My only Sen. Craig post

I won’t get into the partisan piece of the Larry Craig furor: enough has been said there for my contribution to be any use.

  1. I am a bit worried that this will be an important frame for discussing LGBT civil rights legislation in the near-term.
  2. I think an opportunity for modeling compassion, understanding, temperance or anything but gotcha politics has been lost.

I’ll refer you to a post today by Mark Simpson — he who coined the word metrosexual –  whose blog I enjoy very much. He writes, in part

Judging by the rush to ‘out’ Craig as a ‘hypocritical closeted gay’ by hordes of callous bloggers and columnists, it seems that liberals are equipped with even better and stricter sex-policing instincts than Minnesota’s Finest. Liberals don’t just finger your collar, they finger your soul – divine your innermost desires, make identifications on your behalf and work out what your own vested interests are for you. Even though they’ve never met you or even shared a bathroom with you.

I think he’s more right about more liberals than not. Read his whole article and judge for yourself.

9 Replies to “My only Sen. Craig post”

  1. Thanks for this post, Scott — you’re absolutely spot-on. The crowing on the blogs anytime this happens (Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, and so on…) really gets to me. And the notion that anyone has a “right” to out someone else in a hurtful and damaging way is a bizarre thing for a liberal to believe — but many still do believe that when it comes to gay Republicans.

    (I do find the whole “he might sleep with men but not be gay” angle in that post a bit of a sophistry — reminds me of Roy Cohn in Angels in America. But nevertheless it’s a fair point that not all LGBTs agree with the agenda of the HRC or PFLAG or the majority of gays and lesbians who identify with their community.)

  2. I disagree completely… Senator Craig was not having a private affair in his home or the home of his lover (but even then, in the reverse lets say a liberal politician, even a moderate democratic president, who was found to have had extra-marital affairs would certainly find themselves attacked by conservatives) he was attempting, in the views of the police officer invloved, to engage a complete stranger in a sexual act, around noon, in an airport restroom. He was not “outed” by anyone except for himself.

    This is after spending years rallying against anything that even remotlely could be viewed as gay rights. It has been well documented that many people who are the most vocally anti-gay are in fact most likely to have hidden desires.

    What we have in Larry Craig is a man so desperate for same-sex affection that he is willing to suggestively rub a public bathroom stall in hopes of inticing other men like himself to engage in illegal and frankly nasty activities (I mean I do not even like to use public restrooms for their intended purpose).

    And instead of embracing a community that would have supported him he choose to use his fear of his own desires and needs as a battleing ram to force down and alienate those very same people. And lets not forget that he made a great deal of money and gained political prestige in the process.

  3. Simpson’s absolutely right.

    It’s Liberal’s seizing on an opportunity to humiliate an opponent and they don’t think out the consequences much for Gays.

  4. …a man so desperate for same-sex affection…

    Jamie, you really think Craig was looking for affection? This is lust pure and simple, just as he lusted for power as a politican.

    If he came-out and admitted to being gay (and I’m not a 100%) that’s the case here anyways… Craig a guy out of control satisfying lusts. I’m certain if he cared much who was on the other side of that stall as long as Craig would leave satisfied.

    This isn’t much of a gay issue at all. It’s a question of lust and power, and if the freedom we’ve lost having cops set up stings in bathrooms is outweighed by the gains in discouraging folks like Craig; and in this case removing him from public life.

  5. I have mixed convictions regarding the Craig issue. On the one hand I am disturbed at the prospect of somebody using homophobia to help advance himself in America’s halls of power. There is a deadly hypocrisy here.

    On the other hand, if this homophobic senator was soliciting sex from another man in a public restroom, it points to a level of self-loathing that is tragic. And as a student of Jesus of Nazareth, I have to wonder if all this public shaming of Senator Craig will bring any restorative justice to the situation? Will he be a better person for it? Will we a better society for it? On those last questions I suspect that the answer will be “no”.

  6. I think I have been away from the DC area entirely too long. I can tell, because I get a little too gleeful about things like the Larry Craig issue. If I hadn’t come to Florida, I’d be a great, great deal more cynical about it.

    :sigh:

    Um, so how are things in Silver Spring, then? Looks like the place has really expanded. But I’ll bet the remnants of the actual spring that the city is named for is pretty much no more. I’ll never forget my dad showing me that when I was a kid (I grew up between 16th & Spring Streets, off of Second Avenue).

  7. Hubby and I decided that if Silver Spring were disconnected and floated away, it would be a respectable Southern city in its own right. Great Asian (east and south) restaurants, but we usually go for the American Film Institute’s center, in the old Silver Theater. Plus the Discovery (Channel) headquarters is near the subway station that serves the downtown.

    I doubt you would recognize the place.

  8. Hmmm. Discovery Channel…just wondering if it was near the old Gifford’s ice cream place. You know, near WGAY.

    My dad worked for Gifford’s ice cream back in the day.

    He also apprenticed at the Pumphery funeral home; apparently Mrs. Pumphery was like Leona – the queen of mean. Hahahaha!

    Perhaps you’re familiar with Woodside United Methodist Church on Georgia Avenue? My great-grandmother Katie Holladay turned the first spadeful of soil at the groundbreaking ceremonies for that building. That was our family’s church. I was baptized there, my mother was later baptized there, I was confirmed there, my great-grandmother and grandfather’s funerals were there.

    Sorry…I’m rambling. But sometimes I miss the old place. 🙂

  9. The Discovery Channel building is near the old WGAY building. The station was sold, the call sign transfered and the big WGAY sign taken down, all within the last fews years.

    Don’t know the church you mention — I only visit Silver Spring, live in the District — but Gifford’s is back in business with locations all over the place plus pints for sale at local shops. Spectacular ice cream, that.

    Don’t you want to come back now?

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