Sex, Lies and Hate Crimes

Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

October 10, 2006

House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-Ill.) is "deeply sorry that this happened."

Sorry about what, exactly? That he didn't blink an eye when he was told about Representative Mark Foley's predatory behavior toward teenage House pages? Or sorry he didn't react when Foley's chief of staff told of the sexually charged messages to underage boys? Or just sorry that those IM messages and emails got into the press?

In 2003, Foley's own chief of staff appealed to Hastert's chief of staff (who is politically close to Hastert and reported to be more influential than most of the members of Congress), to intervene to stop Foley's behavior toward boys whose care was entrusted to the House leadership.

Months—indeed, years—before all of the publicity and scrutiny of the past few weeks, the Republican leadership let whisperings and outright reports of Foley's transgressions slip through one ear and promptly out the other.

Problems of workplace sexual harassment were so far from their minds that the Bush administration thought it best to propose a $4 million funding cut to the federal agency charged with addressing that kind of workplace discrimination, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). That was in June 2006, at which point The Washington Post reported that the EEOC expected a backlog of 47,516 charges of employment discrimination in the next fiscal year.

Considering their lack of interest in ensuring safe workplaces, it should come as no surprise that they didn't notice unwelcome messages of a sexual nature—to teenagers, no less. It didn't even register a blip on their radar. After all, how could these busy bees be distracted for a second from their grand mission to bring honey to the corporate hive?

Perhaps their noticing is predicated upon party lines. Republicans cared quite a bit about the sexual interests of elected officials—when it was a Democratic president. Never mind that Bill Clinton's relationship was with a 23-year-old, not a 16-year-old, and it was by all reports consensual. It was bad behavior nonetheless, and the Republicans impeached him for it (with some well-placed support from Joe Lieberman).

So what do you think they'd do if a Republican elected official had an adulterous relationship with a 23-year-old? You don't have to guess—last week Dick Cheney was raising money for him.

Congressman Don Sherwood was barely rattled last year when it was revealed that he'd been living a dual life for 5 1/2 years—a wife and kids back home in Pennsylvania, but a different woman sharing his life in Washington, D.C. That's not the bad part. The woman, Cynthia Ore, sued Sherwood last year for repeated physical abuse. Reports claim Sherwood battered and strangled her, and then wiped his hands of the situation with a secret financial settlement of the $5.5 million lawsuit.

Here's an interesting parallel. According to 2005 news reports, Cynthia Ore was 29 when she filed the suit, and had been living with Sherwood for 5 1/2 years in his Capitol Hill home. So that would make her, what, 23 1/2 when Sherwood moved her in? Hmmm. That's a familiar age.

But the married Sherwood living with a young woman not his wife and being charged with repeatedly abusing her, didn't even rate a blink from the Republicans who voted to impeach Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

Actually it rated fundraisers from Denny Hastert and Dick Cheney. The word "hypocrite" comes to mind, doesn't it?

Of course, we already had an idea of how high violence against women is on Bush's priority list—he's deemed stopping it to be neither a valuable nor profitable investment. His Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Resolution requested $20 million less than last year's appropriation for the Violence Against Women Act, while costs are rising. The $546 million requested does not include any funding for dozens of new programs focused on services for survivors, nor does it fund most existing programs to the full authorization amount. The Bush Brigade would rather direct money to a battering GOP incumbent than to survivors of sexual, partner, and family violence.

"Legislatively, he's done everything right," said Ed Patru, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, in April 2006, when he was asked about Sherwood's chances of reelection. Ironically, though, Sherwood's polling numbers are down recently in light of the Foley sex scandal which, for some reason, got a lot more press than his own. Sherwood is 8.5 points behind Democrat challenger Chris Carney. Bush is planning to go to bat for the alleged batterer sometime this month (pun intended).

In other news, Bush is "deeply concerned" about the recent shooting of ten Amish girls in Pennsylvania. The gunman told his wife that years ago he had molested two girls related to him and confessed in his suicide note that he dreamed of molesting again, even bringing lubricant to the scene of his crime. Five of the ten girls died, and at least one of the injured girls may not survive.

When the gunman stormed the school on Monday, October 2, he separated the girls from the boys. Authorities say the attacker expressed a "hatred of God." In reality, his actions suggest a hatred of girls. We've seen this hatred many times before—one of those times was in Jonesboro, Ark., in 1998, when two middle school boys stormed a school and targeted girls and women, killing four girls and a female teacher. Both killers were sentenced to confinement until they turned 21 years old, so Mitchell Johnson, who was 13 at the time of the murders, was released from juvenile detention in August 2005, and Andrew Golden will be released in May 2007, both without criminal records.

We have worked for years to have gender-based hate crimes included in the federal law against hate crimes, but without success. How many women and girls must be targeted and killed because of their gender before Congress recognizes these crimes for what they are: hate crimes deserving of federal status and federal punishment?

I don't know about you, but I'm raring to go and vote in some new, feminist leadership next month. Short of chaining ourselves to some White House fences, I reckon voting them out is the best way to get their attention. And it's our best hope for getting rid of politicians who have confused freedom with violence, and opportunity with opportunism.

Recent Below the Belt columns |