Imagine if you will two scenarios:
- Senator Larry Craig is allowed to enter into a civil union, perhaps even a gay marriage, with the man of his choice. His personal life remains unremarkable, and he lives out his days pushing a conservative agenda while going to a stable home every chance he gets.OR
- Senator Larry Craig marries a woman, adopts several children, is implicated in 1982 for having sex with male teenage congressional pages, denies all stories about his homosexuality, and trolls bathrooms from the Minneapolis Airport to Union Station looking for gay sex, all the while consistently voting against reinstating the rights that are denied to gays in an attempt to avoid suspicion that he might be (Gasp!) gay himself.
He’s not a homosexual. He just plays one in the bathroom.
Craig’s defense: “I’m not gay. I just take a wide stance in the bathroom.” If I was that full of shit, I would probably take a wider stance while seated on the toilet as well.
Craig is far from alone in being a gay Republican. Even if you discount Jeff Gannon (Technically, he was getting paid for it, so he might have been straight in his personal life) and Matt Sanchez, the gay porn star that won the Jeane Kirkpatrick Award at CPAC, you’re still left with Mark Foley, David Dreier (Passed over as Majority Leader in 2005 for being gay), and Jim Kolbe.  Matt Drudge was outed by several, including former gay Republican David Brock (Who said in Blinded by the Right that there are several prominent gay Republicans in Washington DC that call themselves the “Laissez Fairies“). Even commentator Armstrong Williams paid $200,000 to settle out of court with a male employee that he made unwanted sexual advances towards on 50 separate occasions.
Not counting Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican congressman, that’s one seriously crowded closet.
I couldn’t list my nearest and dearest without a lesbian couple, and I couldn’t have done so fifteen years ago without naming a gay couple that, as of last I heard, were still together after thirty years.
I don’t like privilege. That’s what you call it when you enjoy a right that is denied to others. I believe in rights. I have the right to marry the consenting adult of my choice because I gravitated towards a certain set of parameters— I’m attracted to members of the opposite sex. It was not a conscious choice I made any more than it was a conscious choice they made (And no Governor Richardson, you idiot— It’s not a choice). It’s just who we are.
In this modern age of monotheism, we’ve forgotten something that the polytheists of ancient Rome and Greece that we snicker at for their pantheon of gods knew all along— Family comes in all shapes.
Is there anything wrong with Craig or any of the others named in this piece being homosexual? Of course not. The wrong comes when they defame and hurt others who make the same choices they do.
If I was that full of shit, I would probably take a wider stance while seated on the toilet as well.
That made me giggle.
A brilliant line, all right. What I can’t fathom is the Craig line that set it up! A wide stance in the bathroom? Did he really say that, or am I just being too literal-minded to catch the joke? Sheesh!
If you want a good laugh, look up Matt Sanchez’s gay porn filmography. One of the XXX gay videos that he made, using the alias Rod Majors, is called Tijuana Toilet Tramps.
Kibitizer,
He claimed that he wasn’t playing footsie with the dude. He just has a “wide stance when he uses the bathroom.”
Thanks Auto!
Kibs, it’s a direct quote. It’s what he said at the police station. From the WaPo:
Mistake No. 3? Explaining to the police that his foot touched the undercover officer’s foot in the next stall because he has “a wide stance when going to the bathroom.”
Dave,
Maybe Larry Craig can star in the sequel with him! “Coming soon to a shitter near you…”
David,
I think that may turn out to be the most quotable line of the year. It’s 2007’s “Brownie, you’re doing a huckuva job.”
Great post! This post has given me a lot to think about as well.