Pagegate is Par for the Course
By Rev. Barbara Reynolds
NNPA Columnist
Thursday, October 19, 2006

  
In recent weeks, the GOP-led Congress took $11 billion away from funds earmarked to help struggling college students and then turned around and passed a tax cut to put more cash in the hands of folks so rich that only 8,100 fat cats could qualify. So the Republicans’ failure to corral former Rep. Mark Foley (R.Fla.), who was sending smutty x-rated e-mails to young male congressional pages is just business as usual. Unless you are super-rich, powerful or a “have-more” as President Bush described his in-crowd, you just don’t count.
  
The Republicans have consistently shown that except for the super-rich, the protection of our lives, children, health, property or even our moral integrity is not their concern. The Pagegate scandal is the latest example of the Republican arrogance toward most Americans.
  
Pagegate is so chockfull of slime that we should tell our children to leave the room before we begin repeating all the salacious details involved. To make matters worse, Foley chaired the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, the group empowered to protect children from people like Foley.
  
Just in case you missed reading the transcripts, here are excerpts of interviews with young congressional pages as they described what Foley was communicating to them:
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A graduate of the 1998 page class said Foley’s instant messages wanted to talk, “about my penis.”
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“I was 17 years old and just returned to my home state when Foley began to e-mail me, asking if I had even seen my page roommates naked and how big their penises were.” The former page said Foley told him that if he happened to be in Washington, D.C. he could stay at Foley’s home if he would engage in oral sex with Foley.
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“Foley would say he was sitting in his boxers and asked what I was wearing.”
  
What makes this scandal so appalling is Foley’s apparent protection by other Republican congressmen, including possibly J. Dennis Hastert, speaker of the House. The other piece is that the GOP is supposed to be the pious, super-moral, holier- than-thou Party of God that in the last two national elections dragged gay marriages into politics as a wedge to siphon off votes from the Democrats.
  
The party that made gays a political issue now wants to drop it like a hot potato, but sorry it is too late. I can’t help but wonder if there is some kind of inner cabal that protects closeted gays in similar ways that priests, who were abusing young boys, were protected by bishops and cardinals. Moreover, will further investigations find that there is more here than just the vile e-mails?
  
Politics aside, it is young people and their future moral development that is at stake here. The pages are learning that when trouble lands on your doorstep, lie, pass the buck and keep silent if you want to get ahead. They are also finding there is no real protection for the weaker or the vulnerable from the powerful. What a shame.
  
If President Clinton were on the verge of being tossed out of office for having sex with a 21-year-old White House intern, then why should the GOP get a pass for not censoring or removing Foley out of the way of young people who came to Washington and were subjected to pornographic communication at the highest levels? ABC-TV News has reported that several congressional aides told Speaker Hastert of concerns about Foley’s behavior toward pages more than three years ago.
  
Pagegate has made a mockery out of the GOP self-proclaimed protectorate of family values.  
  
So, Pagegate is not only about smut at the highest level and GOP congressional figures protecting themselves rather than children. The scandal is what the Republican Party stands for and how the governed allows this to happen.


Rev. Barbara Reynolds, the religion columnist for NNPA, is the author of four books, including “Out Of Hell & Living Well: Healing from the Inside Out.” She is a graduate of the Howard University School of Divinity and the United Theological Seminary, where she earned a doctorate degree in ministry. She can be reached at www.reynoldsnews.com.