Foley And The GOP-Dem Contrast

Mark Foley exemplifies ... in a wierd way ... GOP values. Caught appearing to solicit sex from a minor in a timid series of emails, he promptly resigned his office, because the GOP is not the party that winks at perverts.

The contrast between the GOP and Dems when it comes to sex scandals is best exemplified by the Congressional Page scandal of 1983, when the House Ethics Committee determined that one Republican, Dan Crane of Illinois, and one Dem, Gerry Studds of Massachusetts, had been having sex with 17-year-old male Congressional pages.

Crane's jailbait was a female. Studds' was a male. Both pled guilty and both were reprimanded by the Ethics committee and censured by the House. The similarity ends there.

Crane tearfully apologized and promptly lost his bid for re-election.

Studds, however, defiantly refused to apologize and even called a press conference in which he appeard with the page and declared they were consenting "adults" -- even though one of them was 17. The Dems continued to re-elect Studds until he retired from Congress 13 years later.

And of course, there's another famous Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank, who didn't even think about resigning after his boyfriend was found in 1989 to be operating a bisexual prostitution ring out of his home. The case came to light when Frank was accused of fixing parking tickets for his pimp-lover. Resign? Nah. Frank got a reprimand and a re-election.

The Dems will point to these tales and say they are tolerant, and they'll puff themselves up as they say it because tolerance is value #1 with the secular left. But tolerant of what? Breaking the law to have sex with underage boys or girls? Fixing parking tickets? Condoning prostitution?

By standing for simple, straightforward moral values, the GOP is appealing to the growing sector of American politics -- childbearing families -- while the Dems appeal to gays, urban "anti-spawners" and liberal pro-abortion rights advocates who routinely kill off their next generation.

Related Tags: Politics, Foley, DNC, GOP