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A 63-year-old Massachusetts federal bankruptcy judge has resigned a week after he was arrested for driving under the influence in New Hampshire while reportedly wearing a woman’s dress, heels and stockings, and carrying a purse. Judge Robert Somma, a Newbury resident, pleaded no contest to the drunken driving charge in New Hampshire and agreed to have his license suspended for 12 months, the Manchester Union Leader reported. “He decided with the media coverage the way it had been, it was best to put this behind him,” Gary Wenta, circuit executive for Boston’s First Federal Circuit, told the Herald. Wenta said...

On Monday, August 27, news services broke the story that Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, pleaded guilty in early August to lewd conduct in an airport restroom... Craig is hardly the only member of the Senate with a propensity for dropping his pants at inopportune moments... Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, has allegedly sexually harrased or abused at least 10 women. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., reportedly engaged in a sexual affair with an engagd lobbyist, Ron Dotzauer,then gave him a personal loan to help him with his subsequent divorce and threw cash his way... Gerry Studds (re-elected six times after having sex...

My area of Florida has a wonderful early voting system in place, and I was able to vote the other day. I had to present my driver’s license, thus preventing voter fraud so prevalent in some areas, and I voted using a touch-screen computerized machine. The early voting system meant no lines, and the whole process took about 5-10 minutes – even with several lengthy amendments to consider. I was very pleased that Florida has a constitutional amendment on the ballot that should end using eminent domain to take private property to turn over to other private owners – a...

The death of former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.), the first openly gay person elected to Congress, inspired praise from some of his former colleagues. “Gerry was the kind of man we all should aspire to be,” said Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). “His leadership and courage were unparalleled. He went where few would dare to go. His work with young people staked out new ground. His accomplishments were lengthy and significant. He took a stand on the fisheries bill and some other important stuff that escapes my memory at this sad moment.” “I learned a lot from Gerry,” said Rep....

Upon his death Saturday, former Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass., got a hero's send-off by The New York Times because he was the first openly homosexual congressman and a champion of homosexual rights. He was beloved by the Times, too, because he refused to resign after his censure by the House for his homosexual affair with a teenage congressional page. But the Times lamented that the resignation of Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., "revived interest in Mr. Studds' own dalliance with a teenage page in 1973." Dalliance? As in "playful flirtation"? Here's what the investigative report of the House Committee on Standards...

WASHINGTON — Gerry Studds, the nation's first openly gay congressman, pushed the country to another landmark development when he died Saturday — the federal government, for perhaps the first time, will deny death benefits to a congressman's gay spouse. The federal government does not recognize the 2004 marriage between Studds and Dean Hara, providing a high-profile demonstration of the limitations of Massachusetts' gay marriage law — while highlighting maneuvering in Washington that has neutralized it and similar state laws. "A gay spouse will not receive any sort of pension or annuity or anything like that," said Chad Cowan, a spokesman...

"Disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley will reveal to the Archdiocese of Miami the name of the Roman Catholic clergyman he says abused him as a teenager, Foley's civil attorney said Tuesday." ""It's going to be very clear in the coming days that it is a fact as opposed to any possible allegations that it was a fantasy or something made up for political purposes," attorney Gerald Richman said."

Dateline: 11 October 2006 The resignation of Mark Foley has a number of serious implications, which are worth exploring, but first, Foley himself. Mark Foley was one of the many gay people who was neither ‘out’ nor ‘in’. He did not declare his sexuality on his website. But it was no secret from those who knew him socially and he did not lead a double life with a wife and family living back in his district. Sending inappropriately sexual material to Congressional pages over the internet – the allegations which triggered Foley’s resignation – and actual sexual contact are very...

BOSTON - Former Rep. Gerry Studds, who became the first openly gay member of Congress when his homosexuality was exposed during a teenage page sex scandal, died early Saturday (Oct. 14, 2006). He was 69. Rep. Studds died at Boston Medical Center several days after he collapsed while walking his dog, his husband said. Doctors determined his loss of consciousness was due to a blood clot in his lung, Dean Hara said. Rep. Studds regained consciousness and seemed to be improving, but his condition deteriorated Friday because of a second blood clot. The origin of the second clot was not...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2zQEBxrLLA This is video footage of "Coming Out Day" at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Wed. October 11th. Coming Out Day is some sort of National Gay Holiday or something. The first few seconds of footage are from a press conference that I forgot to cut from the beginning. Some people from an evangelical organization came to preach at UALR, they are the guys in purple shirts and black pants. It appears they had been there for a few minutes before I arrived. The extremely loud femenine guy in the grey Army Sweats is Drew Pritt. Pritt is...

All Things Considered, October 14, 2006 · Former Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay man elected to Congress, dies at 69. He retired in 1997. Studds was censured by the House in 1983 after admitting an affair with a 17-year-old former page, but won re-election.

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday at Boston Medical Center, a hospital official said. He was 69. Christian Kiriakos, central administrator at the hospital, said Studds died between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. He did not have additional information, and details of Studds' death could not be immediately confirmed. Studds, a liberal Democrat who spent more than 20 years in Congress, was censured by the House in the 1980s for having sex with a 17-year-old male page. He was re-elected for several more terms. Last year...

Former Massachsuetts Congressman Gerry Studds has died. The 69-year-old Studds died this morning at Boston Univesrity Medical Center. He'd been hospitalized after sustaining head injuries from an accident while walking his dog. Studds was a ranking member of the House Democratic leadership and advocated for New England fishermen and the ocean environment. studds, who grew up in Cohasset, was the first openly gay person elected to Congress. He served from 1973 to 1997. He is survived by his husband, Dean Hara. the couple was among the first same sex couples to be legally married in Massachusetts.

Talk to rank-and-file conservatives anywhere in America on any issue on any day, and their number-one complaint is always this: “the Republicans don’t stand up for themselves the way Democrats do.” They’re right. The Mark Foley case proves it. When the maybe-a-pedophile-maybe-just-a-sicko Foley scandal broke, Speaker Hastert’s troops all went on defense. They explained (convincingly to some) that it’s not reasonable to assume from an email asking what a page wants for his birthday that a Congressman is a pervert who ought to be in jail. They also noted (correctly) that if they had gone after him on such scanty...

... Although the fact that liberals hardly objected to Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds' continued service in the House for 13 years after he admitted to having had actual sex with a teen page - as opposed to the less harmful cyber variety - and after an investigation revealed his advances were not always invited does cast a harsh light on those screeching about Foley being a sexual predator.

Hopefully, I can finish writing this column today before it is OTBE. That's slang for the phrase "Over Taken By Events" On Wednesday, I had cranked out a piece for Sunday on two topics: Reaction to the Amish school murders and the nasty Mark Foley flap that has gripped the halls of power. The first part expressed outrage because members of the Westboro Baptist Church had announced they planned to protest at the funerals of the Amish girls killed Monday in Lancaster County, PA. In case you don't remember them, they're the bunch out of Kansas that pickets the funerals...

SNIP In his Oct. 4 op-ed, Joseph A. Califano Jr. bragged of a day "When the House Could Clean Itself" under the Democratic leadership of Speaker Tip O'Neill. The process worked, Mr. Califano claimed. However, the result stank to high heaven, as neither of the two representatives found in 1983 to have had illicit relationships with House pages was summarily expelled. Instead, they were allowed to remain in the House, with censure their only punishment. One of the guilty parties, Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.), contemptuously turned his back on Congress when he was censured. Rep. Daniel B. Crane (R-Ill.) was...

I haven’t wanted to discuss the disgusting Foley case (unfortunately he was my Congressman in Florida) until I felt I knew the answers to three questions: 1. were Representative Foley’s actions limited to online activity, 2. was there a sexual advance to a minor child, and 3. was there a Democrat plot at work to use this sordid affair as an October Surprise (possibly even involving an entrapment scheme)?

Posted by Tim Graham on October 5, 2006 - 14:37. When the story broke in July of 1983 on the sexual affairs with House pages by Reps. Daniel Crane and Gerry Studds, ABC did not fuel days of speculation about whether Speaker Tip O’Neill would resign. (Fun fact: when Studds was censured, Speaker O’Neill did not cast a vote. Three Democrats voted against Studds being censured.) By the time Studds ran in a primary re-election campaign in September 1984, ABC aired a report telling the nation that Studds faced only "a strong sense of loyalty" and forgiveness from the voters in...

Excerpts From Committee Report on Rep. Studds and Male Page The Washington Post, First Section; A10 July, 15 1983 1015 words Excerpts From Committee Report on Rep. Studds and Male Page Following are excerpts from the report of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct regarding Rep. Gerry E. Studds' (D-Mass.) relationship with a male page: "One former page testified under oath that he had heard a rumor that Rep. Studds had traveled overseas with a congressional page. He could not recall the name of the page who allegedly made the trip. In another deposition, another former page provided...