ABC News Pounds 'X-Rated' Foley, ABC Plays Teen-Adult Gay Sex for 'Desperate' Laughs

Talk about a double standard. On the one hand, ABC News breaks stories pushing disgust at Mark Foley's "X-rated emails" with teenagers, and suggests Dennis Hastert should resign for being unable to stop them. But wait: ABC Entertainment rolls out the adult-on-teen gay sex scenes on ABC's smutty "Desperate Housewives" for fun and profit. It wins awards for ABC as "Best Comedy." How serious is ABC and Disney about the sexual exploitation of teens by adults? Doesn't it make money presenting it as saucy?

From our colleagues at the Parents Television Council, here's a sketch of a gay teen-and-adult sex plotline on Desperate Housewives, from the profit-intensive May sweeps:

Perhaps the most disturbing plot line in this episode involves Bree and her two teenage children Danielle and Andrew. Bree has met Peter, an admitted sex addict, at an A.A. meeting and invites him over for dinner. The kids conspire to get back at their mother for a restriction she put on them. At dinner Danielle dresses seductively and moves her hand up Peter’s leg under the dinner table. Peter is startled and leaves abruptly, but returns the next day. Andrew talks with him and realizes that he is open to sex with all people. Andrew, being a homosexual, decides he will seduce Peter. Bree comes home to find her teenage son naked under the covers and Peter coming out of the bathroom – apparently after sex. Bree is so disturbed by the event that she drives Andrew far from home, gives him clothes and money, and tells him he is on his own. Andrew accuses her of not loving him because he is gay.

Or see the official ABC summary. But if ABC doesn't call this show "X-rated," then perhaps they ought to tell Brian Ross to use a little less hyperbole in his crusade against Hastert. It makes you wonder how ABC would have handled it if Foley was sending messages to teens talking about the hot plot on ""Desperate Housewives."