Time's Gay Writer John Cloud Protected Foley's Closet in '03In the future, if a gay journalist at a weekly news magazine wants to protect the closet of a hypocritical politician they are reporting on, one example for them to consider emulating is an article written by Time magazine's gay reporter, John Cloud, in late June 2003.
The story was about nudist camps and one Congressman upset over the mingling of children, adolescents and grown adults at such places. The Congressman, of course, was Mark Foley, and he was using the camps to raise concerns about possible sexual predators going to the camps.
Back in June 2003, few in Congress and the press corps knew about Foley's emails with young adult male pages, and it certainly wasn't being reported anywhere at the time, so it's understandable to think a Time reporter may not have known about the emails and to look back on the Time story now and say it should have mentioned Foley's keen interest in male pages.
However, what had been widely noted in alternative and gay newsweeklies a month before the Time piece hit, were the then-allegations that Foley was a fag.
Here are the headlines that seem to have escaped Time's homosexual hack:
Broward-Palm Beach New Times
May 8, 2003
Out with the Truth
With his voting record at issue, why won't U.S. Congressman Mark Foley just say that he's gay?
The New York Press
May 28, 2003
Liberace Candidate
Mark Foley’s glass closet
NYC's Gay City News
May 30, 2003
Is He Gay Or Not?
U.S. Rep. Mark Foley calls press to say he won’t talk about his sexual orientation
The Boston Phoenix
May 30, 2003
Being gay in the GOP
Congressman Mark Foley: A model of political hypocrisy and personal cowardice
A month after Bob Norman in the pages of New Times busted open Foley's closet, how did John Cloud in his "Nude Family Values" story deal with the Congressman's homosexuality and hypocrisy? He totally ignored Foley's homosexuality, and by omitting any mention to a well-known fact, protected the Congressman and his closet.
Time
June 30, 2003
Nude Family Values
Congressman Mark Foley, a Florida Republican who is planning a run for the U.S. Senate, bitterly attacked the A.A.N.R. youth camp last week. "I have no way of knowing whether illegal behavior is taking place in this camp," he told Governor Jeb Bush in a letter. Nonetheless, Foley asserted that the camp was "exploiting nudity among minor children to make money." He worried that the campers were in danger of sexual abuse. And he asked the Governor to help determine whether the camp is legal.
Though the summer camp was in its 11th annual incarnation, Foley hadn't heard of it until last week, when he read a story in the New York Times [...]
In some respects, Foley is right to be worried, but he's also less informed than he could be. Foley seemed to fear that adults would see the young campers naked, but nudist adults see naked kids — their own and the children of other nudists — all the time [...]
Still, Foley has a point. One reason A.A.N.R. is so attuned to preventing sexual abuse is that it knows that pedophiles are a rare but persistent problem in nudist America [...] Members of both nudist resorts I visited, Lake Como and Cypress Cove Nudist Resort & Spa, in Kissimmee, Fla., said they have had to keep an eye on creepy men [...]
Okay, that was three years ago, but it is interesting to look at what John Cloud wrote in this week's Time about Foley,and his past behavior on the campaign trail in 2003:
"Mark Foley wants you to know that he is a gay man." That's what Foley's lawyer said last week, in an echo of former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey's line "I am a gay American." But the most relevant fact about Foley was not that he is gay--it's that he spent a lifetime hiding it. True, in recent years the Congressman was seen in the company of a male dermatologist in his district. Even so, in 2003 Foley revealed the deep shame he felt about his homosexuality when he called the rumor mill about his gay life "revolting." "My mother and father raised me ... to believe there are certain things we shouldn't discuss in public," he said then. "Some of you may believe that it's old-fashioned, but I believe those are good ideals."
Don't you simply love it when Time and one of its sterling writers tells you, in 2006, about something truthful spoken by Foley three years ago? Sure, Foley spent a lifetime hiding his homosexuality, but he was actively and ably helped in keeping that closet door nailed shut with assistance from mainstream reporters, including Cloud.
And let's remind Cloud that the 2003 "revolting" quote was widely noted in May of that year, way before Cloud's nudist camp story guarded Foley's closet. According to DNC finance chair, gay man and friend of Foley's, Andrew Tobias, who said on his blog in May 2003, even the Miami Herald reported the closet case's "revolting" statement.
And still, with a mainstream daily telling us what we learned from the alternative and gay press, it didn't make the pages of Time until three long years later. Thanks Time, and John Cloud, for doing your part to keep secrets and hide homosexual hypocrisy.
By the way, this is the photo Time used for Cloud's 2003 story:
(Photo credit: Sylvia Plachy, for Time.)
3 comments:
Hello Michael and all,
Here's some more red hot ink for your pen. Now help me vanquish the sword!
This Foley fiasco has given people the chance to change the make-up of this government, which will ultimately lead to the end of the Bush-Cheney reign. It may not be pretty, but it is a gift, nonetheless. Don't waste this advantage. Use it wisely to end the more pressing problems that face us all.
Want to better understand some of the desperation among top Christian politicos? Want to know what else they are pretending not to know about? Follow the links and read about who I am and what I have to say. Notice that my last name is Page? Think this "page" scandal is a mere coincidence? The timing and ramifications are much worse than most realize yet.
If Christian political leaders are going to go around attacking others for not living up to their professed values, it's a damn good idea to be truthful and actually walk the walk. Logs and motes in the eye, camels through the eye of a needle, glass houses, kettles and pots, and what goes around comes around, et al. Karma's a bitch when She finally decides enough is enough! This wouldn't have been so bad on Republicans if they hadn't been such arrogant hypocrites in order to corner the so-called values voters! Now the "Two Candlesticks" and "Two Witnesses" (Truth and Justice) are "breathing fire" and "raining hailstones!"
Christian Political Leadership, Hypocrisy, Duplicity, and Purposeful Evil
The current scandal involving Congressman Foley is merely the latest in an amazingly long list of blatant deception and duplicity by Republicans and the Christian Right in recent years. While bedeviling us all with their holier-than-thou pretenses, they consistently support and/or perform blatant greed and abominable evil. Never forget the extent of their arrogance over the last two decades and especially the last 6 years. It is beyond amazing that Christians continue to blindly support such obviously blatant scoundrels, even as they are repeatedly exposed going against the most basic of human values. The level of hypocrisy and duplicity boggles the mind. There is no longer any doubt, whatsoever, that Christianity is little more than a purposeful deception used by political and religious leaders to dupe, manipulate, and coerce entire populations into giving them wealth and power, which they always use for greed, injustice, and abominable evils.
The actions of Foley and those who covered up for him directly parallel the actions of scores of priests that have raped innocent children, preyed upon others for centuries, and had their actions hidden and abetted by the Vatican. Now, in eerie repetition of Vatican history, we have a power hungry Christian Emperor (GW) working closely with the Vatican and Judeo-Christian aristocrats to lead crusades in the so-called Holy Land. Furthermore, to leave little doubt about the reality of this assessment, the USA, as the new Holy Roman Empire, is about to legalize the torture it has perpetrated in recent years while steadily reversing many of the democratic and civil freedoms that people gained when the Vatican and royalty lost control of their European empire at the turn of the nineteenth century. Now we see them following the same old path of evil as they strive to cement the status of the USA as the latest proxy Vatican empire. Make no mistake about it, the new dark ages are looming on the horizon unless we do something proactive to prevent it.
Remember that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it!
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Here is Wisdom !!
Peace...
Hey, I'm a fan of outing people like Foley, but how exactly did Foley's sexuality fit into the nudist camp story? How would you have written it in? If we knew--if John Cloud knew--that Foley liked 16-year-olds, then it would fit. But obviously John Cloud didn't know (and based on my dealings with John, if he did know, it wouldn't have ignored). John was hardly covering up for Foley, because Foley's sexuality had nothing to do with the issue, as far as anyone knew. Do you think that every reference to Foley had to be followed by "the closeted Congressman from Florida"?
I have to agree with Ted. Why should Foley's being gay have become part of a story about his investigation of a nudist camp? I really hope you answer that question.
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