I'm no fan of homosexuality.   But on the other hand, several of my best friends over the years have been homosexual men.   There was a very good friend of mine on my high school swim team who displayed such tendencies that it should have been obvious to me what his orientation was.   But I didn't even know what homosexuality was back then and he was an agreeable guy so it never even occurred to me.   One of the kids I grew up with was also homosexual.   The kid wouldn't hurt a fly and we always got along fine.   Later in life when I was an adult, who fully understood what homosexuality was, I had a gay friend who often asked me dating advice.   He always wanted to know how to approach this or that guy who he was sure was gay.   And I would give him my perspective on things - probably really bad dating advice but advice nonetheless.   I never thought much about this guy's sexuality.   I figured all these guys did whatever they did behind closed doors and it never bugged me particularly much.   It's a free country isn't it?   What consenting men (of the age of consent) do on their own time is really none of my business.

On an unrelated matter, my first experiences in cyberspace were in a psychic chat room.   I watched what one person posted and tried very hard to judge gender, age, and various other things I thought were predictors of the person's experience and personality.   Then I approached her and told her she was a woman of such and such age, was divorced about 5 - 8 years ago, blah, blah, blah.   I told her I was a psychic.   After some back and forth, she believed I was in fact psychic.   I then proceeded to "read" her future by telling her all sorts of positive things like how she was going to go back to school, succeed, and have a great career.   I also told her she was going to meet another guy and get married, etc.   She believed just about everything I had to say and I didn't abuse that privilege.   The experience was very entertaining to me and nobody was harmed.   I figure that's about par for the course in cyber-space.   I think the internet should be like that.   No government needs to regulate my interaction on the web especially in fantasy-based chat rooms.

I know that in chat rooms, there is a good bit of trolling by pedophiles and other sexual predators.   I think parents should make their kids aware of this stuff and teach them what they should (can) and shouldn't (can't) do on the web.   And I'm sort of glad our government officials pursue predators when they troll for victims.   But there's a limit to how far this ought to go and when consenting adults of whatever orientation engage in so-called "cyber-sex," the government has no business monitoring the communication in any way shape or form.   I believe this is a free speech issue and any action taken based on mere communication is a danger to all communication.

So now, I'm thinking about this very aggressive election cycle we find ourselves in and I'm getting confused.   I thought Democrats always stood up for gays, free speech, and a unsupervised internet.   Yet the Foley scandal demonstrates that this is not at all the case.   The Foley case involved persons of the age of consent conducting essentially cyber-sex via the internet.   Democrats were up in arms when this came to light, claiming that Foley should be immediately removed from office and anyone who knew about this should lose their position as well.   They emphasize that Foley may very well have broken the law - a law they shouldn't advocate if they stand for freedoms to be gay, communicate as one wishes, and to do so via the free medium of the web.

So where do we stand today in our examination of the Democrat party?   On one hand they are outraged by an elected official making homosexual overtones during off hours to another man, clearly of the age of consent.   The elected official is not in a position of authority over the target of his sexual advances.   No actual sex is assumed to have taken place.   On the other hand, the same Democrat party came out in support of a President who engaged in heterosexual petting during office hours with a subordinate over whom he did have sufficient authority to "make or break" her career.   Is homosexual cyber-sex worse than questionable heterosexual petting?   Are Democrats saying we should monitor the internet and prevent homosexual cyber-sex between consenting men, yet it is OK for the President to engage in action which in other settings would form the basis of a sexual harassment charge?   Should free speech be prevented when it is homosexual in nature?   What are the standard limits to personal freedom?   What sort of laws should we expect from a Democrat legislative branch?

Personal freedom is under attack from the last place one would expect it.   Democrats are against homosexuality, a free internet and the freedom of speech.   Their actions and words this election cycle shpow their real feelings on a broad array of subjects.