procrastinate more!
I was pleased to note that when NPR reported this story yesterday they just said he'd resigned because he made sexually explicit remarks to "a page" (didn't specify gender). Surely what's important is simply that you can't hit on people you supervise...?
I love that the article in that link reprints that entire exchange, in all of its porn video luridness. Then, as usual, it invites you to "email it to a friend."
Oh, but what I heard on All Things Considered was "a sixteen-year-old former male page." Which sounds like they're going out of their way to make sure you knew he was male.
He wasn't supervising him in any way (at least the page to whom the first set of emails were sent). He had been working for a different congressman but was no longer a page when he received the emails.
Actually, I don't know anything about the identity of the person on the other end of the IM conversation.
The main thing, I think, is that if you're going to be a homophobe in your public and legislative life, don't have same-sex sex chat, esp. with an underage kid.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/ka...on/
15648719.htm
Hm, too bad about NPR. I just heard the news bulletin, not All Things Considered.
Re: supervision, I heard that the whole class of incoming pages was warned about him before they started their jobs, so maybe his crime could at least qualify as "creating a hostile environment in the workplace."
I guess I just feel conflicted about the whole outing strategy, because like closeting it relies on the threat of social stigma to achieve its goals. It would be better if he was a vocal social conservative -- voting for DOMA is basically par for the course if you're a Republican.
But so is pandering to the religious right. That's the Republican electoral strategy from start to finish. (Oh wait: so is producing war and mayhem in the world and fear in America!) Even as they actually serve the corporate interests that gut the livelihoods of the people who make up that base. Etc.
Oh, and I agree on outing in general. I don't think it's of much benefit to GLBTQ groups to use it. But this isn't outing in that sense. It was pretty much known that Foley has sex with men; that's what stopped him from running for senate two years ago. This is a news organization reporting on something that may actually have been illegal (depending on state laws, right?) and certainly violated ethics standards (whatever I said above about why we should think it's wrong, it's obviously against House ethics for a congressman to have sex chat with any page). And it was covered up by a whole series of powerful men who have their power, in part, because the electoral strategy they use stirs up and exploits homophobia. I mostly feel sorry for Foley, but I would love it if the House Repub leadership paid dearly for this.
Me too. But the thing is, they won't pay dearly when the publicity feeds and augments the very homophobia they use to get reelected!
I guess, though, we can always hope for the something like the backlash against the Catholic church -- some kind of minor diminishment of GOP power, and a little depleting of their coffers. But I don't think anyone's going to be driven out of the Republican church over this.
I think some people might stay home. I read an article recently about the fact that Karl Rove's great genius had been to fold into the Republican ranks a whole bunch of people (rightwing Christians) who used to not vote at all because they were so disaffected. Maybe a good short-term strategy for the Dems (though perhaps not a long-term one) is to re-disaffect them.
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