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 Gay British teenage male becomes carnival queen, published Oct 6, 2006, in the pro-homosexuality Washington Blade:

Wearing a tiara and flowing dress, 15-year-old David Bridge was cheered by thousands as the Blackberry Carnival queen in Axbridge, England, wire services reported.

[Click HERE to see the boy’s photo]

…The carnival committee was reportedly stunned by Bridge’s drag-themed audition, but was won over. “We had to decide which would offend people least, including David,” said carnival chair Robin Goodfellow, 66. “It was felt we couldn’t eliminate him just because he was male. This was the best solution on the day.”

Continue reading in Washington Blade…

The Chicago media treated the recent “Gay Games” as if it were a serious sporting and cultural event, but few spectators showed up to watch. Writing for Illinois Family Institute, I called the “Games” a flop. Now we learn that despite all the hype and corporate subsidies (and free publicity), the “Gay Games” was a financial flop, too. Click on the links in the story below for photos and local coverage of the event from June.–Peter LaBarbera

Excerpted from Gay Games Plans Final Event, by Joel Nosh, published Oct 12, 2006, in Chicago Tribune:

Paraphernalia sale intended to help eliminate shortfall

… With a $200,000 budget shortfall on an event organizers predicted would at least break even, everything must go.

By shedding these assets and soliciting donations, organizers who ran the Games on a $10 million cash budget say they will get back to zero or maybe even generate a slight surplus by the spring.

…[Kevin] Boyer said letters were sent to potential donors two weeks ago in an effort to raise $100,000. Another $100,000 has already been pledged in matching funds, he said. More money will come in from the sale of thousands of items large and small later this month.

For the last 12 years, the Gay Games, an international event staged every four years, has been financially troubled.

The 2002 Games in Sydney and 1998 Games in Amsterdam both finished more than $1 million in the red. The 1994 New York Games declared bankruptcy with a $350,000 shortfall, and the 1990 Vancouver Games ended $100,000 in the hole.

In each case, local governments, businesses or both absorbed the ultimate financial blow.

…Gay Games organizers have been chipping away at their debts, Boyer said, and getting creative when able. Equipment has been accepted in place of cash, and in some cases they have asked for bills to be lowered or forgiven.

Chicago Park District spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner said the Gay Games has given $17,000 of equipment, including softball equipment and fencing, to chip away at its balance. Gay Games, which still owes nearly $30,000, also has been sending in money on a payment plan, she said.

Continue reading in Chicago Tribune…

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.

This column by Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media is a gold mine of information on the Mark Foley scandal. Note House Speaker Denny Hastert’s close friendship with (“outed”) homosexual Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) and the tragic effects of the GOP’s flirtation with ‘Log Cabin Republican’ homosexuality. Did you know that Hastert flew to Arizona to campaign for Rep.Kolbe against a conservative, pro-family Republican primary opponent? (Since then, Kolbe has announced his retirement from Congress.)

The Republican Party’s “Big Tent” strategy can never work: you can’t be pro-homosexuality and family-friendly at the same time. How ironic that a scandal arising in part from a “pro-family” party’s toleration of homosexuality (with the added baggage from its sordid cousin, pederasty) may bring down the GOP next month.

At Americans For Truth, we pledge to put principles over politics every time. God does not approve of Republican homosexuality anymore than the Democratic variety! Thanks for standing up unapologetically for the truth in your daily life.–Peter LaBarbera

Republican Gays are Closeted Dems

By Cliff Kincaid
October 12, 2006
So if the gay Republicans are not really Republicans, what are they?

WASHINGTON, D.C.–The complex nature of the “dirty trick” against the Republicans over the Mark Foley scandal is beginning to emerge. It doesn’t involve a George Soros-funded group or emails that had been in the possession of the media or shopped around by Democratic operatives. Instead, the GOP has played a trick on itself. The party brought so-called gay Republicans into positions of power in Congress only to realize that the confidential information they held about a secret gay network was political dynamite that could backfire.

At this point in the scandal, the issue is not whether there was such a network, but how big it is. CBS Evening News correspondent Gloria Borger reported the emerging belief that “a group of high-level gay Republican staffers were protecting” Foley. A New York Times story by Mark Leibovich confirmed that gay Republicans have occupied “crucial staff positions” in Congress and “have played decisive roles in passing legislation, running campaigns and advancing careers.”

The mystery man at the center of the scandal, Jeff Trandahl, is supposed to be a “lifelong Republican” who is gay. But Trandahl, who supervised the congressional page program as House clerk and knew about the controversial Foley emails many years ago, has a strange way of showing his Republicanism. A search of Federal Election Commission (FEC) records over the last six years shows no financial contributions to the Republican Party or Republican candidates. Instead, Trandahl in 2000 gave $1,200 to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which gives over 80 percent of its political campaign money to Democrats.

Trandahl is so much of a Republican that he joined the board of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, another gay political action committee that commits most of its funds to electing Democrats. Its latest list of “winning candidates” is all Democrats, except for Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee, who admits not voting for President Bush in 2004.

If you are getting the idea that gay Republicans may be closeted Democrats, then you are beginning to understand how the Mark Foley scandal could have been a Democratic Party dirty trick.

In response to the scandal, a representative of the Log Cabin Republicans, a homosexual activist group, has been on cable channels like CNN and MSNBC expressing the fear that the Foley scandal will be used to root out homosexual influence in the Republican Party. But the Log Cabin Republicans are so Republican that its board voted 22-2 against endorsing President Bush in 2004 because of his stand against homosexual “marriage.”

Listen to this 1 minute audio from Dr. Albert Mohler, citing examples of public (taxpayer supported) universities promoting homosexuality.

Click HERE to listen.