Focus on Foley obscures Democrats’ rightward shift

Foley, Foley, Foley: Who knew what, when? The story is dominating broadcast news coverage and above-the-fold front-page headlines. But the real story is that leading Democrats and Republicans—horns locked in a partisan struggle before a mid-term congressional election that determines which party of big business controls Capitol Hill—are propagating the right-wing myth that same-sex love is linked to child rape.

Mendacity gains strength whenever it is repeated, and this particular falsehood is pumped up on steroids right now as the media turned stage right to offer round-the-clock podium availability to right-wing politicians and pundits who peddle the myth that men who love men and women who love women are dangerous to children.

Tony Perkins, who heads a reactionary organization bearing the bland name “Family Research Council” (FRC), was invited on the Oct. 2 edition of CNN’s “The Situation Room.” Host John King opened the interview by editorializing that “pro-family voters” look to the FRC “for guidance and advice in moments like this.”

King sat back and let Perkins intone that “the real issue” in the Foley scandal is “the link between homosexuality and child sexual abuse.”

The following day, Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s program “Hardball,” let Perkins get away with the outrageous claim that “there’s clear research that shows that homosexual men are more likely to abuse children than straight men.”

Linda Harvey, president of “Mission America,” which describes that mission as monitoring “homosexual activism in youth culture,” wrote on WorldNewsDaily Oct. 8, “Weird sex, public displays of ‘affection’ and nudity, and sex with youth are built into the ‘gay’ sub-culture.”

Ben Stein wrote in the American Spectator that “I hope it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys.”

Jay Leno joked on air that GOP now stands for “Gay Old Pedophile.”

It’s a divisive lie

The deliberate lie that same-sex love is inherently tied to pedophilia obscures the widespread plight of children suffering from sexual abuse by adults, who are referred to as pedophiles.

Pedophilia is adult sexual desire for pre-pubescent children. Those who sexually abuse children typically are not attracted to adult men or women. A 1994 study found that “a child’s risk of being molested by his or her relative’s heterosexual partner is 100 times greater than by someone who might be identified as a homosexual.” (Carole Jenny, et al.)

A 1999 study of 93,000 sexually abused kids in the U.S. documented that half were abused by their parents and 18 percent by other family relatives.

The American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Child Psychiatrists and the Child Welfare League of America have all issued public policy statements refuting any relationship between same-sex love and child abuse.

The Senate has been formally informed of this fact—in writing.

The June 10, 2002, Dallas Morning News reported, “When asked about this question, the American Psychiatric Association wrote to the Senate: “While we are all concerned by the issue of sexual abuse, there is no credible evidence that lesbians and gay men are more likely to commit such offenses than others. Gay men and lesbians do not pose any particular threat to youth and should not be singled out or discriminated against in any manner.”

So why is an attempt to re-forge a link in the public mind between same-sex love and child rape at the forefront of a fight between Democrats and Republicans in the amphitheater of the Senate rotunda?

What on earth does rape of pre-pubescent children have to do with the Foley scandal?

The six-term Republican Senator from Florida was forced to resign on Sept. 29, the last day of the congressional session, within hours after ABC News reported that he had sent cyber messages last year to a teenage congressional page who was legally at the age of consent at the time.

While subsequent media reports interchangeably refer to the messages as “e-mails” and “instant messages,” the difference between the two forms of communication is important in what it reveals about the timing of this revelation. E-mail messages are saved on servers, easily recovered. Instant messages, however, are typed conversations between two people in real time. The sender or receiver has to save them in a “cache”—a temporary memory storage on the user’s computer.

So who saved these IM’s for a year? Who released them? Why now? It’s been an open “secret” that Foley was gay. A Republican congressional primary opponent baited him back in 1994.

Amid a flurry of charges and denials, Republicans accuse Democrats of leaking the information to ABC News.

The central question is: Which party stands to gain from the revelations? To ask that question is to answer it.

Democrats attack from the right

“October surprises”—political bombshells in the weeks preceding a November election—have come to be expected in capitalist politics. But rumors and scandals involving powerful, wealthy male politicians plying sexual favors from young congressional pages—female and male, willing or unwilling—is almost as old as the 177-year-old page program.

Of course, the Democrats have every partisan reason to be giddy that the Republican Party is in disarray. They are calling for a rout by beating the grass for “who knew what, when?” Reuters reported that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter to the House Ethics Committee charging that it was “abhorrent” that House Republican leaders had apparently taken no action “to protect these underage children.”

This particular scandal, however, is not just about “flipping” the Senate or chiseling away at a 15-seat margin in the House. It reveals how far and how fast the Democratic Party has shifted toward attacking the Republicans from the right.

According to the Nov. 3 New York Times, Democratic Party campaign advertising strategy in southern and Midwestern districts is focusing on “morality.”

An Oct. 3 Wall Street Journal editorial stated, “In North Carolina, the Democratic Party released a statement asking of the incumbent Republican, “Who does Robin Hayes stand up for? Mark Foley and the Republican House leadership or underage children?”

If the Foley story drops off the front page, top Democrat strategists say they will fan the flames until it is back on. (U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 16)

Doesn’t the Democratic Party—soft-cop to the Republican hard-cop—enjoy the reputation of being the party of civil rights, gay rights and women’s right to abortion? Aren’t those the constituents that the Democrats rely on to turn out the vote?

At a time when grass-roots anger is smoldering about the Pentagon war in Iraq, tax breaks to the rich, lower wages, and loss of jobs and social services, greater segments of the working class and oppressed have given up hope voting will bring about significant change.

The evangelical right—including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and the American Family Association—are a powerful machine that has mobilized not merely voters for Republicans but foot soldiers to drum up the vote. Evangelical voters are estimated to be one-quarter of the electorate.

“Democrats see an opening in the Mark Foley scandal to make gains among the white evangelical Christians who broke for George W. Bush over John Kerry by nearly 4 to 1 in 2004,” observed journalist Dan Gilgoff in a U.S.News.com report posted Oct. 6.

Segments of the ruling class have grown increasingly alarmed with the Bush administration’s quagmire in the Middle East, resulting in leaks and scandals.

The “generals” of the Christian right-wing army have as yet refused to break with the GOP over the Foley scandal. Instead, some are using it as leverage to push the Republican Party further to the right. ABC reported, “Conservative activists are beginning to discuss the Mark Foley scandal as indicative of a GOP that has become too tolerant of gays in their midst.” (queerty.com, Oct. 6)

The Democratic Party, as part of the overall shift in the establishment, is moving to the right as well.

During the 2004 presidential election, Democratic hopeful John Kerry called for a state by state strategy to overturn same-sex marriage. Kerry was senator from the first state, Massachusetts, where lesbians and gays had won that right.

Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton tilted her party to the right on the issue of abortion last winter when she stated, “There is no reason why government cannot do more to educate and inform and provide assistance so that the choice guaranteed under our constitution either does not ever have to be exercised or only in very rare circumstances.”

When an evangelical “mega-church” opened in Houston’s former professional basketball arena last year, San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi—House Minority leader—was there to celebrate.

Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean appeared on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” program on Christian Broadcasting Network May 10 and said the Democratic platform states that “marriage is between a man and a woman.”

The fact that it was a lie did not belie Dean’s intent. He concluded: “I’m not saying we’ll agree with everything between the more conservative evangelicals and Democrats but I think there’s more common ground and we’re willing to work with the evangelical community.”

There’s one point of unity on which Democrats and Republicans recently found unanimity: The vote, 100 to 0, for a $470 billion Pentagon budget this year.

Who will protect youth from this predatory imperialist war drive and all the bigotry used to divert attention from its toll? Not either party of big business. It will take an independent movement—one that also defends lesbian, gay, bi and trans rights.