Replies

And we have this:

********************EXCERPTS******************************

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15156523/

BUCHANAN: Let me make one more point. Ms. Pelosi has marched in gay pride parades with the North America Man-Boy Love Association, NAMBLA, which—who are pedophiles who are trying to get the laws repealed for sex between men and boys! If she‘s been marching with pedophiles, is she credible standing up there saying, I‘m shocked, shocked that some Republican is after 17-year-old pages?

Here apparently is the source for Buchanan's claim. A rather circuitous connection between someone who marched in the 2001 Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco (not a NAMBLA member, apparently, but a guy with some fairly noxious opinions on the matter, whose writings apparently were once posted on NAMBLA's website), and Pelosi, who was apparently in the same parade.

Quote:

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10450

...What interests in all of this in light of the unfolding scandal involving Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley and his mind-boggling e-mails to a young House page are the participants in spots number 31 and 34 of the Pride Parade.

Celebrant number 31 was the late Harry Hay. Harry, it seems, was quite the guy. In fact, it is not too much to say that he was famous in San Francisco. He was famous not only as a founder of the gay rights movement, for his one-time relationship with actor Will Geer (who played Grandpa Walton on The Waltons TV series,) he was also known for being featured in the 1976 documentary film of gay life titled Word Is Out. When he died the following year after the parade, at 90, the New York Times Magazine featured him in "The Lives They Lived," its annual pictorial salute to famous Americans who had passed away during the preceding year. In addition to laudatory obits in both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, the Chronicle did a considerably flattering obituary. "Harry Hay, gay rights pioneer, dies at 90." The paper favorably notes a number of things in Harry's life, including his left-leaning politics, his connection with the Communist Party in the 1930s and his founding of "The Mattachine Society," a group the Chronicle calls "the first sustained homosexual rights organization in the United States."

Fair enough. The Chronicle, however, left something else out of the obituary entirely. It was a very strong belief held by Harry Hay that, if one is to believe all the attention devoted to Harry on the Internet, was common knowledge in San Francisco.

Harry Hay was a fierce advocate of man/boy love. While The Chronicle simply ignored Harry's views, the North American Man/Boy Love Association was only too delighted to put up a collection of Harry's views on the need for young boys to have older men as sexual partners. Here's just a sample taken from a talk at a New York University forum sponsored by a campus gay group in 1983.

Said Harry: "Because if the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world."

In short, San Francisco's beloved Harry Hay was a vigorous and well-known advocate of older men having sex with young boys. He was a fearless and quite famous advocate for Congressman Mark Foley's behavior.

Which makes one curious about the presence of marcher number 34 in the 2001 Pride Parade. Marching a mere three spots away from the famous Harry Hay, no doubt waving and smiling to the crowd, was, as the Chronicle logged her in the Official Guide and Program Parade Lineup: "U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi."

*******************Commentary from the FORUM**********************

So, the right's usual dirty tricks. Twisting reality; making claims that are inaccurate from information that is merely coincidental.

Let's clear up a few things, because I suspect this item will be emerging as one of many of the right wing's usual retreats to smearing in the face of adversity -- diverting from their own failure of leadership on this matter to point out what appears to be a merely tangential connection between Pelosi and NAMBLA.

- The guy in question was apparently NEVER a NAMBLA member. Note how conspicuously absent that claim is.

- The only link to NAMBLA apparently is this rather curiously-worded claim that NAMBLA "put up a collection of Harry's views." I have no idea what "put up means, but regardless, it's clear he himself was not part of NAMBLA, nor did he in any way represent them in the parade.

- NAMBLA -- the organization -- did NOT march in the parade.

- NAMBLA has been banned from EVER marching in that parade.

- I highly doubt Pelosi had any idea this guy had written or expressed such things in the past.

- If she had known, I have little doubt she would have stayed away.

- Their proximity in the parade marching order list would seem to merely reflect how parade organizers had set things up. It certainly isn't indicative of Pelosi's wish to be close to this guy, as the above article seems to imply.

The dirty tricks are flying now, folks. This story has what I'd say is, oh, I don't know, a sub-atomic quark-sized spec of reality behind it. But, as spoken, Pat lied. And as written here, it's blatantly deceptive, the worst form of guilt-by-association with the flimsiest of connections between Pelosi and this guy, and still about ten steps removed from any association with NAMBLA itself.

But, as we know, that's usually more than enough for the dirt-digger-uppers on the right. I can see them now, strategizing, "Can we make this connection? I don't know..." Then, suddenly, the light bulb goes off, and they figure out a way to make the distant, disconnected relationship between these facts look like Pelosi was proudly marching alongside NAMBLA, happily embracing their agenda and goals.

It's the usual bullshit from the right, on steroids -- a sign of how desperate this affair has made them. Pelosi, a grandmother of five, deserves better, but she's got a "D" AND the dreaded "S.F." after her name, almost a right-wing hatefest trifecta.

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Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth. -Ralph Waldo Emerson