UNDER AGE! Congressional pages come from high school. They are kids. This is not a repressed, gay man talking to another guy in a bar. This is a United States Congressman sexually harassing an underage employee over whom he has enormous power. These kids were quoted saying they didn't turn in Foley because they were afraid it would ruin their chances to get good jobs.
Moreover, for Foley to take this kind of risk, his sexuality had to be pretty screwed up.
I think it's a little silly to say that the Dems are "pandering" on this one.
Boddi
On 10/2/06, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Depending on the content of the ex-Congressman's
> messages and his intent (inferred from circumstances),
> making passes by email at underage boys may be a
> serious crime as a matter of fact. If he was actually
> attempting to arrange a sexual assignation, or the FBI
> and the US Attorney think he was, the guy is in real
> trouble. I've seen people sent away for long periods
> for attempting to arrange assignations with supposed
> sex partners they thought were underaged. (You need
> the internet or some connection to interstate commerce
> (typically) to get federal jurisdiction -- I am sure
> the states (including DC) have their own sexual
> predator laws that don't require that federal
> jurisdictional hook.
>
> I agree with Doug about sexual hypocrisy and
> puritanical moralizing, of course, but it is amusing
> in a sordid way to see another of of these scum hoist
> with his own petard. There's a policy question about
> whether criminalizing this conduct and penalizing it
> with long prison sentences is the best way to deal
> with sexual predators who chase kids. And yes, I
> understand "kids" is an elastic word; there's all the
> difference, morally, between a 17 or even a 16 year
> old and a 12 year old, for example; and intuitively
> (and I gather in with some state stat rape laws
> legally) what the age differences is; an 18 year old
> chasing (or having sex with) a 15 year old seems
> rather different from a 50 year old chasing or having
> sex with a 5 year old.
>
> So it gets complex, ethically, and the law is a blunt
> instrument. We incarcerate way too many people, and
> from what I gather pedophilia is an obsession not
> really susceptible to deterrence. Also I gather it is
> highly resistant to treatment. And sexual abuse of
> younger children leaves lasting traumatic scars. So I
> don't know what I'd propose if I could write a law --
> what do people think?
>
> --- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Sep 30, 2006, at 6:01 PM, B.K. DeLong wrote:
> >
> > > For a fifty-year old congressman having an
> > explicitly sexual
> > > conversation with a kid who works for him, even
> > after he claims to
> > > be underage), while perhaps not a shocking sex
> > crime....certainly
> > > creepy and incredibly inappropriate for a
> > congressman....
> >
> > Creepy and inappropriate. yeah, but it'd be nice if
> > it all made us
> > think about sexual repression & hypocrisy. The guy's
> > gay, be he
> > couldn't reveal that because it would ruin him
> > politically - and to
> > prove himself not sexually suspect, gets invovled in
> > child predator
> > politics. "We watch our library books more closely
> > than sexual
> > predators," said he, even though their names are all
> > over the web.
> >
> > Actually I don't think hypocrisy is the right word,
> > since the whole
> > moralizing set-up seems almost to require a secret
> > life of sin, as a
> > condition of possibility or something.. Prostitution
> > and traditional
> > morality go hand in hand, just like vows of celibacy
> > and altar-boy lust.
> >
> > Doug
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