Republican Gomorrah

by Max Blumenthal

  These projections inspired him to proclaim that he was writing a book, Gay Jihad: What the Radical Homosexual Movement Has in Store for You and Your Family, to be coauthored with Jeremy Duboff, an unknown right-winger. In “A Letter to Matt Sanchez” posted on Duboff’s website, the coauthor explained his attraction to Sanchez: “You see, 15 or more years ago, when I was a very young adult, I too attempted to live ‘the gay lifestyle.’ This took place at UC Berkeley and in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the gay agenda figures especially prominently. Unlike you my prime motivation was not immoral and illicit sex but immoral and illicit politics—a clear commitment to a vague concept of Marxist-Leninist revolution. Yet like you I ‘wasn’t very good at being gay’ either.” So far, the promised book has not been published.

  Personalities like Gannon, Sanchez, and Duboff—there are so many of them among the radical right that they are difficult to keep track of—recall Marcello Clerici, the protagonist of Italian writer Alberto Moravia’s novel The Conformist and Bernardo Bertolucci’s faithful cinematic adaptation of the same title. As a boy, Marcello was a social outcast, a weakling with a syphilitic, institutionalized father. His troubled youth culminated when he murdered a chauffeur who had coaxed him into sex. When he reached adulthood, Marcello resolved to subdue his inner demons by joining Italy’s incipient fascist movement. He enlisted in Mussolini’s bureaucracy as a counter-subversive spy and became engaged to an empty-headed lower-middle-class woman whom he secretly regarded with disdain. “I intend to construct my normality,” he coldly vowed to a priest, promising to marry his fiancée. But because Marcello’s normality hinged entirely on forces outside of himself, especially the endurance of the fascist bureaucracy, his relapse into loneliness was imminent. When Mussolini was forced from power in 1943, throwing Italy into chaos, Marcello stumbled upon the chauffeur he thought he had killed long ago, and the thin mask of normality he had constructed peeled back suddenly and irrevocably.

  Like Clerici, many self-loathing homosexuals have confused authoritarianism with normality and have sought to transcend their tortured pasts by donning the cartoon-like costume of the Republican male social dominator—the political analogue of an “excellent top.” But although they avoid the seedy lifestyles they once led, the conformist solution that Gannon, Sanchez, and countless other conflicted conservatives in crisis have chosen is always evanescent. The culture of the radical right may promise a resolution to unbiblical desires, but in the end, repressed homosexuals can only cover their supposed sins, not wash them away.

  In some ways, Mark Foley’s experience contrasted with that of figures such as Gannon and Sanchez who dissolved into the conservative apparatus as a method of escape. Foley, a gay Republican congressman, was open about his identity within his private political inner circle, but he kept it secret from the general public. As his party lurched to the far right, however, targeting gays as a scapegoat for America’s social deterioration, Foley remained a loyal soldier. Meanwhile, he preyed on young male pages milling about the halls of Congress, placing his career and those of the many other gay Republicans who staffed his office in jeopardy. When Foley’s conflicted personality unraveled, he created a political scandal of catastrophic proportions, one that drove a nail in the coffin of the Republican Revolution and became the symbol of the party’s cultural crack-up.

  LIVES UNLIVED

  Although places such as Stonewall and Castro are more commonly associated with the rise of gay pride, South Florida also witnessed the birth of one of America’s first viable gay rights movements. In 1977, Dade County gay rights activists orchestrated a successful push for an “affectional and sexual preference” ordinance that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This groundbreaking measure inspired the passage of gay rights legislation in cities across the country. Its cultural impact, though difficult to measure, lifted the morale of a nascent movement still struggling for the credibility that the civil rights and women’s liberation movements had attained.

  Mark Foley grew up nearby in Lake Worth, but he existed a world away from South Florida’s progressive cultural groundswell. During the mid-1960s, Foley served as an altar boy at Sacred Heart Church, a Roman Catholic congregation in his hometown. At age thirteen, Foley met Father Anthony Mercieca, an affable, energetic clergyman then in his late twenties. The two became fast friends, taking regular sojourns to the beach, the arcade, and local rodeos. They even traveled together to New York and Washington, DC to tour museums. The two were so inseparable that they seemed like brothers. But the friendship between Foley and Mercieca soon crossed over into the sexual realm when they began skinny-dipping and sleeping together in the nude. Mercieca claimed that his sexual encounters with the young Foley were consensual and entailed nothing more than fondling. “Once maybe I touched him or so, but didn’t, it wasn’t—because it’s not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration or anything like that you know,” the priest said. “He seemed to like it, you know? So it was sort of more like a spontaneous thing.”

  While Foley was coming of age, the Christian right targeted his native South Florida as a laboratory for the cultural holy war it hoped to ignite on a national level. Anita Bryant, the Miss America runner-up, singer, and national spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission, emerged as the face of the Christian right’s mounting anti-gay crusade. Under the stern watch of her husband, Bob Green, a draconian fundamentalist accused of emotionally damaging behavior by his live-in babysitter, Kathie Lee Gifford (who later became a famed daytime TV host), Bryant was transformed from a cheery commercial voice who compared a breakfast without orange juice to “a day without sunshine” into an anti-gay La Pasionara who compared homosexuals to “people who sleep with St. Bernards.” Just months after Miami-Dade’s anti-discrimination ordinance passed, Bryant summoned local right-wing forces for holy war under the sign of the cross, leading a crusade that swiftly repealed the law by a decisive margin. The Miami Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church—Father Mercieca’s employer—played an instrumental role in Bryant’s victory, securing 64,000 signatures for her ballot measure in one month.

  Bryant pressed her case against the gay menace further, successfully lobbying for legislation banning homosexuals from adopting children in Florida—a law upheld by the 11th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2004. Her organization, Save Our Children, elevated her antigay politics to the national level by mass-distributing a flier titled “Why Certain Sexual Deviations Are Punishable by Death.” Besides homosexuality, the damnable sins enumerated by Bryant included “racial mixing of human seed.” Bryant’s campaign inspired Christian-right elements in the California state legislature to propose a law that would have banned public school teachers from making any statement that could be interpreted as pro-gay. (The bill was voted down by a slim margin amid furious lobbying by gay rights forces under the leadership of San Francisco community activist Harvey Milk.)

  South Florida’s culture war was a microcosm of the one that would soon take hold on a national level, but it also encapsulated the personal conflict that Foley faced as he embarked on his first bid for Congress in 1994. Foley was a dyed-in-the-wool Republican—anti-tax, anti-environment, and anti-immigrant—but he was also gay. And though his homosexuality was an open secret in local political circles, Foley seemed to view it as an obstacle to his ambition. But by trumpeting his firm convictions on conservative core Republican issues, Foley calculated he could ensure that voters in Florida’s Republican gerrymandered 16th district would not bother to question his sexual orientation. That assumption proved correct. In 1994, he coasted to victory, and he joined the drove of exuberant freshmen as shock troops of Newt Gingrich’s revolution.

  Although Foley had staked out a moderate reputation on social issues, he eagerly joined party zealots during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. “It’s vile,” he said of Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. “It’s more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all
down the drain because of a sexual addiction.” After the Senate rejected the House Republicans’ coup-by-impeachment against Clinton, Foley assisted Tom DeLay’s coup against Newt Gingrich. Foley became a central cog in DeLay’s machine, a deputy whip, and earned the protection that the ruthless leader—“The Hammer”—extended to his vassals.

  Under DeLay and his puppet, the hulking and phlegmatic Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Foley was rewarded with his dream assignment: chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. Protecting children was Foley’s lifelong passion, he declared, inspiring him to introduce legislation establishing strict guidelines for targeting online sexual predators. Away from the klieg lights of the Washington press corps, however, Foley’s interest in boys took on a prurient quality. Foley was seen fondling male pages on several occasions by fellow Republican lawmakers, who said nothing. One page, Matthew Loraditch, warned fellow pages in 2001 to “watch out for Congressman Mark Foley.” That same year, the parents of another page preyed upon by Foley contacted their son’s sponsor, Republican Representative Rodney Alexander, to complain. Alexander went to National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds, but the complaint was buried as soon as Foley donated $100,000 to Reynolds’s committee.

  With the 2004 elections approaching, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and a constellation of Christian right para-church leaders pressured the Republican leadership to introduce a constitutional ban on same sex-marriage. “What’s at stake here,” said Perkins, “is the very foundation of our society, not only of America but all Western civilization.” The Reverend Jimmy Swaggart, the televangelist who had fallen from grace with his 1988 confession of soliciting prostitutes, now saw gay-bashing as his path back to moral respectability. “I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry,” Swaggart proclaimed in 2003, prompting a chorus of “amens” from his audience. “And I’m gonna be blunt and plain: if one ever looks at me like that,” the red-faced preacher growled, “I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.” As anti-gay fervor approached a boiling point, House Republicans introduced the same-sex marriage ban the Christian right had demanded.

  Foley voted against the Republican bill but avoided making any public statement, apparently trying to maintain his personal integrity while hiding his identity. Meanwhile, as his predatory behavior grew increasingly brazen, the Republican leadership feared that exposing him would repel the conservative base at a time when their support was pivotal to the party’s future. Thus a cover-up was set in motion, involving Kirk Fordham, a veteran Republican congressional staffer who had served as Foley’s chief of staff by day and his chaperone by night, escorting him to parties to prevent him from making inappropriate advances on young men. Like Foley, Fordham was a semicloseted homosexual who feared that his outing would doom his career. When a leading gay reporter, Chris Crain, informed Fordham of his plans to report Fordham’s sexual orientation in 2003, he begged him not to do so, explaining that he was “out in the community but not in the press.” Crain, a Republican himself, complied. In turn, Fordham guarded Foley from public exposure.

  Other gay Republican staffers were familiar with Foley’s secret life, but none went public. These included Jeff Trandahl, an openly gay man who headed the House page program. Trandahl said he told a Hastert aide named Ted Van Der Meid that Foley posed a clear and present danger to the pages, but Van Der Meid avoided going public. (Republicans on the Hill widely believed that he was gay.) Trandahl also complained to Fordham that in 2003 Foley had stumbled into the pages’ dormitory in a drunken haze seeking sex and had to be turned away. Yet instead of going public, Fordham simply told Hastert’s chief of staff, Scott Palmer, about the incident. Palmer, the subject of pointed gay rumors, warned Foley that he could expose himself if he repeated his behavior. (Palmer would later deny having discussions with Fordham, further complicating a doomed investigation by Florida law enforcement.) “From Foley’s perspective,” wrote Crain, “these slaps on the wrist from the fellow limp-wristed didn’t carry any real sting because, in the end, he expected them to protect him, just as he protected their closets, however deeply in them each lived.” So the scandal remained top secret.

  In 2003, Foley made preparations for a campaign to succeed retiring Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida. In June, as his fundraising efforts began, Foley declared war on the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR), a group that operated a nudist camp for young people near Tampa. Foley fired off a breathless letter to Governor Jeb Bush accusing the camp of “exploiting nudity among minor children to make money.” Demanding that the governor investigate the legality of the camp, Foley warned, “men have made their way to the camp pool to get a ‘glimpse’ of these naked children . . . The next time, these children may not be so fortunate: the trespasser may have more on his mind than just peeping.” John Cloud, a writer for Time magazine who covered the controversy, wrote, “Foley has a point . . . they have to keep an eye on creepy men.”

  While campaigning in Pensacola, the day before he planned to formally announce his bid for the Senate, Foley withdrew to a hotel room and signed on to an instant messaging service under his screen name, Maf54. Then, the forty-eight-year-old congressman invited a sixteen-year-old male page, Jordan Edmunds, to chat with him. Almost as soon as their chat began, Foley introduced a line of conversation heavily laced with graphic sexual innuendo:

  Maf54 (7:37:27 PM): how my favorite young stud doing

  [redacted screenname] (7:37:46 PM): tired and sore

  [ . . . ]

  Maf54 (7:48:00 PM): did you spank it this weekend yourself

  [redacted screenname] (7:48:04 PM): no

  [redacted screenname] (7:48:16 PM): been too tired and too busy

  Maf54 (7:48:33 PM): wow . . .

  Maf54 (7:48:34 PM): i am never to busy haha

  [ . . . ]

  Maf54 (7:53:54 PM): do you really do it face down

  [redacted screenname] (7:54:03 PM): ya

  Maf54 (7:54:13 PM): kneeling

  [redacted screenname] (7:54:31 PM): well i dont use my hand . . . i use the bed itself

  Maf54 (7:54:31 PM): where do you unload it

  [redacted screenname] (7:54:36 PM): towel

  Maf54 (7:54:43 PM): really

  Maf54 (7:55:02 PM): completely naked?

  [redacted screenname] (7:55:12 PM): well ya

  Maf54 (7:55:21 PM): very nice

  [redacted screenname] (7:55:24 PM): lol

  Maf54 (7:55:51 PM): cute butt bouncing in the air

  [ . . . ]

  Maf54 (7:57:05 PM): i always use lotion and the hand

  [ . . . ]

  Maf54 (7:58:16 PM): just kinda slow rubbing

  Maf54 (7:59:48 PM): is your little guy limp . . . or growing

  [redacted screenname] (7:59:54 PM): eh growing

  [ . . . ]

  Maf54 (8:08:31 PM): get a ruler and measure it for me

  [redacted screenname] (8:08:38 PM): ive already told you that

  [ . . . ]

  Maf54 (8:10:40 PM): take it out

  [redacted screenname] (8:10:54 PM): brb . . . my mom is yelling

  Although Foley’s online predation was still secret when he declared his run for the Senate, his candidacy was dead on arrival. As soon as Foley announced, several local newspapers rehashed a 1996 story from the gay-themed magazine The Advocate outing Foley as gay. Foley hurriedly called a news conference to condemn the stories, which he called “revolting and unforgivable.” But he could not muster a denial of his homosexuality. “Elected officials,” Foley declared, “even those who run for the United States Senate, must have some level of privacy. My mother and father raised me and the rest of my family to believe that there are certain things we shouldn’t discuss in public. Some of you may believe that it’s old-fashioned, but I believe those are good ideals to live by.” Foley withdrew from the race immediately, claiming that he wanted to support his cancer stricken father. But he had already raised $3 million dollars, far more th
an his Republican primary rival.

  When he returned to his safe seat in the House, the “old-fashioned” Foley continued courting pages through suggestive e-mail entreaties. One page grew uncomfortable with Foley’s come-ons—“sick,” he called them—and forwarded his e-mails to staffers of Representative Alexander. The e-mails leaked out of Alexander’s office and circulated through congressional e-mail inboxes until they found their way into the possession of ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross in August 2006. When Fordham learned that Ross planned to report on Foley’s digital dalliances, he rushed to the reporter to offer a deal: Withhold the e-mails in exchange for an exclusive on Foley’s resignation, which he promised to secure. Ross refused the deal but was forced to hold his story because of an already pending investigative project.

  But one month later, Foley’s lurid instant messages fell into the hands of Lane Hudson, a gay rights activist, who said Foley had once hit on him at a Washington-area gay bar. Hudson immediately published Foley’s IMs on an ad hoc website he had created called “Stop Sexual Predators.” As bloggers disseminated the instant messages, the story gathered momentum and exploded into the mainstream press. Now Ross published his story on Foley’s e-mails, adding damning detail to the brewing scandal. Hudson, for his part, was fired from his job at the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights organization in Washington, for supposedly misusing its resources. One of the board members who voted to oust him happened to be Jeff Trandahl.