...Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

When you think of an airport, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Airplanes, right? Maybe large bustling terminals, baggage carousels, overpriced concourse food, interminable security lines? How about gay sex?

Yes, gay sex. Leave it to a politician to forever change America’s perception of a commonplace architectural symbol of a now routine method of transportation from an annoying, stress-filled, delay-ridden, dehumanizing pain-in-the-butt to an annoying, stress-filled, delay-ridden, dehumanizing pain-in-the-butt – with gay sex. It’s everything aviation’s been waiting for. Give it a few weeks. United will unveil it’s new slogan. “Fly the Friendly Skies. Now with more gay sex.”

Obviously, the gay sex isn’t the issue. I’ve only used the phrase “gay sex” six times because it sounds kind of funny. The problem is Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig and his “I was guilty at first, but now I’m not and never have been guilty, really, I swear” explanation for his guilty plea to a disorderly conduct charge for soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. In an age where purchasing knock-off perfume at T.J. Maxx enables some guy living in his mother’s basement to charge a Lexus to your credit card, it’s a bit of a mystery to me how an incident of this nature involving a person with this profile could take place three months ago and only be reported now, but I guess Senator Craig thought he had enough juice to keep this under wraps. Unfortunately for him he was wrong.

Until now, Craig had built his career in Washington around being a “family values” politician. He has campaigned against gay marriage, gay rights and pretty much anything having to do with gay people. But you wouldn’t know any of that from reading the incident report. In it the undercover officer states that while working a plain-clothes detail at the Minneapolis airport (apparently the airport bathroom is a hotspot for gay sex,) he slipped into an empty stall to wait for something to happen. About thirteen minutes later he noticed an older white male – later identified as Craig – standing outside his stall peering in. Two minutes later Craig entered the stall next to him and proceeded to perform actions, which, according to the officer, were consistent with actions performed by men seeking to engage in lewd conduct. Later on, once the officer revealed himself to be law enforcement, Craig provided him with several lame explanations for his actions including something about having a “wide stance”, and attempting to retrieve a piece of paper from the floor of the stall.

Now anyone who has ever been to a public restroom knows that whatever is on the floor stays on the floor. That goes double for paper on the floor of the stall. There’s a reason why the custodians wear gloves and use plastic buckets on sticks to clean the restroom. In addition to the unwritten rule, the arresting officer stated there was nothing on the floor, so nobody’s buying the picking up paper bit. And I’m not even going to touch the “wide stance” statement. If your “stance” is wide enough to spill over into the adjacent stall there’s something you aren’t doing correctly.

Senator Craig is under the impression that the scandal here is that if people think he was soliciting gay sex then he must be gay and he desperately does not want that impression conveyed. So at the same time he was trying to explain that his guilty plea really meant he was innocent, he made a point to stress the fact that he is not and never has been gay. Larry, nobody, aside from the six potato farmers in Idaho who voted for you care whether or not you’re gay. Unlike you, most of us believe people have the right to be who they are without being harassed and demeaned by people who feel superior. What we don’t like is the fact out of one side of your mouth you denigrate the lifestyle of a group of people but from the other side you tried to use that lifestyle to solicit satisfaction for your sexual urges in a public airport bathroom, then lied about it telling us you were just trying to pick up some paper. Your colleagues aren’t buying it and neither are we. Why don’t you save yourself any further embarrassment and retreat to your potato cellar before you really say something stupid.