Republican Predators and Christian Phonies

One cannot find a better example for highlighting the moral turpitude, sleaze, corruption, amorality, and lack of responsibility that is the Republican Party than what is currently on display in Washington. The party that spouted and foamed about how they would restore honor and integrity to Washington is embroiled in the sleazy Rep Mark Foley sex case that shows them to be the total hypocrites they always were. Knowingly working with and enabling a child predator, the House Republican leadership (Hastert, Boehner, and staff) has shown a creepy and callous disregard for their constituents, the children of their constituents, and the American public. The young people who work in congressional offices as pages earn that opportunity through hard work, citizenship, and achievement in their schools and communities. Their parents entrust their safety to US House Representatives in whose offices these teenagers work. So much for that. Having to fend of the advances of a sex depraved Congressman and having to endure them for over a year due to the unconscionable abrogation of responsibility from Hastert and other Rethuglican “leaders” who knew of the predator in their midst is sickening and deplorable. Anyone there ever hear of the Catholic Church sex abuse fiasco?

While the Republicans squirm in their self infected miasma, what of their vaunted base? You know – the Christians, the Moral Majority, the Values Voters, the moralists from Rethuglican 'religio' groups? Surely they must be up in arms and are howling from the rooftops that this is a despicable state of affairs. Surely the idea that a high ranking member of the Republican leadership has a secret life as a child predator is causing severe angst throughout their world. Oops – sorry. Not a peep.

You see, the 'Religious Right' really has nothing to do with religion. Religion is just the draw for the suckers – a way to separate them from their cash. The 'religious right' is really about control – about authoritarianism – about fascism cloaked in religion. The religionut 'leaders' really care nothing about the values they rally around. Morally crippled and damaged, they cannot distinguish true humanistic differences between right and wrong.

Claiming to be a man of deep Catholic faith, Foley hasn't shied away from proclaiming his rectitude. "At Sacred Heart, I was taught how to be a better citizen because of their focus on discipline and moral values," he said, referring to the school he attended in Lake Worth, Florida.

Foley also received an 84% approval rating from the Christian Coalition in 2004, the most recent year we could find spur of the moment.

Indeed, Foley made get-tough laws on sexually exploited children -- particularly exploitation over the Internet -- one of his primary crusades in Congress. He was even Co-Chair of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus. He also introduced a bill to ban online "child modeling" sites, claiming they are "nothing more than a fix for pedophiles." "They don't sell products, they don't sell services," he said. "All they serve are young children on a platter for America's most depraved. These sites sell child erotica and they should be banned."

On Bill O'Reilly's show this May, he said, "Our kids are precious. Their lives are vulnerable. The predators are winning as we speak."

Rarely has there been a clearer case of the kind of religious hypocrisy that Jesus condemned so passionately in the Gospels.

Foley rails against the depraved; he is the depraved. Foley attacks the predators; he is a predator.

Our question: where are the denunciations from the religious right? Where is Focus on the Family? Where is the Family Research Council? Do they only care about sexual misconduct when it's committed by a Democrat? The hypocrisy doesn't belong to Foley alone. The hypocrisy belongs to everyone who rails against sexual sin for political purposes then delivers a sermon of silence when the sinner happens to advance a right-wing, Republican agenda.

Image from Austin Cline
Posted on The Human Stain