Some Guys Are Normal

Answer to the Foley Debacle- Blame the Gays

I'm sure you've all heard more than your share of news about the Foley incident in which the Congressman sent dirty emails and instant messages to several teenage pages. In case you were wondering--I'm joining the chorus to call Foley's actions despicable. Right now the only positive point seems to be that the behavior never went beyond cyberspace. Hopefully that holds true.

Unfortunately, though, the anti-gay folks are using this incident as an opportunity to shamelessly attack gays in general. On the Exodus Blog, I ran across a letter from Gary Bauer, Chairman of the Campaign for Working Families where Gary takes this prime opportunity to hit gays while a conservative is down.

In the same letter in which Bauer accuses liberals and Democrats of attacking all Republicans for the actions of one person, he himself tries to tie this scandal to all gays, citing gay groups that are attempting to lower age of consent laws and NAMBLA as an organization that has support from gay groups. Bauer goes on to cite two Democratic scandals involving gay folks, in an attempt to deflect anger and disappointment off of Foley and the Republicans and back where it belongs--on the gays.

Let me get this straight--you can't pin this problem on all Republicans (even if several apparently already knew of this activity), but you can blame all gays for this. Interesting.

How sad for someone who claims such a strong belief in "right and wrong" to pin this action on gays--falseley linking gays to NAMBLA and separately to an attempt to lower age of consent laws. Notice he doesn't back this up with evidence. I personally haven't seen any mainstream gay groups fighting for such changes, and NAMBLA is not a participating member of any gay rights parade I'm familiar with (I know for a fact they do not participate in Houston, which is one of the country's largest).

I wonder if Gary realizes that lying and trying to pass blame is actually part of that "right and wrong" dichotomy he holds so dear. Sadly, his followers, and even people like Randy Thomas, seem to think deflection and false claims are ok. I guess "wrong" doesn't apply when you are attacking gays.

posted by Brady @ 9:46 AM