A lot of chatter yesterday about America’s favorite Republican pervs, Larry Craig and Mark Foley.
Craig, being the more recent and more publicly pervy of the two with his restroom shenanigans, is gaining renewed attention due to the unlikely (to some) assist he’s receiving from the ACLU. The civil liberties organization has filed a brief in support of Craig, arguing that sexual contact in a closed restroom stall has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Consternation ensued among gay bloggerati, including Towleroad, who wrote, “Aside from the sheer absurdity of it, I'm not sure exactly how this argument would help Craig, since he has denied engaging in any sexual conduct.”
The ACLU’s brief isn’t absurd -- it’s something that any gay man with a sense of the history of police entrapment of homosexuals in this country should appreciate. But, to put it more simply, if there was no crime committed, then there was no crime for Craig to plead guilty to.
On the Foley front, a bunch of the usual suspects are upset that Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t handing over Foley’s Capitol office computers. Of course, Foley’s been accused of being creepy, being a hypocrite and being an all around slimeball, but no one has come forward with an accusation of him actually having inappropriate or, more importantly, illegal sexual contact with a congressional page. Yes, he authored legislation that possibly made his own instant messages illegal under federal law, which makes the irony rich. But, barring any new info, he exchanged salacious IMs with teen males who were above the age of consent in at least one jurisdiction, the District of Columbia.
Creepy, yes. Illegal, no.
When the Craig story first broke, I was having dinner with a big group of friends, all of whom expressed glee at the thought of the senator going to jail for soliciting sex from a man. I understood the schadenfreude, but I was disturbed that everyone was so quick to support using an essentially homophobic law and entrapment scheme just to nail an ideological foe. At base, why should we as open gay men be celebrating the idea that inviting someone to have sex is an illegal act punishable by the state?
I don’t shed any tears for either of these men. As closeted or semi-closeted men, they helped build the nets that snared them. They’ve been exposed as hypocrites. They’ve both found their lives as serious public men destroyed in a deluge of crass jokes and infamy. Foley was essentially forced from office; Craig hangs on for now, but will likely be voted out at first chance.
Let these pathetic men slide into their well-deserved obscurity. We have more important things to do than trying to twist the legal system in search of political revenge.
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