Sexual Offenders

What started as a longish email reply about the scandal that has led to the resignation of US Rep (Fl-R) Mark Foley is turning out into a full fledged post. The conversations I have been having with other people is about how this story is being framed.

I've been hearing the word "pedophile" and now the moniker "predatorgate" thrown around with much gusto by Democrats. The problem is, it has been also intertwined with the words "homosexual".

See, Mark Foley was a self-hating semi-closeted gay man who happens to have also had a fondness for stalking young pages all around Capitol Hill. The worse part? Dennis Hastert, Tom Delay and other republicans knew about it. For years. About five years to be exact. They did nothing about.

Yet because "pedophile" and "predator" are in collusion with "gay", this whole framing makes me nervous.

Queer activists, like my friend Michael Rogers of BlogActive, work hard to report on the enemies within their communities. That a man like Mark Foley could spend 19 years in a committed relationship with another man yet push forward the Defense of Marriage Act is just incredible. Without Michael's investigative reports we wouldn't have the background information necessary for making informed assessments on creeps like Foley.

While perusing my homeotwn's New York Daily News, I came across yet another disturbing report of female pedophilia :

[via New York Daily News - Breaking News]:

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (AP) -- When a 16-year-old boy rolled into his driveway with a Mercedes-Benz no one had ever seen before, his mother got suspicious.

After some questioning, the teenager told his mother that the car was a gift from Lisa Frodella, 39. Police said their investigation revealed the married mother had two sexual encounters with the youth at Long Island hotels in March and April.

Frodella surrendered to police Wednesday on charges of rape and a criminal sexual act. A judge set bail at $40,000 cash, or $120,000 bond.

Is it me or the numbers of women accussed of these cases are growing by the minute? I mean, just in the last year I've heard of jaw-dropping charges against women, some of the cases happening here in New York City and involving public school teachers (yet another reason to homeschool).

It's not everyday I read that bastion of online conservatism, but World Net Daily has an improbable list of women pedophiles; including the recently notorious Mary Kay Le Tourneau. Crime Library, by the way, has a hideously pulp fictioney account of her life and the infamy surrounding her own family's sexploits. It creeps me out her bio reads like a five cent novel.