Talk:Mark Foley

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	This article has been mentioned by a media organisation:
13 April 2008	Liberal Web	John J. Miller – National Review

Contents 1 Intercourse 2 The love that that dare not speak its name 3 Why was the name of his partner removed? 4 Mark Foley scandal

[edit] Intercourse

I'm revising the lead graf of the Mark Foley and Mark Foley scandal articles to remove the assertion that he had intercourse with one or more teens. His lawyer denies it, and the source links either do not mention intercourse or mention only allegations. Moreover, I know of no news source that mentions intercourse when making passing reference to Foley -- only the explicit messages are mentioned, not that he actually had sex with anyone. Fabfablew 21:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The sentence makes it clear that they are just allegations. I therefore don't see any issue with it. JoshuaZ 21:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I rechecked the citations here, and none mention allegations of intercourse. my understanding is that allegations of intercourse surfaced well after foley's resignation, not at the time of resignation, which is what was implied by the sentence. I still think it best to avoid mentioning intercourse so prominently in the first graf, because allegations of intercourse have not (yet) been a prominent part of the news coverage. Fabfablew 22:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

This seems reasonable. JoshuaZ 22:10, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Neither Foley nor his lawyer have contradicted the allegations by two former pages that they had sex with Foley, starting at ages 18 and 21, respectively. Note that Foley's lawyer only denied that Foley had sexual relations with a minor. I think this got relatively little coverage in part because it came out relatively late in the scandal. Crust 14:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

"Sex" and "intercourse" are not synonymous. If they simply claim there was sex then we should say so, but we shouldn't speculate about which sex acts were performed. -Will Beback · † · 22:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not speculation:

A former House page says he had sex with then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) after receiving explicit e-mails in which the congressman described assessing the sexual orientation and physical attributes of underage pages but waiting until later to make direct advances.

That's the lede of the LATimes story now linked from this article. Or ... wait, what do you mean by intercourse? --GGreeneVa 23:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

For example, some folks might consider mutual masturbation or oral sex to be "sex", but they aren't intercourse. -Will Beback · † · 23:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I think Bill Clinton might make that argument.  :) User:Zoe|(talk) 23:27, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The love that that dare not speak its name

I removed a link to "The love that dare not speak its name" from the "See Also" section. Aside from its being a euphamism for homosexuality, it is unrelated to the article, and seemed somewhat biased. Tobermory6 20:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why was the name of his partner removed?

Did they break up? Don't tell me there isn't enough evidence because the guy's name and the fact of their relationship is well confirmed and has appeared many, many times in mainstream media. I'm going to add back unless there's a compelling reason not to that someone would like to share. Moncrief 19:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Foley scandal

This subarticle was recently renamed and its talk page protected to prevent discussion. The page was renamed to the misleading and inaccurage "Mark Foley congressional page controversy". It's not okay to call this a controversy because indeed it's not. There's no controversy about whether congressman can sexually pursue the congressional pages. The word means dispute. I agree that in 95 percent of cases, the word Scandal should be avoided. This, however, is a textbook scandal, the very definition of the word. This was unambiguous "loss of or damage to reputation caused by actual or apparent violation of morality or propriety" that Mark Foley himself would be highly unlikely I think to dispute. There are not WP:BLP or WP:NPOV problems with calling this scandal a scandal. Scandal, congressman resigns, this is the very epitome of the word. If the talk page is restored and unprotected, I'm of course open to hearing other arguments, but this current title is not something the event has ever been called -- or could even accurately be called -- so perhaps we need to keep looking? --JayHenry (talk) 15:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)