GOP leaders were worried about being called homophobic?

October 3, 2006

We’ve seen some odd responses to the Mark Foley sex scandal the last few days, but one of the most common is also the most bizarre.

I believe it was Newt Gingrich who got the ball rolling on Sunday with this startling observation:

“Well, you could have second thoughts about it, but I think had [House GOP leaders] overly aggressively reacted to the initial round, they would have also been accused of gay bashing.”

Here’s the argument in a nutshell: Hastert, Boehner, & Co. saw Foley’s predatory emails. Had they taken them seriously, they necessarily would have been accused of homophobia. Because House GOP leaders were fearful of the charge, they declined to pursue the matter. Under this scenario, it’s not the leadership’s fault they failed; it’s the fault of the would-be critics of the leadership.

For most reasonable people, this argument is a special kind of stupid, but it’s surprisingly common nevertheless. The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins said Hastert & Co. “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.”

Moreover, Chris Matthews raised the point yesterday on Hardball, asking, “Were they afraid that they would offend the gay community if they went after someone who was perceived to be gay, just because of his orientation?”

All of this is wildly misguided for at least two reasons.

First, the Foley scandal has nothing to do with homosexuality. He was a sexual predator who preyed on minors. Had Foley pursued teenaged girls instead of boys, and the House GOP leadership had tried to cover it up, the scandal would be just as serious. Gay or straight, the Republicans screwed this up royally.

And second, how could any serious person believe congressional Republicans were worried about appearing anti-gay? Have these conservative voices forgotten the culture wars of the last generation? GOP leaders have been more worried about not appearing anti-gay enough.

As Digby put it:

Since when has the GOP been afraid to be called homophobic or gay bashers? They positively revel in it. In fact, just a couple of months ago 202 Republican House members voted for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. (It failed to get the required 2/3rds for passage.) Somehow, I don’t think the Republicans are quaking in their boots at being called anti-gay.

Indeed, right around the time Republicans were learning about Foley’s emails, Rick Santorum was comparing gay relationships to man-on-dog sex, and Trent Lott was comparing gay people to kleptomaniacs.

Somehow, I don’t imagine political correctness factored into the leadership’s concerns.

Looks like the GOP wasn’t the only one that is claiming that it was worried about political correctness…

From the Int’l Herald Tribune:
Meanwhile, Florida newspapers — who were leaked copies of the e-mail with the Louisiana boy last year — defended their decision not to run stories. Both The St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald were given copies of the e-mail, as were other news organizations, including Fox News.

“Our decision at the time was … that because the language was not sexually explicit and was subject to interpretation, from innocuous to ‘sick,’ as the page characterized it, to be cautious,” said Tom Fiedler, executive editor of the Herald. “Given the potentially devastating impact that a false suggestion of pedophilia could have on anyone, not to mention a congressman known to be gay, and lacking any corroborating information, we chose not to do a story.”

  • Robbin Williams had a great quote the other day on a different subject but it sure applies to the Repubs:

    “If you’re violating your standards faster than you can lower them, time to go away,” he said.

  • Attack, attack, attack.

    For most reasonable people, the Republican Party is a special kind of stupid.

    Thanks CB.

  • To augment a comment I made yesterday, the difference in treatment between Foley and Ney could indicate a kind of gay-bashing going on. Why else would Hastert insist that Foley be expelled while Ney continues to serve? Ney, after all, pleaded guilty to corruption, while Foley may, in the final analysis, have done nothing illegal.

  • Everyone on the those talking head shows should burst out laughing when this “we didn’t want to look like gay-bashers” comes up. This is just their twisted way of trying to once again to bash gays by suggesting all gays are pedophiles. As jag (above) said, “a talking point only homophobes would think of.”

  • “Our decision at the time was … that because the language was not sexually explicit and was subject to interpretation, from innocuous to ‘sick,’ as the page characterized it, to be cautious,” said Tom Fiedler, executive editor of the Herald. “Given the potentially devastating impact that a false suggestion of pedophilia could have on anyone, not to mention a congressman known to be gay, and lacking any corroborating information, we chose not to do a story.”

    They choose not to do the story because Foley’s a f**king Republican’t. They weren’t concerned about political correctness. They were concerned about politics. Pure and Simple.

  • Looking at this from an out-of-the-box viepoint, I think the Republikanner beast was afraid to step into a situation where they might have been on the same side of the argument as the gay community. Consider the daunting possibilities, had they jumped on the investigative bandwagon right away…and the gay community had come out with a forceful renouncement of pedophilia, arguing that a same-sex relationship consists of two consenting adults, and that any sexual relationship—gay or straight—was both ethically unacceptable and repulsively criminal.

    How will Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, and the rest of the Theofascist legions reply to these events? They’re stuck in a tight place—and inverted triangulation, if you will—of their own making. Will they:

    (1) Take the same side as the gay community by renouncing pedophilia?

    (2) Counter the gay community’s rejection of pedophilia so as to remain at opposites with the gay community?

    (3) Ignore the whole Foley thing, and hope it just goes away so they don’t have to align with either of the preceding choices?

    The Reich is going to set their sights on anyone connected to this. The Washington Times is calling for Hastert to resign. Dems on the Hill—with “No-Nonsense Nancy” leading the charge—are rolling out the heavy artillery on a coverup by the GOP hierarchy. Given that the Right, the Center, and the Left are all going to be pretty much on the same page on this issue (the only way to get off the page is to express and/or imply that pedophilia is somehow “acceptable”), I’m thinking that the dirigible “Hastertburg” is about to crash and burn. Oh, the humanity….

  • Gingrich has a long history of creatively stupid observations. One of my favorites was, in a discussion of capital gains tax and its bias towards the wealthy, he pointed out that when someone sells his house, he is suddenly wealthy. The fact that he quickly puts this “wealth” into another house was ignored.

    There’s nothing wrong with idiot-bashing.

  • 2 points:

    “Were they afraid that they would offend the gay community if they went after someone who was perceived to be gay, just because of his orientation?”

    the issue isn’t his “orientation” in the exact same way priests preying on altar boys isn’t about “orientation”. It’s about gross abuse of an authority relationship with a minor. It’s very disengenous to pretend that it’s “just because of his orientation” – sez a whole lot about Chris Mathews honesty, doesn’t it.

    And the second point which no one raising this “gay bashing” argument brings up is Foley’s hiding in the closet while being a strong “family values” kind of guy – even though rumors have swirled around DC about his being gay for years. Notice they’re hiding behind “gay bashing” while instead ducking the point that if they gone public they would have outed one of their own. Instead, just like Livingston and all the rest of the GOP family values smarmies they’d rather hide their dirty laundry while being holier than thou when it comes to others. Sheer hypocrisy as usual for these guys.

  • Jonah Goldberg has a couple of arguments to soften the impact of the Foley affair. One is the Democrats like pederasts:

    ‘As for Democrats who think there’s nothing wrong with gay men who prey on teenage boys being Scout leaders, I’ll have to get back to you. As for Democrats who think there’s nothing wrong with Congressmen preying on barely legal teenage male pages, I once again refer you to the Democrats who re-elected Gerry Studds over and over again — and those colleagues who saw nothing wrong with working with him. ‘

    The other is made indirectly in a letter by a liberal Democrat because it is too over the top to make directly.

    ..’But is Foley a “predator”? Not unless there’s a whole lot more here—I’m talking rape, genuine stalking, and the like—that we don’t know about.’

    So we don’t KNOW that Foley ‘stalked’ and ‘raped’ pages. Whooopee!

    These are from the Corner this morning.

  • The first set of emails revealed Friday should have sent up red flags and klaxons, LOUD warning signals, even if that’s all the Republicans EVER had. A presumably busy legislator asking for a teenager’s picture? It was obviously a “personal” request. I’ve been in touch with a lot of legislators, and not one has requested my picture, nor has s/he suggested that I communicate through their personal email addresses. In either case, I’d KNOW something “funny” was going on.

    Well, now we learn that it’s much worse than that, but the clues were in the first email published, originally described by Foley and other Republicans as “overly-friendly”.

    The Republican attempts to excuse their ignoring this one are going to upset a lot of voters in a way that other lying about WMDs, warrantless wiretapping, torture, and literally hundreds of other issues haven’t.

    But in an integrity-challenged party, one is as likely to be brought down by what’s considered to be a “small” issue by those responsible for a party’s direction as by a large one.

  • Sex makes idiots of all of us. It’s the great human enigma. Only an infinitesimally small number of highly evolved human beings can claim and be recognized to have completely transcended the clutches of concupiscence. It is disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

    On the other hand, as one might say, it is undubitably delightful to watch Repukes getting a taste of their own medicine. They mercilessly attempted to crucify Clinton on a millionth part of the infamy of this scandal. So, with all compassion, I say: be merciless — there’s more at stake than an old man’s willy.

  • Yep, this is a great way to blame gay people for objecting to homo-phobia. “Well if you didn’t make such a fuss because we don’t let you adopt children and ignore you when people smash in your windows…” while at the same time implying (AGAIN) that gay = pedophile. As an added bonus it allows them to ignore the countless pigs who have wives and children and still turn to boys to indulge their perversions. Reality? No thanks!

    I imagine if this were 30 years (or less) ago and Foley were black we’d hear a similar “We didn’t want to be labeled rascist,” argument. Fuckwits.

    I hope GLB civil rights groups are queuing up to tell people to stick their narrow minded arguments up their arse. It would be great if one of them spearheaded a call to chuck Hairshirt and his ilk off the top of the Capitol building. And I don’t think any member of the Gestapo Oragasm Party will get a LCR endorsement. AGAIN.

  • When Bill was caught having oral sex with Monica, one of the Repub talking points was about how young she was. Almost a child, I remember hearing. These boys are in fact children and the Repub talking point is that they are 16 so this is not pedophilia, it’s homosexuality.

    I also like the fact that the Repubs are bringing up sex scandals from the ’80s which Democrats were involved in. Nancy Pelosi was on a committee with a man involved and is now tainted??? By this standard, most of the Republican leadership should be stained permanently.

  • Ok, as a middle-aged gay male, I feel compelled to weigh in on this.

    There is a huge distinction between being gay and being a pedophile (or is it paedophile?). Surely, there are some gay people who are attracted to underage people of the same gender. But a quick check of the internet will quickly reveal zillions of sources of “barely legal” or “lolita” pornography for hetero males attracted to young girls. Do we then make the logical leap that all straight men are somehow pedophiles too? Certainly not.

    I find the idea that the Rethuglicans failed to act on this out of tender concern for not appearing to cast aspersions on gays ludicrous. After all, me and my kind have been blamed for everything from the breakdown of the traditional family to earthquakes in California to the 9-11 attacks. Spare me the crocodile tears, please.

  • You can tell how bad things are by how desperate all these scum are getting in their denials, excuses and explanations. “No! That’s not daylight – it’s nighttime!” “No! You’ree wrong! Up is down, in is out, left is right, black is white!” “Oh look! Over there! A shiny thing!”

    Watching these third rate morons go down the tubes is enjoyable as hell.

    As I watch, I am reminded of a lunch I had 20 years ago with my screenwriting mentor and another Very Good Screenwriter (don’t want to “name drop” here because it’s irrelevant) about what constitutes a great screenplay. They argued that one essential is that a writer must remember that there is indeed balance and harmony in the universe, even when it seems least apparent. (The hero is only good to the degree the villian is evil, “always darkest just before thedawn,” etc.) And as I watch this last week, which began in despair as BushCo was winning their greatest victory, when it seemed everything good about America was going down the tubes, on the very day that became law, the scandal broke open that will destroy them as a result of their hubris. Aeschylus and Euripides couldn’t top this.

  • “As for Democrats who think there’s nothing wrong with gay men who prey on teenage boys being Scout leaders, I’ll have to get back to you.” – Jonah Goldberg

    You bet you’ll have “to get back to us” dog. There are no Democrats who think men who prey on boys should be in a position to abuse them. We just don’t think that gay men will automatically do that. You do.

    There was a wonderful South Park episode where Big Gay Al is thrown out as scout leader and is replaced with a hetrosexual who also happened to be a child abuser. Most child abusers are in fact married hetrosexual men.

  • And another thing: I still recommend the death penalty to anyone with so much as a bud of maryjane on their persons. I don’t care how it got there, or what you plan on doing with it. It’s time to start thinking – giggle – and bring sanity -guffaw! – to the political discourse. I’m your Man!

  • Has anyone else seen the nonsense in Slate on this issue?

    “This is about preying on a young person, not sexual orientation, say Democrats. They’re right. These pages are not just young; they are employed as part of a compact. Parents send their teenagers to Washington thinking they’re being looked after. One former page told me the power relationship was so skewed that she would have been thunderstruck if a member had talked to her at all. But what if the inappropriate relationship were between a congressman and a 16-year-old female page? Would GOP leaders face the same outrage for missing the warning signs? What if we were judging their actions toward a congresswoman who asked for a picture of a 16-year-old female page? For GOP leaders to pay a heavy political price requires either more evidence that they really knew what Foley was doing or for Democrats to form an alliance, at some level, with people who find homosexuality outrageous no matter what the age.”
    http://www.slate.com/id/2150807/

    Hmm, let’s see– outrage over a male public official’s inappropriate advances toward a young female staffer? Where have we seen that before? It sounds suspiciously like the Clinton-Lewinski incident, which Republicans went to great lengths to sensationalize, and yet was far less troublesome than Foley’s advances. (At least Monica was over the age of consent!) Shameless hypocrites.

  • “…or for Democrats to form an alliance, at some level, with people who find homosexuality outrageous no matter what the age.”

    So we can only object if people try to exploit children of a different gender? Is that how this works? Assery like this is why Politically Correct has become synonymous with dumber than a bag of rocks.

    This is such a flaming pile of bullshit I don’t know where to begin. What will it take for people to understand that a person’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with whatever perversions they indulge in? A baseball to the side of the head? A HEX suppository? I’m up for both and more.

  • I would take it one step further and propose the following. It appears that House GOP leadership is ineptly confusing pedophilia (often nondiscriminating between boys and girls) with homosexuality (preference for same gender adult sexual partner). What the marketed statements actually do is promote the association of homosexuals with pedophiles and sexual predators; and imply that they are the same. The publicized defenses of inaction provide another opportunity for the right-wing to bash gays.

  • What, exactly, is the definition of “overly friendly”? Does “overly friendly” not raise red flags when it refers to a grown man and a teenager? When is “overly friendly” ever correct behavior on the part of politcal figure? What the hell kind of evidence does the GOP need to conclude that something inappropriate is taking place? Bloody boxers and an enema bag?

    And I, too, am floored by the Republicans play to equate pedophelia with homosexuality. They truly have no shame.

  • Slate: But what if the inappropriate relationship were between a congressman and a 16-year-old female page? Would GOP leaders face the same outrage for missing the warning signs? What if we were judging their actions toward a congresswoman who asked for a picture of a 16-year-old female page?

    Well, it depends on whether the offending Congressman was Dem or Thug. If it was a Thug, it would have been the girl’s fault for wearing provocative clothing (asking for it) or flirting (asking for it) or having a vagina (asking for it). Or maybe it would have been all her fault for handing the Congressman a piece of paper with two parallel lines drawn on it. The slut! As in:

    The shrink asks the sex obsessed patient what he sees when the shrink holds up a piece of paper with two parallel lines on it, places horizontally. The patient says, “Two people screwing.” The shrink turns the page 90 degrees and says, “How about now?” The patient says, “Two people screwing standing up.” Furrowing his brow, the shrink tips the paper 45 degrees and asks again. “Two people screwing on a hillside.”

    The shrink tosses the paper down and says, “Is that all you can think about?”

    The patient replies, “Hey, Doc, don’t blame me. You’re the one drawing the dirty pictures!”

  • Believe him! I respectfully say that us liberals are wrong to call Newt a liar. Of course he’s lying, but pointing out that he’s lying gives us relatively little political push against conservatives, it’s the same we always say. Believe him, and repeat his quote: yes Newt, we agree, line up one dozen Republican Congressmen, show them an ally flirting and nearly stalking teenagers, and not one will have the guts the to risk the craziest politically-correct lobby you can dream up. What he says about the Republicans is worse than anything we manage to say, believe and repeat!

    It’s also interesting to think about why he said this quote to rally his troops: what does it say about conservatives who hear what he said, and then vote for Republican? How do we reach out to honest conservatives and pull them back to demanding fiscal and ethical responsibility from their party?

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