Foley's follies

[Caveat: I hate child molesters]

So a lot of noise is being made about theis Mark Foley guy. Seems he has been hitting on underage interns for some time. Underage male interns at that. Even more ironic is his participation in the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

So he's resigned, lots of political capital is being made of it by the democrats, they're trying to dredge up and smear as many people as possible with it.

But really, is this child molesting?

He sent sexually explicit emails to teenagers. Not honourable, pretty creepy, but not pedophilia. This guy is guilty of inapproriate sexual conduct towards people over whom he holds authority, but he's not a child molester. If everyone who was attracted to teenagers were locked up, there'd be a hell of a lot less people on the streets. It's a fact that evolution has prepared us to be sexual starting in our teens. It's a fact that sexual attractiveness doesn't know age limits- some people develop at one age, some do at others. It's true that sexual predation on the naive and innocent is despicable from the point of view of being a decent human being- but our 'age of consent' laws are arbitrary and often conflicting.

Foley is an idiot for sacrificing his position and effectiveness, and he's a creep for doing it within his chain of command and with obviously no intention of acting honourably towards the target(s) of his sexual attentions. But in that he's no worse than Clinton, and he doesn't seem to constitute any sort of 'danger to society' in my opinion.

This viewpoint will obviously conflict with that of many parents of teenagers who wish to shield their offspring from all that's bad in the world; I say, if you've done your proper inoculations, then it won't be a problem.

Edited to add:

The IM thing seems to be a little more substantial than the emails. However, it still does not equate to true pedophelia. I think the biggest issue here is that it's a gay guy hitting on young men that gets people up in arms. If it had been females, there would have been outcry, but not as much. If it had been a female congressperson banging a young man, it would not have been as threatening. I must say, Foley's excuses (he was molested blah blah blah) are disgusting- I hate the culture of victimhood that so many try to use nowadays to excuse the inexcusable. We are human beings, posessed of free will and options. We are responsible for our actions, particularly so when it's not an acute situation, but rather a chronic one- not an emergency but a long term activity.