From a reader:

I certainly think the recent beatification of McGreevey shows that liberal gays are forgiven a lot more easily than conservative ones. so you still think this is all about being gay and not about using your position of power and authority to hit on the children put into your care? You equate Foley’s actions with McGreevey’s because, well, they are both gay? That guy that killed those Amish girls was quite hetrosexual it seems. What the sexual orientation has to do with this other than give the right someone to blame other than themselves is beyond me. Crimes are crimes. Inappropriate behavior is inappropriate behavior. This gay bashing of the right is really disgusting but not unexpected. Thought you were a bit above that. Obvious I was wrong.

Me: I’m sorry, but this strikes me as ideological polemic masquerading as preening sanctimony. If the reader and folks like him think homosexuality has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this story, bully for them. But that wasn’t my point. My point was that the reaction McGreevey had everything to do with McGreevey’s sexuality. Moreover, this guy’s argument is undercut by the mere fact that McGreevey himself blamed his homosexuality for all of his sins, to one extent or another. Also he used his “courage” about coming out to excuse or absolve not only his alleged sexual harassment but his patent corruption. His whole “I’m a gay American” thing was a completely bogus snow job and much of the gay left bought it. So please don’t tell me homosexuality is entirely irrelevant unless you’re willing to live by that standard yourself. I think I’ve been quite clear that I don’t think gays are automatically suspect as sexual predators of the young. But to think that homosexuality has nothing to do with any of this is silly.

Then there’s this email from a long time liberal reader:

Jonah,
Now remember, I loved your McGreevey column. I think the man is slime.
But.
I think the reason there wasn’t greater outrage was not due to his politics, but more to do with the fact that his affair was with a grown man, not a teenager.
The Foley episode speaks to the incredible hypocrisy on the Right. The man crusaded against online predator, while he was one himself, ect.

Me: More nonsense! A) Foley didn’t have an affair with anybody (save of the cyber variety) as far as we know. McGreevey was a confessed womanizer and cruiser of truck stop stalls for gay tricks (no underage males ever hangout there!). He allegedly sexually assaulted his unqualified boy toy/head of homeland security while opposing gay marriage and keeping his distance from the gay agenda. But his behavior and hypocrisy were for the most part absolved by simply proclaiming he’s a “gay-American.” B) And, unlike Foley, Studds actually had real actual sex with a teenage page. And I still haven’t heard even retroactive outrage over that. And C) How on earth is does this reveal the “incredible hypocrisy of the Right?” Seriously, the Right has condemned the man across the board. It’s in the midst of purging the Congressional leadership for not purging Foley earlier. The Religious Right is eating this up. Sure, Foley’s hypocrisy is metaphysical. But how is the Right hypocritical because of Foley’s behavior or its reaction to it?

Indeed, by this reader’s logic the entire “Left” favors “mentoring” the interns senseless and bending pages since the Left actually rallied to Bill Clinton’s and Gerry Studds defense by comparison. I mean if Foley is now the incarnation of the Right’s views on sexuality, then by what application of Earth-logic are we to conclude that Clinton & Studds don’t manifest the Left’s view of sexuality?