In 1999, the American Psychological Association published a study on the impact of child sexual abuse which concluded that:

…Lasting psychological harm was uncommon…Two thirds of SA men and more than one fourth of SA women reported neutral or positive reactions…

Classifying a behavior as abuse simply because it is generally viewed as immoral or defined as illegal is problematic…

…CSA [child sexual abuse] does not cause intense harm on a pervasive basis…

One possible approach to a scientific definition…is to focus on the young person’s perception of his or her willingness to participate and his or her reactions to the experience. A willing encounter with positive reactions would be labeled simply adult-child sex, a value-neutral term. If a young person felt that he or she did not freely participate in the encounter and if he or she experienced negative reactions to it, then child sexual abuse, a term that implies harm to the individual, would be valid. Moreover, the term child should be restricted to nonadolescent children ( Ames & Houston, 1990 ). Adolescents are different from children in that they are more likely to have sexual interests, to know whether they want a particular sexual encounter, and to resist an encounter that they do not want. Furthermore, unlike adult-child sex, adult-adolescent sex has been commonplace cross-culturally and historically, often in socially sanctioned forms, and may fall within the “normal” range of human sexual behaviors ( Bullough, 1990 ; Greenberg, 1988 ; Okami, 1994 ). A willing encounter between an adolescent and an adult with positive reactions on the part of the adolescent would then be labeled scientifically as adult-adolescent sex, while an unwanted encounter with negative reactions would be labeled adolescent sexual abuse…

HR 107 was introduced in Congress to condemn these findings.

Rep. Ted Strickland (D-OH) was one of thirteen congressmen who voted “present” (rather than “yea” or “nay”) on HR 107 (which passed with 355 yeas). The other twelve were:

• Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
• Rep. Thomas Allen (D-ME)
• Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA)
• Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
• Rep. William Delahunt (-MA)
• Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA)
• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
• Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
• Rep. E.B Johnson (D-TX)
• Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI)
• Rep. James Moran (D-VA)
• Rep. Fortney Stark (D-CA)

(SOURCE: Thomas Legislative Information)

The following was excerpted from ‘Foley problem’ Surfaces for Ohio Democrats, published Oct 11, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio

In the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, questions are circulating below the radar screen in Ohio about the past record of Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland on pedophilia.

Strickland is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Ohio running against Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

The issue surfaced Dec. 15, 2005, when the left-leaning Athens News reported on an anonymous letter-writing campaign to Democratic voters citing Strickland’s vote as “present” and not in support of the 1999 House Concurrent Resolution 107 that condemned an American Psychological Association study supporting “nonnegative sexual interactions between adults and adolescents.”…

In the Democratic primary, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brian Flannery openly challenged Strickland on his HCR 107 vote. Flannery still has posted on his gubernatorial website Strickland’s July 27, 1999, speech on the House floor explaining his refusal to condemn the APA pedophilia study.

Mr. STRICKLAND: Mr. Speaker, it troubles me that sometimes in this Chamber we stand and say things that we ought not to say. We criticize people that we have no right to criticize.
We recently voted to condemn a scientific study and an organization, an organization that has done as much as any organization in this country to fight child abuse.

…The HRC 107 controversy resurfacing in the last month of the Ohio gubernatorial campaign also has brought back another controversy over sexual misconduct that first was launched by Flannery, Strickland’s Democratic challenger.

On March 17, during the primary campaign, Lynn Hulsey reported in the Dayton Daily News that Flannery had accused Strickland of hiring from 1997 to 1999 a male congressional and campaign staffer who had been convicted of exposing himself to children. As Hulsey wrote:

According to Athens police, the man’s case stems from 1994, when he was arrested for public indecency after several children reported he’d exposed himself. Police records show he was found guilty, although the exact charge is unclear.

Flannery also accused Strickland of taking the man with him to Italy after his 1998 congressional campaign. Again, Hulsey wrote:

Strickland said campaign workers planned to treat themselves to the trip if Strickland won, but as it turned out only Strickland and the man were able to go.

Hulsey reported Strickland had learned of the sexual misconduct charge against his employee late in the 1998 campaign through an anonymous letter, but he discounted the letter since it was sent anonymously. Hulsey quoted Strickland as saying “perhaps” he should have pursued the matter more aggressively, but at the time he took no action. The man left Strickland’s office of his own accord in 1999, after the reported trip to Italy with Strickland.

Americans for Truth comment:

Interestingly, Ted Strickland offered a different standard for House leaders…

Another Ohio lawmaker, Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lisbon, faulted House leaders for an inadequate response last fall to a complaint they received about Foley…

“I think we need to find out what he knew and when he knew it before we can make that decision,” he said.

…Among Strickland’s endorsers is the choice of Ohio’s openly pro-homosexuality PAC, the Equality Ohio Campaign Fund, or EOCF. In endorsing Strickland, EOCF emphasized his service as a minister, a psychologist and a professor, commenting:

Representative Strickland has long been an ally of and advocate for LGBT (Lesbian-Gay-Bi-sexual-Transvestite) people. He maintained a 100% rating with the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard while in Congress. He voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA).

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…

Excerpted from Bishop Tobin Says Same-Sex Marriage Is ‘Spiritually Harmful’, published Oct 18, 2006, by Catholic News Agency:

Same-sex marriage is not an issue of civil rights, said Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence in a recent letter to the editor.

“There’s never a right to do something wrong,” he said. “Human freedom is not unbridled license; it must be grounded in truth.”

The bishop’s letter was published Oct. 14 in the Providence Journal, Rhode Island’s largest daily newspaper, after a Rhode Island lesbian couple — Wendy Becker and Mary Norton — was legally married in Massachusetts on Oct. 8, reported NBC 10.

In the letter, the bishop said same-sex marriage is “spiritually harmful to individuals and families and erodes the foundation of society”.

“Homosexual acts are contrary to the law of nature and gravely immoral,” the bishop wrote. “The state has no business encouraging immoral behavior or ratifying illicit unions.”

Censured Democrat Congressman would get boys drunk, take them to his apartment, then make his move

“In his deposition, the male page who had allegedly traveled to Europe with Representative Studds, testified that…they engaged in sexual activity every two or three days during this trip.”

Q. After you met Congressman Studds, did you and he get together again after that?
A. Yes. Shortly thereafter … I was invited to go out to dinner with him and I did. The dinner took place at his apartment in Georgetown…..
Q. …[W]hat happened at that dinner?
A. Well, we sat around and talked about abstract and general questions, all types and descriptions, until four in the morning, drinking vodka and cranberry juice, at which time I was told by the Congressman that he was too drunk to give me a ride home and so he said, ‘Why don’t you sleep here?’ and I did.

AN Americans For Truth SPECIAL REPORT
By Peter LaBarbera

The death Saturday of former Massachusetts Rep. Gerry Studds (D) is an untimely one for Democrats hoping to use the Mark Foley scandal to dethrone Republicans in the House of Representatives. While the prospects of political rehabilitation are bleak for Foley, Studds was re-elected six times after it was revealed that he had sex with a 16- to 17-year-old page—and tried to seduce two other minor boys—as a Congressman in 1973 (Studds was 36 at the time).

News stories on Studds’ death at age 69 report on his censure by Congress in 1983 for having a “consensual” sexual “relationship” with the underage boy, but this begs the question: is it a “consensual relationship” when the adult predator plies his underage targets with alcohol or abuses his authority by taking one on a trip to Europe—both of which Studds did?

The sad truth is that Studds, although brilliant and talented in other areas of his life, was a pervert who never apologized for his predations on innocent and impressionable boys. In fact, once discovered, Studds manipulated the scandal as way to gain sympathy as a supposedly aggrieved “gay” man. In other words, in his own mind Studds was the victim, not the corrupted boys.

Of course, the media are mostly buying it. Press stories have highlighted the alleged injustice of Studds’ male “husband” not receiving pension benefits because the federal government does not recognize their Massachusetts “marriage.” (The federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines spouse and marriage in federal law as between a man and a woman, may have saved the taxpayers more than $114,000 in this case; Studds’ estimated annual congressional pension is reportedly $114,337.)

CONTINUE READING THIS AFT SPECIAL REPORT

Call the State Dept. main switchboard at 202-647-4000 and ask to be connected to Condoleeza Rice’s office to leave your comments about her pro-homosexual remarks during the swearing-in of openly homosexual Mark Dybul as global AIDS ambassador.

The following is excerpted from Rice’s Approving ‘Gay’ Remarks Rankle GOP Base, published Oct 16, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

…Rice and first lady Laura Bush spoke for the administration at the Oct. 10 swearing-in at the State Department where Dybul was accompanied by his male partner, Jason Claire. Rice, during her comments, referred to the presence of Claire’s mother and called her Dybul’s “mother-in-law.”

According to the State Department transcript, Rice said:

Thank you. Thank you very much. I am truly honored and delighted to have the opportunity to swear in Mark Dybul as our next Global AIDS Coordinator. I am pleased to do that in the presence of Mark’s parents, Claire and Richard; his partner, Jason; and his mother-in-law, Marilyn. You have wonderful family to support you, Mark, and I know that’s always important to us. Welcome.

The use of a term normally reserved for legally married heterosexual families rankled Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council, who called Rice’s comments “profoundly offensive,” according to Agape Press.

The secretary’s remarks, he said, fly in the face of the Bush administration’s endorsement of a federal marriage protection amendment.

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…

Excerpted from Foley Case Upsets Tough Balance of Capitol Hill’s Gay Republicans, by Mark Leibovich, published Oct 8, 2006, in The New York Times:

• Brian Bennett, a gay Republican political consultant…was a longtime chief of staff to former Representative Robert K. Dornan, Republican of California, who regularly referred to gays as Sodomites.
• Kirk Fordham, Mr. Foley’s onetime chief of staff … resigned Wednesday as an aide to Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, Republican of New York…After leaving Mr. Foley’s office in 2004, he worked as finance director for the campaign of Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida.
• Jeff Trandahl [was] formerly the clerk of the House of Representatives, a powerful post with oversight of hundreds of staffers and the page program.
• Robert Traynham, the top communications aide to Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania… had been openly gay for years, but that was not widely known in his professional life — until a gay rights advocate revealed his sexual orientation last year. Mr. Traynham confirmed the report, and Mr. Santorum issued a statement in support of his aide.
• Tracey St. Pierre…was chief of staff for former Representative Charles T. Canady, Republican of Florida.

Continue reading in The New York Times…

Excerpted from ‘Big Three’ TV Networks Charged with Piling On in Reporting on Foley Scandal, by Jody Brown and Bill Fancher, published October 13, 2006, by Agape Press:

A conservative media watchdog group is reporting that its research exposes the mainstream media’s biased treatment of sex scandals among lawmakers in Congress…

Conservative spokesmen Gary Bauer and Peter LaBarbera evidently agree with Bozell’s assessment…

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth asserts that some Democrats are being hypocritical when they are expressing outrage about the Foley matter. LaBarbera says they “turned their backs” several years ago when the homosexual lover of Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) was allegedly running a male prostitute ring out of Frank’s own apartment in Washington, DC. Despite that, Franks has been elected to 13 terms in the House, notes LaBarbera.

“Then there’s [Democratic Congressman] Gerry Studds who consorted with a [17-year-old] boy [in the 1970s] … and when the House voted to censure him [in 1983], Representative Studds turned his back on the House, defiant against them,” says LaBarbera. Studds was elected five times after the censure.

In LaBarbera’s opinion, Democrats have set the example for looking the other way when it comes to homosexual-related scandals among their own members. For that reason, he feels they have no right to accuse Republicans of turning a blind eye to the Foley situation.

Continue reading at Agape Press…

Excerpted from Studds, 1st Openly Gay Congressman, Dies, by Jay Lindsay, published Oct 14, 2006, by Associated Press:

Former Rep. Gerry Studds, who became the first openly gay member of Congress when his homosexuality was exposed during a teenage page sex scandal, died early Saturday. He was 69.

Studds died at Boston Medical Center several days after he collapsed while walking his dog, his husband said. Doctors determined his loss of consciousness was due to a blood clot in his lung, [said] Dean Hara …who married Studds shortly after same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004.

In 1983, Studds acknowledged his homosexuality after a 27-year-old man disclosed that he and Studds had had a sexual relationship a decade earlier when the man was a teenage congressional page…

At the time, Studds called the relationship with the teenage page, which included a trip to Europe, “a very serious error in judgment.” But he did not apologize and defended the relationship as a consensual relationship with a young adult. The former page later appeared publicly with Studds in support of him…

Hara said Studds was never ashamed of the relationship with the page.

“This young man knew what he was doing,” Hara said. “He was at (Studds’) side.”

…In 1996, Congress named the 842-square-mile Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary after him in recognition of his work protecting the marine environment.

Continue reading at My Way News…

Click to listen to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered:

“Gay” Republicans Feel Heat from the Foley Scandal

by Ari Shapiro

October 13, 2006 – It’s an open secret in Washington that gay men play an active role in Republican Party politics at every level. In the wake of the recent Congressional sex scandal, gay Republican politicians and their staffers are finding themselves attacked from the right and from the left.