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Gay Activist Rogers Behind Foley “Outing”?

In a post at his Blogactive website, Michael Rogers seems to want to take a bow for his noble work:

Michael Rogers

Good news… Bad news…

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Well the good news is that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is finally getting it. I called their Director of Communications, Bill Burton, before the Foley story broke to let him know about Foley (and another case) were coming down the pike. While Burton promised to have someone email or return my call and didn’t, I am glad he followed up on my call and was ready on Friday to come out of the gate running.

The bad new is they are still not paying enough attention… There are others within reach… If the Democrats would only fight half as hard as the Republicans.

I posted comments at the DCCC website on the Foley entry. Not only do their promises of returned calls and emails never come to fruition, but now they are deleting my comments from their blog, The Stakeholder.

Luckily the comments were cached before they axed them.

Here’s the one I put up at 9:55pm:

Here’s the one I put up at 10:02pm:

Well, at least they are paying attention.

And how telling it is that the Stakeholder, the homepage of the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) would delete his posts.

Mr. Rogers and his friends have been on this mission for several years now.

From a two year old article in the gay advocacy giveaway, the Washington (DC) Blade:

Blade Caption: Florida Congressman Mark Foley (R) has vowed to vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment, but gay activist John Aravosis said he decided to out the congressman anyway because Foley supports the re-election of President Bush.

Mikulski and Foley become newest congressional targets as FMA vote nears

By ADRIAN BRUNE
Friday, July 09, 2004

… Mike Rogers and John Aravosis, [are] the two men loosely heading an ongoing outing campaign on the Hill. As the date nears for a Senate vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would ban gay marriages in the Constitution, Rogers said the outings have picked up steam — from 13 documented offices to nearly 20 currently on a target list provided by Rogers to the Blade.

In addition to Tolman, Rogers and Aravosis, working in tandem but not together, claimed in the last week to have outed via the Web Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Republican Congressman Mark Foley of Florida…

A spokesperson for Congressman Mark Foley (R-Fla.) also declined to comment after Aravosis specifically asserted that Foley is gay on his Web site last week…

Aravosis continued to defend the outing campaign.

“An acquaintance of mine, a Southern Republican, worked for a member who was not anti-gay personally, but he signed on to the amendment [banning gay marriage],” Aravosis said. “My friend quit. I’m basically saying, ‘You know what, you have a choice. It’s 2004. You can work for pro-gay Democrats, and now you can work for pro-gay Republicans.’” …

Over in the House, Republican Mark Foley said in March that he would vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment — one week after his spokesperson said he would not take a position on the measure until it came up for a House vote.

Despite Foley’s FMA opposition, Aravosis purported to out Foley as well, taking him to task for supporting President Bush, who endorsed the measure late last winter. Labeling Foley as “our latest closeted gay hypocrite,” Aravosis said Foley made the list for putting politics ahead of his own community by “whoring for an anti-gay president.”…

Florida Congressman Mark Foley (R) has vowed to vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment, but gay activist John Aravosis said he decided to out the congressman anyway because Foley supports the re-election of President Bush.

Foley responded to the reports by initiating a telephone press conference among non-gay Florida media and called discussion about his sexual orientation “revolting.” He declined at that time to answer questions about his sexual orientation and subsequently abandoned his bid for the Senate, citing concerns over his father’s health.

Aravosis said he obtained the latest information about the five-term congressman from Foley’s former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham.

Fordham, who is gay, headed up fund-raising efforts for Foley’s aborted Senate campaign and is now the finance director for one of the remaining GOP primary candidates in that race: Mel Martinez, George W. Bush’s former Housing & Urban Development secretary. Martinez has come out in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Fordham denied ever speaking with Aravosis and told the Blade, “I just don’t discuss Congressman Foley’s personal life with reporters, but I’m not sure what their motive is in outing him, other than to draw attention to themselves. Foley has a good track record with gay issues and opposes the FMA.” …

John Aravosis

It seems very probable that one or all of the gentlemen mentioned in this article have had a hand in the recent revelations about Mark Foley.

It is equally likely that one or all of them are behind the anonymous website, StopSexPredators.blogspot.com that first produced Foley’s alleged emails out of the blue.

Michael Rogers started his own website, blogactive.com, back in July of 2004.

Oddly enough, there was a significant drop-off in his activities there after July of this year, which is when StopSexPredators.blogspot.com was begun.

From Alexa:

Mike Rogers should probably be at the top of the list of suspects.

Related Articles:

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 at 3:18 pm. You can leave a response.

53 Responses to “Gay Activist Rogers Behind Foley “Outing”?”

mathews
October 3rd, 2006 at 3:44 pm
are these guys part of the DNC’s “CREW”? http://www.citizensforethics.org/index.php it’s interesting that the crew website only lists a single spokeswoman and no investigators, no board of directors…
SG
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:23 pm
“I spoke with Bill Burton at the DCCC about this” — Michael Rogers.

Bill Burton is the Communications Director for the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee.

I’m sure some enterprising reporters in our one party media will ask him about these contacts.

“What did he know and when did he know it?”

Any minute now.
SG
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:31 pm
An article about Rogers and his noble efforts from the Washington Post:

Capitol Hill Insiders Irked By Campaign To ‘Out’ Them

By Rebecca Dana and Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 15, 2004; Page C01

The phone kept ringing in one Capitol Hill office — hourly, daily, all leading up to yesterday’s Senate vote on the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Mike Rogers was on the line again. He knew something very personal about the press secretary of a Republican House member who supports the amendment, and he wanted to tell someone, preferably someone high-ranking, that the man is gay. Rogers cannot understand this. How can someone help articulate the opposition to homosexual unions when he himself is homosexual?

Rogers, a 40-year-old Washington fundraising consultant, has waged a controversial “outing” campaign in the month leading up to yesterday’s vote. He sent out more 10,000 e-mails encouraging and perpetrating outings. He handed out fliers at the gay pride parade in June, asking people to send in names of gay Hill staffers working for senators and representatives who supported the Federal Marriage Amendment. He created a Web log last week listing some of those names.

He made phone calls, day and night, to the offices and homes of these staffers. His message: How dare you?

Rogers’s campaign has caused a stir throughout the capital, rallying some gay-rights advocates and horrifying others, for demanding that people who are gay and Republican to defend themselves. Rogers says he plans to continue his campaign despite yesterday’s vote — the amendment was defeated 50-48 but probably will be taken up by the House this fall — and he will tack on a “fidelity pledge” to expose members of Congress who promote “family values” but have extramarital affairs.

Openly gay since 1986, Rogers views the marriage amendment as a “very personal” hit. Everything he says on the topic ends with an exclamation point. There is “the conspiracy,” he fires, “on Capitol Hill!” And “the hypocrisy,” he can’t believe, “among gay staffers!” He is riled up, energized and organized, using “sources” around the District to identify and expose the homosexuals on the Hill who, he believes, are abetting discrimination aimed at themselves.

“This is the big cheese!” he says. “We are under attack! Gays and lesbians are under attack! It’s amazing to me that people don’t get that! So what are we going to do? Protect these gay staffers who have influence on policy matters while their bosses spew hate and bigotry?”

No, says John Aravosis, national co-chairman of the activist Web site DearMary.com — which last week ran an ad in the Washington Blade, the gay weekly newspaper, that read: “For Years Our Silence Has Protected You. Today That Protection Ends.” And the Blade itself has published back-to-back front-page stories on the outing campaign, naming senior staffers and two elected officials — one congressman, one senator — whose names have been circulating on the Web and in other gay publications.

In an editorial on July 2, the Blade’s executive editor, Chris Crain, wrote: “It is 2004, not 1954, and sexual orientation in and of itself is no longer a ‘private fact’ beyond the pale of inquiry.” The Blade, he wrote, “would investigate and report about whether influential Hill aides are gay if facts about their sexual orientation raise highly newsworthy questions of hypocrisy in the stands taken by anti-gay members of Congress for whom they work.”

Crain, in a phone interview, explains his controversial position: “The more these staffers are personally responsible for policies that challenge the basic civil rights of gay people, the more it’s our responsibility, as a gay newspaper, to ask them how they justify those positions considering that they’re gay.”

Rogers, Aravosis and Crain inherited strategic outing as a tactic from the 1980s and 1990s, when several congressmen announced their homosexuality under pressure from others. Republican Steve Gunderson, a former Wisconsin lawmaker, came out in 1994 after threats from both gay-rights activists and House conservatives. In response to a political ad in the Blade and the rumor of a story in the gay magazine the Advocate, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) came out in 1996 after voting in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

“The whole outing campaign makes me a little uncomfortable, but I still think it’s the right thing to do,” says Aravosis, a 40-year-old political consultant. “A line has been crossed. When you talk about amending the Constitution to make me a second-class citizen based on my personal relationship, then you’ve crossed a line of decency.”

Gay organizations on the Hill — the newly formed Gay, Lesbian & Allies U.S. Senate Staff Caucus and the 10-year-old Lesbian and Gay Congressional Staff Association — oppose Rogers’s tactics, as do the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization of gay conservatives that has offered counsel to the targets of Rogers’s outings, and the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest gay-rights advocacy group.

Lynden Armstrong started working for Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) in 1995, and came out in the office two years later. As administrative director, he manages the senator’s five offices — four in New Mexico, one in Washington. He is a Republican. Being gay, he says, has not been an issue at work. He considers Rogers’s campaign a “personal attack” on gay staffers “who haven’t gotten to the point, emotionally and psychologically, that they feel that they can come out at work.”

“That is a personal decision,” says Armstrong, 32, sitting in the office with Fox News playing in the background. A native of Fort Sumner, N.M., now living in the District and co-chairing the nonpartisan Senate Staff Caucus, he declines to comment on whether he supports the marriage amendment. His boss voted for it. “I have to keep in mind that the senator has nothing personal against me or the gay community. He is having to do what he is elected to do — represent his constituents. And New Mexicans, if you look at the polls, are overwhelmingly supportive of the amendment.”

His beef with the Rogers campaign: “What a lot of people don’t realize in this whole outing campaign, and one of the bigger problems I have with it, is they’re outing people who aren’t in the place in their life where they’re ready for that to happen. Besides, is outing a staff member going to really affect a senator’s or a representative’s vote? Is it going to change anyone’s position?”

Victor Castillo, a Democrat, has worked on the Hill for 11 years, first for a congressman from San Diego and now as a senior legislative assistant for Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.). Castillo is on the executive committee of the Lesbian and Gay Congressional Staff Association. He opposes both the marriage amendment and Rogers’s campaign. “What purpose does it serve? It’s misdirected. If anything, his campaign pushes people further into the closet.”

The press secretary Rogers has threatened to out, one of more than a dozen staffers he has approached, has been open about his homosexuality for years — to his family, his friends and his co-workers. For even longer, he has been out as a Republican to the same people, which might be an even more daunting position, especially now. He supports, or more accurately doesn’t oppose, the marriage amendment, because if calling homosexual unions ” ‘marriage’ is going to upset the fabric of civil society, to me, it ain’t that important.”

Friends don’t understand this, he says. They don’t see how the 38-year-old press secretary, who declined to be named at the request of his boss, feels no inner conflict between his job and his sexuality. This gay man is not torn about the marriage amendment. Like others whom Rogers has targeted, he is the opposite of torn.

“The irony of all of this is that the people who should be among the most tolerant when the tables are turned are those who are the first to condemn and judge,” he says. “Often the gay platform is one of accepting every X, Y and Z. Guess what? That hasn’t been my life experience. I have more in common with [my Republican colleagues] than I do with any person off the street that happens to be of similar sexual orientation.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....Jul14.html

That Rogers is a fundraising consultant is interesting in view of the quotes from Foley’s former campaign finance guy.
wampaku40
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Hmmm, I was reading an article the other day about the SCOTUS and how Justice Powell has been such a thorn in the side of the conservatives by whom he was appointed….in it was mentioned the liberal’s great landmark victory years ago that established the right to privacy……hypocritical now for the liberal gay Blades to be forcing people to relinquish that same privacy? Of course…..
suek
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:28 pm
Check this out if you haven’t already…

http://tinyurl.com/p8j3o
dulcimergrl
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:09 pm
I don’t have the time or the stomach to read every word of the above, but the main conclusion I come away with is that Rogers is a despicable slimeball. I guess “privacy” is only important if you’re a democrat; Republicans don’t deserve to have anything in their lives be private. His logic is flawed too–why should a person automatically support “gay marriage” just because he or she happens to be gay? That’s like saying a woman must be in favor of abortion just because she’s a woman!
rocketman
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:50 pm
“That’s like saying a woman must be in favor of abortion just because she’s a woman! ”
I like your logic dulcimergrl.
doingwhatican
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:57 pm
“If the Democrats would only fight half as hard as the Republicans.” - article.

Ya gotta be kiddin’ me.
robinboyd
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:20 pm
I’m calling the Rogers/Aravosis campaign a “gay fatwah”. Rogers did admit to having the emails, being involved in the story and more especially assisting in the “timing”…

http://www.haloscan.com/commen.....34/#207771

Think about this - the instant messages were from 2003. The Gay Fatwah started in 2003. Connection? Maybe. Suspicious as hell? You bet.
elguapo
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:51 pm
The guy is guilty. He needs to go. What’s wrong with letting everyone know about his activities? Sometimes the liberals do us a service as Americans by outing legitimately bad people. We should be concerned more with timing than content as far as the allegations go. What vexes me, however, is that Foley resigned over some explicit emails and IMs to pages, and President Clinton did not do the same when he actually HAD physical sexual relations with “that woman, Monica Lewinsky.” Both cases are right to be brought up, and Foley was right to resign, but there is a clear inequity here.
SG
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:02 pm
“We should be concerned more with timing than content as far as the allegations go.”

I am.

Besides, as far as I know, Foley did nothing illegal.

These same people — Michael Rogers and his ilk — would be the first to scream “homophobia!’ if Foley had been kicked out of Congress by the GOP simply because they thought he was gay.

Rogers and company are nothing short of blackmailers, who try to use homosexuality to get their way.

It’s a fairly old racket — and the real reason why homosexuals were previously frowned upon in the intel services and elsewhere. Because of their susceptibility to being exploited by creeps like there.
nodems
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:14 pm
The guy is guilty you say. I agree to a point. He’s weird. Did he write the IMs? I’m still open to whether he did or not. And now that I see that it was a conspiracy to out him and force the loss of a seat in Congress, I’m doubting it more and more.

The problem to me is the timing. He was guilty 3 years ago. Why reveal it now? Because the DemRATs know this is a year they have to win “something.”

So do you really think what Foley did is worse that what these gay-wads are doing? I don’t see much difference. Dirty IMs to a 16 years old versus dirty gay tricks in order to send RAT to Congress….

My opinion is that what the DEMs did is much worse…they raped me, they raped you, and they raped every citizen of that county in Florida, and every citizen of the United States.

If I lived in Florida, I’d vote Foley just to tell the RATs their politics suck.

Plus they outed the young victim whose parents didn’t want him outed about this.

Also, I’m wonder if the gay aide to Foley didn’t write up the IMs himself and put them on Foley’s computer. He probably had password access. An IM is only a text file. You can change the dates and the content anyway you want to.

George Sore-a$$ ’s fingerprints are all over this.
SG
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Thanks Robin for linking to that. Just to preserve it, here is Michael Rogers’ post:

As people know, it’s not always possible for me to disclose my role in some of the activities.

I can say this. I had the emails before they were on the net. Additionally, I had the additional emails, written by the page to a friend. The story was being written by a number of outlets and I provided additional information to reporters involved in the breaking of this story.

Was the central figure in reporting on Foley’s latest scandal? Never said I was. Was my work on the case important to helping make sure it came out before the election? Yes.

Did I have any idea that the GOP leadership was engaged in a cover-up? Nope. Do I love the fact that they are trying to spin this as ‘naughty emails?’ Yup. because it shows how out of tought they are about queer closet cases.
Mike Rogers | Email | Homepage | 10.02.06 - 10:25 am

http://tinyurl.com/kjjto
SG
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:36 pm
I’d say, given his admission above, that my earlier conjecture that Rogers and the others he has been working with in outing Republicans were all involved in this.

I wonder if there are any laws against blackmail in this country? Especially of Congressmen?
retire05
October 4th, 2006 at 12:02 am
So can we all assume now that the Dhimmicrats new motto is “Winning At Any Cost”? And if it is, so what? Do we really think that the MSM where most people get their news is going to show how Democrats allowed young male pages to be put into harm’s way just so they can win the mid-terms?
Yeah, right.
We must realize one thing; Dhimmicrats are better at burying their dirt than a cat. And when someone steps in it, the Dhimmicrats rally ’round each other while the Republicans in their attempt to make things right only make things worse. Michael Rogers says the Dhimmicrats should fight back. I say it is us conservatives that should fight back. When are we going to stop letting the left run over us while we say “thank you” so we can appear to hold the higher moral ground?
Sarah Green
October 4th, 2006 at 12:15 am
Did anyone see Major Garrett on Brit Hume tonight? He showed a reporter that said he was shocked to see Maf54 log on to AIM today! The reporter tried to get a question in, but Maf 54 logged off before he got the chance.
How likely is it that Foley logged on by mistake from rehab? Maybe he booted up his laptop and AIM turned on automatically. Can you go online in rehab? I don’t know much about that. Could it be the phantom false IM’er who briefly appeared today?
Warmonger Infidel
October 4th, 2006 at 12:42 am
“How likely is it that Foley logged on by mistake from rehab? Can you go online in rehab?”

What makes you think he logged in by mistake? Or why he couldn’t go online in rehab? I don’t know that he did or didn’t, mistakingly or intentionally, but if you have a wireless card such as Cingular Air Card, you can go online anywhere, anytime if you want to. I have one and I do.

It’s also now being reported by FNC at 9 PM PDT that Foley has issued a statement from “rehab” that he was sexually molested by a clergyman at age 15. He also released a statement through his lawyer that he was a “closet” alcoholic.

Now as pointed out above, we can’t be sure he did anything more than send overly friendly E-mails and alleged IM’s. But with every released statement he is sounding more and more like a guy who knows there it more and more seriously bad information that is going to be revealed and is setting the stage for his “sympathy” defense in a court of law. Looks lke a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck…………..
1sttofight
October 4th, 2006 at 12:45 am
Foley aint a duck, He is a Kennedy.
Warmonger Infidel
October 4th, 2006 at 12:52 am
In this context, 1st, duck and drunkennedy are fully interchangeable. Either way, I think he knows he’s standing under a shit bomb that’s about to explode all over him. I don’t believe they have even scratched the surface on what this asshat “may” have done in the past. He’s sending too many messages that say otherwise.
1sttofight
October 4th, 2006 at 12:59 am
I agree, He resigned waaaaaay to quick.

But I also say the dems are waaaay over playing their hand. They are going to get burned real bad on this as usual.
Warmonger Infidel
October 4th, 2006 at 1:14 am
I agree 1st….they are pathetic. But if Jack the Ripper had turned in Joseph Edward Duncan III, the murderer that killed most of the Groene family in Idaho last year, I would still be happy old Jack did it. It wouldn’t make me like him or make him any less a pathetic killer, but he would have taken another killer off the street. I’m not comparing the crimes (if there was one in Folly’s case), just drawing a parallel to the pathetic bastards that turned him in. I’ve never had any use for dhimmis, but right now I ain’t too happy with my party either. As for Has-terd, I was hoping he would resign over the cash in the freezer fiasco when he sided against the justice department raiding a congressional office of a “suspected” bribe taker. He hasn’t provided good leadership in the house. Hell, with a republican house and a republican President, he has been successful in getting very little meaningful legislation approved. Now this cloud is over his head…..what did he know and when did he know it. We’ll see how it plays out, but at least Folly is gone.
Sarah Green
October 4th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Warmonger,
My understanding is that there are certain things you are not allowed to do for, say, the first 30 days of rehab. Like phone calls, visitors, etc. I suppose every rehab situation is different. I’ve never done rehab, so I don’t really know. And obviously, Foley is in touch with his attorney, so maybe his specific situation is different.
That said, I thought Foley logging on yesterday would be an unlikely thing for him to do, considering the spotlight he’s under now. Could be that he or someone else turned on his computer and his AIM account logged on automatically. Or it could be that whoever else has his log on info (if there is such a person) logged on by mistake.
sheehanjihad
October 4th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Speaking of gay…..are you aware of that Kansas hate group that protests military funerals because “God hates fags” has indicated that they intend to protest the Amish kid’s funerals in the same manner? I do hope the Pennsylvania State Police prevent it, regardless of all the “constitutional rights” issues. That goes beyond the pale.
Warmonger Infidel
October 4th, 2006 at 8:22 am
Sarah Green….no rehab in my past either so I don’t know what goes on in there. Like you said, he’s sure getting a lot of sympathy info out of rehab so I suspect, because he checked himself in that he has some leeway in what he does. Who knows? I would think after he was “outed” he would have at least changed his passwords or log in info at AIM. But then again, he is an idiot in his use and security of his computer. Then again, maybe he’s so additicted to what he was doing he just couldn’t stay off.
robinboyd
October 4th, 2006 at 8:38 am
There is some speculation that Foley’s former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, was working with Aravosis and Rogers. If so would he have access to the IM’s etc and even the passwords? One of the commenters over at http://www.macsmind.com had that little tidbit.

Wild Bill at Passionate America has a press release stating that he has the name of the IM person and will release this afternoon. Me thinks there are gonna be some DNC operatives with lots of ’splaining to do.
nodems
October 4th, 2006 at 8:57 am
robinboyd,
I made that same comment above a bout Kirk Fordham. And now that guy is working for Tom Reynolds. I think Tom Reynolds needs to contacted and told to get this guy as far away as possible.

Fordham already lied when he said Tom Reynolds okayed his going to Foley’s side during this crisis. Tom Reynolds said yesterday that he did not give Fordham permission.

I think Fordham needs to be shunned in Washington DC. He’s in it, knee deep, in my opinion. It was probably Fordham who recommended to Foley to resign.
esthier
October 4th, 2006 at 9:11 am
What’s wrong with letting everyone know about his activities? Sometimes the liberals do us a service as Americans by outing legitimately bad people. We should be concerned more with timing than content as far as the allegations go.

It’s true. I’m glad we know about him and am very glad he’s gone.

However, it’s the second part that has me worried. They supposedly knew about this for at least a year and waited until now to release it. Now, when it’s too late to replace Foley for another candidate.

They’re playing a game for the majority. And I find that utterly disgusting.
spelunker
October 4th, 2006 at 9:46 am
As for technological capabilities…..recently I had received a series of long distance calls from a number I didn’t recognize, thus didn’t answer. After several days of an increasing number of calls from that number, I did a reverse phone search and it showed a residence with name and address that I had never heard of before so I called it back…imagine my surprise when a recorded message announced that that line was not in service, more so when I received several more calls from that number aftewards. I rechecked and had phone company check, yep, out of service. Also called a business which required my password but my phone number didn’t match up, several calls later, it was still showing that I was calling from a landline that had been disconnected. SHRUG.

I asked some savvy friends who assured me that the technology was out there to make it appear that a call is coming from anywhere you choose while dialing from your phone. Same goes for email.

In the Foley matter, I suspect it is all too true, and worse is yet to be revealed.
esthier
October 4th, 2006 at 9:54 am
It’s definately possible for IM messages to be faked in any word processor. Though if it is faked, it can be checked and proven fake.

The other thing that is unclear is whether or not it is possible to prove Foley was the one at the computer at the time.

I know it’s been a problem for those trying to prosecute people over theft of mp3s.

But then again, that’s all for a trial, not for whether or not the man should be in office. Foley resigned after learning the IMs would be made public, which definately highly implies he is guilty of something.

It could be the actual IMs weren’t as racey as the ones we’ve seen, but I would have a very hard time believing Foley didn’t engage in some type of inappropriate behavior. And with the latest revelation that he was molested as a child, it could mean things are worse than what we’ve so far seen.

Either way, he’s out and hopefully will never harm a teen (assuming he never acted out on his IM conversations). The next question is why we’re just now finding out.
CKO1986
October 4th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Robin–I’ve never heard of Passionate America. You know the URL?
SG
October 4th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Here’s another article about Rogers and his friends via McClatchy Newspapers from when this first broke:

Gay community analyzes Foley resignation

Sep. 30, 2006

By Steve Rothaus

MIAMI - “He was a homophobe who needed to be exposed,” said journalist Michael Rogers, whose website, http://www.blogactive.com/, reported on Florida Rep. Mark Foley for three years.

“I first started to report on Foley in March 2003,” said Rogers, who is gay. “The reason why - he’s antigay. He voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and has not renounced that vote. He refused to acknowledge that he supported the repeal of `don’t ask, don’t tell.’ He would not sign on as a co-sponsor. He should be held accountable for not supporting that or co-sponsoring.

“No community is expected to harbor their own enemies from within. He is an enemy of our community, yet he wants to step into our community and put us at risk. He puts every one of us in a bad light.”

In 1996, The Advocate, a gay newsmagazine, outed Foley. During his 2003 run for U.S. Senate, several Florida newspapers reported the old Advocate story. Foley has never publicly said that he is gay. On May 23, 2003, he called a news conference and said that the innuendo about his life was “revolting and and unforgivable” and that he would not discuss his sexual orientation.

“Elected officials, even those who run for the United States Senate, must have some level of privacy,” Foley said during a half-hour conference call with newspaper reporters from across Florida. “My mother and father raised me and the rest of my family to believe that there are certain things we shouldn’t discuss in public. Some of you may believe that it’s old-fashioned, but I believe those are good ideals to live by.”

Rogers said Foley’s problems come from being in the closet.

“I do believe that he had unhealthy sexual advances to these guys because he was living his life as a closeted gay man,” Rogers said. “Healthy gay men who are mature and dealing with their sexuality in a mature way don’t hit on kids who are 16 years old. What’s his signature issue? You don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

Finance writer Andrew Tobias of Miami, who is gay and treasurer of the Democratic National Committee said:

“As somebody who has met Mark Foley personally and has mutual friends, I am sad for Mark and I hope he doesn’t go to jail. The last time I saw Mark, he was 19 years into a relationship. That was sad that it had to be hidden.

“I hope the Republican Party continues to evolve so it’s not so difficult to be an openly gay Republican.

“Will this play into the fears that all gay people are pedophiles? I hope not. There are heterosexual situations as well. Everybody decries this kind of situation. Even Mark Foley did, but he couldn’t control it.”

Other gay activists were more circumspect.

“It’s a tragedy for him and his family. I don’t want to get into the pain of the closet. It’s irrelevant if he’s gay or not,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Luis Vizcaino, communications and marketing director for Human Rights Campaign, declined to discuss Foley’s resignation. “We’re not going to comment on it,” he said.

In 2005, HRC gave Foley an 88 out of 100 score on gay issues, making him one of the highest-ranked Republicans in Congress.

http://www.belleville.com/mld/.....648719.htm

Note that suddenly Michael Rogers is a “journalist.”

I’ve been told he is a well-known political hack, who when he works as a “financial campaign consultant” is not very good about paying his bills. I’ve been told he also has been bankrupt. I don’t know if any of this is true, however.

But I’m pretty sure he is no “journalist.”

Though he does seem to be a blackmailer.
robinboyd
October 4th, 2006 at 11:14 am
CKO - the website is http://www.passionateamerica.com. You have got to read the comments posted on the press release posting. The libs are going even further over the cliff!
SG
October 4th, 2006 at 11:45 am
“There is some speculation that Foley’s former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, was working with Aravosis and Rogers. If so would he have access to the IM’s etc and even the passwords?”

I thought that might be a possibility at first too. But I’m beginning to doubt it.

For one thing, Mike Rogers attacks Fordham pretty regularly at his blog and in the gay press. As do his fellow jihadists.

Secondly, Fordham is said to have been helping Foley since all of this began to come out.

If he is helping Rogers and company he is under very deep cover.
SG
October 4th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
This development from one of the participant’s, Brian Ross at ABC’s Blotter:

Top GOP Staffer Forced Out for Role in Page Scandal

October 04, 2006 1:44 PM

Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz Report:

Jake Tapper contributed to this report.

The chief of staff for Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, Kirk Fordham, resigned after questions were raised about his role in the handling of the congressional page scandal, according to Republican sources on Capitol Hill.

Fordham, a former chief of staff for Congressman Mark Foley, reportedly urged Republican leaders not to raise questionable Foley e-mails with the full Congressional Page Board, made up of two Republicans and a Democrat.

“He begged them not to tell the page board,” said one of the Republican sources.
THE BLOTTER RECOMMENDS

People familiar with Fordham’s side of the story, however, said Fordham was being used as a scapegoat by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

They said Fordham had repeatedly warned Hastert’s staff about Foley’s “problem” with pages, but little was done.

The complaint about Foley was brought to the chairman of the page board, Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL), last spring, and he then consulted with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Jeff Trandahl.

At Fordham’s urging, according to the sources, the matter was not given to the full board, and instead Congressman Foley was privately approached and told to stop all contact with the page he had been e-mailing.

“This is something we should have been aware of, and we weren’t, and I’m very unhappy about that,” said Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who also serves on the page board.

The Democrat on the page board, Congressman Dale Kildee (D-MI), said it was “unprecedented” to have handled the matter without informing the board members.

Fordham was also instrumental in orchestrating Foley’s abrupt resignation last week hours after ABC News confronted the congressman with sexually explicit instant messages allegedly sent to pages.

Fordham offered ABC News a deal if it would not publish the content of the instant messages.

“He said we could have the exclusive on the resignation if we did not run direct quotes from the instant messages,” said Maddy Sauer, the ABC News producer who dealt with Fordham.

ABC News refused to make any such deal.

Capitol Hill sources say Fordham’s firing is being demanded by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, whose job is on the line because of his handling of the page scandal.

Repeated phone calls to Fordham for comment have not been returned.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl.....affer.html

I believe this may bolster my theory that Fordham was on the GOP side in this. But who knows for sure?

This is more complicated than the Middle East.
nodems
October 4th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
News flash - Kirk fordham just resigned.

Recommended that there NOT be an investigation into Foley.

Something about this guys stinks.
nodems
October 4th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
SG, you beat me! Good work.
wardmama4
October 4th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
There is no proof that Foley had physical contact with this teen. From the left screamers - i.e. pages, other Reps. etc - this issue has been known for a while. On the left, even there it is appearing that media, politicians and others (Rogers and other gay activists) have known about this issue for a while. So it comes down to the comment I heard yesterday - the Dems knew they couldn’t win that seat. So they devised a way to get Foley out, too close to the election for the Repubs to do anything about it.
For that dirty reason alone - I hope that every registered voter in Foley’s district votes for hiim, not because I support him, not because I think he’s been done wrong - but simply to let the Dems know that cheating and manipulation to attempt to win an election/House majority is wrong and we as Americans won’t stand for it.

Better yet - let’s teach the DNC the lesson - Everyone vote for an Indy or Repub in every single election around the country. Teach the DNC that clean, honest elections, based on qualifications, platform and ideas are the only way to win in America. Let’s take our country back from liars, cheaters and hypocrites.
SG
October 4th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
“Recommended that there NOT be an investigation into Foley.”

Yeah, that’s very fishy.

Also that he said he was aware of all this back two years ago — which is exactly when Mike Rogers and company began their anti-Foley jihad.
Right Voices
October 4th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Liberals Setting the Gay Movement Back 10 Years…

As if the actions of Mark Foley weren’t enough to stand on their own merit as repulsive and illegal, we are now faced with the reality that Mike Rogers of blogActive and John Avarosis, who runs the lefty hate site, Americablog are both behind a c…
A Second Hand Conjecture
October 4th, 2006 at 11:22 pm
As The Worm Turns…

Folegate continues to snowball, picking up more and more victims along the way as it speeds further down the gutter than you ever wanted to go, careening through the sewers, and ending who-knows-where.
To my mind, there are really three scandals rolled…
uberrichtig
October 5th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Oh no - not politics!

Yesterday House Speaker Dennis Hastert went on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show to charge that the timing of the Foley revelations have been carefully orchestrated by the Democrats. Fox News obviously also had Rove’s talking points and was spewing the same suggestion.

Whoever was behind bringing the scandal to the media certainly had an agenda but the evidence suggests that their efforts were not “carefully orchestrated” nor were they “carefully timed”. So what’s going on here? And more importantly - why?

Indeed there has been some work going on by someone to push this story forward. However the exact moment of it’s breaking into the headlines seems to have been eventual rather than specifically timed.

The New York Times, yesterday, ran a piece on page A20, “Papers Knew of Foley E-Mail But Did Not Publish Stories”. For all the ire that the right reserves just for the New York Times and it’s alleged “liberal agenda” it seems odd that the Foley story was relegated to a side column on the front page and that the rest of the story was relegated to A20. Perhaps it is because the New York Times, for some reasons not yet clear, was not the first place this story was “shopped”. The fact that, as the NYT, article points out the story was initially shopped to two conservative Florida papers. The tell tale indicators that this is not an effort by “the left” but rather by the “right” is that the story was being shopped to papers within the ring of the right - and not to “outsiders”.

During her appearance on MSNBC Charmain Yost asserted that had the GOP leadership acted - as many critics in and out of the political arean i.e. “security moms” and Nascar Dads - believe that they should have when the first IMs were brought to their attention that they would have been accused of “Gay bashing”. Her point, which ironically or not, was the very same lame idea that I hear Newt Gingrich spew last night on Fox News. The disingenousness of this claim is easily refuted by the fact that the GOP has raised Gay Bashing to a new level in politics by making it a central part of their national agenda. So then it seems that the revelations and the furor the Foley scandal may well be the most insidious attmpt yet by the far right to smear gays and to keep the gay bashing issue out in front. They want to keep “the gay issue” out in front of issues such as the war in Iraq, Bob Woodwards book and the National Intelligence Estimate that says that the war in Iraq is making us less safe because it creates more terrorists with each passing day.

According to the article in The New York Times (Papers Knew…) “…The St. Petersburg Times received its first tip on the e-mail messages in late 2005″ . If whoever was pushing for the Foley story to become public had been succesful right off the bat then we might have been hearing about this story in June of 2005. That would have left more time for the GOP to recover from the news and moreover to have - were it not for Hastert - taken action against Foley and thus looked like the heroes the “family values” crowd imagines them to be. The ultra-right and it’s fundamentalist religious leaders would have sent a shot across the bow to the GOP without causing the GOP to lose the mid-term elections. Ahh the best laid plans…
Beyond the suggestive evidence that I have cited in this entry and my last entry The New York Times article also provided yet another nugget of information that suggests that it was indeed the right, the GOP, and or friends thereof of both, that were behind making Foley’s sexuality an issue:

“Brian Ross of ABC News said he learned about the e-mail messages in August but was too busy with Hurricane Katrina and the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to pursue them immediately. None of the organizations seemed to anticipate how big the story would become.
“I never thought it would lead to his resignation,” Mr. Ross said.
That seems maybe just a little less than a practical and thus invalid conclusion for Mr. Ross to assert. Who could not know that any whiff of this kind of scandal could bring down, of all politicians, a Republican? Particularly a republican who also happened to be in charge of the House’s Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus? In his defense Mr. Ross was, when he first got wind of the potential story, working on both Katrina and the 9/11 Anniversary. That and if in the back of his mind he was thinking of Gerry Studds and the scandal of his having had a sexual affair with a page in 1983 did not cause him to leave Congress then he could very well and thought that Foley would also survive this scandal.

But it is in the conclusion of The New York Times article and in the insight into who Mr. Ross was getting his information from that really serves to make the case that elements within the GOP and not the Democrats who wanted this story to come out:

“Mr. Ross dismissed suggestions by some Republicans that the news was disseminated as part of a smear campaign against Mr. Foley.

“I hate to give up sources, but to the extent that I know the political parties of any of the people who helped us, it would be the same party,” Mr. Ross said, referring to Republicans.”

This brings us back to a quote I found on the website for the Concerned Women of America that was first posted on March, 23, 2003 and quite interestingly reappeared on their website on September 1st of this year:

“Some Democratic activists have pointed out the whispering campaign could be coming from some place much closer to Foley. “If he’s getting attacked anywhere, it’s from the conservatives in his own party,” openly gay Democratic activist David Mixner told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network.” (Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network)

“Conservatives in his own party.” The war over Mark Foley started long before the rest of us ever heard about it. A family feud within the GOP seems to have finally spilled over the confines of the rapidly disintegrating alliance between the GOP and the ultra-right. The paradigm of the GOP’s pandering to religious fanatics was already on the wane as Republicans began to feel the heat of the public becoming less and less comfortable with theology and government becoming as dangerously and divisively blended as it is in places such as Afghanistan.

The result of this war or the battle as it continues is visible in the spin the far right is trying to pull out of the scandal - “Gays bad -all bad. Must stop them.” vs. the moderate GOP (McCain’s desired version for his 2008 Presidential bid) that is trying to steer the party away from the kind of extremism that would make the ghost of Barry Goldwater shudder.
In the final analysis the agenda of the parties who pushed this story forward will fade into the background as it becomes clear their efforts ended up as a suicide attack that, for the moment, has killed the religious rights agenda because it also took out the GOP with it.

I say “for the moment” in regards to the religious right because I believe that the religious right will form a more independent political organization and position its self in opposition to both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

In the meantime the rest of us can enjoy the House and the Senate being taken from the GOP. Let’s hope that we make the most of it and make it harder for theology and government to become confused and entangled again any time soon - if ever.
1sttofight
October 5th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
WOW, It is truley amazing just how twisted the lefty thought process really is.
Hey, uberrichtig , You left out Hitler, Nazi, Baby Killers, Empires, War for Oil, etc.
Gila Monster
October 5th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
“Somewhere..over the rainbow..skies are blue..we represent, the lollipop guild, the lollipop guild, …you killed her…and your little dog too..”!!!

Uberrichtig, was that an original composition by you or did you just cut-n-paste from the various dhimmi moonbat blogs you normally haunt?

Wow! It must be a “Rovian” conspiracy, sent down by command of the mother ship..!!
esthier
October 5th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
The result of this war or the battle as it continues is visible in the spin the far right is trying to pull out of the scandal - “Gays bad -all bad. Must stop them.”

Really? And all this time I thought it was Democrats who were calling for Hastert’s resignation because Hastert didn’t warn the pages to stay away from the gay Republican.

I thought it was the Democrats who were claiming that being gay and asking for a former page’s picture were enough to conclude Foley was a pedophile.

And I thought it was Democrats who were saying that as a gay man Foley should not have been left alone near children.
rocketman
October 5th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Who said dhimmiever was long winded???
groovygrl
October 5th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
I heard it bantered about this morning on the news that it was Soros that orchestrated it.
wampaku40
October 5th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
uberrichtig longs for the days of Clinton and everything goes…….right down the drain
1sttofight
October 5th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Is it just me or does there seem to be an unusual number of hippies posting here today?
rocketman
October 5th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
“Is it just me or does there seem to be an unusual number of hippies posting here today? ”
Hey 1st, I spent 1961-1970 overseas…I missed all the hippy stuff.. so I decided what the hell, I’ll grow a pony tail…LOL… now, as the Mrs says, I’m one of those 60 (plus) year old hippies….it’s kinda fun…I live in a town on 900 and there’s only two of us with ponytails,,,guess what??? We both are VN veterans… Just maybe you might want to delete your “hippy” and replace it with screwballs or something. I agree with ya on that. There’s been alot of uunusual traffic the last few days :) Peace bro.
DW
October 5th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Timothy Peters
October 5th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
I read reference to this site today and had to see for myself. I don’t know how people can be so vile

1st,
This is from the thread about CS’s book. Either we’re catching a hangover from the ‘Mother Sheehans book signing’ thread (remember how many trackbacks there were to that?) or the ever-diligent SG has struck a nerve somewhere else in the blogoshpere.

Or maybe it’s just that the planets are all lined up or some other damn age of aquarious thing…
1sttofight
October 5th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
The term HIPPIE has nothing to do with hairstyle. It is mostly about that vacumn between their ears. ;) IMO.
rocketman
October 5th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
I know 1st - Just ribbin… How ya doing… any good scores on the links?
1sttofight
October 5th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
Not really, Havent been much lately. Actually havent played in about 3 months due to a little medical problem.

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Gay Activist Rogers Behind Foley “Outing”?

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