<p>You know your trying to make a point with someone who just won’t hear. If "“Stick” he makes his case over and over enough somebody may buy into it, but anyone with a clear head sees an agenda outside the issue at hand. </p>
<p>It’s almost as if there is some deep seeded hate towards Gays in general. In Washington we saw this in Republican mayor of spokane, mayor West, who created many anti gay laws while in state legislature. He turned out to be doing exactly what Foley is doing now. Solicting young men for “dates” and offering government jobs. </p>
<p>Sometimes when someone is so adament about what they go after, it is because a piece of them exists there and it’s a demon they address one way or another. From priests,ministers, evangelists to legislators many of them become what they speak out against. I think we may being seeing the same here as belief has been suspended.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone here believes the IMs were all part of a prank, even if some were. The condemnation of Foley on this thread has been virtually universal.</p>
This is exactly what Republicans fear concerning gay issues. No matter what they do or say, the liberal response is often that conservatives must hate gays.</p>
<p>“Strick, I’ll take serious exception to your characterizing Foley’s grooming of 16 year old boys from his position of authority for sexual engagements as ‘gay sex between consenting adults.’ Frankly, I’m appalled. I don’t care if the “age of consent” is 16, or 12, and if the child is a boy or a girl: This is not “consenting” and it’s definitely not ‘adults.’”</p>
<p>I’m appalled too, but it’s not pedophilia nor, at least as I understand it, statutory rape. That’s how things work. If the law says a person is old enough to consent, they’re adults from that perspective. </p>
<p>(District law appears to make a distinction between someone who’s no longer a child but still a minor – but not for consenting to sex. I can’t say whether the provision for sexual abuse applies to Foley or not, either. Apparently that’s a matter for the lawyers. At the very least it’s sexual harrassment.) </p>
<p>I don’t condone what Foley did, I don’t even think it mitigates things if it were all “just” a prank, but I do strenously object to what the people who set this scandal up have done to cast in the most negative light possible, especially the very same people who refused to even censure Representative Gerry Studds for the exact same behavior.</p>
<p>For heaven’s sake it’s no secret that the Republican party is anti-gay! They campaigned on the evil of gay marriage! There’s something sick at the center of this party’s position. The Cheney daughter: If my daughter were gay, I’d move heaven and earth to make sure she felt herself equal to straights–including campaigning day and night for the right to marriage and to adopt children! How do the Cheney parents look themselves in the mirror?</p>
<p>Reminds me of a former neighbor. He was a rock solid Republican. His son came out to them at age 20. (His son told them: I know you guys won’t approve. I have been trying to decide if I should kill myself or tell you.) The parents rose to the occasion, joined P-Flag, are their son’s greatest supporter. I’ll never remember when the dad told us. He said (rather mournfully), “Now I’ll never get to vote Republican again.” </p>
<p>My H is in mental health; we live in a rural state with one of the highest teen suicide rates. Part of the reason (according to survivors): Teenagers are afraid to be gay in our state! Shame on the foot-dragging Republicans. One day their attitude will be seen as being as antiquated and cruel as racism!</p>
<p>“especially the very same people who refused to even censure Representative Gerry Studds for the exact same behavior.”</p>
<p>OK, not exactly the same behavior, since as near as I can tell, Foley never actually came into any sexual contact with the pages. This isn’t even a question of the meaning of the word “is” or a debate as to whether what Monica did constituted sex.</p>
<p>kluge, can you at least admit the whole consent issue was complex enough when we were kids with out all the twists and turns and emails and IMs stuff to complicate it for us to fully understand it? And that the bogus “Stop Sex Predators” blog was a deliberate attempt to paint this in a false light by positioning its as a matter of “sex predators” getting “to our kids”? Even the with the twist you find in the District consent law, these pages are in no way considered children any more.</p>
<p>Being against gay marriage is automatically anti-gay. Right, farawayplaces, that’s why they looked the other way on this gay Congressman and the House leaders had a gay staffer working for them. Unbridaled bias against gays in action. :rolleyes</p>
<p>Strick: Are you serious? You can somehow believe that campaigning against equal rights for a group means that you are not against that group? Oh, I see, it’s for the BENEFIT of gays that they aren’t allowed loving unions and family life!</p>
<p>Just like it was for the BENEFIT of blacks that they had “colored” lunch counters!!</p>
<p>I’m saying that being against gay marriage isn’t in and of it’s self being anti-gay, anymore than being against affirmative action is being racially prejudiced against blacks (an idea that would shock my conservative black neighbors three doors down).</p>
<p>Isn’t it presumptuous to decide that single issue is the sum all and be all of equal rights for a group and treat anyone who disagrees as if they were enemies?</p>
<p>Strick: you can’t get away with the remark that affirmative action is the same “equal rights.” Affirmative action supposes that minorities need an extra “boost.” </p>
<p>Gays don’t want a “boost.” They just want equality, which the Republican party campaigns vigirously against. Never mind that gays pay taxes, volunteer in our community, and probably treat you when you’re ill. According to the Republicans, they don’t deserve family happiness.</p>
<p>Strick, Consent between teenagers I’ll agree is complicated. And that’s why the various laws make exceptions and gradations of culpability for situations where the two people are close in age. But when it comes to a middle aged man and a teenager; I’m sorry, and I hope not to offend some of our very intelligent teens who lurk and post here from time to time - but it’s just a mismatch, for the very reasons that the teens frequently fail to realize its a mismatch. There’s a reason why cults target young people when they recruit: they’re easy to manipulate.</p>
<p>No, I don’t see any subtlety or complexity here. A guy Foley’s age should not be cultivating teenagers for sex, period. And anything which happens as a result of those efforts is not “sex between consenting adults” in my opinion. I’ll give you your 20-somethings - it’s kind of creepy to me but no worse than that. But to say there’s a parallel between a 23 year old Monica-on-the-prowl and a 16 year old page: no.</p>
<p>Stopsexpredators? To be honest, I’m still unsure about that one. There’s a lot of “Paul is dead” about the conspiracy theories flying around, but the things is, that blog didn’t start the frenzy. It was ABC’s acquisition of the IM’s. And there’s no actual reason to assume that ABC is lying about how they got them. And trying to pin it on the Dems is kind of shaky considering CREW took the evidence to the FBI within 24 hours of receipt last July. </p>
<p>So here’s my tinfoil hat conspiracy theory: It’s clear that there are people who have been trying to “get” Foley for at least a year - the people who shopped the Louisiana e-mails around to media outlets, CREW, etc. But there are two groups who had reason to see bad things happen to Foley: Democrats who’d like to see him lose his seat to a Dem; and “family value” conservative Republicans who’d like to see him gone because he was gay. Given the timing of the distribution of the e-mails - started last year, continued through this year as each time they were slipped to a media outlet nothing happened - it seems more likely that the people who were shopping the e-mails around were conservatives who wanted to get rid of Foley and underestimated the collateral damage. The “September Surprise” was just an unforseen byproduct of the fact that it took a really long time for the story to get some traction. Where does that leave stopsexpredators? Maybe just another tool.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that cases calculated of people in their thirties and forties today would have been TEENS in the eighties. People in their twenties now were TEENS in the mid-nineties.</p>
<p>Don’t forget when reading also to keep in mind the “down low” and statistical under-reporting of homosexuality.</p>
<p>Interesting to note that our most tolerant, liberal states have higher rates of AIDS. Due to the fabulous AIDS education, I suppose.</p>
<p>So the only way to give gays equal right is to change a definition of marriage that’s 5,000 years old? I think if gay activists hadn’t been quite so militant on the semantics of the thing, they’d be half way to having the rights they want. And I mean half would have the rights they should have, not that half the battle would be fought.</p>
<p>Somethings need to got through the socialization process, not the crammed down the people’s throats by the end runs through courts. I don’t object to any state or country that’s resolved the issue though the political process.</p>
<p>Not that there’s been many states that have resolved the issue, not with the way the tactics used by some activitist have put the cause back literally years. That’s the shame.</p>
<p>…or to put it another way, for every person who contracts AIDS this year as a result of gay sex, with the resultant illness and likelihood of reduced life expectancy— 25 people will die from tobacco related diseases.<br>
<a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/TOBACCO/research_data/health_consequences/mortali.htm[/url]”>http://www.cdc.gov/TOBACCO/research_data/health_consequences/mortali.htm</a>
And gay sex accounts for less than half of the AIDS cases this year. Not something to take lightly, any more than any of the diseases and injury-causing factors in society which affect so many more people. But fixating on it isn’t rational, it’s emotional.</p>
<p>HH:
It is not surprising at all that more urban states would have higher rates of AIDS. They have more drug addicts and homosexuals. You are stating the obvious. Are you suggesting that there be improvements made in sex education?</p>
<p>“A guy Foley’s age should not be cultivating teenagers for sex, period.”</p>
<p>We get pretty close on things, kluge. This quote isn’t for me, though. Who the heck are we to say what consenting adults of any age should do? Pick an age. If 18 is legal, it’s legal. Sorry.</p>
<p>The comparison between the page and that famous intern that’s legitmate is that I consider it an abuse of relationship for a superior to solicit sex from a subordinate, regardless of age. </p>
<p>I hope you’re not surprised that all I heard on the Clinton/Lewinski thing was that it was between consenting adults and no one else’s business (hello, Hillary, remember?). If that argument is valid in that situation, then it is in this, especially for the 18 year old page, especially since it didn’t even involve actually sex.</p>
<p>See my point? And remember, I don’t prejudge someone else’s relationships on the basis of age differences, not once a jurisdiction settles the age of consent question.</p>
<p>We may speak about the dangers of tobacco, and teach our children about them, but we may not do the same about the dangers of male-male sex. To do so is to be told that one HATES GAYS. That is obvious from so many of the posts above, most especially those of kluge.
Democrats: the party that CARES (especially about children).</p>
<p>HH:
Who is preventing you from teaching your children about sex? If you think gays should have protected sex I don’t know anyone who would say that you HATE GAYS</p>