Not too surprising, given this morning's stories about his weird e-mails to teen-age pages, but Mark Foley has resigned from Congress. Reuters. Wonkette. Foley's statement on The Buzz. An old profile of him in The Hill.
Of course, Foley's sexuality has been a question forever in Florida politics, with the vast majority of political operatives believing his status is as a closeted gay man. I have no direct knowledge of that one way or the other, but I do have an interesting Foley story. Sometime in 2001 or 2002, I was volunteer with the Clearwater Jazz Holiday, running the annual festival and booking the acts. We wanted to land Chick Corea, and the Church of Scientology was helping to hook us up with him.
He was playing a gig in Hollywood, so I flew out to LA with another Jazz Holiday official to speak with him about playing our festival. We stayed at Scientology's Celebrity Centre in Hollywood the same weekend as the church's annual celebrity celebration, in which all of Scientology's famous members are present. There that night were Beck, Giovanni Ribisi, Doug E. Fresh, Mark Isham, Danny Masterson, and Erika Christensen, among others.
Milling in the crowd before the gala began, however, I literally ran into Congressman Foley, who I recognized from some political consulting I had done down in West Palm Beach. I didn't get a chance to chat with him or ask what he was doing there before being swept away in a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd.
One thing I can say: he was not escorted by a young boy.
A few years later, some Clearwater Scientologists hosted an event for Foley at the church's Fort Harrison Hotel as Foley was actively considering a run for the U.S. Senate seat eventually won by Mel Martinez. Rumors of homosexuality seemed to force him from that race as well, although he cited family illness when he dropped out of the campaign in Sept. 2003.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 4, 2006.