There's a small cult within the Pentacostals who believe that the bible commands them to show their devotion through the practice of
snake handling. Of course, fairly regularly these people get bit, and also fairly regularly they die. Messing with poisonous animals will do that to you, no matter what beliefs you profess.
And that's kind of how I see the whole situation with Mark Foley and his cruising the Congressional Pages for kicks. No, not him. He's history, and I hope he gets whatever justice the current purported legal investigation brings.
Rather, I see this as a metaphor of the entire Republican party. Live by the snake, die by the snake. Live by aligning yourself with religious fundies, die by aligning yourself with religious fundies. They've used the fundies to promote their candidates, manipulated the religious voters through bullshit legislation against equal rights for gays (among other issues). And now that it has been revealed that the House leadership has been providing cover for a homosexual pedophile, the backlash from the religious right is going to sink them.
Live by the snake, die by the snake. No offense meant to snakes.
(Cross posted to Unscrewing the Inscrutable.)