Satan's in the Stall Beside Me
The demise of mountain state Republican Senator Larry Craig amuses those of us who enjoy watching right-wing heroes crash to the ground, spiked on their own hypocrisy. It further confirms my theory: prick any conservative and the kink oozes out. The rockier the rib, the more likely you'll find pink lingerie under the trousers or a bullwhip and manacles in the bedside drawer. You can bet those Beltway dominatrices, madams and escorts (gay and straight) have been able to buy second homes -- maybe even in Sun Valley! -- with their haul during W's reign.
However, because we are people of compassion, we should also feel a little horrified by this tortured man's sad, humiliating demise. He's obviously lived his whole life afflicted by the religious psychobabble and outright bigotry of people who say homosexuality is a sickness and a lifestyle decision instead of an innate state of being that has nothing to do with illness or choice.
The sickness, of course, is in the suppression, which is why closeted men seek love in rank public bathroom stalls.
The Republican Party got Bush re-elected in 2004 by playing the homophobe card. In Ohio, their minions went door-to-door in Amish country and warned the historically non-secular inhabitants that if they didn't get out and register Republican, gay marriage would be the law of the land. Tens of thousands of Amish men and women hitched horses to buggies, cracked their whips, and raced to the nearest polling place to vote to repel the Sodomites. With their unprecedented help, Ohio, that crucial state, slid ever so narrowly into the red column, sending the Bush regime back to the White House with four more years to plot how to bomb Tehran.
The trouble with this wedge issue, as everyone now knows, is that it's Republican suicide. The hateful public stance of the party has driven its many gay members into ever more contorted acts of self-loathing excess, driving the disease of suppression out in the open and subjecting men to public stoning by their own frenzied followers.
Foley, Haggard and Craig are only the most famous. There's Florida Rep. Bob Allen, also caught lurking for sex in a public bathroom, Corporal Matt Sanchez, gay porn star and -- for a shining moment -- Fox News channel's right wing Marine of the moment. And who can forget Jeff Gannon, the right-wing faux journalist with a secret life as a gay escort favored with a hard (yes!) White House press pass by the Bush administration communications department.
Yesterday, Republicans were sprinting away from shiny-shod, crisply cuffed mountain man Larry. Craig "represents the Republican Party," Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, said. You got that right, Pete! And then: "I think it's important for Republicans to step out right now and say, 'No, this behavior is not going to be tolerated.'"
"Tolerated." Now there's a word Republicans should meditate on for a long moment.
When I was covering Capitol Hill just before Clinton's impeachment, every other young, spiffily manicured male staffer I met in Republican Congressional offices was at least androcentric, if not obviously gay. I don't have a sensitive gay-dar, but there was something about them. Ties never askew, hair immaculately groomed, cuffs gleaming, they usually knew more about my shoes than I did.
Bill Clinton's voracious heterosexuality had as much to do with drawing their rabid hatred as any of his other attributes. He loved women too much, and if only he'd given equal time and effort to seducing those beautiful men, he might have saved himself some trouble.
Republicans in Washington know there are probably more gay men in their ranks than there are on Castro Street.
Still, against all logic and sense, they won't utter a word about tolerance.
It's time for Republicans to embrace their own gay wing and stop fueling the sickness of suppression that drives men like Larry Craig into airport bathroom stalls. Until they do, they're headed straight for the toilet with him -- not that they shouldn't jump right in anyway.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
I'm so tired of the religious right making the rules in this country. Any time one of their own is crushed by the weight of their lies and hypocrisy is time for celebration. Craig could no more live under the oppression of their so called values than the rest of us can.
We have allowed these rat bastards to infiltrate every aspect of our lives from the Patriot Act to Fox News. Time for freedom loving Americans to take back our country.
Right on!
Religion is the cause of all of this homophobic ridiculousness. Religion needs to go bye-bye.
With the exception of Vitter, who was apparently hanging out with high-priced hookers, the others are just perverts, regardless of being gay or straight.
The Republicans focus on the gay thing because it gives them the satisfaction of being able to point to a segment of society that they can label as morally inferior (their definition of it) and to use that as a way to distinguish themselves from Democrats. The problem is the hypocrisy of it, not to mention the stupidity of their opinion in the first place.
Well said.
We don't know what Vitter was doing with the hookers. Often men patronize hookers because they'll do things that most women won't. Vitter could well be a much worse pervert than Craig.
We do know, however, from their reaction to Foley, Vitter and Craig, where the GOP leadership draws the line. It's okay to use prostitutes and brothels, but it's not okay to cruise for gay sex in public restrooms or solicit sex from pages. Now that's a moral standard to be proud of!
Vitter had the hookers put him in diapers and then he dirtied them.
Is that not a pervert?
Who in god's name would even think about any kind of
sex in a public restroom? These places are usually foul,
suitable only for an emergency, evil smelling and
probably filled with germs. Needed, some dignity, even
if your sexual desires involve your own kind.
Apparently the gay people that you all think he was trying to meet. And, if he is gay, he should know where to go, don't you think?
Mike O., come on. Gays don't frequent bathrooms like this. These are closeted, bisexual, married men. Completely different.
You just made the case against him. The bathroom in question was known for activities like this, hence the undercover cop!
I do actually feel a little bad for the guy. He never was able to accept himself for who he is, so he lived a duplicitous life that finally caught up with him. My compassion for the guy, however, is far outweighed by how much I detest him and people like him. If you can't stand up for yourself, if you don't have the courage to do that, the least you should do is leave others like you the hell alone. Why work hard to make every other gay person's life more difficult than it already is? Screw Craig and everyone like him. He worked for a group of people hell bent on destroying people's lives to win political power. Now, his life and career are in ruins. GOOD! Sometimes there is justice in the world. Let's savor it when it comes.
I thought the tolerant left LOVED victims. This man is a VICTIM, people. He is now being VICTIMIZED by his whole party just for being the way he was born to be.
You all should be outraged by the response to this poor man's victimization. According to the left's logic on other stories such as this, this man should be held on high for his victimization. Don't you see that he was completely UNABLE to come out of the closet because of the evil in his own party?
And I thought liberals were tolerant!!
Explain please. Are we to tolerate racists? Are we to tolerate hate crimes? Are we to tolerate twisted scripture?
Craig is both pompous and arrogant. Did you see the press conference he had yesterday?
He deserves what he gets because in addition to being both the above is intolerant too as well as hypocritical.
He panders to the fundies (if he is not himself one), and was instrumental in pushing (and writing?) legislation that persecuted gays and women as per the Republican agenda.
Screw him! (and not in any way he would enjoy it)
So he was born to be a tortured straight married man who solicits intermittent public sex with other straight men? I'd say the victims were the voters fooled by this "Reich-Ving" whore, and that's YOUR problem, not mine.
So why didn't he just switch parties??
Well, judging from what you wrote below in the Petraeus comments, neither are you:
++++++++++
posted by Mike O. 08/28/2007 at 10:53:06
And then pansies like you can be overrun by Hugo Chavez in the interest of the "Greater Good".
Idiots.
If you ask me, he's a bigger whore to the "Reich-Ving". Feel sorry he prostituted himself out to them.
Craig's unmitigating arrogance makes it hard for me to feel even the tiniest shred of pity for him. He has willfully caused discrimination and hate towards Gays to be enshrined in to law. Let God forgive him. He is beyond pathetic.
QUITE ASTUTE!!
AND IN THE END, THE LOVE YOU TAKE IS EQUAL TO THE LOVE YOU MAKE.
--THE BEATLES--
I used to wonder why it was that, in Britain, all the great homosexual scandals were the province of the Tories, while the Republicans here avoided them. Today's R's, though, seem to be catching up fast!
Tories were founders of the skull and bones society.
In fact my understanding was that the Tories, Skull and Bones Founders never actually conceded that the American Colonies were no longer subjects of the Crown.
look now, at king george.
Tories in America were the royalists who supported King George during the American Revolution. In the UK they are still the Conservative Party. In the US they morphed into the Republicans, and are still elitist, rejecting any form of populism or progressive politics, and believing the capitalists (corporations) should be in control of policy.
Craig and his ilk lie awake at night in a cold sweat shivering violently in abject terror at the punishment their hate filled God will serve up to them for their sexual inclinatio
As a recovering Christian fundamentalist let me say that you have nailed it exactly. That's it! A big bingo! I would go so far as to say that 90 percent - yes, 90 PERCENT - of rabid anti-homosexual Christian fundamentalists are closet cases. I know whereof I speak. "It takes one (who used to be one) to know one." Gay-dar, doncha know.
The gay dynamic in Colorado Springs has evolved dramatically (pun intended) for most of my friends. Until they met me and my partner, gays were only up in Denver and Boulder. They weren't happy, committed couples who loved to be involved in the community, who were there to help unload hay even though it messed up their hair, who embraced others problems to help find solutions, and who unconditionally supported and loved their friends.
These straight friends of ours used to vote against gays mostly out of ignorance and what they were taught in church but I've never been one to avoid religion and politics in conversation. It's amazing that the foundation folks use to rationalize gays is an amazingly small one. Sure, it's powerful, but once logic and cognitive thought enter the picture, it's pretty much disarmed.
Hidden agenda for gays? Since when? I asked them when they thought all us gays get together to discuss how we should hold the straights down. We don't have weekly or twice a week meetings like church folks do to push their agenda. Do you think we discuss our agenda at Oscar parties? All our straight friends are invited to those...so obviously, it's not then. What about our wine tastings? Nope, again, it's a mixed crowd.
Finally, the only recruiting we tend to do is for fashion (just some sarcastic humor there). Consider that both my partner and I love our straight friends too much to break up their relationship and love each other too much to screw up our own, who exactly are we trying to recruit? :)
Well said Jim...
A lot of people don't realise that gay men are just that, men who happen to be gay. Not to use the old disclaimer (but, sorry, I have to) some of my best friends...
35 tears in the entertainment biz including 18 on cruise ships (where there are more gays per cubic foot than anywhere else in the world) have given me a much better understanding than your average hetero guy. If these homophobes would just get out and have a beer and shoot some pool with some gay guys, the scales might just fall from their eyes. In fact, your average homoophobe knows plenty of gay guys but he's unaware of it since he has the stereotype of the mincing nancy-boy drilled into his thick skull and doesn't realise that the bloke chatting with him so knowledgably about the Dolphins or the Yankees, or the fellow describing how he customised his Harley is gay.
Once again---
The man was'nt arrested for being gay, he was arrested for being a plain-ass freak. Gay men donn't need to pussyfoot about in public tiolets to gat sexual attention. That is specific pervue of the closeted, repressed, married, STRAIGHT man.
Exactly. What do you think, more than one in nine, right. They are all gay! I learned about all that more than half a century ago, when I met decently married men, with four kids, during my lunch hour getting a sandwich. The sandwich shop turned out to be a gay *bar* or something, and the owner was the son of one of my bosses, and also worked in the legitimate business, as a department head. I used to have a *gaydar*, although I am a woman, but even I had no idea when I entered that *broodjeswinkel* around the corner of my work. And men and women were sitting there, out in the open, at small tables, eating lunch. However, the men were not men. Who could tell? I am sick of men!
"If these homophobes would just get out and have a beer and shoot some pool with some gay guys"
**********
Gah, why do the straight invitations always involve beer & pool...bee
Would it kill you to ask us to a gallery opening and high tea every once and a while?
Well said indypete ...
About 35 years in the entertainment biz here too. No cruise ships, but after college when I came to NYC to seek fame and fortune in the theater I got cruised a lot. I heard, "Don't knock it 'till you've tried it" ... "You're young, you should experience all of life." And other more explicit hits, often. I pondered the physical possibilities between two males and I was certain I wasn't interested, notwithstanding my Scorpio fascination with sex. Hell, logically I figured that if I were interested my opportunities to get laid would increase by at least 50% ! Probably much more. But no way was there any semblance of desire to go that way. So I had no fear about my own sexual preference.
I just told anyone who made any advance, immediately, "I'm straight." in a very matter of fact way. Never once did I have a problem after that, and I made a lot of good friends who just happened to be gay.
It's a shame that so many straight guys get all freaked about the whole thing. That's what creates the homophobia which has made the atmosphere that damaged Larry Craig's life. That, and intolerant religion.
But damaged souls have no right to damage others in sick self hating hypocrisy. Go away Larry. Get help, but go away.
Bravo.
Great post! Facts are just so awkward for the Republicans, aren't they? As Mr. Colbert has pointed out, facts tend to support liberal views. So sad for both Republicans and Conservative Democrats.
Why, by the way, don't we hear Conservative Democrats referred to as Con-Dems?
The foundation of the Republican Party rests on three basic tenents. First, grease the way for super rich corporate looters and polluters who fund the party. Second, the super rich being only 2% of the voters they appeal to a broader segment of the population by promising to mindlessly to cut taxes without regard for needed public services. Third, to keep the solid south in the Republican fold they aspouse racism, bigotry and religious intolerance. Once you understand the foundation of the party one has to wonder why any decent person is a Republican. It's hard to explain people like Chris Shays and Susan Collins who aught to know better.
IT'S SIMPLE IF ONLY ONE HAS THE COURAGE TO FACE THEIR FEAR: SAD BUT TRUE, THE GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPTED BY THE LOBBY (BRIBERY) SYSTEM.
It's hard to explain Chris Shays period. (CT Dumb Fireman)
Thank you, Nina Burleigh, for covering most of the bases that needed to be covered. Gay cottaging behavior is an artifact of thousands of years of oppression, and it is indeed tragic to see the humiliation of Craig, whether or not we are delighted to see the outing of a Republican hypocrite. We must acknowledge that this delight is a base emotional reaction that we should seek to transcend, and not rush to gather kindling to burn Craig and his ilk.
There is more: lest we gay liberal men fall into the trap of our own hypocrisy, let's not join the ranks of those who, though liberal, use harmful words such as "pervert" to differentiate Craig from the rest of us. The fact is, the man was entrapped by a young and very attractive policeman sitting on a toilet seat in an (apparently) well-known tea room. Unlike the Foley case, in my understanding there were no underage victims, nor indeed any victims at all, other than Craig and his own poor family. We must not divide the gay community into perverts and good citizens based on the very puritanical mores that have done us so much harm in the past. How many of us remember life in the closet? How many of us still occasionally battle undesired patterns in our own behavior, identical in nature to those caused by post-traumatic stress, despite the fact that we are now living "decent" lives, some of us even legally married to our same-sex partners?
Liberal brothers and sisters, please remember that our fight is against intolerance and hypocrisy. Don't let that fight spill over into a senseless, unproductive, and uncompassionate inquisition. And to gay (or less than straight) Republicans in D.C. and elsewhere: It's time to rethink and figure out what remedial action you might take to start undoing the damage you have done to our quest for equality and basic human rights.
Craig was not entrapped. He willingly peeped into the stall. That is the lewd behavior..
Call a spade a spade, the man is a pervert. He needs a shrink.
Then why wasn't he arrested when he was looking?
He was arrested for looking at a stall, tapping his toe, and rubbing a partition. That is no crime. Was Craig looking for sex right then and there in the men's room? Of that, I have no doubt, but it never got that far.
The cop jumped the gun.
Thanks for articulating my feelings so much better than I ever could. I'm a straight, middle-aged white female, but your words have great value and meaning for all progressives not just gay liberal males. I wish I had the honor of knowing you.
I can understand Sen. Craig's mindset -- to a point. One of my high school teachers grew up in the same era. He was one of the most beloved teachers, and we all figured out he was gay, and no one cared. But when times changed and younger faculty started coming out, he couldn't take it. He was more comfortable with the restriced world he knew than he was with this new, free world, which he didn't yet understand. I'd have thought he'd be happier: he could be honest, open, and have a seemingly more fulfilling life. For whatever reason that was too scary for him, and he "retired" a few years later.
Although I don't like to think he was skulking in public toilets, I do think that he was like Senator Craig in that he mentally could not make the leap to being an openly gay man. I have compassion for him, but none for Sen. Craig. Why? Because Craig not only suffered on his own, he also became the oppressor. He led the fight to repress gays and lesbians and in so doing visited that which he suffered upon others. My compassion runs out where he starts to hurt others.
Perhaps if would take action to redress those wrongs, to, for instance, be open, renounce his earlier actions as expressions of self-hatred, and work *for* gay rights and things like ENDA, then I could forgive him and have sympathy. I know that could not happen overnight, and likely will not happen.
Senator Craig can redeem himself. The sad part is that the party of religion and Jesus would not value this particular redemption.
I agree. I have a real problem with these stings to entrap. IF sex in public bathrooms is a problem, station an uniformed officer in that "troublespot" and the problem will go away. It is sad how many men are arrested for this "crime".
madge,
Talk to Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens about "sad".
That was a cop PAID to watch porno. AND arrest people doing EXACTLY what porno is DESIGNED to make people do.
THAT'S a crime.
Thanks.
i do agree with you, but with one caveat - if this craig had done no harm to the gay community, had gone about getting his furtive sex wherever he could, that's his business. but he went out of his way to injure and harm. it doesnt make him a pervert at all. it does make him a lying hypocrite. that's what's intolerable. remedial action: come out. apologize. then shut up and work out all the details privately with your family. at that point, it should be a private matter. maybe because i'm straight, i dont see the bigger picture, because i never had the coming out experience. but i know what my friends went thru, and it was painful, very painful for some of them. they came out to the world.....
Nina, don't worry Satan is not in the stall next to you. You are a women and you have nothing to fear from that creep. LOL
"It further confirms my theory: prick any conservative and the kink oozes out."
__________
Maybe I'm just supersaturated in this sticky tale of woe, but am I sensing double-entendre here?
I really think that this is true and that perversion amongst the far right is not just confined to exceptions, but is instead the rule. I've always considered myself to be as perverted and preoccupied with sex as the next guy. But lately I'm starting to feel like a dull old fogey when I hear what these Republicans seem to be up to all the time.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
