Pagegate: The Disturbing Historical Context

Heard that there had been other Page related sex scandals in the past and the Internet being the wonderful place it is, I thought I'd have a look. I was a bit disturbed by the results. Wikipedia had a section on a 1983 scandal.

On July 14, 1983 the House Ethics Committee concluded that Rep. Dan Crane (R-Ill.) and Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.) had engaged in sexual relationships with minors, specifically 17-year-old congressional pages. In Crane's case, it was a 1980 relationship with a female page and in Studds's case, it was a 1973 relationship with a male page. Both representatives immediately pleaded guilty to the charges and the committee decided to simply reprimand the two.

However, Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) demanded their expulsion. On July 20, 1983, the House voted for censure, the first time that censure had been imposed for sexual misconduct. Crane, who subsequently apologized for his transgression, lost his bid for reelection in 1984.

Studds, however, stood by the facts of the case and refused to apologize for his behavior, and even turned his back and ignored the censure being read to him. He called a press conference with the former page, in which both stated that the young man, who was 17, consented. Studds had taken the adolescent to Morocco to engage in sexual activity, and therefore did not break any U.S. laws in what he called a "private relationship."[1] He continued to be reelected until his retirement in 1996.

Now that is just sick. Since the Dems have been so free with painting all Republicans as being part of the environment of corruption, how can it be that they had a member of their caucus that actually had sex with a page, but also took him out of the country for the purposes of having sex? And to be frank, I'm completely baffled that the state of Massachusetts would continue to elect him after this. Don't even try to feed me the "that was a decade ago" bullshit. Many of the same politicians are in place today that were in office then.

Personally I find it offensive that Foley did what he did, and I think Hastert is a fool if he did anything to cover this up. They both should pay the penalties, whether criminal or political. As for the Dems screeching about it, I think they may want to tone it down a touch, since their house has some very large skeletons that they choose to ignore.

Maybe we should use the tactic that so many in the gun-control camp use and just eliminate the Page system, that way at least the perverts in congress won't be tempted to exceed their worst desires.

And, VDH has a comment on his blog at Pajamasmedia on topic.

Pedophilia (“love of children”) is different from pederasty (“desire for boys”); each term uses the Greek prefix pais/paidion differently, since the Greek word can refer both to the generic “children” and the gender-specific “boy.” In addition, “—philia” is the more abstract “love” and covers any and all type of contacts, while the “-erast- root came to mean sexual union largely in a male context.

Why the distinction? It seems that Congressman Foley in not a pedophile as accused, but rather a classical pederast—that is, he is an active male homosexual interested mostly in adolescent boys rather than men his own age. Given his proclivities, I doubt there is much controversy over what he was intending in his emails, or his aims with Congressional pages. What is strange, however, is why some of the Republicans have hesitated to damn his behavior, which reminds me of something right out of Aristophanes.

Were Foley a military officer, and wrote such things to an enlisted man, he would immediately have been court-martialed. And those now sort of, kind of, almost defending him on grounds that there is no acutal, concrete, proof that he consummated his desires, had he written such graphic and sickening things to their own teen-boys, would have had him jailed—or worse.

How odd, this controversy: traditional moralists like some of the Republicans are defending a predatory pederast who seems to be infatuated with teen-age Congressional pages who are entrusted as near children to his care, while Democrats, who have made it a point not to criticize one’s “life-style” choices (remember the Barney Frank case) are suddenly outraged over the overly-liberal parameters in which Foley was allowed to operate.

Still Republicans need to wise up: this is a losing issue since the public doesn’t really care whether the Democrats are hypocritical, using scandal for partisan advantage, or hysterical in seeking headlines: the facts determine the case: a US Congressman wrote sexually suggestive messages designed to entice an underage subordinate employee. End of story. All this is left to doubt now, is how much the Republicans will hurt themselves if they persist in whining about partianship rather than condemning pederastic flirting.