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It was bound to happen in the brouhaha surrounding Foley’s resignation from Congress over inappropriate contacts with underage male pages: conservatives are using the scandal to attempt linking homosexuality with pedophilia.

The Wall Street Journal carries one of the most ignorant editorials I have read in a long time. In it, it basically makes this argument: political correctness prevented Hastert from taking action because of Foley’s homosexuality, when his orientation could have tipped Hastert off to the possibility of Foley’s interest in boys. We should blame the culture of tolerance for homosexuality for the GOP not having done anything sooner.

Relevant excerpts:

But this being five weeks from an election, the GOP House leadership is also being assailed for not having come down more strongly on a gay Congressman for showing a more than friendly interest in underage boys.

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In [a Foley-page email] exchange, Mr. Foley had asked the teenager “how old are you now” and requested “an email pic.” In our admittedly traditional view, this was odd and suspect behavior, especially because Mr. Foley was well known as a homosexual even if he declined to publicly acknowledge it.

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What next was Mr. Hastert supposed to do with an elected Congressman? Assume that Mr. Foley was a potential sexual predator and bar him from having any private communication with pages? Refer him to the Ethics Committee? In retrospect, barring contact with pages would have been wise.

But in today’s politically correct culture, it’s easy to understand how senior Republicans might well have decided they had no grounds to doubt Mr. Foley merely because he was gay and a little too friendly in emails. Some of those liberals now shouting the loudest for Mr. Hastert’s head are the same voices who tell us that the larger society must be tolerant of private lifestyle choices, and certainly must never leap to conclusions about gay men and young boys. Are these Democratic critics of Mr. Hastert saying that they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts’ decision to ban gay scoutmasters? Where’s Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on that one?

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[Congress's condemnation and Foley's resignation] is harsher treatment than was meted out in the past to some Members of Congress who crossed another line and actually had sexual relations with underage pages. Democrat Gerry Studds of Massachusetts was censured in 1983 for seducing a male teenage page, but remained in the House for another 13 years and retired…

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Yes, Mr. Hastert and his staff should have done more to quarantine Mr. Foley from male pages after the first email came to light. But if that’s the standard, we should all admit we are returning to a rule of conduct that our cultural elite long ago abandoned as intolerant.

Bullshit.

I wish the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal would do its research before spouting something so blatantly ignorant. The fact is that the vast majority, 95%, of child predators are heterosexual, not homosexual. (Holmes, W. C., M.D., MSCE, and G.B. Slap, M.S. Sexual Abuse of Boys. 280(1) Journal of the American Medical Association (1998): 1855-1862, citing numerous studies.)

Pedophilia is a mental disorder revolving around power that has nothing whatsoever to do with sexual orientation, so it is not surprising that the incidence of pedophilia among heterosexuals vs. homosexuals roughly mirrors the percentages of straights vs. gays generally.

As a side note, I couldn’t help but notice how the editorial focused on Democrat Gerry Studds’s sex-with-a-male-page scandal while completely forgetting about Republican Dan Crane, who received the same treatment as Studds around the same time over his relationship with a female underaged page. Maybe the Journal’s op-ed “overlooked” this little factoid because it didn’t square with their “homosexuality = pedophilia” nonsense.

If I didn’t value the Wall Street Journal’s business reporting so highly I would cancel my subscription for its blatant use of the Foley scandal as anti-gay propaganda. This is the year 2006, and the Journal’s ignorant homophobia is reprehensible.

An October surprise: a sudden, stunning event late in an election season that has the potential to greatly affect the election itself.

We’re only one day from October, but it’s close enough. The blogosphere is alight with news reports that House Republican leaders Dennis Hastert and John Boehner have been aware of Foley’s pedophilic behavior for months and did nothing about it. Boehner, who initially told the Post he had told Hastert about it, later waffled and said he couldn’t remember if he had. Please. It sure wasn’t news to the pages, who were warned about Foley by people involved with the page program. The chairman of the House page board even mounted a cursory investigation and reported that fact to Hastert’s office, although Democrats were conveniently not informed.

Blogs are outraged by the hypocrisy of it all. Says Total Information Awareness:

D.C.’s age of consent is 16, but even with that, it seems like Foley could be in some serious legal trouble in addition to the political scandal. And where is the Religious Right on this issue, when apparently Bill Clinton getting his knob slobbed by a woman clearly far beyond the age of consent was equivalent to Sodom and Gomorrah?

*crickets*

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And as for the GOP, well…cronyism, corruption, torture, and now child pandering. Behold what your modern right-wing movement has brought you.

Americablog is pounding on the Republican leadership from every angle, and is particularly outraged at Hastert:

ABC reported this evening that GOP House Speaker Denny Hastert has asked for an investigation to make sure other pages weren’t sexually harassed or abused. But the House leadership was told almost a year ago about Mark Foleys’ hanky-panky online communications with underage pages and Hastert did nothing. Why didn’t Hastert do an investigation at the time to make sure the pages were all right? Why did Hastert leave Foley in charge of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children when he knew Foley had some possible personal issues involving the exploitation of children? Why did Hastert let Foley remain in the House leadership for a good year after he knew about these accusations? Cruising underage kids isn’t a disqualifier for being in the House leadership? Why did Denny Hastert let Foley remain anywhere near underage pages at all?

Would you let your kids near someone like Foley if you had been warned a year ago? Then why did Denny Hastert? The parent of every kid who was a page in the last year should be livid at the Republicans right now.

If the Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal is any indicator, the GOP may be in for a very hard few weeks ahead.