December 31, 2006
Kolbe finally finds his voice
Posted by: Citizen Crain
His last session of Congress behind him, retirement from public office only days away, Jim Kolbe has finally found his voice — or at least cleared his throat. The gay Republican from Arizona granted a few farewell interviews before he steps down after more than two decades in Congress, to be replaced fittingly by a Democrat.
So with absolutely nothing left at stake, no political capital to lose, Kolbe finally took baby steps toward righting two long-standing wrongs: He admitted he was wrong to vote in favor of the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, and for the first time I'm aware of, he came out in favor of gay marriage.
Oddly enough, the admissions didn't come in an interview he gave before Christmas to the Washington Blade. That article mentioned only that Kolbe defended his DOMA vote because the law allows states to make their own decision on whether to marry gay couples. As I wrote for the Blade's blog back in July, that's excuse won't fly:
Kolbe rationalizes his support for DOMA the way some others have, as "states rights" legislation that really just prevents one state that marries gay couples from "forcing" every other state to legally recognize those marriage licenses. But Kolbe knows better than that. DOMA goes much further, blocking the federal government as well from giving any legal recognition to married gay couples.
Ironically, Kolbe complains later in the interview that the Human Rights Campaign hasn't devoted more energy to extending Social Security survivor benefits to gay couples — a move that would require repealing the half of DOMA that goes unmentioned in the article. Instead, Kolbe told the Blade, his only regret was that he was pressured into coming out — by an article about DOMA the Advocate was working on back in 1996 that Kolbe feared would out him. The article doesn't mention another irony; that years later, Judy Weider, the Advocate editor at the time, admitted she had scrapped the story after her publisher said straight advertisers would bolt if the magazine outed someone.
It was in another farewell interview, this one with his hometown Arizona Daily Star, that Kolbe owned up on DOMA and spoke approvingly, for the first time I'm aware of, about gay marriage:
On gay marriage, [Kolbe] said it or civil unions will be pretty widespread in this country in a decade or two because it is a fundamental human right that people should be able to legally celebrate the commitment of relationships. "Friends of mine in New York have been together for 45 to 50 years," Kolbe said. "Shouldn't we celebrate that?"
But with the exception of one point, Kolbe said he didn't regret his 1996 vote in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to refuse recognition of gay marriages approved in other states. His vote on that bill prompted a gay-oriented magazine to prepare an article "outing" him as a homosexual, which led Kolbe to publicly declare that he is gay. "I could make a very good argument that marriage belongs in the hands of the state," he said. "I don't think that should be changed."
His regret on that vote centers on the act's failure to grant participants in gay marriages, in states where they are legal, the right to federal benefits such as Social Security and Medicare earned by one's partner — the same rights that spouses in traditional marriages have. "What I would say now. … I recognize that we have to have some protection at the federal level," Kolbe said.
It's about time, Congressman Kolbe. Ten years later, you finally own up to a vote cast no doubt from within a fearful closet. Though both the Blade and Daily Star articles portray the DOMA vote as Kolbe's one gay-rights failure, his HRC scorecard before coming out was roughly a 50 on a scale of zero to 100.
Neither article also mentions Kolbe's unwillingness to aggressively push immigration rights for binational gay couples — those couples where one partner is American and the other is not. Kolbe was a co-sponsor of the Uniting American Families Act, which would extend to gay couples the same rights heterosexual married couples have in this regard. But he didn't use the considerable influence he had on the issue this year, given his role as one of the most prominent moderate Republicans in the House pushing the White House version of immigration reform.
No one is arguing a more vocal push from Kolbe would have made the difference for UAFA, especially since immigration reform died on the vine, but having done nothing, the legislation is still at the starting blocks, instead of being advanced somewhat down the line. Kolbe's relative silence on UAFA is especially disturbing since he knows up close and personal the difficult choices faced by gay binational couples. For one thing, three top former leaders of the Log Cabin Republicans are in binational relationships with partners from Latin America. For another, so is Kolbe. (For those who don't know, I should disclose that I am as well.)
Unfortunately, Kolbe's timidity on gay marriage, DOMA and immigration reform aren't the only things tarnishing his two decades in Congress. The Mark Foley scandal stuck to Kolbe as well, since it turns out one of Kolbe's former pages asked the Arizona congressman to help convince Foley to stop contacting him. Both interviews touch on the subject, though he told the Blade only that he was happy the House ethics committee concluded no rules were broken. He doesn't mention that the House report largely lets him off the hook because he is retiring from Congress and thereby escaping the committee's jurisdiction.
Also lost in the shuffle of the Foley report were the disturbing things the committee did report about Kolbe, including the former page's recollection that Kolbe tried to convince him not to come forward about his problem with Foley after the scandal broke in October, as well as how Jeff Trandahl, the (gay) then-chief clerk of the House, who had oversight of the page program, repeatedly warned Kolbe that he was being too familiar with pages, and that Trandahl considered Foley and Kolbe distractions from the program.
The Blade article also left out that Kolbe is also under criminal investigation for his own relationship with young male pages, based on complaints that surfaced about a trip he took to the Grand Canyon with a group of them back in 1996. The Daily Star asked him about it, and Kolbe defended it as "completely above board," "a very legitimate trip" and "a terrific experience for 12 people over three days."
In a final irony, Kolbe's page problem may impact his future work plans. Kolbe, 67, told the Daily Star that in addition to work for the German Marshall Fund, he plans to teach a class next fall at the University of Arizona. No doubt administrators there are already reconsidering that plan, given the allegation that Kolbe abused his power relationship with young people.
It didn't have to be this way, of course. But as with Foley and other closeted politicians, Kolbe is in many ways a product of his generation. His departure leaves gay Republicans with no out representatives in Congress, and we can only hope that whoever follows in their footsteps will do so with greater integrity.
December 29, 2006
2006: The closet's swan song?
Posted by: Citizen Crain
The Washington Blade and its sister publications came out with their Year in Review issues today, and their choice for the story of the year was, "Swan song from the closet: Politicians, performers made news in 2006 by coming out." Using the closet to tie together the Mark Foley and Ted Haggard scandals, as well as the celebrities who decided to come out, the story draws some interesting conclusions about the status of the closet as we head into 2007:
Having confined and defined much, if not most, of modern gay existence, "the closet" showed once again in 2006 that it is still a mighty force, albeit a shadow of its once powerful self. In fact, some believe the closet is steadily inching toward irrelevance, as successive generations of gay and lesbian youth settle into their sexual orientation without first surrounding it with four walls of angst, denial, duplicity and shame.
Far from being a place that only harbors half-truths and paralyzing secrets, the 2006 version of the closet helped fuel best-selling memoirs and a breathtaking power shift in Congress. The closet opened its doors on the set of America's most popular prime-time television series and inside one of the nation's most influential megachurches. And whereas coming out of the closet was long considered social and professional suicide, in 2006 it proved anything but.
That somewhat rosy assessment is backed up by examples like Lance Bass, the 'N-Sync alum, who revived his fame by coming out, and embattled politicians Mark Foley and James McGreevey, who tried using the closet as "an escape hatch" in the midst of scandal. Their stories are contrasted with that of Haggard, who stuck to his anti-gay guns even after being outed by a gay escort.
So we're left to conclude that the closet remains a problem mainly for conservative Republicans. "Outside of Republicans, [the closet] is going to recede as more and more people are going to be out from day one so it won't be an issue," the story quotes David Ehrenstein, author of "Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-1998," as saying.
"I think there were much larger issues than Mark Foley that influenced the elections, but with that said, I think both the Foley and Haggard scandals reinforced the perception of the right wing forces of the Republican Party as being cynical hypocrites," echoed Mark Foreman, of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.
Of course, official Washington is littered with closeted Democrats who defy such nice caricaturization,
but the razor sharp political divide in the U.S. over the last decade or so makes black-and-white as popular with the left as it does the right. That's how Ehrenstein can publicly praise the decline of the closet for all except Republicans while at the same time more discreetly cheer on efforts to involuntarily "out" even the most junior gay Republicans who work in the nation's capital.
When outing activist-blogger Michael Rogers recently published embarrassing personal photos of a young, already-out student who worked as a lowly advance staffer for Vice President Dick Cheney, Ehrenstein cheered on the effort. "You shouldn't have blacked-out the faces of the other guys," Ehrenstein wrote in a comment to Rogers, referring to the young staffers' friends, even though they had no apparent connection to Cheney. "They're collaborators," claimed Ehrenstein.
When one commenter using "Sad" as a moniker took issue with the outing, Ehrenstein was quick to reply, with a reference to outed escort-conservative journalist Jeff Gannon (a.k.a. James Guckert). "Don't be sad, 'Sad,'" wrote Ehrenstein. "Now go suck off Guckert like a good little KAPO." Kapos, so you don't miss the reference, were concentration camp prisoners who worked for the Nazis in low-level administrative positions.
This is the world according to David Ehrenstein, and it's the other side of the closet that re-entered the debate this year, though it's not mentioned in the Blade review. The Foley story, especially, raised anew questions about when it's justified to "out" someone in government, whether they're holding elective office or not. For Ehrenstein and Rogers, there are no limits to be observed, no boundaries of personal privacy to be respected, and for Ehrenstein at least, dissent is tantamount to complicity. The Task Force's Foreman, as well, though not dirtying his own hands with outings, has publicly said he supports them.
For most of the rest of us, 2006 was indeed a banner year in adjusting to the changing dynamics of the closet. As each new public figure emerges, there remain fewer "firsts" like Ellen DeGeneres in prime time or Elton John in music or Martina Navratilova in sport, to grab the biggest headlines. And so both Neil Patrick Harris ("Doogie Howser, M.D." and "How I Met Your Mother") and T.R. Knight ("Grey's Anatomy") continue to play sexually active heterosexual men in popular TV shows, despite coming out this year in People magazine. As the Blade story notes, popular culture is once again miles ahead of politics.
Because in politics, despite Ehrenstein's partisan assessment of the closet as a Republican problem, the U.S. Congress is a bipartisan, heteros-only club. We must search back almost a decade to 1998 for the one and only time someone was elected for the first time to Congress despite being openly gay. Despite all the pro-gay triumphs of November 2006, not a single openly gay non-incumbent even won a primary for the U.S. House or Senate. And when the new Congress is sworn in next month, that same solitary member of Congress, Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), will serve alongside Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as the only elected gays on the Hill. So much for the closet's swan song.
December 24, 2006
Mark Foley from close up
Posted by: Citizen Crain
Be sure to check out a provocative op-ed about Mark Foley in the Washington Blade this week by my friend Chuck Wolfe, who heads up the Washington, D.C.-based Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. Chuck brings a doubly unique perspective, first because the Victory Fund encourages gay public officials to come out of the closet. Second because through Chuck's roles in support of two-term Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles (D), he has known Foley personally and professionally over 20 years the two have spent in and around Florida politics.
Chuck notes how Foley began living the gay part of his life more openly the '90s and even lets us in on the advice he offered the Republican congressman when Foley debated whether to come out in the midst of his U.S. Senate bid:
What I told Mark then and what all closeted politicians should know, is that most Americans appear not to care very much about a candidate’s sexual orientation. In fact, there’s growing evidence that being open and honest about being gay can actually translate into greater trust among the electorate. After all, if a politician can be honest about being gay, doesn’t it follow that he’d be more honest about everything?
Of course, we all know now that Mark Foley didn't listen to Chuck Wolfe or others offering similar advice. He instead stayed in the closet until after his predatory behavior with congressional pages came to light and it became more to his advantage to come out (as gay) than to stay in (and be presumed a pedophile). In this respect, Foley is no different than former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, who only came out when it was more to his advantage to be a gay man cheating on his wife, than to be seen as sexually harassing or worse, sexually assaulting, a male staffer.
Chuck concludes that Foley's inability to "muster the courage to face down his fears" was responsible for "ruin[ing] his career." No doubt, the twisted lies required by the closet played a role in the predatory behavior that led to Foley's downfall, but reading Chuck's op-ed, another possibility occurred to me. Perhaps Foley stayed in the closet to protect his predatory behavior. I don't know why this never occurred to me before.
If he would risk everything to keep these teenage males close to him — and his IM chats are sprinkled with professions of "love" as well as sexual interest — then maybe he worried that, in addition to political fallout, the straight or questioning pages might steer clear of an out gay congressman.
After all, it's one thing for a (comparitively) hip, single congressman to chat up young male pages and go in for the sexual kill after they've left the Hill. It's quite another for an openly gay congressman to engage in such flirty behavior, especially if it were known more generally that he had a long-time partner back home in Florida.
Chuck asks why Foley would worry so much about coming out when "certainly in a place as sophisticated as South Florida, Mark Foley could have easily weathered any political fallout from finally telling the truth." Maybe it wasn't his constituents he was worried about so much as the young pages, interns and staffers he was warned by so many to steer clear of.
December 12, 2006
If you just can't get enough…
Posted by: Citizen Crain
…of the Mark Foley scandal, the House ethics commitee has just the thing: More than 100 pages of IM transcripts (click on Exhibit 13), starring Foley himself and a handful of name-redacted teens who he lamely attempts to seduce, as they complain about their AP English homework and Mom calling from downstairs.
I haven't had the stamina to get through them all, but I did love this gem below (click on the image for a closer view), which finds Foley becoming jealous because Jim Kolbe, the other gay Republican congressman (that we know of) has invited Foley's teenage lust-object and three other former pages to stay at Kolbe's Capitol Hill townhouse for a page reunion.
"Be careful" of Kolbe, Foley warns the teen, "don't want you foolin' around with that older man."
The House ethics committee declined to investigate allegations that
Kolbe also had inappropriate contact with underage pages because the
Arizona Republican, who is retiring from Congress in January, already
faces a criminal probe.
With gay role models like Foley and Kolbe — not to mention admitted adulterer James McGreevey, lately accused of sexual assault — who needs Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell?
December 11, 2006
What of Foley's 'thin pink line'?
Posted by: Citizen Crain
The newly released House ethics committee report on Mark Foley offers some important clues about whether the once-closeted Florida congressman found some degree of cover from other closeted Republicans who tried to keep his "page problem" in-house, as it were. From the earliest days of this blog, I have suggested that questions be asked about whether Foley implicitly relied on something like a "thin pink line" of closeted gay Republicans on the Hill to keep the lid on his inappropriate interest in teenage pages.
It's clear now from the testimony of two of those gay Republicans — Jeff Trandahl, the former chief clerk of the House, who was responsible for the page program; and Kirk Fordham, Foley's long-time chief of staff — that they both were aware from the time Foley first came to Congress in 1995 that he was "overly friendly" with male pages, interns and even custodial staff. It's also clear that both of them took these warning signs seriously, and repeatedly implored Foley to maintain a more professional distance. Some of these warnings may have stuck in the short term, but of course we know now that they did not succeed in keeping the Florida Republican in check.
Both Trandahl and Fordham clearly understood and repeatedly communicated directly to Foley the dangerous waters he was treading as a closeted gay congressman developing personal relationships with male teenagers. Here's how Trandahl described his thinking:
Here you had — which I think is appropriate to say — a closeted gay guy who was putting himself in a situation of being one on one with young people. And if an accusation is made, he would be immediately presumed, in a political light, guilty unless he could prove himself innocent. So my counseling to him was, one, you don't need to be in the middle of this community of children; and two, you are creating an enormous political risk for yourself.
Trandahl told the committee that, in addition to these direct warnings to Foley, he also talked repeatedly with Fordham to enlist his help and found Fordham "always agreeable."
Fordham, in turn, would meet with Foley to reinforce the message, and the report includes Fordham's description of one of these meetings:
I went in to the boss and again — very uncomfortable conversation to have — and again relayed basically what Mr. Trandahl had shared with me. I reminded him that because, you know, he is gay — most of his colleagues had figured that out, even though he hadn't announced that he was, you know, people were watching what he did. [They're] paying attention to his behavior, and he needed to be more conscious of how he interacted with younger staffers, interns, pages.
The report details dozens of attempts like this, by both Trandahl and Fordham. In addition, Trandahl raised concerns about Foley on several occasions with Ted Van Der Meid, effectively Trandahl's "boss" in the office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert. To Van Der Meid's discredit, he essentially did nothing with Trandahl's concerns.
When Trandahl and Fordham could see that Foley was reverting to old habits, the duo decided to up the ante, raising the issue directly in late 2002 or early 2003 with Scott Palmer, Hastert's chief of staff. Fordham testified that he met with Palmer to seek assistance with the "chronic problem with [his] boss' attention to pages and young staffers." Fordham told the committee that Palmer said he would meet with Foley and later confirmed Foley "understood the message" and Speaker Hastert had been "brought in the loop."
Palmer famously denied either meeting ever took place, much less saying anything to Hastert. The committee decided that "the weight of the evidence" supports Fordham's account, an especially damning indictment of both Palmer and Hastert, since the Speaker has stuck to his denial of knowing anything at all about Foley's page problem until just before his resignation this September.
So what of the "thin pink line" of closeted Hill Republicans? The committee made no effort to follow this line of inquiry. There's no indication either Van Der Meid or Palmer in Hastert's office was asked if he is gay, despite persistent rumors that both are. The report does not even mention that Trandahl and Fordham are gay. No doubt pursuing these questions struck the committee and its staff as McCarthy-like and irrelevant, even though the committee ultimately concluded that partisan motives and protecting Foley's closet were the key reasons why more wasn't done in response to all the warning signs.
Most importantly, the report underscores tenfold that the primary and overwhelming responsibility for Foley's misconduct lies with no one but Foley himself. His gross predatory behavior — the scope of which is still unknown — was despite years and years of friendly warnings from Trandahl and Fordham that, as a closeted gay man, he needed to maintain a more professional distance with young male interns and pages. Those warnings were repeated by Palmer and even by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), the chair of the page board, who at Trandahl's request confronted Foley in November 2005 about an "overly friendly" email Foley sent to a former page.
Foley nonetheless used the page program to meet and befriend these teenage males, and then moved in for the kill once they graduated and (in his sick mind) were fair game for his sexual advances. That sort of predatory behavior reflected poorly not just on Foley, but (unfairly or not) on Trandahl and Fordham, whose names were dragged through the mud despite all their efforts. And of course Foley's conduct reflected poorly on gay people generally, since he chose to finally come out only after his resignation, as part of a last-ditch effort to explain away his misconduct. ("I'm not a pedophile," he was saying. "I'm an alcoholic gay man still victimized by my teenage abuse by a Catholic priest.")
There's also absolutely no evidence that either Trandahl or Fordham knew anything about the sexually explicit instant messages that ultimately led to Foley's resignation, although the committee's indefensible refusal to investigate those communications robbed all those involved from complete vindication on that point. Trandahl and Fordham should be credited with taking very seriously the "warning signs" about Foley, and with repeatedly taking steps — albeit within certain boundaries — to get Foley's attention.
Without knowing more about Palmer and Van Der Meid, we don't know if
one of those "boundaries" was limiting disclosure about Foley's "page problem" to other gay Republicans,
though regardless Van Der Meid was the appropriate Hastert staffer for
Trandahl to approach. The committee was far more critical of Van Der
Meid, who "showed an inexplicable lack of interest" in the Foley
matter, than of Trandahl, though the latter was outside the committee's
jurisdiction once he resigned as House clerk in November 2005.
Some may fault Trandahl and Fordham for not ratcheting things up
further. One of those "boundaries" they didn't cross was partisan; all their warnings stayed within Republican circles. Even when Trandahl brought in Congressman Shimkus in late
2005, neither Republican informed any of the Democrats on the page
board. The reason, sometimes expressed and sometimes not, was a concern that Democrats would have leapt on the issue for partisan advantage. The report
certainly validates that concern, recounting how the only two Democrats to learn
about the "overly friendly" Foley email responded by bypassing all House
channels and going directly to the press.
I will say this, as well, about both Fordham and Trandahl. I have known and respected Kirk Fordham for years, even if I have frequently disagreed with him on any number of issues surrounding Foley and the other Republicans for whom he has worked. I do not know Trandahl, but close friends and respected colleagues of mine also speak very highly of him and his commitment to the integrity of his office while chief clerk of the House.
With the benefit of hindsight, I would say both Fordham and Trandahl were co-opted, voluntarily or not, by Foley's closet. It's a danger faced by anyone who deals with gay issues, including those of us in the gay press. It doesn't matter how out and proud you are personally. Once you learn that someone like Foley is gay and closeted, any action you consider taking based on information connected to his sexual orientation carries with it the freight of "outing" him as well. If you're semi-closeted yourself — both Fordham and Trandahl were out within the D.C. gay community and to some House colleagues, but not generally or publicly — then outing someone else can carry a great personal risk as well.
That is why, faced only with warning signs and no direct evidence of sexual misconduct by Foley, both Trandahl and Fordham come off as concerned more that "where there's smoke someone might see it," rather than "where there's smoke there's fire." Both Trandahl and Fordham acknowledged that their primary concern was for Foley, not the pages, and to the extent Trandahl expressed concern about the pages, it was that Foley was a "nuisance," not a threat.
Perhaps because both Fordham and Trandahl knew, liked and wanted to protect Foley, they did not imagine him to be the predator he turned out to be. And they did not press him with the 64-thousand-dollar question: Was there actual fire behind the smoke? Was this middle-aged congressman having sexually explicit contact, by virtual or non-virtual means, with young males he met through the page program? Shimkus is the only one the report credits with actually raising that question with Foley, and he emphatically denied it, as probably he would have even to closer (gay) confidants like Trandahl and Fordham. Only when confronted with the goods by ABC News did Foley finally admit his misdeeds.
All in all, the portrait that emerges from the committee's incomplete investigation is one that largely vindicates Trandahl and Fordham, even as it implicates the "see-no-evil" soon-to-be-former Speaker and his staff. Among the most depressing side effects of the Foley scandal is that the light it has shown on the role closeted gay Republicans play on Capitol Hill is likely to push the ones who remain there further into the closet, compounding the complicated and dangerous situation that Trandahl and Fordham faced.
Hopefully, the utter destruction of Foley's reputation, and the way he dragged Trandahl and Fordham (despite all their efforts) into the mud along with him, will serve as a warning in the future that sometimes smoke signals fire, and everyone aware of a problem needs to grab a hose, and not a shovel.
December 09, 2006
A report with no teeth
Posted by: Citizen Crain
As expected, the House ethics committee report on the Mark Foley scandal answers more questions about how the matter was handled than initial press accounts suggested. More on that later.
In the meantime, my general conclusion is that the report is a hypocritical exercise in exactly the same type of buck-passing and willful ignorance that the committee criticizes House members and staffers for exhibiting when they learned over time about the disgraced Florida Republican's unseemly interest in teenage pages.
The report has already come in for some justifiable criticism for concluding that no ethics rules were violated, but to be fair the applicable ethics rule — that "members and staff act at all times
in a manner that reflects creditably on the House" — is so vague as to be useless as a proscriptive against particular conduct.
The ethics committee points out that the rule "does not mean that every error in judgment or failure to exercise greater oversight or diligence establishes a violation." Fair enough, but the committee never goes on to spell out when such errors in judgment or diligence would give rise to a violation. Instead, it comes off like the Supreme Court's infamous standard for when pornography can be deemed legally "obscene": they know it when they see it.
A New York Times editorial nailed the point. "No, not every error or failure should be a violation," the Times allowed, "but certainly the ones that lead to an elected official’s sexually stalking teenage boys while his colleagues turn a blind eye or cover it up should be. We’d set the bar at least there. Apparently, it’s too high for the House."
Rather than find rule violations, the House ethics committee issued a "strong reminder" — feel the teeth! — that "the failure to exhaust all reasonable efforts to call attention to potential misconduct involving a member and House page is not merely the exercise of poor judgment; it is a present danger to House pages and to the integrity of the institution of the House."
Got that? Failure to protect the teens in the House page program "is a present danger … to the integrity of the institution of the House" but isn't so bad that it fails to "reflect creditably on the House" in violation of ethics rules. (I'm not engaging in an unfair cut-and-paste job here; these two conclusions are contained in adjoining paragraphs on p. 4 of the report!) Either the "integrity of the House" is already so sullied that you can be a present danger to it and still reflect creditably on it, or the report's line-drawing is so arbitrary that only a lawyer could understand it (or write it).
But the real failure of the ethics committee investigators is they did exactly what they criticize other House members and staff of doing. The committee criticizes "a disconcerting unwillingness to take responsibility for resolving issues regarding Rep. Foley's conduct. Rather than addressing the issues fully, some witnesses did far too little, while attempting to pass the responsibility for acting to others. Some relied on unreasonably fine distinctions regarding their defined responsibilities" (p. 70).
Et tu, committee members? The report is chockful of excuses why the committee chose not to follow the most damning leads, even while finding fault in others for doing exactly the same thing. Rather than learn the full extent of Foley's misconduct with House pages, committee members remarkably chose not to investigate the sexually explicit IMs between Foley and former pages that actually led to his resignation.
Oh, they claim to have "devoted substantial effort to determining whether any House member, officer or employee was aware of or saw the sexually graphic instant messages" (p.74). But that "substantial effort" apparently amounted only to asking those already implicated by Foley-gate to 'fess up to what they knew. The committee admits that it "did not seek to investigate fully all instances in which Rep. Foley may have had improper communications with pages or former pages, or to determine the complete facts and circumstances surrounding the instant messages that were the cause of his resignation" (p. 72).
The committee's excuse? Foley had resigned and so was outside their jurisdiction. Sound like "unreasonably fine distinctions regarding their defined responsibilities"? How could the committee hope to know if House members and staff, including in the Republican leadership, knew about sexually explicit IMs without first nailing down (1) all the instances when Foley sent such IMs; and (2) who the recipients might have told or forwarded copies of the communications?
A similar escape clause is adopted when it comes to Jim Kolbe, the other openly gay House Republican, who was identified by (also gay) chief House Clerk Jeff Trandahl as among those with unseemly interest in teenage pages. The committee admits that during its investigation of Foley, it learned about "allegations made regarding Kolbe and his interaction with former House pages" (p. 77), but still chose not to investigate.
The committee's excuse? Kolbe is already under a criminal probe and he's retiring at the end of his term anyway, putting him outside the committee's jurisdiction (p78). Sound like "attempting to pass the responsibility for acting to others"? How could the commitee know without investigating whether current House members and staff, including in the same Republican leadership, knew about Kolbe's alleged misconduct and failed to act?
By putting all these unduly restrictive limits on its investigation, the House ethics committee ultimately sends exactly the wrong message to members of Congress and their staff. Because the real takeaway here is that if you're going to willfully ignore signs that a congressman is engaging in improper conduct, you better hope the conduct you're ignoring is so bad that the congreassman is forced to resign or is subject to a criminal probe, preferably both. That's the surest way to avoid the watchful oversight of the House ethics committee.
December 08, 2006
Ethics probe clears GOP on Foley
Posted by: Citizen Crain
The House ethics probe into the Mark Foley scandal has concluded that House Republican leaders and their staff violating no rules but exercised poor judgment in failing to follow up reports of inappropriate contacts by the former Florida congressman with teenage pages. The Washington Post reports:
"A pattern of conduct was exhibited among many individuals to remain willfully ignorant of the potential consequences" of Foley's behavior, the report said. " … The failure to exhaust all reasonable efforts to call attention to potential misconduct involving a Member and House page is not merely the exercise of poor judgment; it is a present danger to House pages and to the integrity of the institution of the House." …
The report said Foley declined through his lawyer to appear before the subcommittee, citing pending criminal investigations against him and asserting his constitutional right to refuse to testify against himself.
Hopefully the 91-page report sheds more light on the scandal than initial press reports indicate. On the key question of whether leading House Republicans told Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) about the matter before September, when Hastert says he first learned, the report concludes — drum roll, please — "probably at least in passing."
On the key question of whether former Foley staff chief Kirk Fordham raised the issue Scott Palmer, Hastert's top aide, as Fordham claims and Palmer denies: no answer, at least in the Post report.
And finally, on whether the gay Republicans who knew at least something about Foley's misconduct — Fordham, then-chief House Clerk Jeff Trandahl, Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe, and Hastert aides Palmer and Ted VanDer Meid (if they're gay, as rumored) — acted in-house as a sort of "thin pink line" to protect Foley, one of their own, again nothing. Committee members were probably too timid to even ask the question.
All in all, a thoroughly disatisfying conclusion to the matter. But I'll reserve judgment until I've actually read the full report.
December 07, 2006
'Don't Ask…Don't E-mail'
Posted by: Citizen Crain
That's the headline on
Vanity Fair's long-anticipated exposé on the Mark Foley scandal, but for all the rich detail there's precious little new here on the big questions raised but not yet answered. There are no revelations about inappropriate conduct by the disgraced Florida Republican with other congressional pages; in fact, other media have reported more than VF about actual sexual contact Foley had with young men soon after they left the page program.
Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, is one of a few primary sources relied on by the article, and there's nothing contradicting Fordham's claim that he knew nothing about Foley's misconduct beyond casual flirtation with young gay men that Fordham frowned upon as "reckless and unnecessary." Fordham did share, however, the intimate story about how Foley reacted when he first learned that his sexually explicit instant message exchanges were going public.
The story picks up after Fordham, who was at Foley's Washington, D.C., townhouse working damage control, was read over the phone the contents of one particularly explicit chat:
Fordham cried, "Stop! That's all I need to know!" He heard female campaign workers weeping on the other end of the phone. When he hung up, he says he saw Foley, who was joining him on the patio, looking scared. Fordham told him the news.
"Are those instant messages authentic?" he asked Foley, who turned away, mortified.
When Foley looked back, he said, "Probably."
"Probably?"
"Yeah, I'm sure they're real," said Foley.
[Liz] Nicolson [Foley's then-current chief of staff,] joined them. "Liz, I've been stupid," said the congressman. …
Everyone [in GOP congressional leadership] agreed that Foley needed to resign. They weren't sure how. A lawyer was called in and advised that Foley sign a letter to be delivered to Speaker Hastert on the floor of the House. Just then, Fordham was alerted that Foley's sister Donna Winterson had arrived at the congressman's office, totally unaware of the meltdown. He ran over and found Winterson sitting on the sofa, "looking like she was in a coma." Her life, having been devoted to her brother's campaigns, would be crushed, too. It took Fordham five minutes to get her composed enough to walk back to the house, where they would finally have to swallow the bitter pill.
"You have to get out," Fordham told Foley.
"You mean I have to drop out of the re-election race?
"No, you need to resign your seat in the House. Today. Now."
Fordham says that Foley dissolved into hysterics. His sister wrapped her arms around him, and they rocked together, in tears. Foley wailed to his sister, "I'm so sorry I've done this to you." Fordham says, "He thought he'd ruined everyone's life."
The article sheds no new light on whether a "thin pink line" of gay Republicans who knew something about Foley's "page problem" — including Fordham, Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe, then chief House Clerk Jeff Trandahl, and perhaps one or more of Speaker Dennis Hastert's top aides — kept the matter "in house" in hopes of protecting one of their own. The article touches on Foley's mysterious decision to drop out of the 2003 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat, despite a fund-raising lead and state party support, but offers only wild speculation that Karl Rove shut Foley down because he caught wind of the page problem.
With almost nothing new of substance to report, the VF piece instead engages in a pretty shocking leap from the known facts about Foley's own teenage abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest. With precious little evidence to support their conclusion, VF's reporters Gail Sheehy and Judy Bachrach remarkably assume that Foley enjoyed the sexual attention:
The formative experience of [Foley's] passage through puberty, as the world now knows, was his seduction by an authority figure whose attentions may have been a guilty pleasure. A priest at the Sacred Heart Catholic School took him biking and skinny-dipping and massaged him in the nude, often bringing him to saunas for fondling. Unlike a peer of his who ran away from another priest's overtures, young Foley apparently did not resist.
The attentions of a predatory priest "may have been a guilty pleasure"? Foley "apparently did not resist"? And on what do they base these conclusions? Why, from the assurances of the predatory priest, of course!
The Reverend Anthony Mercieca, who was 17 years older than Foley, claims they became "attached to each other .… almost like brothers." … The priest rejects Foley's latter-day charge of abuse and defends their relationship as one of "naturalness.… For some people, it's molestation. Maybe for other kids, it's fun, you know?" This arrested sexual development, with its titillating mix of secrecy and shame, Foley would reproduce in his adult years.
Perhaps VF assumes Foley enjoyed being abused because he turned out to be gay himself, or because he subsequently repeated the cycle, albeit only by virtual means. Neither assumption is justified; in fact, both are as irresponsible as it would be conclude Foley "became" gay because of the abuse or engaged in abuse because gay men are predatory.
Sexuality is an incredibly complex phenomenon that doesn't reduce itself nicely to a Vanity Fair "thought piece" that bases its conclusions on the confession of an admitted priest-predator. Perhaps more real information will emerge from the congressional ethics probe (doubtful) or ongoing FBI investigation (still more doubtful). Until then, here's hoping the VF armchair psychology doesn't catch on as accepted fact.
November 09, 2006
StopPartisanPredatorPeddlers.com
Posted by: Citizen Crain
Lou Chibbaro at my old alma mater the Blade scored an exclusive interview this week with the gay blogger who first posted questionable e-mails sent by Mark Foley to teenage males he met as pages. Lane Hudson stays on the defensive for most of the conversation, swatting away Net-inspired conspiracy theories that he was working surreptitiously for HRC or Democratic candidates when posted the e-mails on his anonymous blog, StopSexPredators.com, for purely partisan reasons:
Hudson said he started the Stop Sex Predators blog about two months before he began work in September as a Michigan field organizer for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political organization.
He said he learned of Foley’s interaction with pages and his frequent e-mail exchanges with them through sources and contacts he declined to disclose.
"I heard more stories about it and just the stories that I heard made it clear to me that it was a long history of his behavior and that it wasn’t isolated incidents," he said. …
He said HRC and the gay-supportive Democratic Party candidates that he campaigned for in Michigan as an HRC field organizer knew nothing about his Stop Sex Predators blog, which Hudson said he created and operated anonymously.
I can't imagine HRC being in on Hudson's scheming. For one thing, the e-mails "out" Foley as a gay man and in a very unflattering light. HRC has always opposed outing, and would never want to see a gay member of Congress forcibly outed by accusations of pedophilia, whatever his party affiliation.
Hudson, now 29, says he actually met Foley back when Hudson worked as a White House intern in the mid-'90s, and gave the Florida congressman his e-mail address after he asked for it. There was "nothing explicit, nothing very salacious," about their subsequent communications, he said.
Hudson admits he's a Democratic partisan and very active politically, but he nonetheless swears there was no partisan motive to his activities:
"The criticism is moot," he said. "It only serves to distract from the real issue here. And the real issue is that there was a predator in Congress who, over the course of his 12 years of service, was continuously seeking out pages with unethical, immoral and inappropriate intentions. And now he’s not there," Hudson said.
"And anyone who wants to say anything different is endorsing the idea that these activities should have continued."
Errrr, riiiiight. As much as I believe that HRC and the Democrats had no advance knowledge of Hudson's plan to hatch Foley-gate, I don't buy for a second his protestation to have acted to protect the pages. If that were really his goal, he would have taken the communications to law enforcement authorities or the House ethics committee.
Hudson would be better off following the lead of Denver call-boy Mike Jones, who at least admitted his political motive in outing evangelist Ted Haggard as a philandering, meth-abusing "john."
November 08, 2006
A day of big victories
Posted by: Citizen Crain
Here's what HRC had to say about the election results:
Here's my complete run-down on yesterday's election results:
The national wave that swept Democrats into power in the U.S. House and perhaps the Senate has brightened the prospect for gay rights legislation in Congress and thrilled activists by knocking off one of the country's top anti-gay incumbents.
Gays also celebrated the defeat of a broadly worded ban on gay marriage and civil unions in Arizona — the first time that's happened in 25 states where such measures have been tried.
"Symbolically, [the Arizona result] is as important as the Massachusetts marriage decision," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign.
Ballot measures banning marriage and civil union passed in five other states, though activists in Colorado held out hope until Wednesday that a pro-gay domestic partnership might eke by after votes were counted from Denver, where massive problems with ballot machines slowed the process.
Some hoped that the spectacular fall of Colorado Springs evangelist Ted Haggard, accused by a male escort in Denver of paying for sex and crystal meth, would turn the tide against the ban, but former Colorado Gov. Bill Owen (R) told Fox News on Wednesday that he think the scandal "may have actually helped it pass."
"The whole issue of a male prostitute and the seedier side of that story made some people think, 'You know, I don't want anything to do with that,'" said Owen, who backed the marriage ban and opposed the D.P. initiative.
Efforts to defeat marriage bans came tantalizingly close in South Dakota (52 to 48 percent) and Virginia (57 to 43 percent), two traditionally "red" conservatives states. In past elections, such ballot measures have typically passed by lopsided support at 70 percent or higher.
"It's clear that fear-mongering around same-sex marriage by the GOP and the extreme Christian right is fizzling out," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. "It doesn't have the juice it had just two years ago — people are getting sick of it."
The most crushing defeat was in Wisconsin, where an amendment banning marriage, civil unions and perhaps other legal recognition for gay couples passed easily, 60 to 40 percent, even as Democrats there took back the state Senate and handily won a contested gubernatorial race.
The Task Force cheered the passage of a local non-discrimination ballot referendum in Ferndale, Mich. — the third attempt since 1991 to pass a human rights ordinance. A city charter amendment banning bias based on sexual orientation and gender identity passed by a lopsided margin in Corvallis, Ore.
Moderate Republicans fare poorly in House races
The Democratic takeover of the House could dramatically brighten prospects for gay rights legislation, including on hate crimes and a new version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that also includes protections based on gender identity.
The GOP House leadership deposed by voters on Tuesday has been markedly more conservative and opposed to gay rights legislation than their Senate counterparts. Republicans expected the resignation from leadership and even from Congress of House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who has been under fire for how he responded to complaints about inappropriate contact with pages by Republican Mark Foley of Florida.
Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat expected to be the first-ever female speaker of the House, has a strong pro-gay record, though she has not mentioned ENDA or hate crimes as among her earliest legislative priorities.
The Democrat takeover of the House came at the expense of a number of moderate Republicans backed by both HRC and the Log Cabin Republicans. Two Connecticut incumbents — Republicans Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons — were among the casualties, though longtime gay rights supporter Chris Shays (R) survived a close vote.
Only two out of eight embattled Republican House members backed by Log Cabin won on Tuesday, although 11 other Republican veterans backed by the gay GOP group won handily.
Races were too close to call in the two House districts where HRC endorsed Democrats challenging Log Cabin-backed GOP incumbents: Pennsylvania Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick (R) is trailing his Democrat Patrick Murphy, while Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), who was caught up in the Foley scandal, has a narrow lead over her HRC-endorsed challenger.
"Foley-gate" cost Republicans the once safe seat formerly held by the disgraced gay congressman. Voters chose Democrat Tim Mahoney over Foley, whose name remained on the ballot although his votes went to Republican Joe Negron.
Jim Kolbe, the other openly gay House Republican, announced his retirement months before he learned he also faces investigations into whether he had inappropriate contact with congressional pages. His seat flipped to the Democratic side as well.
The two openly gay Democrats in Congress — Barney Frank (Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) — easily won re-election.
Openly gay candidates fared well in races at the state and local level. Some 67 candidates backed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund won on Tuesday, including 34 elected to state legislatures. A lesbian was also elected in a statewide race to the Oregon Supreme Court.
"This is the tipping point election for openly gay candidates," said Chuck Wolfe, the Victory Fund director. "We're proving that qualified, well-prepared candidates matched with committed donors means gays and lesbians can move from having a stake in policy to actually making policy. There's no reason to sit on the sidelines with our fingers crossed anymore."
Santorum defeat cheered
Gay rights supporters nationwide savored the defeat of several high-profile anti-gay incumbents, and no prize was larger than Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who lost by double digits to moderate Democrat Bob Casey. (Concession photo via Wonkette).
Santorum, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, was a leading proponent of a federal marriage amendment and made headlines three years ago when he warned that a Supreme Court ruling that struck down sodomy laws would lead to legalization of "man on dog" sex.
Marilyn Musgrave, the Colorado Republican who has been the lead House sponsor of a federal marriage amendment, survived a strong Democratic challenge backed by gay groups.
Three other House Republicans targeted by HRC for their anti-gay records were ousted by voters on Tuesday, including Congressman Clay Shaw of Florida. The race was too close to call in another race, where HRC-backed challenger Patricia Madrid was slightly trailing GOP incumbent Heather Wilson of New Mexico.
Another leading anti-gay incumbent, John Hostetler of Pennsylvania, was defeated after a controversial campaign where he aired ads warning voters, "Nancy Pelosi will then put in motion her radical plan to advance the homosexual agenda, led by Barney Frank, reprimanded by the House after paying for sex with a man who ran a gay brothel out of Congressman Frank's home."
Log Cabin said social conservatives like Santorum and Hostetler within the GOP bore responsibility for the party's dismal showing on Tuesday.
"Social conservatives drove the GOP's agenda the last several years," said Patrick Sammon, interim director of the gay GOP group. "Their divisive agenda alienated the mainstream Republicans and independents who determined this election's outcome."
Elation over Santorum's defeat was dampened by the loss of the Senate's most pro-gay Republican. Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island (pictured), the only GOP member of Congress to back full marriage equality, was defeated by Sheldon Whitehouse. The Democratic challenger also supports full marriage rights.
Elsewhere in the contest for the Senate, gay activists cheered the defeat of anti-gay Republican Sen. Mike DeWine in Ohio. His Democratic challenger, Congressman Sherrod Brown, has a very strong record in support of gay rights.
All eyes now are focused on Virginia, where control of the U.S. Senate may ride on whether voters there have ousted Republican incumbent George Allen, who jettisoned a moderate gay rights record in the last several years to back a federal marriage amendment and oppose even employment protections and hate crime laws.
His challenger, moderate Democrat Jim Webb, was leading by three-tenths of one percent, and an expected recount could take weeks. Webb was backed by HRC, and is largely supportive of gay rights, though the former Secretary of the Navy for Ronald Reagan opposes repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
HRC stayed out of Senate races in Montana and Missouri, where anti-gay Republican incumbents appear to have gone down to defeat by small margins.
Pro-gay candidates win races for governor
In gubernatorial races, two Democrats who back full marriage equality won their races on Tuesday. Activists hope Deval Patrick, the first-ever African American governor of Massachusetts, will help beat back efforts to amend that state's constitution to reverse the marriage victory won three years ago there.
Gov.-elect Elliot Spitzer has vowed to introduce gay marriage legislation in New York, where the state's supreme court upheld laws there limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.
The Task Force also cheered the election of pro-gay Democrat Ted Strickland as Ohio governor, against anti-gay Republican Ken Blackwell.
"We saw Republicans and Christian right extremists trying to use an anti-gay family amendment to help win Ohio for Bush-Cheney in 2004," said Foreman. "Yet in 2006, Ohio voters have rejected the politics of division and elected a moderate who opposes scapegoating gay and lesbian families for political gain."
Incumbent Democrat governors who are pro-gay were also re-elected despite strong challenges in Wisconsin, Michigan and Oregon.
Log Cabin cheered the re-election of several moderate Republican governors, including Jodi Rell, who signed Connecticut's civil unions law, and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, who has signed several gay rights bills, though he vetoed a landmark gay marriage law passed by state's legislature.
November 07, 2006
No 'boy pages' for Harold
Posted by: Citizen Crain
As a native of Memphis, Tenn., I was originally pleased by how Harold Ford, Jr., has been a rising star in the Democratic Party. Racial division has long plagued politics in Memphis, which has fallen far behind its cross-state rival Nashville for largely that reason.
Now Ford is running for the seat vacated by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a craven anti-gay Republican, and yet Ford is proving just as craven in his gay-baiting, proudly trumpeting his two votes in favor of federal marriage amendments.
Today, on MSNBC, Ford couldn't stop talking about how much he loves Jesus, his risen Savior. Yes, the GOP ads that smeared him for the Playboy parties were revolting; but so is his self-righteous response.
And then this gem, totally unsolicited by interviewer Tucker Carlson, on how he'll bring his Christian values to bear if elected:
"You dont have to worry about me hitting on boy pages on the Senate floor."
Nice, Harold.
November 03, 2006
Two depressing predictions come true
Posted by: Citizen Crain
I wish either one of these had turned out differently:
1. Just yesterday, discussing the prospects that New Jersey's Legislature might adopt full marriage rights, I wrote:
A Zogby poll commissioned by Garden State Equality showed a majority already favoring
marriage equality, 56 to 39 percent. Two big caveats, however: The poll was taken before the Supreme Court opinion, which might have crystallized opposition to marriage among some, and because it was commissined by the gay rights group, the question was no doubt worded to elicit the highest possible positive response.
Now this morning comes this from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Support for banning same-sex marriage in New Jersey grew in the days after the state Supreme Court ruled that gay couples should have the same rights as married heterosexuals, according to a poll released yesterday. A little more than half of the Rutgers-Eagleton poll's 809 respondents favored changing the state constitution so that gay marriages would be banned. In June, a poll showed the opposite, with a little more than half opposing such a constitutional amendment.
The news from New Jersey isn't all bad, however. The same Rutgers-Eagleton poll still showed most people (54 to 37 percent) agreed with the court ruling, and most still favor civil unions (40 percent) or even full marriage (29 percent) over overturning the ruling (16 percent). Since support for a constitutional amendment banning gays from marrying topped 54 percent though the court didn't even require it, we can only imagine the straits we'd been in if the court ruling had been right on the law.
2. A week ago, I wrote about how the House Ethics Committee investigation into Foley-gate actually provided those involved with a convenient way to hide the crucial facts from voters until after Election Day:
Because the whole Foley matter is "under investigation," all these principle players have lawyered up and clammed up, in classic Washington style. Meanwhile, there is an election in two weeks which ought to allow the American public to pass judgment on all 435 members of the House on this and many other issues. But no one expects the House panel to reach any official conclusions by then.
Now this from today's Washington Post:
The House ethics committee has been working hard to determine whether Republicans covered up Mark Foley's electronic messages to male former pages, but even 12-hour workdays will not bring conclusions by Election Day. The lack of a report by Tuesday leaves voters to sort through conflicting Republican accounts in deciding whether GOP leaders did not protect the teenage pages.
The committee should be pressed to release the testimony, even if a report isn't ready, or those who testified should come forward with what they said. Otherwise, the phony Washington investigation game will once again have obscured the truth from voters, rather than clarified it — just like those damning investigations into pre-war intelligence about Saddam Hussein released after President Bush was safely re-elected.
October 29, 2006
Also in the news…
Posted by: Citizen Crain
* The church that bills itself, probably correctly, as the world's largest gay church — Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas — has joined the United Church of Christ, among the more left/progressive of mainstream Protestant denominations. The Dallas Cathedral, which claims 4,300 members, disaffiliated
with the United Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches in July
2003, three months after the gay Christian denomination began
investigating longtime pastor Mike Piazza's expense account and
management of church finances. Piazza denied wrongdoing but resigned
his MCC credentials two days before the investigation concluded. He
took a brief leave of absence from the Cathedral when the congregation voted
to leave UFMCC, but he later returned remains "national pastor" and dean.
The 1.2-million-member UCC voted in June 2005 to perform marriage
ceremonies for gay couples and support full civil marriage equality for
them as well.
* An online auction site for domain names issued a press release today claiming that Gays.com sold recently for $500,000, to German (couple?) Julius and David Dreyer. "We are confident that we will be able to introduce an entertaining and
informative website in the near future; one that will meet the needs of
the gay community," the release quotes Julius Dreyer as saying. Is there a shortage of gay websites I was unaware of? No doubt unamused were the folks cover at Planet Out, Inc., who own Gay.com, and a dozen other gay media and leisure businesses. At least they got a phat write-up in the New York Times today for gay cruises that might help their RSVP brand, which hit hard times this year.
* Gay Americans aren't the only ones going north of the border, to Canada, to marry. Up to 100 Irish gay couples have trekked to Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., to enter into "civil partnerships" since the government began offering them last December. Now, like their