Being a California native means I've been exposed to diversity on all levels and been exposed to many subcultures. I've worked alongside folks of diverse creed, race and sexual preference.

Foley's crime is making sexual come on to a 16 year old male. If we put it into heterosexual context it would be like the John Derek syndrome of cruising by the high school for your next wife/lolita when you're already well into middle-age.

To me both these approachs are sad & disturbing - and depending on the state they live in and the age of their target, illegal. Unfortunately our society is neurotic and insecure. In the fear of death they have made youth the goal. Middle aged folks start feeling their youth slipping away and by associating with kids/teens they feel they still have a connection with youth.

The internet doesn't help matters much either. Like the latter days of Rome, sexual depravity is now common and easily accessible. This is naturally tainting a whole generation of teens, kids and adults too. Anyone who has a psychological hang-up can more easily reinforce this hang-up. The world of e-mails, private chat rooms, etcetera have turned many people into internet predators who exploit others on the web.

I bet half of the House and the Senate members both are guilty of some form of sexual harassment, exploitation, adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism, cross-dressing or some similar deviation. I won't say its a GOP thing or a Democrat thing - because I believe, in politics, its both that are universally messed up. That's why everyone in Congress cover for one of their party, because they want folks to look past any indiscretions of deviant behavior of their own that has or may soon come to light. Politicians are generally messed up folks who want to feed at the public trough and get paid for very little work. Clinton had folks covering for him, even though he was married and was old enough to be Lewinsky's dad. Some of the most loyal in the left's activist arsenal are homosexuals. They are a loyal constituency almost as reliable as the black vote. They are generally strident and outspoken about their leftism and the evils of the right. I needed no crystal ball to figure this out. We still have folks here defending Clinton "It doesn't matter what a politician does in their personal life! No one died!" Of course these lines ring now even more hollow.

Re-reading my post I see, it was perhaps too easily misconstrued as to include ALL leftists when I was addressing this subsegment constituency of the left who are composed of men attracted to men and women attracted to women. My point which has been lost is that it seems very hypocritical for the left to bash Foley, when their party has the gay constituency almost locked up. Foley deserves all this criticism, and perhaps far more, if he is guilty of something worse than gay predatory chat messages.

However, after going throught the recent "The GOP are monsters who stop two people who love each other from marrying!" spin cycle, I think I am surprised that the left are not trumpeting this story as "its ok to be gay, but not with an underage page" and instead as "Look, the right are a bunch of evil closeted homosexuals who are covering up!" To me this appears as self-hate. They treat Foley, an obviously gay man, the way blacks in the DNC treat Condi Rice or Powell. Being Black and Republican is to be an Uncle Tom or worse - a 'traitor' to your race. Being gay and Republican is much the same. They are 'traitors' to the gay community.

That's all I was trying to point out.

If I left some gratuitously vague references in my first post that made it seem I was accusing ALL leftists of being gay, I apologize.

That notion is absurd at the face of it and I didn't think my lines would be interpreted that way.