Foley Moley, Batman! 


I suppose it is news, but does anyone really understand these Foley-related events that are unfolding? 

It seems to me that almost nobody is getting the deeper implications of the Foley scandal.

Put yourself back in 1965 and imagine this 13 year old adolescent with possibly explosively awakening sexual feelings. Maybe they were homosexual, maybe heterosexual, maybe just sexual, we don't know. He becomes close with a 30 year old priest, who also no doubt has not adequately dealt with his own sexual feelings. They spend a lot of time together, with the family's approval, even stay overnight together on camping trips. Maybe another friend was along sometimes. The priest is actually unstable emotionally, kind of "falling apart," and is using alcohol and prescription drugs to deal with his anguish. It's hard to imagine that he has not engineered this in some way, even if it may have been a confused one. One thing leads to another, and there is physical contact, a "massage" and some "inappropriate time." Maybe this happens once, maybe more.

Forty years later, Foley is discovered to have engaged in years of inappropriate sexual harassment of male pages in Congress, and also may have had sex with one or more of them. We are treated to days of front page media coverage of THIS scandal. It turns out that many Republican leaders are suspected now by many of knowing of this but not dealing with it in a straight-forward, appropriate way, no doubt for fear of unfortunate political fallout. However, the entire situation definitely affects public opinion about Republican leadership in Washington in a negative way.

Then Foley announces through his lawyer that he was "molested by a priest" when he was a tad. The same 30 year old priest, now in his late sixties, Rev. Mercieca, and living on the island of Malta, is the "culprit." Now we are treated to days and days of front page media coverage of this priest and his stumbling, awkward confession of inappropriate behavior. No penetration or anything like that, he says, just fondling. The child psychologists quickly identify his behavior as pedophilic and involving denial and immature sexual development. Others defend his behavior.

So we have gone from talking about a humiliated Republican Florida politician to talking about another bad priest. A lot of people have said that both Foley and Mercieca abused their power. Sure enough. And, they were both adults, so even given all the excuses and the explanations, the buck stops at them. Or does it? There's another story that I'm not hearing, and I doubt will be heard except in this blog and in relatively few other places.

If people in a society insist on making gay sex bad, then this is what happens. Now I'm not trying to excuse these two guys. But society (and the Catholic Church, and the Congress) and the people in them made the conditions that bred this particular fondling priest and this particular molesting congressman.

First of all, by holding all sex but sex between heterosexual married couples to be evil, and by requiring priests to take a vow of celibacy—now get what I am saying here—the Church created a protected safety zone in which gay men and pedophiles (not the same thing at all!) COULD HIDE. And since the Church also wanted to hide its eyes and the eyes of the faithful from the nasty nuts and bolts of the world, like the fact that there are gay men, and yes even pedophiles, events like the one that Mercieca and Foley were involved in 40 years ago were swept and kept under the rug.

Let me say that another way. It is the demonization of gay sex that led to an extremely hostile atmosphere for the normal expression and development of mature gay sexuality. Yes, I am saying this even though there are additional issues of proper adult-child behavior and violation of priestly vows. Mature people know that the biggest thing to fear about sexuality is its potential for abuse when driven underground.

But I'm not through yet! You political observers, just note. The conversation in this story has switched from Republicans covering up embarrassing sexual misbehavior to the poor 13 year old boy led down the evil path to boy child abuse by a fallen priest. (Well, nobody I read has actually said that in print, but I KNOW that millions are thinking it.) Awn!! Poor baby.

It's clear that this man (Foley) was in the grips of a dreadful sexual and chemical addiction, and nobody wanted to deal with it straightforwardly. We can all name other politicians whose sexual and chemical addiction have created similar scandals. So why are we not seeing Time and Newsweek 48 page spreads on the dreadful spread of sexual and chemical addiction and its effects on business and politics? This would be a great time to springboard into that. I wonder how many sexually and chemically addicted business and church people and politicians there are? I wonder if there aren't so many people who wonder if they might have such additctions that it's hard to get a really serious discussion of this matter started.

We just don't deal with sex very well in this culture. Not in our homes, not in our schools, not in our churches, not in our media, not in our governent. And it isn't likely to change any time soon. Therefore, expect lots more child abuse. Get used to it.

I'm not even going to say anything about childhood sexuality, which presents an even more torturous political quagmire.

One final thing. It's really creepy how dramatic and instantaneous this transition from bad Republican to bad priest took place. Foley just issues the statement and suddenly he's working with the Catholic Church towards healing. Well, what does this mean? That he could still be married or at least be celibate before God? And what if it turns out that what both Mirceica AND Foley turned out to be characterized by ephebophilia (defined by Wikipedia as a sexual preference in which an adult is sexually attracted to postpubescent adolescents)? Not likely that they are going to change any time soon. Conversion of sexual preference doesn't work very well. How can they live the rest of their lives with any kind of dignity? How can they lead productive lives?

Tough questions on my mind.

In the meantime, notice, we're not talking about a Republican coverup any more. Spooky. It still seems to me that that is the big issue for right now. Maybe we can't figure out what philosophers, psychologists and sociologists can't agree on. But we do know how to stop political coverups. Anyone need a ride to the polls?
 

Posted: Thu - October 19, 2006 at 05:18 PM          

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