Why is Mark Foley truly a slimeball? Rarely has a more difficult question been asked. So many reasons readily proffer themselves…
Is it because he had inappropriate relationships with teenagers?
Is it because that this closeted gay man, who has never done anything to help our community and has no integrity at all, has done incalculable harm to the image of gay people everywhere due to his inappropriate behavior?
Is it because he takes no responsibility for his bad behavior, blaming it first on alcohol and then on alleged abuse which took place apparently during the Kennedy administration?
Or is it because he stands by while Republican gay staffers are scapegoated and a witch hunt has begun on Capitol Hill?
The right answer is: Yes to everything!!!!
Mark Foley is the poster boy for amorality: someone who does whatever he wants to satisfy his own desires and then takes no responsibility for anyone who gets hurt in the process. If he’s really so worried about clerical misbehavior in the Catholic Church, he’d get involved with SNAP, The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a volunteer self-help organization of survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their supporters (http://www.snapnetwork.org/). But Mark doesn’t care to try to be part of the solution: he just wants to make someone else the problem.