Foley Story: Emperor Has No Clothes

Editor's Note: The Foley resignation represents a much deeper problem, going beyond the safety of Congressional pages, in our society. It shows that we are willing to ignore facts concerning personal shortcomings of elected officials, especially in the realm of sexual morality, if it is "politically incorrect" to draw reasonable conclusions about what risks we take in the name of "tolerance". Rep. Foley represents those risks, a risk the Boy Scouts, for example, refuses to take despite the public pressures to change their policy around adult homosexuals and boys. It seems members of Congress in charge of keeping those in their page program safe sacrificed that safety in the name of "tolerating" Rep. Foley's obvious deviant tendencies that he couldn't control. We must begin to accept the link between homosexuality in men and the sexual abuse of young boys and address this dark problem by shining the light of day on it.


Conservative Group Examines 'Real Issue' in Foley Case
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
October 03, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - "When a 16-year-old boy is not safe from sexual solicitation from an elected representative of the people, we should question the moral direction of our nation," a conservative advocacy group said on Monday.

The group also said Foley's behavior raises the "real issue" of homosexuality and child abuse.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins noted that so many people -- Republicans and Democrats -- are "shocked" by former Rep. Mark Foley's sexually explicit instant messages to a teenage boy -- a House page at the time.

But we shouldn't be shocked, Perkins said: "This is the end result of a society that rejects sexual restraints in the name of diversity. If our children aren't safe in the halls of Congress, where are they safe? Maybe it's time to question: when is tolerance just an excuse for permissiveness?"

Perkins said both political parties need to be more serious about protecting children from sexual predators. "We need public policy in our country that protects marriage, respects parental authority and aggressively polices boundaries around our children," he said.

Perkins also questioned what he calls the "real issue" in the Foley case - the link between homosexuality and child abuse.

Perkins noted that Foley - an unmarried 52-year-old representative - has always refused to answer questions about his sexual orientation, but the release of Foley's messages to teenage male pages now makes it clear that "Foley is a homosexual with a particular attraction to underage boys."

"While pro-homosexual activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two," Perkins said.

"Although almost all child molesters are male and less than 3 percent of men are homosexual, about a third of all child sex abuse cases involve men molesting boys -- and in one study, 86% of such men identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual," Foley said.

"Ignoring this reality got the Catholic Church into trouble over abusive priests, and now it is doing the same to the House GOP leadership. They discounted or downplayed earlier reports concerning Foley's behavior -- probably because they did not want to appear 'homophobic.'

"The Foley scandal shows what happens when political correctness is put ahead of protecting children," Perkins said.

Homosexual advocacy groups have not had much to say about Foley's conduct. The Miami Herald quoted Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, as saying, "It's irrelevant if he (Foley) is gay or not."

The newspaper said the Human Rights Campaign refused to discuss Foley's resignation.

Neither group addresses the Foley case on their websites.