Inappropriate, Illegal, and Just Plain Stupid

[sarahmichelef]

OK, there are a couple of things of which I'm certain.  First, assuming that Mark Foley really did send the alleged messages to the alleged Congressional pages, he  was Just Plain Stupid, and the messages were certainly inappropriate.  Second, any Republican coverup of the scandal warrants some SERIOUS smackdown.  On all levels.  (And hey, it got one of our local congressional races on NPR this morning!)

HOWEVER.  This case has exposed an inconsistency in our sex laws.  There's all this discussion about whether or not the messages Foley sent were simply inappropriate, or if they were illegal.  And yet.  The age of consent in Washington, D.C. is 16, and there's no law regarding age of consent for male-male sex (which my non-legally-educated brain interprets as meaning that it's the same age of consent as for straight sex) (http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm).  But from what I'm learning from NPR (in this story), there are laws against soliciting a minor.  This makes NO FREAKING SENSE to me.  it wasn't legal for Foley to send explicit/suggestive messages to these kids, but it would have been legal for them to have sex?  Give me a freaking break, people.  Our country's attitudes about

Mark Foley is guilty of being Just Plain Stupid, but I refuse to call him a pedophile.  And now there's the allegation that he was molested by a clergy member as a kid.  Oyvey.

In other news, the guy who killed the girls in PA apparently never got over the loss of his premature daughter.  I think I want to go cry now.

Comments

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

I believe the proper term for Foley is a pederast. 16 year olds are (in my opinion, and apparently in the opinion of a bunch of head shrikers) too developed to be of interest to pedophiles.

And sexual harrassment, surely. He was using his position of authority.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

Perzactly. Sexual harassment it certainly is - but it's not being framed in that way. I haven't heard anybody actually SAY pedophelia/pederasty, but that's clearly the implication. Especially now that he's pulling the drunk-molested-altar-boy routine. Oy.

The good news, I hope, is that this may be the downfall of Republican control of the house. I hope. M was telling me yesterday that there's a pattern of sex scandals hurting Republicans far more than they hurt Democrats - because voters hate hypocrites, and Dems rarely run on "family values".

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that actually "pedophile" means someone who wants to have sex with young children, and "pederast" means someone who actually does have (or has had) sex with young children; note that both have the root "pedo-". So all pederasts are pedophiles, but not all pedophiles are pederasts (only the ones who actually go through with it). This terminology gets confused in media coverage, because most people just don't know the word "pederast."

At least judging from what we currently know, it doesn't look like Foley is a pedophile, but there are a whole host of other issues that make what he (allegedly) did stupid, unethical and illegal.

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

I haven't read up closely on DC's laws, but I believe the discrepancy between the age of consent being 16, and the laws against soliciting a minor, exists with a view to protecting 16-to-18-year-olds from creepy old men (like Foley), while not making it illegal for them to have sex with other 16-to-18-year-olds.