procrastinate more!
In re: age of consent, it blows my mind that in 1973 the aptly-named "Gerry Studds" of Massachusetts supposedly refused to apologize for a relationship with a 17-year-old male page because he pointed out that he was over the age of consent. Then he was apparently reelected five times?? I didn't realize things had changed so much (although in the seventies I'm sure no one would have noticed at all if it had been a 17 year old girl.)
Speaking of homophobia, that info comes from a Times Op-Ed the other day, which classes Studds' and Foley's escapades under the heading of "sexual deviance"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/0...r=1&
oref=slogin
And let's not even mention David Brooks today on "core threats to our social fabric."
It was in 1983 that he refused to apologize for the event that had happened 10 years before. A lot of differences: he was a Democrat from Massachusetts, not a member of the party of homophobia. There was a female page involved in a scandal with a congressman at the same time, I think. I don't think there were claims that it was a pattern, that he regularly went after pages. No internet. Hence, no cybersex, but more importantly, no bloggers...I remember the "original" page scandal because I had actually thought about applying to the page program--until then! It certainly was a scandal. I think there were calls for resignation, but he didn't resign...and then kept getting elected. I think that could potentially still happen now in an analogous case. (I think he was censured, at least?) I think a big difference--as you sort of point out--is that sexual harrassment was probably not on the radar of the public discourse much yet. But also, maybe, that no one was getting whipped up into a lather about the gay threat to America's families. I agree with you, there's a scary edge to all of this...
Not to keep harping on this topic, but I just got an email from MoveOn.org about their campaign against Tom Reynolds, the Republican Congressional Committee chair, who apparently knew about the Foley emails and did nothing. Quite apart from the mixed metaphors, couldn't they have worded this any more tactfully?:
"Folks in his district aren't happy that he covered his own butt instead of protecting kids—and polls show that all of a sudden, the race is neck and neck."
...or is this intentional??
Yeah...like the Washington Post's "was cruising to re-election" and the New York Times's "Along With Victories, G.O.P. Takes a Few Blows"...I can't tell whether it's intentionally subliminal, unintentinally subliminal, or intentionally unsubliminal....
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