Foley Scandal May Cost GOP Control of Congress
Latest Revelations Suggest Inappropriate Behavior Dates Back To Mid-1990’s
Washington, DC - Republicans, already nervous over the prospect of losing control of the House, now may be looking at a Senate takeover as well. Several new polls have the GOP concerned about widespread fallout from the ever-expanding Capitol Hill sex scandal involving former Representative Mark Foley (R-Florida) and teenage pages.
  A Rasmussen Reports survey released October 6 found 61% of Americans believe Republicans have been “protecting Foley for several years.” Only 21% believed the GOP leaders learned about Foley’s problems last week.
  A Time magazine poll showed that two-thirds of Americans who knew about the scandal believed the Republican leadership tried to cover it up. Just 16% approved of the way Republicans have handled it.
  An Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that about half of likely voters said recent disclosures of corruption and scandal in Congress would be “very or extremely important” as they decide how to vote next month. By an almost two-to-one margin, they said Democrats would be better at fighting corruption.
  Even more disturbing to the GOP may be the recent news that the race for Senate control is tightening. A USA Today poll with the Gallup organization showed the Democrats making competitive races in six key states: Tennessee, Virginia, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Missouri and Maryland. Democrats need to gain six seats to take control of the Senate.
  The bad polling news comes as the depth and length of the disgraced Congressman’s predatory behavior continue to be revealed.  An Atlanta man told a local television station and newspaper that Foley sent him sexually suggestive messages after he served as a congressional page 10 years ago.
  Tyson Vivyan told WAGA-TV in an October 4  interview that Foley began sending him instant messages about a month or two after his nine-month stint as a page ended in June 1997. Vivyan told the station that when he was a congressional page in 1996 and 1997 he barely spoke to Foley. But after he left the program - when he was 17 years old - Vivian says they had contact via e-mail about things he says where inappropriate.
  “He somehow got ahold of my online identity on AOL and began sending me sexually illicit ims,” Vivyan said in the TV interview. Vivyan also told WAGA he received messages from someone with the screen name “Maf54”, which has been widely reported as belonging to Foley.
  Vivyan said he became upset when he learned that the messages were from Foley. “The fact that here is a member of Congress soliciting some type of a sexual relationship from a minor,” he said.
  Vivyan said the contact continued for years but that he never felt threatened. “Absolutely not. No, to me, it was simply a very lonely, very sick, very desperate man seeking attention from someone he apparently found attractive,” he told the TV station.
  Vivyan added that he kept the matter to himself, “because I was under the impression at least initially that it was an isolated incident.”
  Now that Foley’s contact with other pages has blown into a scandal, Vivyan told the TV station he should have broken his silence earlier. “I’m very disappointed in myself for not having the courage to do it back in 96-97. I was hoping and praying it was an isolated incident - myself, maybe one or two others, Vivyan said. “Now it seems this has been progressive manipulative and wide-ranging abuse of adult authority on mark’s part and it’s affected more people than I ever hoped it would. I consider myself a victim but I don’t consider myself traumatized. The behavior that he perpetrated was wrong.”
  “The conversations he started were almost sexual in nature,” Vivyan said in a separate interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I would try to steer it to things he was doing on (Capitol) Hill.”
  Foley’s attorney, David Roth, declined to comment October 5 on the allegations from the former Georgia page or about three other pages who claimed that they had received emails from Foley.
  Three more former congressional pages also came forward that day to reveal what they call “sexual approaches” over the Internet from former Congressman Foley. The pages served in the classes of 1998, 2000 and 2002. They independently approached ABC News after the Foley resignation through a tip line set up by the network. None wanted their names used because of the sensitive nature of the communications.
  “I was seventeen years old and just returned to [my home state] when Foley began to e-mail me, asking if I had ever seen my page roommates naked and how big their penises were,” said the page in the 2002 class. The former page also said Foley told him that if he happened to be in Washington, D.C., he could stay at Foley’s home if he “would engage in oral sex” with Foley. The page told ABC News he was interviewed this week by FBI agents who had a six-page list of questions about Foley and the exchanges.
  The second page who talked with ABC News, a graduate of the 2000 page class, said Foley actually visited the old page dorm and offered rides to events in his BMW. “His e-mails developed into sexually explicit conversations, and he asked me for photographs of my erect penis,” the former page said. The page said Foley maintained e-mail contact with him even after he started college and arranged a sexual liaison after the page had turned 18.
  The third page interviewed by ABC News, a graduate of the 1998 page class, said Foley’s instant messages began while he was a senior in high school. “Foley would say he was sitting in his boxers and ask what I was wearing,” the page said. “It became more weird, and I stopped responding.”
  All three pages described similar instant message and e-mail patterns, with remarkably similar escalations of provocative questions. “He didn’t want to talk about politics,” the page said. “He wanted to talk about sex or my penis,” the page said. The three new verbal accounts are in addition to two sets of sexually explicit instant messages previously provided to ABC News by former pages.
  In response to the widening scandal, the House ethics committee approved nearly four dozen subpoenas October 5  as its investigation of a page sex scandal sprang to life with a promise by its leaders to go “wherever the evidence leads us.” Speaker Dennis Hastert said he accepted responsibility for any earlier failures to investigate former Rep. Foley’s sexually explicit computer messages to teenage pages. But he resisted pressure to step down.
  “Ultimately ... the buck stops here,” the Republican speaker said, borrowing the famous phrase of a Democratic president, Harry Truman.
  Hastert held to his assertion that he did not know about Foley’s e-mails and instant messages to former pages until the scandal broke last week. In the past several days, several Republican lawmakers and staff members said they were aware of the messages. Democrats reportedly were not notified.
  Hastert’s renewed denial came a day after a senior congressional aide said that he told the office of the Republican leader of the House of Representatives about worrisome conduct by Foley, his former boss, toward teenage pages more than three years ago, long before officials have acknowledged becoming aware of the issue.
  Kirk Fordham told The Associated Press that when he learned about Foley’s inappropriate behavior toward pages, he had “more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene,” alluding to House Speaker Dennis Hastert. The conversations took place long before the e-mail scandal broke, Fordham said, and at least a year earlier than members of the House Republican leadership have acknowledged.
  Fordham, once Foley’s top aide, is also widely known to be gay. Fordham resigned October 4 as chief of staff to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, a member of that leadership. Shortly after the resignation CBS News reported that several other top Republican staffers who handled the Foley matter are also gay. Their role in this controversy has caused a firestorm among GOP conservatives, who charge that a group of high-level gay Republican staffers had been  protecting the recently self-admittedly gay Republican congressman.
  Fordham spoke to the Associated Press after ABC News quoted unidentified Republican sources as insinuating that he had intervened on behalf of Foley, his former boss, to prevent an inquiry into Foley’s conduct. “This is categorically false,” Fordham said. “At no point ever did I ask anyone to block any inquiries into Foley’s actions or behavior.”
  The Foley scandal also has impacted at least two Wisconsin Republicans. Gubernatorial candidate Mark Green donated at $1,000 donation received from Foley to charity and incumbent Rep. Paul Ryan returned a $3,000 donation.  Green also noted that he believed that Foley might face criminal charges based on what Green knew, suggesting the former 8th District Congressman may have been one of the many on the GOP side of the aisle who were aware of Foley’s activities but remained silent for partisan reasons.

Controversial Milwaukee Alderman McGee Opposes Amendment
Milwaukee - Alderman Mike McGee, who angered many in the city’s LGBT community a year ago, has come out to formally oppose the pending Wisconsin ballot measure that would ban civil unions and gay marriage. McGee was among the thirty Madison and Milwaukee African American leaders who signed statements opposing the proposed constitutional amendment, according to an October 4 press release issued by Fair Wisconsin.
  The Milwaukee group signed the following statement: “We the undersigned are opposed to the constitutional amendment that would write discrimination into the constitution by making domestic partnerships and civil unions permanently illegal in our state. If enacted this would be the first time that the Wisconsin Constitution has been used to limit people’s freedoms. It would establish a very dangerous precedent. As African American leaders who have participated in and benefited from the historic struggle for civil rights we are opposed to discrimination in any and all forms.”
  Among the elected leaders signing the statement besides McGee were former Secretary of State Vel Phillips, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, State Senators Lena Taylor and Spencer Coggs, Assembly Representatives Jason Fields, Leon Young, Tamara Grigsby, Robert Turner and Barbara Toles, Milwaukee County Supervisors James G. White, Willie Johnson Jr. and Elizabeth Coggs-Jones, and fellow alder Willie C. Wade. A dozen of the city’s  black religious figures also signed the document.
  The group of Madison African-American elected officials and community members opposing the ban included Dane County Supervisors Richard Brown and Sheila Stubbs, Madison Common Council Aldermen Brian Benford and Isadore Knox, Jr., and Madison School Board President Johnny Winston, Jr.
  McGee caused the blood pressure of many in Milwaukee to surge in 2005, but none more so that the city’s LGBT community. McGee’s initial volley at a February 10 rally in defense of Frank Jude Jr.’s October, 2004 beating by off-duty Milwaukee policemen equated the Fox Valley resident’s assailants as “hate mongers and KKK killers” but then McGee singled out one of the dozen attackers as “a straight-up sick faggot.”
  Subsequent response focused the city’s attention on the anti-gay slur. The Milwaukee LGBT Center, which sits in McGee’s district, later chimed in admonishment but it was Senator Tim Carpenter’s on-camera confrontation with McGee at another of the alder’s staged protests two weeks later that showed McGee up.
  “Why are you disrespectful? Why don’t you return phone calls?” Carpenter shouted.  “When will you apologize for using the term ‘faggot’ when referring to police officers? You’re an embarrassment.”
  McGee refused to acknowledge Carpenter, and instead ran off down the hall and into his office, trailed by Carpenter, TV cameras and reporters eager to capture the confrontation. Carpenter continued shouting to McGee after he went into his office “Why are you hiding?” The senator later explained that he had attempted to call McGee numerous times without success.
  McGee also caught the anger of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Common Council President Willie Hines not only for his anti-gay slurs but his use of derogatory terms for black women on the city’s talk radio.
  Later in the year, McGee was back on the city’s gaydar after two teenaged girls accused him of making anti-gay comments while showing a video of the February 23 confrontation during a bus trip the alder sponsored to the Millions More March in Washington, DC.

Sparks Fly At Second WisPolitics Marriage Ban Debate
Harsher Rhetoric Dominates As Wider Ranging Issues Discussed
Waukesha - Perhaps it was the weather, as spectacular lightning flashes cracked across the skies surrounding the UW-Waukesha campus. Perhaps it was the setting: Fair Wisconsin’s Mike Tate, dressed in a “liberal” blue power suit, and the Family Research Institutes’s Julaine Appling, in a striking, “conservative” red matching blouse and skirt and seated at separate tables. Or perhaps it was the poll issued earlier in the day by debate sponsor WisPolitics.com, suggesting 53% of likely voters will approve the proposed amendment to the Wisconsin constitution banning all legal recognition of unmarried couples November 7, a statistic neither side openly acknowledged during the hour-long debate. For whatever reason, both sides came out swinging hard in the second debate on the proposed ban on gay marriage and civil unions here October 2.
  Unlike the first debate (see story in State News section), WisPolitics editor and debate moderator J. R. Ross, Wisconsin Public Radio’s Milwaukee correspondent Chuck Quirmbach and former WTMJ-TV political reporter Wayne Youngquist offered questions that centered less on the language and possible impact of the amendment and more on the larger issues of domestic partner benefits, the support behind ban backers and opponents, and homophobia. Both Appling and Tate worked to respond in ways that brought them back to their key talking points for the evening.  And their words were sharper: “arrogant,” “dirty money,” “scare tactics,”  “hoodwink,” “ political correctness” - even the name of Karl Rove was invoked at one point.
  Responding to a question as to why gay marriage or civil union legislation had not been considered on the floor of the legislature, Tate was able to weave his two key  arguments of the evening - the “bait and switch” tactics of ban supporters and “don’t change the status quo” - into his answer. “I think that there hasn’t been a big push for gay marriage or domestic partnership benefits is because, despite what you will hear from the other side, there is not some sort of rush... some sort of big organization that’s trying to push for these benefits. (Gay marriage and civil unions) are illegal today because the will of the people deems them such,” Tate said.
  Tate then ripped ban supporters’ “activist judge” argument. “She’s (Appling) going to use a lot of those scare tactics that they’ve been using for a couple of years now - talking about why we need this, talking about judges. If they didn’t want judges involved, they wouldn’t write the amendment this way. This amendment guarantees judicial involvement (if passed). If you want things to say exactly as they are right now, if you want gay marriage to remain illegal but you don’t want to see all these legal protections ripped away from these families... then you’re gonna vote no. They’re trying to hoodwink the Wisconsin voters just like they did in all those other states, where people with Miss Appling’s position kept saying ‘one man-one woman marriage.’ The reality is that it’s a lot more.”
  Perhaps hinting at the most recent poll results in Wisconsin, Appling responded by pointing out that all twenty of the amendments passed to date received an average of 71% support at the ballot box, with the Mississippi vote tally being as high as 86%. “Mike must think most of the people in this country are stupid,” Appling shot back. “ I think its a pretty arrogant statement to say that up to 86% of the people in any given state are absolutely buffoons and can’t figure out what is what on an amendment, that they can understand that marriage is between a man and a woman.”
  Responding to the question “who are your political friends, who are your supporters?” Appling  noted her Family Research Institute of Wisconsin organization was affiliated with the out-of-state groups such as Jame Dobson’s Focus On The Family, the DC-based Family Research Institute and the Dobson-founded Alliance Defense Fund. “We are not apologetic at all for associating with those organizations,” Appling said. “They stand for what we believe in.”
  Tate pointed out ban opponents’ local ties. “Fair Wisconsin is a Wisconsin-based group, unlike Miss Appling’s,” Tate noted, ticking off a state half dozen religious, labor, professional and senior citizens’ groups in addition to the organization’s more than 8,000 donors. “It’s a vast left wing conspiracy.”
  “Over 90% of our donors live inside Wisconsin,” Tate said. “In the the last (state Elections Board required) financial report that Miss Appling filed, (FRI-WI) they hadn’t taken one dollar from a citizen of Wisconsin.”
  “Who’s really behind this?” Tate then asked. “It’s these organizations that she just ticked off. Organizations that say its about ‘one man, one woman marriage’ but once they get into these states and once they pass these amendments, they go round and round and they force  through to take away domestic partner benefits because they don’t like gay people.”
  Tate then praised his own coalition. “I am so proud of the organizations and the people we work with at Fair Wisconsin... Whether its because they’re people of deep faith, whether they’re concerned about the practical effects it would have on the senior citizen community or whether its because they’re just an average Wisconsin family that wants to take a few of their hard-earned dollars... and help us defeat this horrible amendment that’s being pushed by these national organizations...”
  A follow-up question brought up a complaint filed earlier in the day with IRS against Focus On The Family for allegedly violating its tax-exempt status for engaging in political activity. “This is an another example of  national, dirty right-wing money being brought into Wisconsin, Tate said.
  Tate then challenged Appling. “Why are you bringing that into Wisconsin?” Tate asked. “This should be a debate about Wisconsin, funded by Wisconsin residents with Wisconsin organizations that are leading the charge.”
  Tate then pointed out ban supporters’ lack of support from other state organizations. “You don’t really have any organizations that are supporting you because this amendment is so far reaching, and so extreme, that groups like the Wisconsin Medical Society get involved (with Fair Wisconsin)... groups like the Wisconsin Coalition of Aging Groups which isn’t concerned at all about about gay rights, but concerned about senior citizens.”
  Appling said that she was not aware of the IRS complaint, and corrected Tate about her group. “The Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, which for a matter of record, is a completely Wisconsin-based organization, incorporated here in the state of Wisconsin.”
  Appling then dismissed ban opponent’s allies as “a politically correct thing to do.” “It is very politically correct to come out in support of things that are seemingly supporting homosexuality,” Appling said. “It is not politically correct to come out and say anything negative about - or even neutral - about homosexuality.”
  WisPolitics offers a webcast of the entire debate on its website. To access both the Green Bay and Waukesha debates, go to www.wispolitics.com.

World & National News:

State News:

Madison - A lot of thought went into naming the Madison Gay Hockey Association's developmental league the Thunder. "I wanted something that was distinctly regional, synonymous with force and because of this being a gay league I also needed it to announce that we expect to be heard," said founder and director Patrick Farabaugh. Well, consider it announced. On October 15 at the Madison Ice Arena another play on that name will be appropriate. In only a few days, an estimated 60 players come together for the first time and temporarily steal the thunder from other city gay hockey associations that came before it as Madison launches the largest inaugural season for a gay hockey league in the world. If this seems to have happened overnight, it's because it almost has.
  After returning from the Gay Games this past July in Chicago with friend and now teammate Tim Woebbeking, Farabaugh made the commitment to building a league here. "I'd played hockey for years with the gay league in New York and missed it when I moved to Wisconsin. After seeing Tim get as excited as I felt when he saw the teams at the games, I started to think that there was room for one in Madison."
  But how does a team turn into a full league in its first season?
  The key has been in the structure of the Thunder. Madison is setting a precedent of another kind when the MGHA opens its doors. This is also the first gay hockey association built from the ground up as a developmental league. Every preceding city has started by creating a competitive team and then branched out to recruit developmental players. Madison is instead starting with those developmental players and looking to have its competitive teams grow out of that group. The reasoning behind this reversal is unique. Explaining his logic and the background of one of his sponsors, Farabaugh said, "In New York I got a chance to work with Joe Patane who built a peer-mentoring non-profit group for kids to teach other kids different activities. I got to witness a kind of social interaction that seemed as positive and constructive as I could imagine. I admired the environment Joe built, and looked for a way to translate this into the gay community." Hockey, for multiple reasons, became the perfect vehicle.
  Traditionally hockey has been a very exclusive sport. For most growing up it was left to kids from privileged families. Watching the NHL or most college teams gives it a reputation for attracting aggressive players that usually wave strong caution flags for LGBT youth. Hockey has often fallen into the category of sports that gay people felt excluded from. The design of the MGHA is changing that though, and players are signing up in force to reclaim their right to compete. In her online player bio, Bri Deyo wrote, "Three cheers for Madison's LGBT community, and the way we teach each other to play sports we never thought we'd get the chance to play! Seriously, if there's an organized sport out there, you can play it with gay people in Madison. I love this city."
  As it stands, the roster breaks down to about a quarter of players that would be considered advanced. Another quarter have at least some hockey experience, with the remaining half being introduced to playing the sport for the first time. The season has been designed to facilitate peer-lead skills clinics run by a coaching staff that's overseen by Gary Shuchuk, a former Badger who's career lead to the NHL and has played for both the Detroit Red Wings, and with Wayne Gretzky on the LA Kings. Bruce Irving, the head junior varsity coach and assistant varsity coach at Harvard (and brother of MGHA goalie Andrew Irving) has also expressed interest in leading a clinic.
  As it progresses, the skills clinics evolve into games and the games last until the end of February when the league then starts accepting essays for its scholarship program.
  Writing and submitting an introspective essay titled "What Gay Hockey Means to Me" gives players a chance to be awarded a paid trip to experience the community on a much larger scale each June when New York hosts the Chelsea Challenge, America's premier LGBT ice hockey tournament. Attending the tournament in New York offers a chance to see both the size and scope of the gay hockey community—New York attracts players and teams from all over Europe, Canada and America—and it helps the recipient retrace a significant piece of the MGHA's own history as it was the kinship and community that Farabaugh found there that helped create the initiative to bring this experience to Wisconsin.
  If you're interested in catching the Thunder in action, or witnessing the first time they collect as a group to step on the ice, they will be kicking off Sunday night, October 15 and meeting every Sunday night after that through February at the Madison Ice Arena. Anyone interested in joining or sponsoring the efforts of the league can learn more about it on the web at www.madisongayhockey.org. The site has been built to be a comprehensive hockey index and has a list of resources, player bios, and events already.