He's Not Gay...
Scott Kirwin
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) denies he solicited sex in a men's bathroom at the airport in Minneapolis. This is not the first time the senator has been implicated in gay scandals. His behavior during the Congressional Page scandal raised quite a few eyebrows.
I have no sympathy for hypocritical leadership. I don't care whether its closet cases like this guy or Al Gore pumping the air full of CO2 so he can leave the lights on in his mansion.
My feeling is that this guy's identity is so twisted after years in the closet that he honestly believes he's not gay... He just likes sex with men in public bathrooms.
Maybe, Senator Craig was having a really bad day and just needed a hug:)
HankBarnes
He'll still get smeared, of course.
"Officer, today, you'll be sitting in the toilet at the airport and your job is to arrest anyone that wiggles their shosies under the stall ?"
I happen to know Craig is gay, because I know the bahavior. I've lived it. And I feel sorry for him really. I'm glad I never had to go through any of that.
This is what being forced to hide is all about.
I'm still not sure I get it. I'll have to pass on further comment.
Sorry. But it is true. I like your posts on everything else. I think you are completely ignorant about gay people, however.
I imagine you think you are giving me the benefit of the doubt, I guess, by calling me ignorant -- "if he really knew, he would see matters differently" -- and I appreciate that. But I just see matters differently.
What is sad to me is the completely objective, unpolitical fact that for whatever reasons, a man is ruined. I always find that sad. I don't think one has to be pro-gay-rights or anti- to find that spectacle sad. But he made his own choices, globally and locally, and now has to live with them, hard.
Michael, either we all take responsibility for our own actions, or none of us do.
You start out with reason, but then you fall back on the old “victim” meme.
Someone else is always to blame.
And when the rest of us get tired of hearing that same old song, well, then we’re evil, or oppressive, or ignorant.
What’s really sad is that as long as you consider yourself a victim, you will never experience the power of personal responsibility, or earn the respect it can deliver to any individual.
i think you have your michaels mixed up :p.
also, i don't think michael ever claimed HE was a victim of anything.
sen. craig is a victim of his own closet, and, yes, he is a victim of the old mindset that being gay was horribly horrible wrong. sometimes there really are victims out there, after all. the key point is that the gay community has not adopted full-and-everlasting victim status over this, as evidence by the almost complete absence of the closet (corresponding to an absence of need for the closet) among today's homosexuals. I may be unusual in that I have friends both much younger and much older than myself, but I personally know gay folks whose lives are total befuddlements to them on behalf of the closet, and i know younger ones who are probably more well adjusted than i am.
it's just my 2 cents, so take it for what it's worth, but i think you're having a kneejerk reaction here that maybe isn't appropriate.
Michael Demmons is not mikeca. We all get confused sometimes, but still...
jaymaster and Ron,
I understand your disgust with "victimology"; but really, Michael has a point. Where there's a serious stigma to being gay -- as in, you could lose your job, or rights to take care of your children -- then some gay people will try to hide their orientation. Now while you might think the ideal would be to hide it by not acting on it, how many of us are that strong? And if such a powerful urge is repressed, then the temptation to release it -- even in foolishly dangerous ways -- gets a lot stronger. And if the release is anonymous, it might seem to be less foolishly dangerous, because "nobody will ever know". That's a foolish assumption; but desperate people are sometimes foolish people.
Now I tend to believe that the stigma isn't that strong these days; but frankly, what does a middle-class straight guy like me know about it, really? My gay friends are all pretty out, and it seems like no big deal to anyone who knows them; but then along comes another friend, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat who you would think would be behind most of the "progressive" issues, who can discourse at length on how "those people (i.e., homosexuals) have just gotta understand that most of us find what they do to be really disgusting." After he shocked me with that statement, I'm really unsure just how strong the stigma is these days.
Yes you are correct. I was wrong about my Mikes. I think I have done that before too.
I apologize to both for that.
And thank you for pointing that out.
But I believe that when Michael labels the senator a victim just because he is gay, he is labeling himself a victim too.
Nope. As I said, I grew up in a different time, more or less. I didn't have the stigma Craig had.
Just as I believe older black people can still feel the stigma that younger black people shouldn't/
And heck, most straight married couples have probably made use of their bathrooms for more than just bathing at one time or another.
I know you don't see the logic. I don't expect you to.
Michael, if the place had been anonymous, Senator Craig would still be, too. It was public.
Is there no one -- no one? -- who will take a stand for self-control, regardless of one's predilections?
I think Mike raises an important point here. This guy is a generation above Mike's and two gens removed from those in the 20s. His mindset was probably set before Stonewall, and I don't think it's possible for him to see the reality. Then again, he's in Idaho - not exactly the most gay-friendly states.
I personally feel ambivalent about him. On one hand I feel sorry for him for being unable to accept his identity. On the other hand he's part of the "family values" set whose exclusion policies set up barriers between decent people.
The bottom line is that he's been a hypocrite. Now we're all hypocrites to some degree, but some are worse than others. I don't set national policy, but if I did I would be really careful making sure my actions match my beliefs - or vice versa as liberals do it. I've pilloried HRC and Gore about theirs, so I'm not going to stand in the way of the dogs as they leap all over a fellow Republican and conservative.
Sorry but it takes guts to come out. Craig shows that he doesn't have any.
He needs to resign. Now.
Irrelevant, in my opinion: he'll get that stipend and those benefits whether he resigns or not. Having them won't make him any more or less likely to resign.
It sounds parallel to, if not congruent with, your earlier remarks.
Scott: Craig may be engaging in some classic "definition of 'is'" here. If he were bisexual, he could quite honestly claim with a straight face that he isn't gay. Or perhaps he internaly defines gay as a practicing homosexual, as opposed to a (conventionally) married man seeking occasional gay sex.
I do have a question, though. Do you, Scott, call for Craig's resignation because he tried to solicit gay sex in a public restroom, because he is is presumptively gay, or do you call for his resignation because he wasn't honest about his sexual nature?
And what is it with all these conservative/Republican politicians who are all square and conventional (far more than I!) on the outside, but keep popping up in the news with regards to their pecadillos!? No, really, it seems like there are more gay conservatives than gay liberals these days, at least in the higher ranks of politicians.
What do you think, Michael? They all seem to be over forty, or over fifty; is this another case of what you mentioned here: So maybe they repressed their own sexuality, perhaps unconciously, during their own adolescence, then later on in life, after marriage, kids, and a career, they finally opened up to themselves?
I don't think the answer is that liberals are generally more tolerant. It just seems to me that there are more (closeted) gay men amongst conservatives than there are openly gay men amongst liberal politicians.
Does mean that male politicians of any stripe feel that they can't be openly gay? For those who would claim this is merely conservative homophobia, I have to ask, where are all the openly gay liberal politicians then? One would think that liberal voters would be more tolerant of liberal gay politicians; it's part of their platform, and everything.
I have a sneaking suspicion that would-be gay politicians of all stripes face a much greater obstacle than do their straight counterparts, from both sides of the aisle.
But still, maybe he’s bisexual. Maybe he loves his wife and truly enjoys having sex with her. And possibly other women…
Maybe he just occasionally enjoys an occasional BJ on the side, and if he can’t find a willing woman, he’ll settle for a guy. Hey, a warm mouth is a warm mouth. And guys are SO easy….
And even if the occasional tryst with a man, in a semi-public place, is exactly what trips his trigger the most, does that make him gay?
Also, even if a person has Same-Sex Attraction, that doesn't mean that he must necessarily support the homosexualist agenda. I'm sure there are probably some folks who are completely out of the closet who nevertheless think that homosexuality should not be a protected class of person and that homosexual "marriage" is a logical impossibility.
I will stand with you on personal responsibility, but is blame so scarce it can only be parceled out to one party? you seem to be saying that if only sen. craig had been more discreet then everyone would be better off. maybe that's true, but isn't there also something creepy about a need to be discreet? luckily, as has been said numerous times in this thread, the discreetness issue is mostly moot. those who grew up with the stigma will be hard-pressed to outgrow it, and those who did not grow up with it are, for the most part, just fine. so what is there left to do? from my viewpoint, not much, save waiting for the changing of the guard.
I’m not Ron, but discreetness is not moot, IMO.
If he had been caught in a bathroom stall having sex with a woman, I would feel the same way. If he was caught masturbating in a public restroom, I would feel the same way too.
In all three cases I would question his judgment, and his intelligence. And I would seriously wonder if a person who made such a choice is fit for such an office. In any case, I probably wouldn’t vote for him again.
Now if he was caught in a hotel room having sex with a woman, or a man, or himself, it would be a little different. I would still have the questions about hypocrisy and judgment and intelligence. But at least he would seem to be trying to be discreet, and that’s worth something.
And if he was observed in his own home doing any of the above, I would feel differently still.
The problem here is a lack of judgement, and self control, and respect for others, and not a lust for particular body parts or certain activities.
Maybe/not. I haven't spoken with him so I can't feel sorry. There isn't any stipulation that to be gay one *must* declare it to the world.
And, too, there are many variations within the male-sex community. "Down low" types are not necessarily 'unable to accept' their identities. Indeed, their identities may be grounded in having that double life.
Further, it's appropriate to distinguish between identity and sexuality, confusing as that may be. I talk with many men who have sex with men [there's even an acronym - MSM] who do NOT identify as gay. They're not in denial, it [the culture, community, etc] just isn't part of their identity. Some feel freer to be themselves in result, some don't.
i think you misunderstood my comment. what i was trying to get it was that the culture of public restroom sex is nearly dead and not likely to recover. the particular issue of cruising for anonymous and discreet sex because there are no socially normal outlets available is moot because of that.
Ron,
i think what i'm trying to drive at here is that craig is not engaging in socially normative adultery, and that simply framing it that way is missing at least part of the issue. he is from a generation that has no place to go to meet other guys in a socially normal fashion. and although other people have raised the very good point that perhaps he's just bi, my money's on the fact that if he were born 30 years ago rather than 60, he wouldn't have married a wife he would later feel the need to cheat on. he might have married (if he'd been living in canada) a guy he'd later cheat on, but i can bet he'd have done it in a much more mundane fashion.
By the way jaymaster, I am the real mikeca, so you can flame away at me.
I agree with that.
HB
sen. craig is a victim of his own closet, and, yes, he is a victim of the old mindset that being gay was horribly horrible wrong.
Yes.
We build our closets ourselves, lining their walls with our fear of what other people will think.
But in many cases that fear is justified. And, while I will say that we build our own closets, I will also say that some of the blame lies at the feet of those whose hostility and intolerance make fear of our own homosexuality the most rational response.
Martin, at 9.56:
I think the stigma is less strong than it was two decades ago. But I'm an out gay man in the suburbs of San Francisco; nobody is going to be rude to my face, and that makes it hard for me to be sure.
Jaymaster, at 10.00:
I don't want to speak for Michael Demmons, but ... were I to say that Sen. Craig is a victim, I would not be saying that I am a victim, too. I think that gay men who are still in the closet are victims: victims of their fears, victims of their lack of courage, victims of their unwillingness to admit to themselves who they are and what they want; victims, also, of the stigma imposed on them by an intolerant society. Those gay men who have come out of the closet, on the other hand, are not victims.
Does it ever occur to you that the nation doesn't want to accept an abbarent lifestyle. And, what's more, that you are the ones who are wrong in engaging in that lifestyle?
Oh, I forgot, it feels good. Right, that means it's okay then. My bad.
It you people, the same ones that call those that object to the mainstreaming of homosexuality bigots and worse, that are guilty of bigotry. Yours is the only opinion that matters. Yours is the only voice that should be heard.
No, someone can't disagree with you. They have to hate you. They have to fear you. Then you wrap yourselves in that delusion until you're nice and warm in the belief that you're some oppressed minority.
Please. Get over yourself and your genetials. Neither you nor they are all that impressive.
Sen. Craig had to seek sex in a public restroom because he's oppressed!? Do some of you actually think that? Whatever happened to getting a seedy hotel room?
Sen. Craig is guilty of the sin of hubris. He felt his own carnal desires trumped the law. I daresay that's not an uncommon trait amongst the homosexual comminuty.
I'm sick and tired of playing nice with you. You practice a sick and demented lifestyle. Your lifestyle undermines the natural order and natural function of all animals on this planet. There is nothing natural or right about what you do.
Seek treatment or shut the hell up. I honor your right to do as you wish, with whomever you wish, in the privacy of your own home.
Do not dare to call me a bigot or hatemonger when I give your lifestyle a "thumbs down" when you ask me to approve of it.
And that's exactly what you're doing by moving your sexual desires into the streets, the halls of Congress, and the voting booths.
Man the frak up already. Quit your bitching and do what you've said you've always wanted to do. Keep your damned private life private.
there is a difference between you yourself disapproving of something and the government disapproving of it. you can disapprove of whatever you wish, that is your right as an american. the government, on the other hand, should maintain an agnostic standpoint towards things not proven to be violating the societal contract (eg: larceny, murder).
It's such a warped worldview. I'll say a prayer for you, Kevin.
from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity [1], tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered [2].” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstance can they be approved.
8/9/74 -- Nixon resigns
8/27/07 -- Craig: "I am not gay"
9/6/07 -- Craig resigns
First rule in life: If you're not X, you wouldn't have to deny it so vociferously.
Hank B
p.s. Although I very much like Kevin D on many issues, I feel compelled to distance myself from his latest remarks. That's because I very much like Michael Demmons and others who, understandably, might take offense to them.
McK, I don't think comprehension is the issue here.
No, someone can't disagree with you. They have to hate you. They have to fear you.
Can you point me to somewhere where I've said that? Or where Michael Demmons has? I've done the courtesy of not projecting onto you my stereotypes of Christians; please do me the same courtesy.
in the belief that you're some oppressed minority
The oppression is overstated. But it's nonetheless a real thing which is experienced by many people. Those people have a choice: to be strong, to do what they want, and to accept the consequences; or to cower in fear and hide in the closet. Those of us who are openly gay have chosen to do the former; but that doesn't mean we are immune to the temptations of the latter, or that we are unsympathetic to those who, through their own susceptibility to circumstance, follow that path.
Sen. Craig had to seek sex in a public restroom because he's oppressed!? Do some of you actually think that?
I don't think that, no.
But I do think that he chose to do that because, when he was growing up, that was the only path he felt was open to him. We've come a long way, and many paths have become easier to tread than they were then; and, while I can tread them, I'm not at all sure that, had they been as difficult for me as they would have been for him, I would have been able to.
Seek treatment or shut the hell up.
That statement pretty much speaks for itself.
Keep your damned private life private.
Can I put a picture of my lover on the wall of the cube in my office, just as my straight neighbors do, or would that be offensive to you?
Ron,
And apparently the party line isn't either.
Those little comments by McK were directed at me. I'm sure he thinks I should be all a twitter about homosexuality and since I'm not I'm a bad Catholic. Well, I follow my Church's teachings and I chose to hate the sin but love the sinner. That's how I treat everyone, since we all sin.
The question arose after a slam on Kevin re: the apparent horrific evils of ?fundamentalists. The comments were directed to the two comments above my question, not any persons per se. Okay, lets say they were directed to Dean and Rosemary's comments.
Their comments to Kevin didn't seem to reflect basic
Catholic thought which I thought ironic. This is all getting tedious, is it not. I shall take my leave as the entire scenario approaches ennui. I apologize for any mis-understanding.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.