There's hope for Mark Foley yet!!

[Nathans_Dad]

See? If he just waits for 20 or so years, he too can be lauded by the New York Times as a role model!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/us/15studds.html?hp&ex=1160971200&en=94851f5f0fee8250&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Gerry Studds Dies at 69; First Openly Gay Congressman

Former U.S. Representative Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday at 69.
The cause was a vascular illness that led Mr. Studds to collapse while walking his dog on Oct. 3 in Boston. He was 69.

From 1973 to 1997, Mr. Studds (whose first name was pronounced GAIR-ee) represented the Massachusetts district where he grew up, covering Cape Cod and the barnacled old fishing towns near the coast. He was the first Democrat to win the district in 50 years, and over the course of 12 terms, he sponsored several laws that helped protect local fisheries and create national parks along the Massachusetts shore.

A former Foreign Service officer with degrees from Yale, he was also a leading critic of President Ronald Reagan’s clandestine support of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. He staunchly opposed “Star Wars,” or the Strategic Defense Initiative, which Mr. Studds once described as “the Edsel of the 1980’s” — overpriced and oversold.

His homosexuality was revealed through scandal. In 1983, he was censured by the House for having had an affair 10 years earlier with a 17-year-old Congressional page. For Mr. Studds, formal and dignified, a model of old New England reserve, the discovery sparked intense anguish, friends said.

He had long been unsure of the role his sexuality should play. At the nation’s first major gay march on Washington in 1979, he told friends he could neither attend nor stay away.

“His act of courage was to jog within a block of it,” said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, the congressman from Mr. Studds’s adjoining district, who announced his own homosexuality four years later. “He felt that conflicted.”

Once outed, however, Mr. Studds refused to buckle to conservative pressure to resign.

“All members of Congress are in need of humbling experiences from time to time,” Mr. Studds said at the time. But he never apologized. He defended the relationship as consensual and condemned the investigation, saying it had invaded his privacy. [/B]

He went on to win re-election in 1984, surprising both supporters and opponents.

For some, it echoed an earlier, unexpected accomplishment: In 1968, as a 30-year-old teacher at St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., Mr. Studds was one of two crucial figures who persuaded Senator Eugene McCarthy to bring his antiwar presidential campaign to the state’s primary. Members of the campaign partly attributed Mr. McCarthy’s surprisingly strong showing there — which helped force President Lyndon B. Johnson out of the race — to the 12-day tour Mr. Studds had scheduled.

“He was a major factor for us in the New Hampshire primary,” said Seymour M. Hersh, who was the press secretary for Mr. McCarthy. “Gerry was just there; he was there with ideas, he was there to organize.”

Mr. Studds’s re-election in 1984 had reverberations of its own.

“In a sense, he became a role model,” said Charles Kaiser, author of “1968 in America” and “The Gay Metropolis.” “His experience convinced other people that it would now be possible to run as an openly gay person.”

Mr. Studds also seemed emboldened by his re-election. He began to demand more money for AIDS research and treatment. He pressed for the right of gay people to serve openly in the military, releasing a previously suppressed Pentagon report in 1989, which concluded that sexuality “is unrelated to job performance in the same way as is being left- or right-handed.”

In addition to speaking on the House floor on behalf of gay marriage, he set an example. In 2004, he and his longtime partner, Dean T. Hara, became one of the first couples to marry under a Massachusetts law allowing gay marriage.

“Gerry often said that it was the fight for gay and lesbian equality that was the last great civil rights chapter in modern American history,” Mr. Hara said in a statement.

“He did not live to see its final sentences written,” Mr. Hara added, “but all of us will forever be indebted to him for leading the way with compassion and wisdom.”

Mr. Studds’s past had recently resurfaced. In the final two weeks of his life, the two-decade-old controversy surrounding Mr. Studds became an issue in the 2006 midterm election campaign as a new Congressional page scandal unfolded.

Though his name had barely been mentioned in Washington since he retired, the resignation late last month of Representative Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, revived interest in Mr. Studds’s own dalliance with a teenage page in 1983.

Across the country, several Republican candidates sought to deflect criticism aimed at their own party by reminding voters about Mr. Studds. The National Republican Congressional Committee chastised Democrats in this year’s race for taking contributions from party leaders who had served with Mr. Studds.

In the Oct. 16 issue of The Weekly Standard, printed before Mr. Studds’s death, the conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer also invoked the retired Massachusetts congressman as he drew a contrast between Republicans and Democrats. Mr. Krauthammer argued that Mr. Foley had resigned immediately and that Mr. Studds had left Congress only after Democrats had lost their majority, which he called “the political equivalent of dying in your sleep.”

Mr. Hara, Mr. Studds’s husband, declined to comment on the newest criticism.

A memorial service will be held in November. In addition to Mr. Hara, Mr. Studds is survived by his brother, Colin Studds; his sister-in-law, Mary Lou Studds; his sister, Gaynor Stewart; four nephews; and his English springer spaniel, Bonnie.

[RallyJon]

(whose first name was pronounced GAIR-ee)

Now that's just rude.

Mr. Hara, Mr. Studds’s husband

Member of Congress, and he's not even the man?

[Jim Richards]

Someone's opinion of role model for gays doesn't equate to a role model to the rest of us. I doubt the NYT will ever hold Foley in high esteem. And Studds was scum. Messing with kids is wrong, regardless of political affiliation. I can't believe the guy's constituents would actually reelect him, multiple times. I guess Massachusetts is more tolerant than me.

[Rodeo]

When he was 36 years old, he had an affair with a 17 year old. Not exactly model conduct, and deserving of condemnation. But neither is it the multiple serial predation of Mark Foley over many years, who appears to have used the Congressional Page Program as a sexual farm team.

In terms of a level of culpability, I'd say Studds, then Jerry Lee Lewis, then Foley.

My guess on why Studds was reelected is because the conduct was not uncovered until 10 years after the fact. If he'd of been caught with a 17 year old, instead of going to a news conference with a 27 year old, the entire dynamic would have changed. Not saying it's right, but I think it's human nature to not be so judgmental of something that happened 10 years prior.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

" The cause was a vascular illness that led Mr. Studds to collapse while sodomizing his dog "

There, fixed the NYT typo. Those guys need competent editors.

[Nathans_Dad]

Somehow I knew Rodeo would run to the rescue

[Rodeo]

Just as I knew you would mis-characterize my response.

[Nathans_Dad]

Yeah funny how everyone always mischaracterizes your responses. It couldn't actually be the wording of your responses could it? No, everyone is a mouthbreathing neocon that mischaracterizes you all the time.

Damn neocons.

[Rodeo]

Yep, try responding to actual arguments, not arguments that you create for the purpose of knocking them down.

Novel idea, I know, and contrary to the Rove playbook. But try it.

[Rearden]

Incredible attempt, Rodeo, of making sex with a minor appear more acceptable than sendy creepy communication to a minor. If you had an underage son, which would you prefer to have happened? Sex with the Democrat?

[Rodeo]

What part of "Not exactly model conduct, and deserving of condemnation" do you not understand?

[Nathans_Dad]

Ah, so we agree. He is deserving of condemnation.

Strange way of condeming him, giving him a committee chairmanship while in Congress and now the NYT hails him as a role model.

He WAS a role model....for Mark Foley.

[Rodeo]

Originally posted by Nathans_Dad
Ah, so we agree. He is deserving of condemnation.

That's what I wrote. Maybe if you'd read my post before claiming that I "ran to Foley's rescue," I would respect your opinions a bit more.

[Jim Richards]

Rick, I'm sorry but I think you're not reading the NYT article or Rodeo's comments correctly.

NYT didn't say Studds was a role model, they just reported that someone (Charles Kaiser) viewed him in that light (“In a sense, he became a role model,” said Charles Kaiser, author of “1968 in America” and “The Gay Metropolis.” “His experience convinced other people that it would now be possible to run as an openly gay person.”).

And Rodeo had no say in Studds' committee chaimanship, so I don't see how you can call Rodeo's condemnation as "strange."

You might be a bit overzealous in attacking your collegue on the "left."

[Rearden]

Originally posted by Rodeo
What part of "Not exactly model conduct, and deserving of condemnation" do you not understand?

I was referring to this line:

"But neither is it the multiple serial predation of Mark Foley over many years, who appears to have used the Congressional Page Program as a sexual farm team."

This implies that Foley's behavior was worse.

They are both bad. But not equally bad.

[RoninLB]

He baits those who he figures has less brains than him. Then he'll twist the issue so he's correct and your a helpless jerk. You're not supposed to figure out that he's a violent ass hole.

[RoninLB]

and btw

what crime has Foley actually been charged with.. or will be charged with? I can't find info on that?

[Rodeo]

Foley's behavior was worse than Studds, and indeed that is what I said.

Studds --> Jerry Lee --> Foley

[Rearden]

Thank you for clarifying.

[deathpunk dan]

post deleted.