Friday, September 29, 2006

The Shadow Grows

Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., abruptly resigned his House Seat in the wake of e-mails he wrote a former teenage male page. In it the Representative queried about the boy’s age and requested the teen send a picture. The teen’s response “this freaked me out” and “sick, sick, sick….” In other e-mails Mark asked a different young male “Do I make you a little horny?”

What had Mr. Foley said previously about gays and protecting children from adult predators? What has his legislative record been in these areas?

Foley, as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, had introduced legislation in July to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet. He also sponsored other legislation designed to protect minors from abuse and neglect.

"We track library books better than we do sexual predators," Foley has said.


In 2003, Foley faced questions about his sexual orientation as he prepared to run for Sen. Bob Graham's seat. At a news conference in May of that year, he said he would not comment on rumors he was gay.

In 2004 Rep. Foley did vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment, one of only 27 Republicans to do so.

Now a man virtually guaranteed re-election resigned under suspicion of child predation. What will the party that impeached Bill Clinton over sexual behavior while in office do? Will they collect money to send Mark to a conversion camp, ever so popular in the fundamentalist community? Will they refer him to local law enforcement for investigation? Will he come under the FBI’s program investigating child sexual abuse?

What are their plans other than to hope the story gets buried under a pile of more important stuff over a long football filled weekend? Go Gators! Ooops, that’s another predator…

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