And Another Thing....

Go Vote

I voted for the first time ever in the town I grew up in---as opposed to absentee balloting when I was in college, or voting in Chicago (early and often!) when I lived there.

They still have the old fashioned voting machines. You go in, pull the red lever, and the curtain closes behind you. Then you pull down the levers to vote.

It made voting seem important (which it is) and fun (which it usually isn't) and easy (which was a good surprise).

Go vote today. Do it as soon as you leave work. These are important elections, and it's important that you're part of them.

Working for the Enemy

There's been a lot of chatter lately about gay people working for the enemy---that is, gay people who are staff to politicians like Rick Santorum, who compared homosexuality to bestiality.

What I wonder is: Are there any evangelicals working for top Democrats?

I wonder if the reverse is true, and there are evengelical staffers working for Dems who have disparaged them to the Democratic base. Are gay people the only ones selling themselves out for money and prestige?

Say it ain't so.

Marriage. Again.

so the Times has a story on how conservative voters seem to no longer be rallied around the same-sex marriage issue---mostly, says the story, because gay activists have been running more effective campaigns.

It's hard to tell, of course, if that's actually the case--the campaigns were pretty good before--or if people have seen that Massachusetts hasn't fallen into the ocean, or if there just hasn't been a flash-flood marriage issue lately.

What got my attention, though, was this paragraph:

From 2000 to 2005, the number of people identifying themselves in Census surveys as being in a same-sex couple grew by 30 percent, to about 770,000, according to a study released this week by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, which tracks and researches gay  legal issues.

Huh. Now that's interesting. Is it that more couples are coming out thanks to gay advocacy? Or some other reason? What do people think?

Foley's Folly

For some reason, my regular website won't post this column. Hmmmmm. So I thought I'd put it up here....

    Republican Mark Foley (R-FL) has a problem, but it's not precisely the one in the headlines.
     Last week, as soon as the news broke that the congressman had sent sexually-tinged texts to a former page, the first headlines (now changed online) called him a pedophile.
    And even now, bloggers and those who comment on them keep using that word "pedophile" over and over again.
    This makes Democrats celebrate, yes? Especially once Foley resigned a day or so later. Another Republican forced to resign over some sort of scandal! And this one involves sexual advances toward children! These people are moral hypocrites! That's what a lot of Democrats are thinking.
    But gay Democrats particularly need to take a step back. Short term, this may give us some salacious pleasure. But long term? This is not good.
    Here's why.
    First of all, the (perhaps not so) obvious.
    Foley is not a pedophile.
    Foley is gay.
    Pedophiles are sexually attracted to undeveloped children. Six year olds. Three year olds. Some researchers even consider pedophilia to be its own perverted sort of sexual orientation. Congressional pages are juniors and seniors in high school, 16 and 17 year olds. They've been through puberty. They're not children.
    Now, I'm appalled by Foley's actions, too. They were completely inappropriate. But "inappropriate" doesn't equal "pedophilia."
    The age of consent in Washington, D.C. is 16 years old, which means that this page was legally a sexual adult. A 16-year-old young man is a much, much different target of lust than a 6-year-old boy.
    If it had been a 16-year-old girl Foley was after, I don't think the media and those who consume it would have latched onto the word "pedophile." I think they would have been more likely to call this "creepy." Or "sexually harassment"
    Which it is.
    It is creepy when a 52-year-old makes advances on a 16-year-old. It is an abuse of power when a congressman behaves sexually toward a young person who might be looking for a job in his office someday.
        But when that 16-year-old is a female, no one is that surprised. After all, we sexually fetishize young adults. Teenage girls are our fashion models, our pop singers, our national targets of lust. Americans understand why older men are drawn to very, very young women.
    What they don't understand is men of any kind being drawn to other men.
    But that's what we have here. Foley, a semi-closeted gay man (a few years ago he was outed by the Washington Blade and he would neither confirm his gayness nor deny it), was sending provocative messages to a younger man. In the IM messages they exchanged, released by ABC News, the young man didn't quite encourage him, but didn't quite discourage him either. He might have been too young and inexperienced to know how to fend off advances.
    Foley should have known this---he should never have pressed his power-and-age advantage.
    Nevertheless, Foley is being called a pedophile ONLY because both parties are men.
    It's never good for us when "pedophile" and "gay" are joined together in this sort of unholy headline matrimony. It simply reinforces the stereotype that we are sexual predators.
    So, this is the first reason this was bad for us. It allowed, once again, a gay man to be targeted as a pedophile.
    Secondly, Foley is one of a very small group of Republicans who actually had a decent voting record on gay issues. The Human Rights Campaign was a contributor. In the past 10 years, he's scored in the 80s or higher on the HRC's report card. He was a co-sponsor of ENDA.  He's pro-choice.
    In short, he had become a friend of ours in the legislature.
    Hopefully there will be a good outcome here. Perhaps a gay-friendly Democrat will take his seat in November. Perhaps this situation will also make some moderates think about conservative hypocrisy---congressional Republican leaders knew about this exchange, yet kept it covered up. (I guess those leaders figured that gay is actually OK, as long as it remains within the party.) Maybe it will remind moderates and conservatives alike that gay people really are everywhere, even hidden in the Republican ranks.
    But long after the nuances of the political horse raise have crossed November's finish line, those two words "gay" and "pedophilia" will remain etched in the minds of ordinary Americans.
    And that's too bad. Because Mark Foley's problem is not pedophilia. Mark Foley's problem is impulse control.

Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning, syndicated columnist based in New York. Read her blog at jennifervanasco.com and email her at jennifer.vanasco@gmail.com.

Pedophilia and the US House

So, the Republican Mark Foley has been caught with his virtual pants down.  He resigned today because ABC News asked him about email he had sent to Capitol Hill pages.

And if you're a Democrat you're probably celebrating.

But I can't. How can I? Because anytime a man in power is exposed as a pedophile who comes on to boys, he's also castigated as being gay.

And maybe he is gay. I mean, having sexually-tinged conversations with high school boys is NOT the same as having such conversations with six-year-olds. Pedophilia is its own (very wrong) orientation that fixates on undeveloped children. This seems less like pedophilia and more like simple lust for youth.

And a lust for youth permates our culture. All those straight men who lust after 16 year olds arent considered perverts. Most people understand----young adults are HOT. Face it. I wouldn't want to date one, because who can have a conversation with them? But our culture sexually glorifies young people of high school age---high school students are our fashion models, our pop stars, our icons of beauty. We fetishize perky young breasts, wrinkle-free skin, strong young bodies.

Foley is really no different in his lusts than any straight man who has masterbated to a picture of an underage model in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. The problem here is not who---it's how.

This is sexual harassment, not pedophilia. Mark Foley is a guy in power. He can't go hitting on young people---pages--with no power at all.

That's how the story should be framed:  Mark Foley Sexually Harassed Capitol Pages.

But it's not---because the more salacious angle is that these were male pages. That is, it's more interesting that he's closeted gay.