TRB From Washgton: AtwatergateJuly 3, 1989Former Hoe Speaker Tom Foley died today at age 84. Foley led the Hoe of Reprentativ between 1989 and the Republin revolutn of 1994. A few days before he beme speaker, a sndal epted over a Republin Natnal Commtee memo entled "Tom Foley: Out of the Liberal Closet" and parg the Spokane Congrsman to openly gay Massachetts R...
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MY LIFE AS A GAY CONGRSMAN
Though I was a third term Democratic ngrsman om Massachetts, I had lived too long wh the burn of “the gay thg” to treat g out as a polil matter alone. I’d felt shame as I watched younger gay men and lbians nont the bigots openly wh a urage that I lacked. They remaed mted to the “le” that proment people should not be outed unls they had been enmhed a gay-related sndal, but they were unrstandably eager to break the story.
I nsistently said no—I didn’t ny I was gay but voked their own nondisclosure prciple.
His primary ncern was outlawg abortn, but he had followed the nservative movement’s anti-gay le as well. His nial of his homosexualy was universally—and accurately—disbelieved, and he was feated for reelectn that year.
WHEN LEE ATWATER AND A NEWT GGRICH AI TRIED TO GAY-BA TOM FOLEY
In his memoir scribg his own gay life, he ced my attendance at a gay pri rally the pany of a iend whom he accurately assumed was a romantic attachment.
No one readg uld miss the clear import: I was a gay man who enjoyed a media silence that he had been nied. “Tip, ” I said, “Bob Bman has jt wrten a book that says I’m gay. When I had asked gay rights activist Steve Enan to take me to a gay bar 1980, durg Congrs’s lame-duck ssn, he was chastised by a senr gay polil lear for threateng my ver, thereby endangerg an important LGBT polil asset.