NEWS: Republican Senator Taps His Gay Foot Near Cop!

POLITICS: Republican Senator Taps His Gay Foot Near Cop!

In what may be the lamest sex scandal of all time, Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, was arrested in June by a Minneapolis airport cop for “disorderly conduct.” The undercover officer thought Craig was sending signals indicating he was looking for sex in an airport bathroom. Man on man sex. Craig pleaded guilty, paid a $575 fine and was put on probation for one year. The details of the arrest are amazingly retarded.

The bathroom is apparently known as a place where fellas go to have sex with other fellas. Airport police were conducting a sting and had made “numerous arrests” before they bagged the Senator. The police report is both pathetic and weird.

First the report says that Craig entered a stall next to the policeman and put his luggage against the door. The officer claimed that is what gay men do.

Right! That is exactly what gay men do. Also, I do it because men usually pee on the floor around the toilet and I don’t want my luggage to smell like urine.

Anyone else getting a boner at this point? This is some awesome literary porn.

Next Craig “swiped his hand beneath the stall divider several times.” That was enough for the law. The cop showed his ID. Craig was not pleased.

At the airport police station, Craig tried to explain the situation.

Honest enough. When I shit I usually spread my legs at 90-degree angles, but I am also a lizard. Craig was released after 45 minutes and he went on his way. Poor guy must have thought he got away with it, until someone leaked it to Roll Call yesterday.

This is one of the creepiest arrests I have ever heard of. I know gays are targeted all the time with shit like this, but the details are disturbing. How tapping your foot would ever hold up in court as lewd behavior is beyond me. The purpose of stings like this one, are to scare men with public exposure and hope they take a guilty plea. Looks pretty effective.

Even more disturbing is a story in today’s Idaho Statesman detailing a five-month investigation into Craig’s alleged homosexuality. The paper interviewed over 300 people, who knew Craig from his boyhood days, through his time in DC. Over all that time reporters found one man who said he had sex with Craig and two who said Craig hit on them. Should we burn Craig at the stake now or tomorrow?

People have had suspicions about Craig since 1982 when he made a very unwise political move. A Congressional page was claiming three Congressmen had sex with pages. Newspapers questioned Craig, just as they questioned every Congressman. A reporter who was working in DC at the time explained how Craig brought heat down on himself.

Fair enough. Dude might be gay. But a five month investigation? Nice use of your resources during this time of war and massive corruption. I don’t expect much from Idaho, but this is a new low.

Craig does have a record of voting against gay rights. In 2006 he supported a State amendment that bars gay marriage and civil unions. He also supported an amendment to the US Constitution in 2004 to ban gay marriage. Craig is against extending civil rights protection to gays in the workplace and opposes allowing homosexuals in the military. So, clearly the man would be a hypocrite if he were exposed as a gay man.

But launching a five month investigation and arresting him in a bathroom stall for tapping his foot has swung me over to his side. Leave the dude the fuck alone. The newspaper went as far as to interview Craig in front of his wife, where a tape was played of a man claiming he had sex with the Senator.

Jiminy God? Okay, that is pretty gay.

From your own account,

it's Craig targeting gay people with shit, so

only sounds like a good idea when he leaves everybody else the fuck alone.

Wait... is this the same guy who offered to suck the cop off when he was being arrested?

No. That guy was in Florida (and his defense was that the cop was black and scary) - well, one of the guys in Florida, there were two in Florida. This is a completely new guy.

Given the recent string of stories of this type, I have to ask: if he's a Republican congressman with an anti-gay voting record ... really, what are the odds that he isn't a closeted homosexual?

When cops are on prostitution stings, the officer (be they "client" or a fake hooker) has to get the other party to say something along the lines of "I'll do X for X dollars."

Shouldn't that apply in this situation as well? Vague, possibly misunderstood gestures, in my opinion, are not enough to arrest someone on. Yeah, it was weird, and just maybe it was his intent to get a little bathroom lovin', but it strikes me as odd that the police arrested him and were allowed to press charges on such flimsy evidence.

By this point, that's a good question.

It's sad, really. I mean, conservative political attitudes shouldn't require closetedness. I blame bad religion.

I agree, the evidence was absurdly weak. But it was still enough to get a guilty plea out of him, which in itself shows something.

"Meet the PressJanuary 24, 1999, Sunday 9:00 AM

MR. RUSSERT: Larry Craig, would you want the last word from the Senate be an acquittal of the president and no censure?

SEN. CRAIG: Well, I don't know where the Senate's going to be on that issue of an up or down vote on impeachment, but I will tell you that the Senate certainly can bring about a censure resolution and it's a slap on the wrist. It's a, "Bad boy, Bill Clinton. You're a naughty boy." The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy, a naughty boy.

During the 80s, as I recall, the recurring motif was "preacher who made a career out of railing against fornicators and adulterers gets caught boinking his secretary."

Today it seems to be "Republican congressperson who made a career out of railing against gays gets caught trying to blow/bugger a cop/congressional page/rent boy."

You're right, it's sad, and it certainly does make you wonder.

Someday they will get it on both sides of the aisle that who a person has sex with has fuck all to do with anything and will leave it the fuck alone.

Someday.

Within the boundaries of the law, right?

The assumption is that we are talking about consenting adults, yes.

I dance in the bathroom

oh no. . . .

It means everything if you're aggressively trying to disabuse a nation of the idea that gay people have rights that should be protected, and pretending to be a paragon of wholesomeness, while simultaneously engaging in high risk behavior. When you do that, you put your other partners at risk (in this case his wife).

I'm not sure how many people are aware of how some gay men engage in anonymous sex, but his is behavior is exactly how some gay male friends have described having anonymous encounters in the restrooms of train stations, airports, malls, ect. And, if that was not the case, he really shouldn't have plead guilty.

I don't feel one iota of sympathy for the guy.

wow.

i'm not terribly sad for him because of the hypocrisy involved, but i do think it's a silly way to out someone. do the police really have nothing better to do than run sting operations to catch guys having sex in airport bathrooms?

I wouldn't want to send my kid into a public restroom where there was a pretty good chance he could end up seeing people fucking. I'm not a prude or anything, but I'd be really pissed off if some dude tried to play footsies with my kid in the bathroom, mistaking him for another adult male. Just like I'd be pissed off if some scumbag came up to him in the parking lot of my complex trying to sell drugs to him. If it is a big enough problem, it needs to be taken care of.

Regardless of your position on the topic, having sex or soliciting for sex in a public restroom is illegal. I'm not supportive of sting operations, I'm suggesting that the cop was probably schooled in the techniques being used in the restroom - and the lovely wildswan acknowledges what I have heard from the gay men working in our London office.

I'm trying hard to support the conclusion offered by FTR; but jeebus man, the guy's foot was in the other stall and he placed his hand under the stall wall. I can't find any sympathy for what happens to this guy's political career as it heads down the toilet.

Here's the juiciest bit: Craig was a member of the Idaho Values Alliance, a group who stated goal is to "make Idaho the friendliest place in the world to raise a family." Under this banner, they fight against reproductive rights for women, against stem-cell research, and against gay rights. This page takes the cake. There is a picture of Larry Craig touting a recent pro-life vote he made in the Senate. A little further down the page is a blurb about the scourge of homosexual activity in airport restrooms.

Too hilarious.

The IVA has "regretfully" called for Senator Craig's resignation.

Wow. Thats perfect.

great link./ thanks.
That place is scary.

FTR: your timeline of events is a little unclear. Craig was arrested in June, so the 5-month investigation of Craig by the Idaho Statesman wasn't a result of this arrest.

Instead, the investigation was begun last October after a blogger at blogactive.com accused Craig of being gay and having sex with a number of men. If there had been any definitive evidence of the accusation, it is likely the investigation wouldn't have continued so long.

And the interview with his wife present: it was a sit-down interview and Craig likely knew the topic before he agreed to the interview and before he decided to bring his wife along. Her tears were likely expected, so making it sound like the paper beat him up so his wife cried is not quite accurate.

Considering that following the initial accusation against him in October, "Craig issued a statement saying he would vote for an amendment to the Idaho Constitution on the November ballot that bans both gay marriage and civil unions," finding sympathy for him -- guilty or not -- is very difficult.

I can't help but wonder how far the "signals" go. I mean, when Craig didn't get a rise out of the cop (pardon the pun) by tapping his foot, he progresses to waving his hand under the stall, then footsie with the officer.

I don't know about the overall etiquette, but at what point does the guy just kick open the stall door and shout "are we gonna fuck or what?!?"

I'm reminded of that classic old Bonzo Dog Band bit from "Rhinocratic Oaths"...