Is there any purpose to spilling more ink on the Foley affair? One would have thought a member of Congress would have had better sense than to send sexually suggestive communications to trainees in his "company," much less minors with whom any sexual contact - if it ever came to that - might be illegal. All the worse because this is not just any business but our government, where Representatives and Senators are meant to be models and potential mentors to "interns" who might thereby be inspired to a life of public service.
Despicable. Rep. Foley has resigned. He is a candidate only for possible prosecution, and those who ought to have been responsible for Congress's enforcement of policies on workplace sexual harrassment - to employ business terms again - are in hot water. This being politics, and with the mid-term elections but weeks away, we have epic grandstanding and front-page stories.
I imagine that readers will find my summary strangely silent on what is widely regarded as the most scandalous element of all: Mr. Foley sent his messages to young men. As my account indicates, there is wrongdoing aplenty without focusing on the fact that these unwanted communications involved members all of one sex. But of course, it is that fact that pumps up the indignation level in the halls of Congress and beyond. The congressman and the pages: the seamy scenario evokes the traditionally all-male worlds of boys' schools and sports teams, military units, and the Catholic Church, which has over recent years has had its own headline problems in this area.
Mr. Foley or those who purport to speak on his behalf have offered a number of excuses or explanations: he was himself, he claimed, a victim of clerical abuse as a young man, and (or?) he has alcohol problems - which no one seems inclined to believe. I'm not sure whether saying he was "gay" was intended as a comparable defense, but however he intended it, I take great exception to it. Let me explain why.
Now it might seem to be a confession of a fact so obvious as to be almost a joke. I think the standard response in the contemporary vernacular is "Duh!" But I object to it as any kind of rational explanation or "excuse," and even to Mr. Foley's very use of the term.
Sexual harrassment and sexual abuse, by anyone of anyone but especially of young people beneath the age of consent, needs to be confronted head on. It is an old canard to suggest that this is more a "gay problem" than a universal one of abuse of power. The news is filled these days, alas, with grotesque stories of prurient male interest in or abuse of young girls, yet the world at large never thinks "ah, that's heterosexuality for you."
Neither do I, but, like most gay people, I note the asymmetry of public response and attitudes.
It is as a gay man that I step forward and say to Mr. Foley: You are not worthy to lay claim to the word "gay." Now of course, I have no official role as arbiter of word usage, but my point is simply this. The gay men and women I know live their lives honestly. They don't go around dissembling, playing parts, appearing at official functions with bogus "dates."
Of course I can imagine the pressures and the fears a younger Mr. Foley faced as he contemplated his future. Would a career in the public eye be out of the question? I, too, am a gay man in public life. Perhaps the glare of the klieg lights is not so great for a college president as for a politician, but I do not believe the demand for honesty should be less on one than the other. It is a matter of character, and, for me, Mr. Foley's choices revealed the defects of his character long before he ever sent his first instant message.
It may well be that had Mr. Foley not dissembled about his sexual orientation, he never would have won election in his
Florida district.
I cannot say. Here we come to the heart of the matter. Let's assume that he aspired to hold public office. If he did not have the guts to try his chances at home -- making the world a better place along the way, I might add, by calling into question the very discrimination he faced -- he could have moved elsewhere. Let's bracket the fact that both Paris and Berlin have gay mayors. Here in the U.S., Barney Frank has served in the House of Representative for many years and, to name just one more of the many honest gay Americans in politics, Sheila Kuehl serves proudly in the California State Senate.
Instead, Mr. Foley chose to weave a web of deceit. This seems to be what is expected these days: For the sake of your career, or your corporation, simply play a game, lie, dissemble.
In my convocation address this fall to students at Hampshire College, I discussed several "bad habits of mind." Among them was "don't ask, don't tell," which I interpreted not just as a peculiar policy of our military but a blanket invitation, indeed, exhortation to national willed ignorance and calculated deception, One might say that Mr. Foley got entangled in this broader pattern of "don't ask, don't tell" that characterizes so much of our public life. Is the price of "passing" worth it? I wonder what Mr. Foley would say. Even more I wonder what those many who are still paying it would say.
What Mr. Foley could have discovered is that there is another America, the one I live in and have lived in my entire adult life. Here the fact that I happen to be gay is no big deal. While there are indeed details that belong to a commonly recognized sphere of legitimate privacy, to the extent that being gay is part of my life (as family arrangements are part of the lives of everyone), I have never misled anyone. I have never hidden the fact that I have a partner - and by the way, we will soon celebrate twenty-seven years of mutual commitment. We are not alone in this world. Most of our gay friends are in long-term relationships, many have children. Nor is this a purely "gay" universe. Most, like us, whether singles or couples, are integrated into larger networks of families and friends, schools, and religious organizations.
I'm not saying that this is true in every town and hamlet, but neither is the closet enforced everywhere. Sure there are inequalities erected by numerous states and the federal government, but self-respecting persons work for change via political means and don't seek personal exemptions via fraud and deceit. We stand up and are simply there.
Mr. Foley, this is what it means to be gay. I hope for your own sake you'll come to understand this so that one day I can greet you as a fellow gay person, but just saying the word is not enough.
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Ralph Hexter is President of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.
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