That's the question posed by the Portland-based writer Taylor Clark over at Slate. The sex scandal currently roiling the Pacific Coast city has all the makings of a steamy soap opera (and then some -- I mean, really, Beau Breedlove?). It's attracted an inordinate amount of attention not only because of the dramatic nature of the charges (kissing in the City Hall bathroom!) but because the individuals involved happen to be gay.
Clark argues that were Adams straight, he would have resigned long ago. She makes the extra special effort to make clear that she's not the sort of person who believes that one's sexuality should affect the way we view these matters. Rather, in liberal Portland, "When you look out on the pro-Adams crowds," you don't just see gays and political hacks dependent upon the mayor's patronage championing his cause. The bulk of the people coming to his public defense are "young, educated liberals who feel unqualified to spit venom about Adams' sex life-despite the fact that they'd be far less restrained with a straight politician." That liberals would hold gays to a favorable double-standard when it comes to sexual behavior is probably true and troublesome. But it's the topic of another column. Yet as far as explaining why Adams hasn't yet departed office, I'd say it's logically sound. L'affair Adams could only play out in a handful of cities across America, Portland being near the top of the list. But Clark leaves unexplored another angle to the world of gay sex scandals that might explain why Adams is still in office.
A look at past sex scandals involving gay politicians would be instructive. Barney Frank, who was censured by his colleagues in the House of Representatives for fixing an the parking tickets of an erstwhile lover who was simultaneously running a brothel out of Frank's home, ultimately survived, in spite of many calls for his resignation. The scandal had little effect on Frank's political fortunes; he's since risen to become one of the most visible and powerful Democrats in the House. Perhaps were it not for his scandal Frank would be speaker by now, but there's really no way of knowing. After all, Frank's prostitute/parking ticket problems didn't stop him from becoming Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee nor the most visible (and eloquent) defender of Bill Clinton during the impeachment process.
The other prominent gay political scandal in recent memory was that of Mark Foley. Unlike Adams, Foley never touched the objects of his illicit affection, never mind carry on an affair with them and then lie about it to the media.Yet literally within minutes of the dirty instant messages hitting headlines, Foley had already resigned, hitched a flight out of DC, and announced he was entering rehab. It wasn't until last year that Florida and federal officials announced that Foley hadn't broken any law. What can explain the different ways in which Adams, Frank and Foley were treated?
Party affiliation. Sam Adams and Barney Frank are both Democrats, whereas Mark Foley is a Republican. It didn't matter that Foley had a rather sterling record on gay rights issues, the mere fact that he was a member of the GOP was enough to garner the outrage of the Gay Left. Perhaps the fact that Adams is just a mayor, whereas Foley a congressman, explains the different responses. But Barney Frank, after all, was a congressman during his own brouhaha. Moreover, in this internet-driven world, the details of the love life of Sam Adams and Beau Breedlove are available to anyone in the country and have been scrutinized by major national media.
Sure, Foley wasn't exactly open about being gay (nor was he exactly closeted), yet I see little reason why a semi-closeted, pro-gay politician mired in a pseudo-sex scandal should be the recipient of such massive levels of hostility and ridicule whereas an openly gay politician mired in a real one ought earn largely unmitigated sympathy. In other words, if every aspect of the saga of Sam Adams were the same save his party affiliation he would have flown the coop yesterday.
22 Comments for “Would Sam Adams No Longer Be Mayor If He Were Straight?”
posted by Mark F. on
Oh, was Foley FORCED to resign? Nobody can compel a Congressman to resign. He chose to resign, for whatever reason. How this one case proves anything is beyond me.
posted by Jorge on
Well, duh. Everyone knows Republicans are the party of anti-gay homophobes. Of course Foley had to resign.
posted by tristram on
Kudos, James! – for the absolutely hilarious send-up of Stephen H. Perfect, no thought necessary, just the reflex – ALL THE EARTH’S ILLS are caused by “the Gay Left.”
Okay, (a) the GL did take their whacks at MF, and (b) MF was done in because he was a Republican. But fact (a) had no causal relationship to fact (b). Foley was tossed under the proverbial bus by his Republican colleagues because, with precious few regional exceptions, the Repulicans are entirely beholden to the homophobic, fundamentalist right. Barney Frank could have led every liberal in D.C. in a candlelight vigil in support of Foley, and Foley’s chosen (news flash – political affiliation is a choice!) Republican Party would still have tossed him out on his ear for being (or appearing to be) GAY. And his Republican constituents would have kept him out.
posted by Bobby on
No, republicans are the party of STANDARDS.
Jim Kolbe is a gay republican and he served Arizona with honor, distinction, no text messages, no underage flings, and no setting up a hooker in his office (like Barney Frank did) or carrying relationships with gay pages.
When a party has standards, those who violate such standards are asked to resign. Foley resigned because he knew he was no longer fit for public service.
I’m not gonna make excuses for bad politicians. I have never hooked up with a minor, sent a dirty text message to a minor, or harassed anyone at work. If they want to hook up, they should go on craiglist, go to a bathhouse, or become a sugar daddy if they want someone really cute.
If Hugh Heffner and Larry Flynt can control themselves, so can Sam Adams. This isn’t France, we don’t tolerate sexual immorality in this country.
posted by Jimbo on
Hey Bobby, mentioning Jim Kolbe was a real hoot. Tell me, who was it at the podium at the GOP convention in 2000 that was the subject of silent protest, prayer & hostile signs from his own party? Why, it was Jim Kolbe! You say we don’t tolerate sexual immorality in this country. Well there’s a good chunk of your party that just points to a gay pride parade & says we do.
posted by Jorge on
Oh come on, Bobby. The Republicans would have given Foley even less of the one second benefit of the doubt that the Democrats gave Blagovich for a few seconds.
posted by Pat on
With respect to Barney Frank, I don’t think there was ever convincing proof that he knew his boyfriend, or whatever, at the time, ran a prostitution ring in his home, even if that seems implausible. A better example would have been Gerry Studds, who did have sex with an underage page (except the place that the sex took place, the page was of the age of consent). He clearly should have been bounced out.
The problem is it is hard to make a determination of double standards with a small number of cases. And each case has its own background and other factors before one can conclusively make a charge of a double standard.
For example, compare Eliot Spitzer to David Vitter. As soon as Spitzer was found to have had sex with a prostitute, there were immediate calls for his resignation, and he resigned. David Vitter is still in the Senate, and I don’t recall that he even got a slap on the wrist or calls for his resignation. Based on this small sample, I’m not prepared to say that Republicans tolerate prostitution while Democrats don’t.
posted by Bobby on
“The Republicans would have given Foley even less of the one second benefit of the doubt that the Democrats gave Blagovich for a few seconds.”
—You’re making my point, republicans don’t even tolerate the appearance of bad behavior.
“Hey Bobby, mentioning Jim Kolbe was a real hoot. Tell me, who was it at the podium at the GOP convention in 2000 that was the subject of silent protest, prayer & hostile signs from his own party? ”
—That was a MINORITY of christian delegates in my party.
Gerry Studds had sex with a 17 year old, most Americans were freaked by it as they should be. And in most states the age of consent is 18. If an 18 year old has sex with a 17 year old, the older one can face charges.
As for Elliot Spitzer, there are two counties in Nevada where prostitution is legal, and they charge much less than $15,000 a night. He should have gone there.
Why can’t liberals admit that Sam Adams is a creep and they’re better off without him? Come on, people, if you don’t demand standards from your politicians, don’t complain when they steal, cheat, lie, and do all the dirty things they do.
posted by TS on
I am not in favor of any politician caught up in a sex scandal being booted out of office, unless that scandal involves people being directly and criminally harmed. This is because I think no sex act that doesn’t cause any criminal harm should be a crime. Pedophile sex is obviously harmful- as long as the victim is truly an innocent child and not a younger than normal person with a completely mature ability to make sexual decisions. Certain dangerous or harmful fetishes should be subject to scrutiny. And prostitution would perhaps be best regulated in an effort to prevent exploitation. But getting a blowjob in the oval office? Having sex with a 17-year-old who in my opinion seems mature enough to give consent (there should be a better system for determining these things than an arbitrary number of revolutions around the sun)? Sending (totally legal!) text messages to a page? Dirty, but not criminal.
We already have a crappy enough pool of possible politicians to choose from. I am dead against whittling it down on the basis of sexual habits: I think this would include a surprising number of people who just haven’t been caught yet. The less pervs we get rid of today, the more inefficient, wasteful, corrupt, lying, truly criminal bastards we can get rid of tomorrow.
posted by Mad John on
That Portlanders would be “far less restrained with a straight politician” is utter conjecture. From someone who lives here, I believe Portlanders would be just as supportive of a straight mayor with the same peccadillo, as long as he were liberal enough.
A conservative, not so much. But no conservative could be elected here anyway.
posted by Bobby on
TS, in corporate America non-union jobs people get fired for looking at porn during office horus, harassing coworkers, writing on a blog like this one, sleeping with coworkers, drinking too much at a party (in our outside the office), getting arrested, being a jerk, coming to work late, failing to quit smoking… Even among some low level public workers it’s not that easy to keep a job.
In New York a firefighter got fired for having sex in a firetruck, in the military, people lose their jobs for doing porn, even straight porn can get them fired. The same with adultery, commit adultery in the military and that’s a dishonorable discharge right away.
So why should taxpayer-funded politicians have it any easier?
Giving them breaks is what creates the climate of corruption we all hate.
posted by CPT_Doom on
What can explain the different ways in which Adams, Frank and Foley were treated? Party affiliation.
Nice try – how about consensuality of the “crimes”? Barney Frank, as has already been noted, was not involved with, or even aware of, the prostitute’s activities. He also acknowledged guilt and accepted censoring by the House, which I believe both Gerry Studds and Dan Crane – the heterosexual Congressman who also had sex with a 17-year-old page, albeit a woman – also received. Even with the questions about when Adams’ affair began we know it was totally consensual, like Studds and Crane. Both continued in office, like Frank, although Crane lost in his next primary.
Mark Foley, on the other hand, was a serial sexual harasser who had to resign, in part, because the scandal also included GOP members who were warned of his behavior, but covered it up so they could hold onto his reliably GOP seat. For a het parallel, see the disgraced Bob Packwood.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
Adams, as true of most gay politicians, wasn’t married. With the exception of Jim McGreevey, not only are were they not married, but they weren’t necessarily involved in anti gay lawmaking that compromised the rights of gay Americans in particular.
Even in the case of Jim McGreevey, his supposed lover denied they ever had a relationship. Whereas in the case of Elliot Spitzer (the madam he procured through) and Gary Condit for that matter, the women they were involved with died under suspicious circumstances.
Usually, Republicans, or any other supposedly conservative law maker, trots out their holier than thou/religious affiliations/gay bashing campaigns: only to be caught as they did.
THAT is the difference in party affiliations and political agendas in which hypocrisies are especially distinct.
A gay bachelor doesn’t have the wife to stand behind him in utter humiliation of the worst kind.
The younger, barely legal paramours of gay politicians are not put in that position.
Indeed, it’s safe to say it’s possible they had ambitions of their own, as in the case of Sandra Levy and Monica Lewinsky.
We may forget their names sooner, rather than later and so will the public.
But more often, gay politicians aren’t trying to take away the rights of other Americans tantamount to policing bedrooms and restricting marriage equality as their own marriages can’t bear moral scrutiny.
Another big difference in Republicans as opposed to Democrats.
posted by Bobby on
“Barney Frank, as has already been noted, was not involved with, or even aware of, the prostitute’s activities.”
—How do you know? Where you there?
As for Monica Lewinsky, it’s very easy for a man in a position of power to persuade an intern. If Bill Clinton had done that shit at my company, he would have been fired.
Can anyone answer this question: Why do we have a different standard for the public sector?
posted by Priya Lynn on
Bobby said “republicans are the party of STANDARDS…When a party has standards, those who violate such standards are asked to resign….republicans don’t even tolerate the appearance of bad behavior.
“.
Yeah right Bobby – you bullshitter. What about David Vitter?! Republicans most definitely are not the party of STANDARDS. They do NOT ask those heterosexuals who violate moral standards to resign and they most certainly tolerate far more than the mere appearance of bad behavior.
The Republicans canned Foley because he was gay. If he’d have been heterosexual like Vitter they’d have once again looked the other way. Republican=hypocrite.
posted by TS on
Bobby, I’m against non-harmful sex acts being crimes. Therefore, I’m against any company firing someone due to such sexual activity. But them being private companies and all, I realize they can set whatever policy they want.
I’m not advocating for a double standard. I think it is wrong for the law to classify having sex with a mature 16 year old or prostitution between consenting adults not under duress as criminal.
posted by Jorge on
Can anyone answer this question: Why do we have a different standard for the public sector?
I’m guessing unions and the appeals process you get in those jobs. Wait, you’re talking about the politicians?
The people who control whether politicians have a job are usually not directly the ones who are accountable for their failures. With Blagovich, the legislators would have lost their seats if they didn’t impeach him. That’s an exception. Usually the buck stops with the people who vote politicians into office, and the public’s standards and priorities are different from that of an employer.
posted by Bobby on
Hey TS,
“I’m against non-harmful sex acts being crime”
—An adult having sex with a minor is ALWAYS a harmful sex act. A 16 year old isn’t mature, I remember being 16, I remember my peers. Teenagers always think they know everything, the reality is they don’t know jack shit. The moment you start treating teenagers like adult all hell breaks lose. That’s when you have teenagers that insult their families, physically attack them, violate curfew. If you had a child, you’d want him dating peers his own age, not some creepy 25 or 45 year old trying to get now what he couldn’t get in high school.
posted by Jorge on
I think the trigger for all hell breaking loose is closer to ignoring teenagers and letting them do “yeah, whatever” than treating them like adults.
I also think sex abuse is in a league of its own. That is big-time all hell breaking loose, whether it’s pedophilia or a teen being some sugar daddy’s slut.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Jamie writes, “Yet literally within minutes of the dirty instant messages hitting headlines, Foley had already resigned, hitched a flight out of DC, and announced he was entering rehab.”
Of course there are partisan double standards involved in people’s reactions to the Sam Adams case. But as to Foley, doesn’t he (and the Republican party culture within which he operated) bear some of the responsibility for his hasty resignation? Barney Frank held fast and rode out the storm. Also, Jamie, Barney’s scandal was twenty years ago; he didn’t get his committee chairmanship until eighteen years later. Also, he had explicitly come out a couple of years before the Steve Gobie scandal. Foley’s gay orientation may have been an open secret, but the fact that he never openly talked about it speaks volumes.
Regarding sex with 16-year-olds: As I recall, the pages to whom Foley sent those emails were 17, but in any case 16 is the age of consent in DC (although an interstate issue arose in the instances when he emailed pages who were back in their home districts). But as has been said, Foley was not alleged to have had sex with anyone, just inappropriate communications. In any case, Just because something is not illegal does not make it appropriate. Pages should be protected by members of Congress, not subjected to romantic or sexual overtures. Rep. Studds in 1983 admitted that he had (several years previously) had a sexual affair with a male page. Rep. Daniel Crane simultaneously got in trouble for having an affair with a female page, so there were no double standards in that case. Studds took his lumps and was subsequently re-elected by his constituents, while Crane was not. That’s the system at work.
Aside from the problem of adults in positions of power taking advantage of young people within their orbit, a lot of problems stem from a general taboo against honestly confronting the developing sexuality of teens. Stipulating that for adults to be sexually involved with those teens is not socially acceptable even in cases where it is not illegal (though I think it is deeply obnoxious to punish someone just over the consent age for an affair with someone just under it), the dynamic is quite different when the teenager is an active and willing participant. Again, that does not make it okay. But by treating sexuality as an on/off switch–you’re either entirely adult or entirely child, with no acknowledgment of the reality of adolescence, when the hormones are raging and you are struggling to figure out what to do about it–by denying or refusing to face that reality, we are essentially abandoning our teens to chance and to fend for themselves. If we could overcome our collective discomfort on this subject, we could do a better job of protecting teens from both sexual predators and STDs.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
Hi Richard,
I have to say that I’ve argued until blue in the face when adults are discussing sex ed. So many important factors they leave out:
1. Not just the sexual biomechanics, but the EMOTIONAL turmoil and immaturity of teens.
They biologically have less inhibitors than adults, and regressed adults are attracted to teens.
1. The gender bias when it comes to this issue of adults initiating teens into sex. For example, women predators on teen males are practically applauded (especially if they are attractive), and rarely come up on criminal charges. However adult males who prey on teen girls are less likely to serve as MUCH time in jail as an adult male in a gay relationship with a teen boy.
Indeed, these are the singular most fearmongering thoughts are exactly that gay males and adolescent boys.
However, pregnancy being the risk, but also the determining factor in whether a man is incarcerated is if his teen paramour becomes pregnant.
Adults will ALWAYS be in a more socially, politically and financially higher station than a teen. It’s up to adults to NOT take advantage of young people because they are exactly at an age when they are sometimes physically precocious, but biologically and psychologically too immature to be dealing with the attendant risks of an adult relationship.
It’s fair to deal with adults who won’t respect this AS predatory, and it’s also something that legally and politically must stigmatize EQUALLY among all adults.
The gender and orientation bias is not only unfair, but also dangerous.
Adults have engaged teens into premature parenthood, murder plots against inconvenient spouses and parents.
Again, inhibitors being underdeveloped in teens playing a large role in such plots being implemented.
When our country gets real and realistic about addressing isolating and mentally abusing gay teens and leaving out the factor of turbulent emotional passions in teens, as well as engaging parents in adult education so they can better help their own children, then perhaps we’ll finally get somewhere.
But for now, we can see why and how NOT dealing with it will be a part and parcel of such take downs of powerful men who often say their political agenda is ‘to protect children and families’.
posted by Bobby on
“I think the trigger for all hell breaking loose is closer to ignoring teenagers and letting them do “yeah, whatever” than treating them like adults.”
—You want to see what happens when you treat a teenager like an adult? You end up with Paris Hilton at best or pregnant/drug addicted/dead teens at worse.
Adults always have more power! They have money, they have a car, they have a condo, they have sophistication, style and charm. They can take some poor nerd and convince him/her that he or she is the best thing in the world.
Teenagers need structure, they don’t need latchkey parents that are too busy to be involved in their lives. If the parents aren’t the authority figures, they’ll simply join gangs or they’ll do drugs or worse. The Columbine killers are a great example, their parents had no clue what those kids where dealing with.
Teenagers are not adults, they don’t pay taxes, they don’t pay rent, they rarely even have jobs. Even their frontal lobes (which control judgment) aren’t fully developed.
It is sick that anyone 18 or older would try to sleep with someone 17 or younger. I don’t care if its a female or a male teacher, I don’t care if the teenager “seduced” the adult. Adults are supposed to control themselves, if they cannot, punishment must be given.
And that includes female teachers as well. No more house arrest, no more probation, put them in jail for 5, 10, 25 years. You make an example of 1 and you’ll prevent 10 teachers from becoming abusers. Punishment works.