Far Right = Ignorant Assholes?

In the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, many conservatives have blamed Foley’s behavior on his homosexual orientation. Pat Buchanan suggested that once the Republicans knew Foley was gay they should have removed him as chairman of the Committee on Missing and Exploited Children, after repeatedly calling him a “flamer” on MSNBC. Gingrich has suggested that the Republicans could not investigate Foley’s inappropriate conduct towards minors because they might be accused of gay bashing. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council stated that “when we hold up tolerance and diversity as a guidepost for public life, this is what you end up getting, congressmen chasing 16 year old boys up and down the halls of congress.” Pat Robertson insists that Foley is just doing what gay people do. The right insists that gay men are all preoccupied with sex and that being gay is the same as being a pedophile.


These accusations are absolutely ridiculous. How can we blame Foley’s pedophilia on homosexuality and not blame the molestation of little girls on heterosexuality? If being attracted to men = want to molest little boys, then being attracted to women = want to molest little girls. Obviously, this does not compute. If a straight congressman had solicited female pages for sex, no one would be blaming his sexual orientation. Did the nation lash out at straight men when John Couey sexually battered and killed Jessica Lunsford? Did conservatives rally agasint heterosexuals when the Amish gunman wanted to molest and then killed those little Amish school girls? Of course not. Did conservatives lash out agasint all males because the overwhelming majority of violent, sexual predators are men? No. The idea of blaming an entire class of people for the individual choices and behaviors of a few individuals is generally not acceptable. At least, not unless you are doing it for political reasons to attack a group of people that, for some ridiculous and intolerant reason, you hate.

Being sexually attracted to children, and acting on that attraction, has nothing to so with one’s sexual orientation. It is perversion. When will the right stop demonizing homosexuals?