reality-based educator

So many Family Values Republicans lead double lives.

On the one hand, they espouse traditional marriage, abstinence, overt religious values, etc., while on the other hand they solicit prostitutes, try to schtup underage male pages and troll public restrooms looking for oral sex from men (although they are not gay and have never been gay.)

You can imagine the mental gymnastics it must take to compartmentalize this kind of double living.

And yet Mark Foley, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Ted Haggard and other Family Values Republicans have managed to do it. Today TPM muckraker reports that another compartmentalized Family Values Repub was caught with his pants down:

St. Bernard Parish Councilman Joey DiFatta, who on Thursday withdrew from the 1st Senate District campaign, has been stopped twice since 1996 for suspicion of engaging in lewd behavior in public restrooms in Jefferson Parish, records obtained by The Times-Picayune show.

DiFatta, 53, acknowledged that reports he had been stopped are true, but he denied any wrongdoing in both cases. He said he was not prosecuted in either case and has no arrest record.

...

Kenner police issued a misdemeanor summons to DiFatta in September 1996 in connection with a peeping Tom incident in a men's bathroom at the former Mervyn's department store at The Esplanade mall, according to a Kenner Police Department incident report obtained by The Times-Picayune.

The report states that DiFatta watched a man use the bathroom while peering through a hole in a bathroom stall. The man held DiFatta until police arrived, at which time he was issued the misdemeanor summons and ordered to appear in court.

DiFatta said the man eventually withdrew his complaint, and the case was dismissed. A spokeswoman for the Kenner Police Department said the record was expunged.

In the second incident, Jefferson Parish deputies working an undercover detail in a men's bathroom at Dillard's at Lakeside Shopping Center in March 2000 stopped DiFatta after he indicated a desire to engage in sex with an undercover deputy in an adjoining bathroom stall, according to an interoffice memorandum written by Sgt. Keith Conley, one of the deputies involved in the investigation.

The report said DiFatta slid his foot into the deputy's stall and tapped the deputy's foot. In the report, Conley noted that such activity is common among men to indicate a willingness to participate in sex.

The deputy inside the stall, Detective Wayne Couvillion, responded by tapping his foot, and DiFatta reached under the partition and began to rub the deputy's leg, the report states.

The detective asked DiFatta, "What do you want?" according to the report, and he replied, "I want to play with you."

DiFatta also used a hand signal to indicate that he wanted to engage in sex and used language that indicated the same, according to the report. Conley, who is now the Kenner city attorney, confirmed the report's authenticity Thursday.

The incident did not culminate in an arrest because the deputy in the bathroom with DiFatta terminated the investigation after several children entered the bathroom, the report states. Conley noted in the report that DiFatta appeared well-versed and comfortable with the routine.

Conley wrote that had the investigation been allowed to continue, it likely would have concluded in DiFatta's arrest on obscenity charges, including a possible attempted crime against nature.

DaFatta, btw, was running for State Senate so he could "Defend our conservative values from attacks by extreme liberal groups."

It's a shame these guys can't come clean and admit they're running to make bathroom stalls everywhere safe for toe-tapping and finger-wriggling.

The GOP meme on these guys caught in sex scandals is that they throw them out as soon as they're caught while Dems rally to the guys (i.e., Bill Clinton in Monicagate, Barney Frank, etc.)

But of course the GOP meme is not true.

The Republican leadership knew Mark Foley was bothering underage male pages, but covered up their knowledge and made believe they knew nothing of it until the story broke publicly. They were worried that a scandal involving Foley could cost them seats in the '06 election.

David Vitter, solicitor of prostitutes, received "high-fives" from his Republican Senate colleagues when he returned from hiding from the press after his sex scandal broke publicly.

It's true that Senate Repubs wanted toe-tapping Larry Craig gone after he pled guilty to disorderly conduct in a Minneapolis airport bathroom, but there is something quite hypocritical in seeking Craig's expulsion from the Senate for a misdemeanor offense while they were happy to high-fiving Vitter for surviving his sex scandal.

None of this stuff would be anybody's business, of course, if it weren't for the double lives part.