October 1, 2006 | Sex & Society

Foley's folly

Republican Congressman Mark Foley was forced to resign from the U.S. House of Representatives on  Friday after ABC News revealed that he had sent "overly friendly" emails to a 16 year-old former congressional page. Now Democrats are asking G.O.P. leaders, who knew about the inappropriate emails as early as fall of last year, why they waited until the press found out to take action

Although the original emails are not overtly sexual they are an odd exchange for a 52 year-old Congressman to make to a sixteen year-old boy, especially since the unidentified teen never even worked for Foley.

After ABC News broke the story, an anonymous source contacted the network and provided copies of an alleged instant message exchanges between Foley and at least one other page that were overtly sexual.  It was after ABC confronted Foley with the new allegations that he resigned.

In one of the instant messages someone using Foley's handle, Maf54, has a lengthy conversation with a high school boy about masturbation, asking him where he jerks off, what position he does it in, and his dick size. At one point, Maf54 messages that he wants to remove the boy’s clothes  and "grab the one-eyed snake." 

Ironically, the Florida representative, as co-chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, had pushed for tougher laws against online sexual predators. If anyone should  know better, it would be him.

First anti-gay Spokane mayor James West and now Rep. Mark Foley. Aren't Republican closet cases capable of having a relationship with an adult?

• Dems slap G.O.P. for keeping e-mails secret [ABC.com]
• Foley quites Congress after e-chat to teen boy [gay.com]