Does the death of Gerry Studds affect the Democratic attempt further exploit the Foley affair?

Question

Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA), the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday October 14, 2006.(RIP)

Prior to this, major media outlets had largely ignored the story of Studds' own affair with a young page. Will this push the Democrats' struggles with scandals of this nature into the debate, or will major media choose to ignore this still?

There is no question that when this hits the general public, it will serve to water down the Foley debate.

Unfortunately, if the story is ignored, yet another gay icon and poineer will die with little fanfare just like Freddy Mercury.

The media need to make a choice. Do they truly celebrate diversity, or do they play politics with everything even at the expense of causes like gay rights?

bocoo_man - Non Question? WTF are you talking about?

The question line clearly is interogative. I know I missed the word 'to', but I cannot edit the question line now... It presents a dilema with at least two viable courses of action. There is no way that this is not a question.

Note the differences in these stories... If one thing is clear, Studds stood for what he believed in the realm of gay rights.

http://www.townhall.com/News/NewsArticle.aspx?contentGUID=85f0c94f-162c-4e86-8199-e6677ca180a1

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/14/politics/main2089735.shtml

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-061014studds-obit-story,1,7441358.story?coll=chi-newsbreaking-hed

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa061014_wz_studds.3990c18b.html

captain2man - Points well taken, I agree that all media have been amplifying Foley, but thats not necessarilly a bad thing. It is the demeanor of the reporting and the frequency, one story VS the other where I see an issue.

captain2man - One more thing. Neither case is about an illegal act. You may not have heard, but it has been discovered that the page in question in the Foley thing was in fact of age as well.

Answer 1

"The media...Do they truly celebrate diversity, or do they play politics with everything even at the expense of causes like gay rights?"

They truly celebrate diversity about as much as my pet cats do.

Answer 2

News of Studds' death is hardly buried - its on the front page of Yahoo! news right now (this is in response to an Answerer - not the Questioner).

Second - what Studds did may have been unethical & immoral - but it wasn't illegal. The page Studds had sex with was 17 - which was the LEGAL age of consent at that time. Republicans are comparing an illegal action with a legal one.

Third - Republican media hasn't let go of this story, either....it's on FoxNews & is talked about on Rush/Sean, etc. constantly.

These are all "news for profit" organizations - the Foley scandal is a huge money maker....that's why it's kept in the news. Not sure you see as much on Foley on C-SPAN. That should tell you something.

Answer 3

Given the media's total lack of interest in consistency or truth, it will not surprise me if Studds' death goes unmentioned until a year from now, when the anniversary of the event will celebrate him as a hero of whatever cause is popular at the moment, and just casually mention in passing that he was gay. The underage male page with whom he had sex, possibly without consent, will probably not be mentioned.

Answer 4

They are in a fix. If they acknowledge it them the whole Gerry Stubbs story, that he had sex with an UNDERAGE PAGE and then served for another 13 years would come to light. We already know that Mr Foley's affair was with a FORMER PAGE who was over the age of consent! Looks like this "October Surprise" blew up in their faces!