There are an awful lot of things worth saying about the Mark Foley scandal (check Wikipedia for a running summary). It’s likely going to turn out to be the scandal of scandals for the Bush-era Congress, and that’s quite an accomplishment. It’s poised to take down Dennis Hastert (R-IL) as the Speaker of the House over allegations of his failure to act on knowledge of Foley’s creepy habits, putting him next to Tom DeLay on the list of top Republican lawmakers to fall from grace in this term. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as the major newspapers are reporting that Foley’s pedophilia was hardly a secret.

But the dirty deeds themselves aren’t really the most interesting part. The right’s reaction to the whole mess is simply astounding. The logical move here would be to disown Foley and try to focus on the election. Instead, nutcases like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council appear on CNN and blame our culture of “tolerance and diversity”.

TONY PERKINS: There’s no defense of this behavior. It’s outrageous. It’s shocking. But it shouldn’t be totally surprising. When we told up tolerance and diversity as the guideposts for public life, this is what you end up getting. You get congressmen chasing 16-year-olds down the halls of Congress. It’s a shame. It’s a tragedy and it does need to be addressed. But not just the symptoms here. We need to go to the source of the problem. And if the leadership was negligent, it should be dealt with and should be dealt with in the most severe way possible. But what prevented the leadership from acting? Were they fearful of acting because they would be seen as homophobic or gay bashing?

Translation: “Blame the Democrats”

And now Newt Gingrich:

GINGRICH: Well, you could have second thoughts about it, but I think had they overly aggressively reacted to the initial round, they would have also been accused of gay bashing. I mean, the original notes had no sexual innuendo and the parents did not want any action taken.

Translation: “Blame the Democrats”

The GOP is scared stiff. They know that the evangelical voters aren’t going to vote for a Democrat because of Jack Abramoff, Iraq, or the minimum wage, but they sure as hell will consider voting against a party that’s been infiltrated by homosexuals. So they sound the battle cry of homophobia once again to assure their base that they still, in fact, hate the gays and that the Democrats, as always, are at the root of the problem.

But you know what? I don’t think it’s going to work this time.

Anyway, where I’m going with this is that the worst behavior yet in the aftermath of the scandal is probably coming from Foley himself. The statement issued by his lawyer says that he was abused as a teenager by a member of the clergy, presumably a Catholic priest, given his upbringing. It also says that he is checking himself into a rehab clinic for treatment of alcoholism. He went on to say that he’s not using this as an excuse for his conduct, but that’s the obvious implication. He seems to be blaming his homosexuality on childhood abuse and alcohol, which is perfectly in line with the GOP’s demonization of gays. But even more suspiciously, there’s not very much public evidence that his behavior was even caused by alcoholism. The New York Times reports that those close to Foley didn’t consider him a heavy drinker:

Now, other things seem odd. Some of Mr. Foley’s associates questioned his molestation claim, saying that even if true it sounded too much like excuse-making. And while Mr. Foley’s lawyer said Monday that he was an alcoholic who had sent the inappropriate messages to teenagers while drunk, everyone interviewed was doubtful, and some said they had rarely seen him holding a drink.

“It sounds more like the advice of a top-notch criminal defense lawyer,” said Rodney Romano, a former mayor of Lake Worth, the scrappy town where Mr. Foley grew up.

And Foley insists that he was never under the influence while conducting House business. This directly contradicts reports that he held a conversation via text messages with a teenage page while waiting to vote on the floor in 2003. Something’s not quite right here. It seems to me that Foley has little reason for transparent excuse-making like this; if he violated federal sex crime laws, the causes of his behavior are irrelevant. He ought to own up to what he did and get out of the spotlight.

As a now openly gay man, Foley should have a sense of responsibilty for his peers. Instead, he’s participating in the Republican effort to shift blame and mobilize the religious right against homosexuals once again. It’s a shameful act.