After knowing for at least a decade and after having promoted and passed local, state, and federal laws that forced anyone who was not Heterosexual into the closet and to find human sexual companionship in places that, hopefully, such hook-ups would not be necessary in a more open minded and informed society, the GOP found itself having to deal with Congressman Mark Foley, the then Chair of the House Committee on Missing and Exploited Children, who had been sending messages to house pages with lewd content.
His doing this was not a secret among the GOP.
The House Speaker at the time, Dennis Hastert, not only declined to move to have Foley removed from Congress even though his position kept him in contact with his victims, but he and the GOP continued to have Foley appear at fundraisers and Party events.
Thing is, though, that Hastert who did not demand the resignation of Foley was later found to have been messing around with 14 year old boys when he had coached a high school sports team admitting to at least four instances where he molested high school kids.
The GOP had no problem with this self-admitting, repeat offender getting only 13 months as punishment without the book being thrown at him.
They both preyed on minors both with pictures, words, and deeds.
Roy Moore had a penchant for looking for young girls in malls. When those charges and credible witnesses came forward, they made Moore a hero to Republican Alabama voters because he was a stalwart Christian soldier who had installed a monument to the Ten Commandments on public land and refused to remove it. When he ran for Alabama Attorney General even after the revelation of his propensity, he defeated his opponent who had been appointed to replace Jeff Sessions when he went to the Trump administration.
This was the administration of the president who as a serial sex offender and unfaithful husband to his three wives on a number of occasions was sent by God and that was okay.
As a form of pushback to mentions of Foley or Hastert now, the common approach is to demand we let the past alone and not hold the present to the past.
Time heals all wounds.
Except, whenever congress or the senate deal with race related topics, the GOP will point out that Jim Crow was introduced by Southern White members of Congress and the Democratically run legislatures of the various Southern states.
What they leave out is that by the 1950s the southern Democrats had become the Dixie-crats and were out of step with the main Democrat Party that was actively becoming promoters of the equality of the races especially after Truman integrated the U.S. Armed forces.
They, in the meantime want to keep the Good Ol’ Days and where necessary bring them back and have become the new Dixie-crats.
At the Ketanji Brown SCOTUS nomination hearing both Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz kept bringing up and questioning her about her record on sentencing those who possessed and distributed child pornography with which they found fault and kept interrupting her answers each time it became obvious her explanation began to show the fault in their false sense of righteousness.
Lindsey Graham got the vapors over it, and they got moral support from the rest of the GOP on the dais because they too are so righteous.
But for all the concern Republicans are showing now, I am wondering what the hell these people are going on about while child abuse and pornography infects their own party, and they do and say absolutely nothing.
Just googling for lists of Republican politicians, local, state, and federal, who have been charged, indicted, and convicted of sex crimes with minors or in questionable consenting adult situations is quite an eye opener.
Of course, Democrats aren’t completely innocent of these crimes, but the difference is that the Democrats do not stand in the public square and condemn others for doing what they themselves do.
Contemporary to the display of righteous indignation at a judge assigning sentences according to established parameters, there is Matt Gaetz being investigated on charges he helped to pay for and transport underage girls across state lines for sex as has been admitted to by a good friend of his who joined in this with him.
He remains a very vocal member of the GOP and the present minority leader of the GOP in the House refuses to take any action, major or minor, to even tone him down in spite of the admission of his friend that established a strong case.
Jim Jordan still has his problems for letting things go on in the showers and elsewhere between a doctor and athletes in the athletic department of the college when he was involved with the wrestling team. The GOP simply ignores those filing the charges and the severity of those charges.
Those employing the deflection of ignoring the past and the what-about-the-past references in an attempt to hide their pattern of behavior will say that that was then and this is now, hoping people will believe the GOP sins are far in the past when in reality such topics of removing Don’t ask/Don’t tell, recognizing same sex marriage and the Civil Rights of Gay people, making schools safe and welcoming for Gay kids, and removing positive information from schools and the same when it came to books in the library that touch on gender were “battles” in the W Bush years with many of the people involved then still in Washington. Many who came in after those recent years have been using these tropes to deny the rights of others, like Trans people.
In some places the battle has been won in favor of Gay people, in some varying degrees and parts, and in some others still way behind in recognizing people’s creator endowed rights.
I was involved in that battle to have rights recognized, as a participant, not a spectator, and I hear the arguments from the GOP in the days of Foley and Hastert being used again now, while the messes in the background continue with tacit approval from the Party.
Having lost when it came to the GLB part, they simply adapted the same false arguments concentrating them on the T and are doing what they can to roll back time to before the predicted horrors of Gay equality that they guaranteed equality would bring about that didn’t happen.
If their only defense in their support of racism which is evidenced by action and taking away people’s rights is that Southern democrats introduced Jim Crow over a hundred years ago and stayed with it until about three quarters of a century ago ,the time difference between supporting Jim Crow and evolving to the point the majority of Democrats rejected it and only the outnumbered southern democrats still supported is an acceptable span to hold Democrats to, then the shorter span from 2000 until now when the fight for GLBT rights was quite alive during the W Bush years can be referenced when you show that while the GOP is having a problem with everyone else’s sexual activity, they engage in those activities and worse on a regular and tacitly approved basis.
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