One stole $8.6M from the people he represents, the other likes to talk dirty to boys while spanking it in front of the computer. One prayed that nobody would find out about the houses he bought and his affair with his secretary or the fact that he put her son through a private high school. The other preyed on the fears of the people he represents while preying on confused boys. One is an all-too-healthy heterosexual. The other is the rarest of sicko perverts—a homosexual pedophile.
Can you tell which one is which?
In a stunning role reversal of stereotypes, Palm Beach County produced a jet-set priest with a live-in honey in Father John Skehan of Delray’s St. Vincent’s Catholic Church and a child molesting homosexual congressman in Mark Foley from Florida’s 16th Congressional District.
Let’s start with John Skehan. As far as the average person should be concerned, Skehan’s only crime was embezzlement. He’s been a priest forever and knows the Catholic Church is corrupt to the core of Vatican City. The Catholic Church treats their dedicated men and women like garbage and sets unrealistic conditions of poverty and celibacy. Priests are considered self-employed. The Catholic Church doesn’t care that he took money from his flock. They care that he took money from the Church. There is a major difference between the two thought tracks.
Allow Catholic priests to marry. Allow women to become priests. Eliminate the twisted concept of “the nun.” Pay them a living wage. Put a clause in their contracts preventing them from ownership of Church property. That’s it. The Catholic Church would be credible again.
Congressman Mark Foley, on the other hand, needs to rot in jail for his hypocrisy, stupidity and crimes. The Child Online Protection Act makes it very clear that if you use an online medium to exploit underage children, you go to prison. Mark Foley wrote that law and it would be poetic justice to watch his creation turn on him.
Foley would not have resigned and subsequently place himself into seclusion at his Ft. Pierce home if he had the slightest chance of dodging the charges. The transcripts are all over the web and demonstrates him to be the latest star of the Grand Old Perverts. He spent his years as a tool for the neoconservatives in pushing their anti-American, anti-common sense, anti-human rights, global empire agenda. He also preached Family Values at every opportunity. He was holier than thou like the rest of his conspirators.
The Chester Molester from Florida’s 16th District should serve as a warning to everyone: you can’t gauge character by looking at somebody. Character, as the father of an illegitimate child and former Rules Chair of the House, JC Watts, once said is how you act when nobody is looking. Mark Foley wrote legislation against sexual predators and gay marriage. Foley was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. Can’t get more twisted than that.
Everybody is looking now. The entire world. The United States of America has lost its way and Mark Foley is the case in point.
Mark Foley arrived into office during Newt Gingrich’s “Contract on America” in the 1994 congressional “revolution.” The only thing interesting about that revolution was that the certainty of incumbent reelection went from 95% to 92%. Still, America rolled over and sought salvation and moral guidance from adulterers (Gingrich), illegitimate fathers (Burton), racists (Janklow), murderers (Scarborough), dope fiends (Limbaugh), thieves (Delay), johns (Barr), and cokeheads (Bush). The full list is impressive.
All Republicans are, of course, better than Clinton—a man of peace that got head from an adult female intern. Where have the happy days gone?
Foley did his online predatory acts over 10 months ago so the real story is a bit bigger than some rope sucking congressman trying to pack young fudge. The real story is why the Republican leadership pretends they didn’t know about Foley’s proclivities. The Republicans will keep power by any means necessary—up to and including covering up for pedophiles. They can’t afford to lose their right to raid the wealth of the United States through no-bid contracts or their war on citizens through the systematic elimination of every conceivable right a western society claims to value.
The reporters that sat on this story for ten months while Foley continued to write laws and exploit boys deserve, quite frankly, to lose their jobs. If anyone actually bought or read the Palm Beach Post, I’d call for a boycott of that newspaper. The citizens of Florida’s 16th district and the country deserved to know about Foley’s crimes. To sit on the story was an abuse of power. Maybe it’s time for legislation limiting corporate power in the press.
To offer a minor bit of credit to Mr. Foley, the transcripts look like he did, indeed, ask about his target’s age. Mark Foley didn’t become gay yesterday so it’s entirely possible that this was a political assassination. Unlike embezzlement, theft, drug abuse or adultery, there is no redemption from pedophilia—particularly the homosexual type. Without redemption, don’t be surprised if he takes a page from medieval Japan and commits suicide.
Mark Foley is not Debra LaFave. His behavior will not make the world a better place.
