Oct 06, 2006  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

Some of the nation’s largest gay rights groups this week denounced former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) following reports that he sent sexually explicit instant messages and e-mails to 16- and 17-year-old males who worked as pages at the U.S. Capitol.

“Gay or straight, Democrat or Republican, it is completely inexcusable for an adult to have this kind of communication with a minor,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group.

The Foley saga took another twist on Oct. 3 when Foley’s attorney announced for the first time at a news conference that Foley is gay and that a clergyman sexually molested him as a teenager.

The attorney, David Roth, told reporters Foley “does not blame the trauma he sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate” e-mails and instant messages to teenagers, and he “continues to offer no excuse whatsoever for his conduct.”

Roth said Foley was in treatment at an undisclosed recovery facility for alcoholism and was taking steps to come to terms with who he is.

“Mark Foley wants you to know he is a gay man,” Roth said.

While acknowledging Foley sent sexually explicit
e-mails to underage youths, Roth insisted that Foley never had sexual contact with a minor.

“Any suggestion that Mark Foley is a pedophile is false,” he said.

The attorney declined to identify the clergyman who allegedly molested Foley or the church with which the clergyman was affiliated, saying only that the incidents took place when Foley was between the ages of 13 and 15. Foley is Roman Catholic.

News of Foley’s online exchanges with former male pages has mushroomed into an election year scandal, prompting Democrats to accuse House Republican leaders of covering up reports that surfaced last September that Foley sent an inappropriate but non-explicit e-mail to a 16-year-old page.

Republicans and Democrats alike have called on the FBI and a bipartisan congressional ethics panel to investigate Foley’s action.

Foley resigned from his seat in the House of Representatives on Sept. 29, hours after ABC News published on its web site excerpts of an instant message exchange between Foley and a 17-year-old former congressional page.

Foley, who in the past has refused to comment on published reports that he is gay, repeatedly asked the 17-year-old about masturbation and the size of the youth’s penis, according to a transcript of the exchange released by ABC News.

The television network said the transcript was one of 52 instant message exchanges it has obtained from former congressional pages that consist of online conversations between Foley and two former pages under the age of 18. In each of the exchanges, Foley used the screen name Maf54, which ABC News said it verified as Foley’s online name.

In one 2003 exchange, Foley said he delayed voting on the floor of the House to engage in internet sex with one of the youths, the transcript shows.

Gay Democrats joined House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi in raising questions about whether House Republican leaders deliberately withheld information they learned last year about at least one questionable e-mail that Foley sent to a 16-year-old former page from Louisiana.

House GOP leaders defended their action, saying they accepted Foley’s private explanation that his e-mail, which asked the 16-year-old for his photograph, did not intentionally seek to offend the youth. ABC News reported that the youth told others the message “freaked me out” and was “sick, sick, sick.”

Democrats want investigators to find out whether the GOP leaders sought to suppress news about Foley’s behavior to prevent negative publicity that could jeopardize Republican efforts to retain control of the House in the November election.

“Mark Foley’s shameful actions were reprehensible,” said Patrick Sammon, executive vice president of Log Cabin Republicans, a national gay group. “He abused the power of his office, violated the trust of the voters, and exploited young people,” Sammon said.

“There should be a thorough criminal investigation by appropriate law enforcement agencies,” he said, and if Foley broke the law, “he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

The National Youth Advocacy Coalition, which represents gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth advocacy groups throughout the country, called on federal authorities to fully investigate Foley’s conduct.

“Gay or straight, Congressman Mark Foley’s behavior is like that of a predator who should be arrested and prosecuted for his criminal behavior,” the group said in an Oct. 3 statement. “And those around him who knew, and did not act to stop him, are just as guilty,” the NYAC statement said.

Officials with HRC and Log Cabin Republicans said the two ...