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…

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.”

Excerpted from When Nancy Met Harry, by Jeffrey Lord, published Oct 5, 2006, by The American Spectator:

The Pride Parade.

That’s what it’s called in San Francisco when the community gathers for a parade during the annual San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride Celebration. It is, by all accounts, a wingding of a celebration, too. As the San Francisco Chronicle, the media sponsor of the Pride Parade,…bursting with civic pride, was also pleased to publish the marching order of the parade and all its celebrants. It’s quite a list. A who’s who of San Francisco. Then Supervisor and now Democratic mayor Gavin Newsom, members of two Democratic Clubs, California Democratic legislators, the police, sheriff and fire departments and even the director of the Golden Gate Bridge were marching right alongside celebrants from Vulva University [which offers “Sex Wisdom Classes”], The Stud Bar [“a queer establishment since 1966”], and Leather Pride.

It is, in short, the San Francisco political establishment whooping it up with its constituents…

Celebrant number 31 was the late Harry Hay [photos]…famous not only as a founder of the gay rights movement, for his one-time relationship with actor Will Geer (who played Grandpa Walton on The Waltons TV series,) he was also known for being featured in the 1976 documentary film of gay life titled Word Is Out. When he died the following year after the parade, at 90, the New York Times Magazine featured him in “The Lives They Lived,” its annual pictorial salute to famous Americans who had passed away during the preceding year. In addition to laudatory obits in both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, the Chronicle did a considerably flattering obituary. “Harry Hay, gay rights pioneer, dies at 90.” The paper favorably notes a number of things in Harry’s life, including his left-leaning politics, his connection with the Communist Party in the 1930s and his founding of “The Mattachine Society,” a group the Chronicle calls “the first sustained homosexual rights organization in the United States.”

…The Chronicle, however, left something else out of the obituary entirely…

Harry Hay was a fierce advocate of man/boy love. While The Chronicle simply ignored Harry’s views, the North American Man/Boy Love Association was only too delighted to put up a collection of Harry’s views on the need for young boys to have older men as sexual partners.

Excerpted from Foley’s Fall Spotlights Growing Velvet Mafia Influence in GOP, published Oct 9, 2006, by WDC Media:

Amid the fallout of the Mark Foley scandal, one consequence appears to be an increasing exposure of the influential role homosexuals have within the Republican party. As the New York Times reported Sunday, homosexuals in the Republican Party — sometimes known by insider slang terms including the “velvet mafia” or the “pink elephants” — are a well-established force in the GOP.

According to the Times, many of these homosexual Republicans “have held crucial staff positions for decades,” and this has been even more the case in recent years…

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth believes the media have taken great pains to avoid using the words “homosexual” or “gay” in coverage of the Foley scandal. “There’s clearly an effort here to make this somehow a pedophile issue or something that’s separate from the homosexual issue,” he asserts, “and, of course, this is right up the homosexual alley.”

There is a well-documented history of homosexual men pursuing underage boys, LaBarbera says; but homosexual activists are getting help in burying this fact. “What we’re seeing here,” he contends, “is another effort by the media, working with the gay lobby, to separate out Foley’s predations on a teenage boy from the homosexual issue.”

The media is not being intellectually honest about the Foley situation or the pattern that it illustrates, the pro-family activist insists. “There’s a long history of homosexuals being predators on teenage boys,” he says.

“The fact is, if you go all the way back to the days of ancient Greece, there were homosexual relationships between adult men and teenage boys; so it’s really ridiculous to say this has nothing to do with homosexuality,” LaBarbera notes. He says the media’s reporting of the Foley scandal has been marked by a great deal of political correctness, while the media have actually helped homosexual activists bury the truth.

Continue reading at WDC Media…

Excerpted from Congressional Page Scandal Takes on Anti-gay Bent as Details Emerge, published Oct 6, 2006, in the pro-GLBT Dallas Voice:

As the Republican Congressional leadership scrambled to determine the true scope of the sex scandal surrounding former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and at the same time distance themselves from the Florida Republican, GLBT and progressive activists condemned what they characterized as the anti-gay bent of the response from both office holders and right-wing leaders…

Many gay rights and progressive activists, while criticizing Republicans’ handling of the situation, are even more incensed at efforts by the GOP and right-wing leaders to deflect attention from Republican officials by linking pedophilia to homosexuality.

Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, said “right-wing leaders have wasted no time in turning the Foley-Hastert scandal into an attack on gay Americans and advocates for equality.”

He pointed as examples to comments such as those by Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, who said, “When you hold of tolerance and diversity, this is what you end up getting. … [neither Republicans nor Democrats] seem likely to address the real issue, which is the link between homosexuality and child abuse.”

Linda Harvey, writing in World Net Daily, described Foley’s behavior as “typical behavior for homosexuals,” and Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth, said the scandal “illustrates the dangers of the GOP’s growing flirtation with pro-homosexual policies,” according to a report on the Christian Newswire.

LaBarbera listed Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., former Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass., and former Rep. Bob Baughman, R-Md., as “outed or openly homosexual male Congressmen” who have been caught in sex scandals in the past.

“Three homosexual Congressmen have been involved in sexual seductions of minor boys, yet ‘gay’ activists ridicule anyone who suggests there is a predatory component to male homosexuality,” he told the Christian Newswire.

Frank’s former boyfriend had used the congressman’s Washington, D.C.-apartment as headquarters for a male prostitution ring, without Frank’s knowledge. Studds was censured by the House for having consensual sex with a 17-year-old boy. Bauman was charged with soliciting a 16-year-old boy for sex in 1980.

Studds and Frank were both re-elected after the scandals broke.

Continue reading at Dallas Voice… 

By Peter LaBarbera

(Published Oct 9, 2006, in Post Chronicle)

Note the excerpt below from homosexual writer Andrew Sullivan, from his October 2nd blog post entitled The Vatican and the RNC.

If the Foley incident is not about pedophilia, it is also not, it seems to me, about homosexuality. It’s fundamentally about the closet. The closet is so psychologically destructive it often produces pathological behavior. When you compartmentalize your life, you sometimes act out in one compartment in ways that you would never condone in another one. Think Clinton-Lewinsky, in a heterosexual context. But closeted gay men are particularly vulnerable to this kind of thing. Your psyche is so split by decades of lies and deceptions and euphemisms that integrity and mental health suffer. No one should excuse Foley’s creepy interactions; they are inexcusable, as is the alleged cover-up (although we shouldn’t jump to conclusions yet about who knew what when). But there’s a reason gay men in homophobic institutions behave in self-destructive ways.

Or think of it another way: what do the Vatican and the RNC have in common? Here’s one potential list: entrenched homophobia, psychologically damaged closet cases, inappropriate behavior toward teens and minors … and cover-ups designed entirely to retain power. The parallels are looking a little creepy. And the source is the same.

After decades of cultivating a victim mentality ad nauseam, homosexual advocates are reduced to this argument: Foley’s predatory behavior was, ultimately, OUR fault. Society (read: Bible-believing Christians and churches) is to blame. Once again the circular logic of what I call “gay fundamentalism” is exposed: whatever deviance, whatever threats to health, children and morality–all is laid at the door of “homophobic” society because of the “shame” we cause “gays” by not celebrating or at least not accepting their lifestyle choice. How convenient for them.

The truth is Mark Foley, like the rest of us, is a sinner in need of a Savior. As fallen human beings, our hearts are bent toward sin. God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9, KJV) It’s tough to own up to that truth: each of our hearts is so bent toward “wickedness” (now there’s a word you don’t hear very often) that we can’t even know our own potential for self-deception!

If Foley was molested as a youth as his lawyer states, then he joins the legion of sexually victimized men and women who have gone on to perpetuate their abuse, as adults, on others. But Foley, like all people caught up in the modern cult of homosexuality, IS responsible for his behavior before God. (Besides, why would it follow that his natural “orientation” is “gay” if a major contributing cause to his current state of sexual confusion is that he was abused as a teenager?)

Repressed homosexuality (the “closet”) did not put those male congressional pages at risk; active, practicing (albeit furtive) homosexuality did. Pederasty – sexual “relationships” between adult men and adolescent boys – is as old as the ancient Greeks, and to this day homosexual men pursue sex with teenage boys. In the early days of “gay liberation,” they callously called these boys “chicken.” Yet somehow the media and professional talkers are behaving as if this current scandal has nothing to do with homosexuality.

AN AMERICANS FOR TRUTH PRESS RELEASE

CHICAGO, Illinois–The scandal of disgraced homosexual pederast and former Rep. Mark Foley illustrates the dangers of the GOP’s growing flirtation with pro-homosexual policies, said Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera.

“For years, we have seen some Republican Party leaders drift in a pro-homosexual direction,” LaBarbera said. “Their rationale is winning the votes of ‘moderate’ swing voters, but they forget that there is a price to pay among values voters when you abandon principle on a core moral issue.”

“Top Republican leaders knew about Foley’s homosexuality and his reckless behavior with underage boys, yet they did not act,” he said. “How long were they prepared to keep this dirty secret from the public? Is winning elections now more important to Republicans than protecting children? Is it more important than letting constituents know about a Representative’s immoral conduct, which of course influences his votes (Foley had a pro-“gay” record)?

Meanwhile, noting that the homosexual Log Cabin Republicans quickly erased a photo of Mark Foley from their website,” LaBarbera said. “Too bad Foley’s teenaged victims and their parents won’t be able to erase the effects of his twisted behavior from their minds so easily.”

He said it is telling that most of the tiny number of “outed” or openly homosexual male Congressmen have been caught in sex scandals:

• Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), who let his male lover run a prostitution ring out of his D.C. apartment;
• Retired Massachusetts Rep. Gerry Studds (D), who had sex with a 17-year-old boy and then turned his back on fellow House Members during the censure vote against him. The defiant Studds even put the boy forward at a press conference to announce that their “relationship” was “consensual”;
• Bob Bauman (R-Maryland), who in 1980 was charged with soliciting a 16-year-old boy for sex.

“Three homosexual Congressmen have been involved in sexual seductions of minor boys, yet ‘gay’ activists ridicule anyone who suggests there is a predatory component to male homosexuality,” LaBarbera said.

Noting the re-elections of Democrats Studds and Frank after their sex scandals, he added, “Maybe Foley could make a comeback if he moves to Massachusetts and runs as a Democrat.”

By Peter LaBarbera

With the efficiency of a Stalinist historian, the homosexual group Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) has purged this photograph of former Florida Rep. Mark Foley, disgraced homosexual and seducer of teenaged boys, from its website. Foley was among the politicians and pundits whom LCR proudly recorded as speaking at its 2003 national convention in Washington, D.C. But they’re not so proud anymore. We apologize for the poor reproduction quality below, but clearer evidence of Log Cabin’s whitewashing handiwork can be found by clicking on these links: BEFORE (scroll down three rows of photos and Foley is there) and AFTER (magic: Foley is gone).

Too bad Foley’s young victims and their parents won’t be able to erase the effects of his twisted behavior from their minds so easily.

Log Cabin Republicans also removed Foley’s name from the write-up on its 2003 convention. Foley’s photo in the new, pederast-free (at least as far as we know) web account has been replaced by a second photo of political pundit Mort Kondracke.