Public office, secret life

WASHINGTON — Mark Foley had secrets.

First, there was whispering about the Republican congressman's sexual orientation, beginning in 1994 during his first House campaign. He was almost outed two years later when he voted against gay marriage. In 2003, Foley dropped a Senate bid after the rumor mill again started churning. He dismissed the speculation as "revolting and unforgivable."

Although publicly unacknowledged, Foley's homosexuality gradually became known in Washington and Florida political circles. Over time, it became a defining force in his career. Foley was restlessly ambitious, but as a Republican from a state with lots of social conservatives, his prospects for higher office were dim.

He hit the gay glass ceiling in Congress, too. Foley served nearly 12 years in Congress and was regarded as an energetic and capable lawmaker. But he barely registered on the senior GOP leadership's radar screen. "I've never had a conversation with him," Speaker Dennis Hastert said. "Other than his vote on a tariff matter at one time or another, I think."

But there was yet another, darker secret Foley proved unable to handle: He was making sexual advances toward teenagers. Foley's fate was sealed when transcripts surfaced late last week of his lurid instant-message exchanges with other former pages. To some people who have known Foley for years, the sordid details were both shocking and ironic, given his painstaking efforts to shield his private life.

Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, was one. He recently ran into the congressman and his longtime companion, a Palm Beach doctor, along with Foley's sister and her husband, while dining at a local restaurant. "He didn't introduce him as his companion," said Dinerstein. "But I knew who he was from the whisper mill."

Foley had carved out a reputation as a gung-ho, if slightly unpredictable, mainstream Republican. After dropping out of a South Florida community college, he opened a restaurant at age 20 and won a seat on the Lake Worth city commission three years later. He was elected to the state House in 1990, the state Senate in 1992 and the U.S. House in 1994.

Foley staked out typical Florida Republican positions on such issues as immigration, agriculture and Cuba. As widely noted in recent days, he took a particular interest in sexual crimes and portrayed himself as a protector of exploited children. Foley snagged a plum seat on the Ways and Means Committee and delved into trade and Medicare arcana.

He worked doggedly to please House GOP leaders by raising money for key candidates and rounding up votes for critical bills. He rose to be a deputy whip in then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay's organization and frequently praised the Texas Republican in public.

Foley was more socially gregarious than most members, entertaining at his Capitol Hill home and attending parties and gatherings around town. He signed up for lavish recess getaways with lobbyists and donors, and in recent years attended some events with his companion, the Palm Beach doctor.

Bubbling just below the surface was Foley's private life, which some found hard to reconcile with his public actions.

"You have someone who for all intents and purposes is a gay person but continues to perpetuate the myth that there's something wrong with it," said Tracy Thorne-Begland, a Foley family friend.

In 1992, as a Navy lieutenant, Thorne-Begland announced he was gay during a nationally televised interview, helping to lay the groundwork for the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Four years later, after Foley voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, Thorne-Begland called to complain.

"I said, how could you vote against me, my family, your own self-interest?" recalled Thorne-Begland, now an attorney for the city of Richmond, Va. He said Foley responded, "I could never compare any relationship I have ever had to the nature of my mother and father's relationship."

"This is the problem with the closet: It's a terrible place to be, and it's got to be worse if you're a Republican," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who in 1987 became the first member of Congress to voluntarily make his homosexuality public.

As far back as 1996, two years after his election to Congress from a south Florida district, Foley was "outed" by a gay newspaper. After a May 2003 local alternative-newspaper report, headlined, "Why won't U.S. Congressman Mark Foley just say that he's gay?," he tried to cordon off his personal life. He asserted that "elected officials, even those who run for the United States Senate, must have some level of privacy."

Foley's orientation was widely known across his district, and most voters apparently didn't care. He was re-elected to a sixth term in 2004 with 68 percent of the vote, against nominal Democratic opposition.

There are now three openly gay members of Congress — Frank, Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who is not seeking re-election.

Frank predicted Wednesday that the Foley scandal, plus Kolbe's departure, will create a difficult atmosphere for any gays, closeted or not, seeking to remain active nationally as Republican politicians.

"Now they're viewed as causing trouble," Frank said in a telephone interview. "I think you can see a purge coming."

Conservative gay columnist Andrew Sullivan wrote that he was among many in Washington who had heard Foley was gay yet unwilling to come out.

"What the closet does to people — the hypocrisies it fosters, the pathologies it breeds — is brutal," Sullivan wrote on his Web site. "From what I've read, Foley is another example of this destructive and self-destructive pattern for which the only cure is courage and honesty."

Sullivan also asserted that many closeted gay men in Washington work for the Republicans despite what he described as GOP policies "deeply hostile to gay dignity."

Some conservative leaders, who have been pressing the Republicans to oppose gay-rights measures, seized on Foley's disclosure to criticize the House GOP leadership.

"They discounted or downplayed earlier reports concerning Foley's behavior — probably because they did not want to appear 'homophobic,' " said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "The Foley scandal shows what happens when political correctness is put ahead of protecting children."

Such comments angered leaders of national gay-rights groups, who said Foley's behavior was reprehensible — but should not become grist for harsher attitudes toward gays.

Conservative leaders "continue to try and dodge responsibility for their cover-up, instead opting to do what they do best by blaming gays," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. "It is completely unacceptable, regardless of party or sexual orientation, for an adult to engage in this kind of behavior with a minor."