That Stall, Folks

Larry Craig exposed himself, and his party, as hypocritical.

by Lewis Whittington

It was truly breathtaking that everyone in the country was mesmerized by U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's alleged cruising incident in a Minnesota airport bathroom. If you watched news stations two weeks back, you never would have known that New Orleans is still a broken city, that wars rage in Iraq and Afghanistan, or even that the president is about to ask Congress for $50 billion more in war funding.

Never mind all that. It is more important to know whether Craig is a straight family man who canoodles in the men's room. Even as Craig clings to his I'm-not-gay story, claiming his actions were misconstrued and trying to rescind his resignation, he figuratively finds himself with his pants down having to explain away a laundry list of behaviors.

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall to hear the advice-and-consent huddles among the GOP brass as they decided to muscle Craig out on what amounts to a morals charge. It would've been an object lesson on the actual state of the party's operative values. Clearly, they expected Craig to fall on his own sword or be forced out, whatever is proved or disproved about what he did in the men's room. One would expect at least a modicum of loyalty from the party that crows about family values.

But when the late-night talk shows weighed in, among other things, the details made him a liability for a GOP entering a precarious re-election season. Republican outrage, termed as a triple-standard by George Will, increased because Craig's alleged misdemeanors had a homosexual angle.

The incident underlined not only the loathing, but the homosexual panic still rampant among the GOP ranks. They didn't seem at all alarmed that local law enforcement is hot on latrine detail to catch illicit dalliances at a time when violent crimes rise, parole violators travel and criminal aliens fly under the radar.

Still, what was strikingly different in this incident was that the American public cared more that Craig was being deceptive than about his toilet-stall mating dance. As they did in the Mark Foley page scandal, many found it sad and pathetic that someone would be so closeted that they would act out in such sexually inappropriate ways.

In the past, people would have to read between the lines to figure out that men who would never identify themselves as gay often have sex with men in secretive public accommodations. And the gay community would be condemned as deviates.

There is a clinical Centers for Disease Control and Prevention category for that, but to gay America, such elaborate mechanisms of denial are as dated as an Oscar Wilde comedy. There are two groups of men who still seek out T-room sex — those who have fetishized the rituals and those on the down-low. Millions of gay men living out lives meet in open, social ways every day, all around the world. That happy, healthy gay life is the norm, even if the political parties don't acknowledge it.

Gay civil-rights issues aside, the other issue is the glaring fact that Republicans will put up with pretty much anything — abuse of power, misappropriation of funds, firing U.S. attorneys, spying on Americans and lying to the American public about a war — yet there cannot be a hint of gay sex in their ranks. It is their 11th Commandment.

Remember, Craig was the sole member of Congress to vote to censure U.S. Rep. Barney Frank in 1989, when it was revealed that Frank had hired a male prostitute. The rest of the chamber merely reprimanded Frank. It's ironic, then, that the cumulative effect of numerous recent Republican sex scandals fell on Craig's shoulders. The people of Idaho rightly focused more on Craig's potential hypocrisy as a lawmaker, who would legislate against gay civil rights while being on the queer down-low himself.

Despite how Republicans want to paint sexual minorities, gay American taxpayers and voters are out and proud. We are not going to tolerate Republican swipes that we live unhealthy sex lives or are deviant citizens. Their response in these matters is completely out of touch with the reality of gays living outside those antiquated morbid closets.

Lewis Whittington is a regular City Paper contributor.