ABCNews.com has pulled a story off about ex-Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley's sexuality by a writer who outed Foley's homosexuality 10 years ago in the Advocate.

The story by J. Jennings Moss, a freelance writer and former senior editor at ABCNews.com, was published late Friday afternoon. Moss says he was contacted by ABC when news of Foley's sexually explicit messages to underage Congressional pages surfaced.

Moss wrote:

Mark Foley now finally knows what former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards meant when he said, "The only thing that will cost me the governorship is if I am caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."

ABC News found the live boy in the form of an e-mail and instant messaging exchange between the Florida Republican congressman and an underage male page. And now, finally, Foley can no longer cajole the media into keeping his private life a secret.

A number of blogs picked up the story before it was removed from ABCNews.com on Sunday. Moss says he was informed Monday that the piece had been removed, but was not told why. When Moss reached editor Steve Alpern Tuesday, Moss says Alpern thanked him for the piece but that its removal was an "editorial decision." When pressed, according to Moss, Alpern said the piece was "creating confusion."

To add to Moss' own confusion, ABCNews.com today published a piece entitled "The Politics of 'Outing' Politicians," which touches on a number of themes in Moss' piece. ABCNews.com also published Foley's explicit text messages.

"I filed an original piece of content that I believe adds to ABC's coverage of the Foley story," Moss told FishbowlNY. "It is rare for a site like ABCNews.com to remove a story completely — it's as if it never existed.

Through the magic of the Internet, though, it does exist, here:

Mark Foley now finally knows what former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards meant when he said, "The only thing that will cost me the governorship is if I am caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."

ABC News found the live boy in the form of an e-mail and instant messaging exchange between the Florida Republican congressman and an underage male page. And now, finally, Foley can no longer cajole the media into keeping his private life a secret.

Ten years ago, I outed Foley as a gay man for The Advocate, the national gay and lesbian newsmagazine. But aside from one story in the St. Petersburg Times, no other Florida or national publications would touch the tale, either because Foley and his camp did a great job of shooting the messenger or because of the inherent fear the media have to delve honestly and without judgment into a person's sexual background.

Foley got tagged as gay in 1996 because he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, the first federal law that sought specifically to define marriage as a male-female thing. He wasn't the only one. I also reported that Rep. Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican who also voted for DOMA, was a closeted gay man. I based these assertions on extensive interviews with gay men who knew the congressmen, who could speak to their personal associations and who had seen them in private settings where there was no doubt as to their sexuality.

I wrote the story not as an activist seeking to punish someone for not being who I thought they should be. I wrote it as a journalist seeking to dig deeper into a topic that was at the top of every newspaper in the country. If Congress was getting involved in deciding who could and could not be married, then it was relevant to ask lawmakers about their personal lives. I remember that former GOP Rep. Bob Barr, the Georgia congressman who was the chief sponsor of DOMA, got asked once which of his three previous marriages he was defending, and no one raised a stink.

But asking a lawmaker if he was gay and how his sexuality affected his vote was just not acceptable. It wasn't in 1996, and I doubt many reporters would do it today. It's not homophobia per se. It's really more like homo-aversion.

Foley was a master of aversion. For The Advocate story, as I recall, Foley didn't grant a face-to-face interview but instead answered written questions. "Frankly, I don't think what kind of personal relationships I have in my private life is of any relevance to anyone else," he said.

In contrast, Kolbe sat down with me to talk. Like Kolbe, I was from Tucson. I had followed Kolbe's career since my days as a college journalist. Kolbe was sincere, and he was scared. He worried what would happen to his career and he feared what his family would say. And he didn't want a magazine to do what he realized in that moment that he needed to do himself.

Kolbe went public with his sexual orientation before the magazine hit the stands. He was praised for his honesty and he went on to win re-election handily in every election since. I ran into Kolbe at a University of Arizona homecoming game a few years ago. He told me that though he didn't like having someone pry into his personal life, he understood why I went after the story. And he said that in the long run, he was happier because he didn't have to hide anymore. This year is Kolbe's last in Congress. He's retiring after a distinguished 22-year career in the House. It's a little odd for me to think that it's also Foley's last, but for very different reasons.

By staying so deep in the closet and browbeating others to keep his secret for him, Foley probably thought he was invincible. But secrets have a way of bringing down the powerful.

Just ask Edwin Edwards. He was never caught with a dead girl or a live boy. But he was caught shaking down riverboat casino owners and sent to prison after he'd left office.

J. Jennings Moss is a freelance journalist based in New York City and Tucson, Ariz. A former senior editor for ABCNews.com, Moss spent 18 months as Washington correspondent for The Advocate, the national lesbian and gay newsmagazine.

EARLIER: ABCNews.com Publishes Foley Text Messages With 'Reader Discretion Strongly Advised' Disclaimer