A Midsummer Night’s Scream: another sex scandal

It’s big news. All day, all night. It’s fodder for panels of pundits. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) arrested in June by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men’s public restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. After Craig spent two minutes peering through the crack in the stall door where the undercover cop sat waiting for solicitation by sex perps--and hearing no “Shove off, Buddy!”--the senator entered an adjacent stall and played a little tap-and-touch footsie with the law. Then Craig stuck his hand under the stall, gesturing “Howdy”, maybe “Come hither”, to his new friend. The cop responded by flashing. His badge. He arrested the legislator.
The Idaho Senator pled guilty to the less scandalous crime of disorderly conduct, which carried a small fine and a period of unsupervised probation.
“I’m not gay!” Craig announced publicly after the story broke. He’s sorry he pled guilty. He didn’t cop a plea and try to keep the incident secret because he’d done anything wrong, he says. He did it because he “just hoped it would go away.” And it’s the fault of the press anyway, he goes on. The Idaho Statesman has been investigating multiple allegations of the senator’s sexual encounters/misconduct with men dating as far back as 1967. The pressure of that investigative persecution, Craig claims, has him so flustered he failed to insist on his innocence in Minneapolis.
Senate Republicans have requested an Ethics Committee investigation. Mitt Romney, whose Idaho campaign was spearheaded by Craig, is backing off like the untainted at a Victims of Contagious Diseases Convention receiving line. “Very disappointing,” Romney says of the arrest and scandal. “He’s no longer associated with my campaign ... and I’m sorry he’s fallen short ... reminds us of Mark Foley and Bill Clinton ... franky, it’s disgusting.”
Lewd conduct in a public place is a crime. If Craig’s had a verified history of such behavior, he deserves to pay the price. In more ways than one. Larry Craig’s legislative record--since 1980--is aggressively anti-gay. He’s anti-sex outside of traditional one man, one woman marriage. Craig blasted Clinton for the “nasty, naughty, bad boy” commission of adultery and lying about it. He voted for impeachment.
And there’s the rub. Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, et al. It’s the hypocrisy of high-minded public condemnation of the private lives of “those other people” while indulging themselves in secret. It’s the holier-than-thou legislative agenda that would criminalize same sex relationships at worst, deny them equal protection under the law at best. Senator Larry Craig opposed even civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. Couple that hypocrisy with a national penchant for lusty “news” and you’ve got HEADLINES.
It’s a shame. Absent breaking the law--as in lewd conduct in public, solicitation or rape--the intimate lives of American citizens, in office or out, is nobody’s business.
We’re in the midst of a nearly five-year-long bloody occupation of Iraq, in debt up to our eyebrows, 46+ million Americans have no health insurance, our schools are failing and Osama is still on the loose. With crises on every front, the Craig story should be nothing more than a blip on the media radar, not a new national obsession. If he did the crime or disgraced himself, he’ll answer for it. No prurient piling on necessary.
Somebody put sex/sexual preference at the top of the national agenda. It sells. But in-depth sex 24/7 is a sorry substitute for hard news.


By Linda Hansen,
columnist