Sunday, October 08, 2006
(10:43 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
The Mark Foley Scandal
I'm just not sure it's that big of a deal. If it somehow leads to a defeat for the Republicans in November, then that's great -- but isn't there enough to dislike about Republicans already? Are there swing voters out there making their decisions based on the relative creepiness of the IMs sent by congressmen of each party? Don't get me wrong: the IMs were creepy. At the same time, there doesn't appear to have been any sexual contact involved, much less molestation or rape.Also, while some have claimed that he's somehow hypocritical for opposing child pornography, etc., there's a difference between "teenagers who are technically still below the age of consent" and "children." The difference between having sex with a sixteen-year-old and a nine-year-old is pretty stark -- the one is questionable depending on circumstances, but the latter is always and everywhere criminal. The conflation of the two is not a helpful way of drawing moral distinctions.
It becomes sinister, however, when this conflation is extended to homosexuality, as in the priest sex abuse scandal. Most of these priests were pursuing teenagers, but it was treated as child abuse because of the age of consent -- and then all of a sudden, it's determined that gay priests have a predisposition toward pedophilia.
Homophobia has always worked by conflating homosexuality with criminal sexual acts, such as incest, pedophilia, bestiality, etc., and the only way to work up really serious outrage against this Mark Foley thing is to ignore all manner of valid and necessary distinctions and to turn a man who showed a certain level of indiscretion in flirting with his pages into a pedophile. If people are going to do that anyway, then I'm not opposed to the Democrats gaining from it. On the other hand, if somehow the Republican apologists (or members of their audience) end up remembering all their nuanced fine distinctions on the Foley case the next time a case of a gay man being (gasp!) attracted to teenagers comes up, then that will be good, too.
