I’ve been trying hard to resist commenting on the spectacular meltdown of Mark Foley over inappropriate contacts with a Congressional page. The Editors pretty well have the schadenfreude angle covered (including a link to the deeply creepy IM transcripts), so I don’t have much to add there.
Much has been made of the fact that Foley was on the committee drafting legislation to protect kids from creepy guys on the Internet. “Set a thief to catch a thief,” I suppose. The absolute best comment on the matter that I’ve seen, though, comes from this post at the Corpuscle:
I think it’s great that these days gay teens can find each other and maybe even, you know, arrange to go to a movie together, go have a Starbucks afterward, walk each other home, maybe have a tentative smooch just outside the reach of the yellow bug light on the parental porch.
Of course, it is precisely that sort of thing that drives religious conservatives out of their minds. Gay teenagers dating??!! Send them to Ex-Homo Camp!!
But dating is healthy. Dating teaches you about your own strengths. You and your high-school sweetheart support each other. You gain confidence in yourself as a person who can be loved by another. This makes you stronger, less vulnerable. All of this makes you safer from online pervs like Representative Foley. Why go there when you can go to a movie with your boyfriend?
So the irony is that it isn’t legislation by guys like Foley that is going to protect gay teens from online pervs like Foley…
In fact, what’s going to genuinely protect gay teenagers is gay teenagers coming out, and then going out.
It’s a great piece. Read the whole thing, and hope that this helps us move toward a saner world.
(Thanks to Kate for the pointer.)