http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_FoleyEarly years and initial career
Foley was born in Newton, Massachusetts. When he was three years old, his family moved to Lake Worth, Florida. Foley is a 1973 graduate of Lake Worth Community High School. He later attended Palm Beach Junior College.
At age 20, Foley started a family restaurant, the Lettuce Patch, with his mother. He later became a real estate broker.<5>
At the age of 23 Foley was appointed to the Lake Worth City Council as a Democrat. After some failed bids for higher political offices, he switched parties in the 1980s. <6>He was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1990 and to the Florida Senate in 1992.
He has served as chairman of Gulfstream Goodwill Industries and Palm Beach Regional Hospital. Foley also is a past president of the Central County Council of Realtors and the Lake Worth Chamber of Commerce. He is not married, and when asked questions in the past about his sexual orientation, he has declined to answer them. As long ago as 1996, online commentators and articles in the alternative media have mentioned rumors that Foley is gay -- speculation that increased in 2003 during his aborted U.S. Senate bid, when Foley called questions about his sexuality "revolting and unforgivable."<7>