The common charge against Larry Craig of hypocracy for supporting anti-gay legislation such as "don't ask, don't tell" and "protection of marriage", while simultaneously cruising for gay sex in public restrooms and page-chasing is slightly off the mark. He isn't attempting to marry another man [his marriage to a (female) aide in the wake of the first rumors provides him coverage on that front], nor is he looking to join the military [he is a Republican, after all].

No, Senator Craig is entirely consistent in that he believes in keeping homosexuals in the closet and denied public dignity. I don't know if this a sick overreaction to his own internal conflicts, cynical exploitation of a bigoted constituency, or if he fears that gay respectability threatens the availability of his preferred, illicit hookups.

Sure, he's still a shithead, and I won't shed any tears for him. It's a shame his wife's children have to go through with this [she, on the other hand, probably had some clue when she agreed to become his beard].

What's really a shame, though, is that the reaction of conservatives in and out of Idaho seem to be as concerned with what he is [Gay or Not Gay?] as with what he did. And while liberals, progressives and Democrats can enjoy from the sidelines as the GOP continues its slow implosion due to yet still another Conservative/Republican sex scandal [Haggard, Foley, Vitter, Craig] to pile on top of the Republican ethics/corruption/national-sec­urity scandals [too many to list, really], the Larry Craig chapter should present a prime opportunity to highlight the essential difference in the progressive and conservative visions regarding homosexuality.

On the right hand, you have the culture of shame, sham marriages, anonymous bathroom stall sex, male prostitutes (in the White House press room or local Megachurch), and page/choirboy molesters.

On the left hand, you have healthy adult relationships and a culture of love and acceptance. Families, parents, friends, neighbors, coworkers and soldiers serving their nation proudly.

Sure, there will always be some mix of the two. Legalize gay marriage and you will still have those, like Sen. Craig, that will prefer their gay sex nasty and anonymous. Deny marriage rights and proud gay couples will still live together in love. But the two visions do trade against each other. Driving gays off of Main St. and deeper into the closet increases the demand for less savory outlets. Welcoming and acceptance increases the avenues for developing healthy relationships in the open.

In a sufficiently gay-friendly culture, Larry Craig and Ted Haggart might have come out and met nice young men [perhaps even each other, ahhh, what a cute couple] and spared their spouses, children, constituents and congregation, and themselves, the pain and aggravation of living a lie and having the facade fall apart.

Frankly, the left has the superior vision here, and should use the Craig incident as the springboard to articulate that love, openness and acceptance are loftier principles than shame, lies and hate.

LMoE

If he voted for a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy in the military which boots people out for (among other things) soliciting gay sex, and then expects not to have a similar standard applied to him, he's IMO being quite hypocritical.

If he were to quit and cite the military policy as part of the reason he should step down, of course, that'd be different.

The idea that opposing gay marriage denies gays dignity and rights/freedon is preposterous. It does nothing of the sort. The only thing denying gays the title of marriage does is keep the definition of the word marriage as it has always been.

To the best of my knowlege there are no laws left in the US that deny gays legally recognized unions. Many states just say you can't call that marriage. In my state the Ammendemnt to theTexas Constitution merely defines the word Marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Many gay I know are respectful of that view and some even agree that a gay union should not be called "marriage".

Craig should be criticized for his illegal conduct. His politics are not hypocritical in opposing the gay left wing agenda. There are many conservative (uncloseted) gays who beleive the "gay-rghts" agenda is a bunch of hooey!

TexasPete:

The idea that opposing gay marriage denies gays dignity and rights/freedon is preposterous. It does nothing of the sort. The only thing denying gays the title of marriage does is keep the definition of the word marriage as it has always been.

The way it's always been, right - the way that denies marriage to gay people and therefore equal protection under the law. Exactly.

To the best of my knowlege there are no laws left in the US that deny gays legally recognized unions. Many states just say you can't call that marriage. In my state the Ammendemnt to theTexas Constitution merely defines the word Marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

What kind of "unions" do you mean? AFAIK, only in Massachusetts can gays marry, and only in NJ can they have civil unions. Why is marriage only for heterosexuals?

Many gay I know are respectful of that view and some even agree that a gay union should not be called "marriage".

Yeah, I'll bet you know a LOT of 'em, too...

Craig should be criticized for his illegal conduct. His politics are not hypocritical in opposing the gay left wing agenda. There are many conservative (uncloseted) gays who beleive the "gay-rghts" agenda is a bunch of hooey!

Of course they're hypocritical - not because he opposes gay rights, but because he opposes them officially while he unofficially tries to have sex with men in airport restrooms.

TexasPete: You can peddle that "Separate But Equal" bullshit until you're blue in the face, but at the end of the day you either want to restrict the roles of gays in society to some subset of those of heterosexuals or you don't.

Actually, the Texas constitution does deny any sort of legal recognition of gay relationships. The language specifically stated marriage and "recogniz[ing] any legal status identical or similar to marriage.".

In other words, Texas is one of the few states that wouldn't allow civil unions and may have negated any legal workings gay couples have done to give themselves some sort of protection, even something as "minor" as hospital visitation.

I say this as a gay woman in Texas who has done some legal paperwork in the hopes my partner and I have some basic civil protections. We really don't know if they'd hold up in court anymore.

We have to love all the people who didn't read the language and voted to put such bigotry in the constitution.

LMoE,

Thanks for a well written response to this issue. I share your basic premise that the more freedom homosexuals have to engage in public committed, long-term relationships, the less they will have to resort to sexual back alleys (literally and figuratively). Or, as they saying goes, "Why shouldn't gays get married? They have the right to be as miserable as everyone else."

MD

Thats not true. The military are subject to restrictions on many things.

Should our politicians be court martialed for engaging in partisan political activity?

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It looks all illusion to me. Your reasoning was very mature and attractive, LastManButOneOnEarth, but so is so much of the rationialisations and rhetoric, contradictory even, fed to us with lies over the past 40 years.

I think we are following a blue print layed out long ago, for reasons complex and varied. We are not true masters of our fate, we are the experiment, the acted upon.

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They decided how they wanted to change us, then came up with the arguements, the rationialisations, devised the 'personal freedom' as the rhetoric, revised education to support it.

I suppose, if you agree with where the world is going, you might think the ends justified the means. Or you might have ethical qualms, and be troubled. Perhaps wonder what difference it would make, that you could make, if you disapproved, instead of approved?

Whats ironic is the selling of two opposites to the public at he same time.

We were to take drastic action to prevent population explosion by sterilising ourselves and all the the measures in The Plan, abortions and planned parenthood, society etdc, in order to prevent the ecological disaster we faced otherwise of having 300 millions in the USA by 2000, a unsupportable horde.

On the other hand, we restarted mass immigration in 1965, a era we thought past in 1929, because we were having far to few children, desperate for workers, and were in danger of implosion.

Were so easy.

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Sorry to hear that Bran. Here we passed the civil union laws, in Calif., not too much controversy, easily accepted.

The only issue here is over the word marriage, really, and how families are created and structored. I.E., Homosexuals want in on family inheritances, for example, force families to legally accept them in the chain of inheritance. The same rights and prievlieges my wife recieved, and vice versa, to our respective families.

A` given Marriage involves far more people than the two getting married. It involves and ties in all the families too, it affects inheritance, child custody, probably more that I'm not thinking about.

Which is why civil unions were devised as a compromise vehicle to allow homosexuals to "eat their cake", get the same legal protections, rights ect., while allowing traditional families to "keep their cake" .