Democratic critics of Mr. Hastert saying that they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts' decision to ban gay scoutmasters? Where's Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on that one?

Let's take a look at the logical contortions here: Political correction handcuffs those who would otherwise have the good sense to link homosexuality with pedophilic inclinations. Liberals have no grounds for complaint, because they insist on tolerance and make the foolhardy assumption that gay men don't dream of young boys while asleep in their well-appointed bedrooms. (Never mind that both academics and gay organizations have to constantly reiterate the stats, that 90.9 percent of all sexual assault victims under the age of 17 are female, according to a 2000 report from the Department of Justice.) Now that Foley has affirmed this predilection, shouldn't any thoughtful Democrat offer a mea culpa for insisting that institutions that discriminate had just cause? We all got caught up in the ascension of gay empowerment, but, at the end of the day, even the most enlightened among us should know better.



What's disheartening for many gay men is that the culturally savvy among us knew it was coming. In the fatalistic words of Chris Rock, "that train is never late," even if it had to pass through the political channels that dominated the weekend coverage. Few noted that, if anything, Foley's actions were a product of his cowering in the closet, that it was Foley's inability to fully realize himself as a gay man that was an essential factor in explaining his behavior.

Invariably, it's a pedophile-obsessed pedophile who will set the dialogue on gay rights back a decade. Anti-gay Internet legislation will surface on the floor of the Capitol before investigators have a chance to sponge off Foley's keyboard. Access to gay chat sites will be so guarded that they'll cease to offer any allure for users. It's true that there are rare instances when that allure is rooted in something nefarious. But gay chat is an important resource that was crucial in opening up the closet--in allowing kids and young gay men who wouldn't otherwise be comfortable coming out to hear themselves think with a sympathetic audience and to put themselves in conversations that otherwise would be unavailable to them.

I'm certain there are high school kids today in Hagerstown, Macon, Wichita Falls, and Greeley for whom this access is vital to their development as healthy gay men. Their insufferably small universe is a little bit bigger because of what the net offers. The prospect of those resources being compromised because of a latent gay man-child who couldn't get the Abercrombie & Fitch lacrosse-boy obsession out of his system before age 25 like the rest of us is maddening. And look for an amplified version of the Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006--which passed the House in late July but has been sitting in committee in the Senate--to arrive shortly on the Senate floor. It denies minors access to chat rooms and sites like MySpace in schools and libraries (unless used for educational purposes), and it could very well be further extended. It's not far-fetched to imagine a world in which such sites could "card" kids before admitting them.

In the coming years, once the immediacy of the scandal has settled, Foley's tour de force will take its place among the great pieces of both gay and political kitsch. But, right now, it's a harbinger of a certain backlash. For gay men, we'd laugh if we weren't crying.