I think what bothers me the most about Mark Foley is not that he is perhaps a ‘closeted’ gay man, or that he is an elected representative who abused his power and access to take advantage of the innocent, or perhaps even the fact that his leadership covered his problem. My issue with Mark Foley is that he lacked the moral direction that he and his party have so often used to point this country in a direction that it did not need to go, clearly highlighting the absence of real moral judgment and values that we require of our leaders and that this group of leaders has so often ‘claimed’ to have. Take his lack of good moral judgment and couple it with blaming a drinking problem and you have the classic ‘I’m so weak, I couldn’t help myself…’ excuse and you really get my blood boiling.

Do you think God looks at someone with a drinking problem and says, ‘well, I forgive you for all that you did under the influence’, but refuses to forgive a soul who just made stone-cold errors in judgment? Well it does appear that the theocons within the GOP believe that God does react in that way. Remind you, these are the same people who believe that because a man loves another man our entire nation is on a course to hell. The difference is that Mark Foley did not talk ‘dirty’ to another man, he talked ‘dirty’ to underage boys, and he used his position to open that dialog. Gay or straight, conservative or liberal, Christian or Muslim, that is just wrong. There is no moral justification for his actions — period.

Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) has checked himself into an alcohol treatment center as way of explaining why he pursued a number of male interns while in Congress. From the AP:

“I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and other behavioral problems,” Foley said in a statement, Roth told the AP.

Foley, a Republican, abruptly quit Congress on Friday after reports surfaced that he’d sent sexually charged electronic messages to boys working as pages. In the statement, Foley said the “events that led to my resignation have crystalized recognition of my long-standing and significant alcoholism and emotional difficulties.”

“I deeply regret and accept full responsibility for the harm I have caused,” Foley said. He also expressed “gratitude for the prayers and words of encouragement that have been conveyed to me.”

In another example of the duplicity that has become the GOP, Foley has decided to blame something else on his behavior. Just come out and say you are a perv and that you have used the power and influence of your office to cause harm to others.

What is more impressive are the reports over the weekend that the house leadership actually knew of Foley’s problem long before it went public, which has resulted in calls for the leadership (Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Boehner) to resign from within the party.

Rep. Mark Foley (R-Florida) resigned from his seat today following allegations of misconduct and inappropriate communication with a minor male intern that worked in his office in Washington. This story is getting wide “exposure” all over the Internet, with Americablog.com having screen shots of some explicit emails sent to the young intern.

Foley denies that his resignation has anything to do with the allegations.  But considering this quote from ABC News:

A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in a letter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

So, the theocon’s sent a representative to Congress, gave him an important comittee chair position, and he used his power to talk dirty to a young intern?

Well, apparently, there is more. Check out this quote from the Stop Sex Predators blog from at least one different intern (I say this because the intern in the ABC piece is a minor and the author of this letter makes reference to college):

THIRD EMAIL
From: repub intern
Mailed-By: hotmail.com
To: stopsexpredators@gmail.com
Date: Sep 18, 2006 2:07 PM
Subject: CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION!!!
Reply Reply to all Forward Print Add sender to Contacts list Delete
this message Report phishing Show original Message text garbled?

My dad who gives a lot of money to republicans got me an internship capitolhill. I thought that I was hot shit, having such a good internship after myfreshman year of college.After a few weeks, I was finally learning my way around DC and I wasenjoying my job.One night, I decided to go out with my new fake ID to my first gay bar.I went to this bar named Coblot.There was old guy who would not leave me alone. He kept following me around.I tried to get him to leave me alone by going to the bathroom.Instead he followed me in and tried to grope me.A few days later my boss had me run something over to another congressmansoffice. It turned out that the guy who groped me was Representative MarkFoley.

So the very people who want to deny LGBT rights on issues such as partner benefits and marriage are trolling DC gay bars. Oh! What a tangled web indeed!