You said it brother. We're apparently ready to crucify this guy over something pretty stupid because he's on their side rather than ours.

I would ask every Democrat to think whether they would believe the police account of this if it were a Democrat being accused. Frankly, I find the notion of charging someone with a crime for touching someone's foot on the very subjective supposition that the individual is soliciting sex extremely disturbing. And apparently the officer in this case has done this with at least 15 other people.

Even if he was hitting on him, since when is that a crime -- even in a bathroom.

You guys really don't think it's worth a chuckle that a sitting senator was cruising for anonymous sex in a public restroom?

I think it's funny that cops who should be out protecting people hang out in public bathrooms waiting to be propositioned.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

"I have found the public response to this episode to be thoroughly revolting, filled with depressing levels of homophobia and adolescent cackling from commentators on both the right and the left."

Come on, we made fun of David Vitter plenty. As for adolescent cackling, well...

A lot of Democrats seem to think that because our party has the better record on gay rights, we get a free pass on the gay jokes, and have earned a special permit to get our jollies from the public gang-banging and humiliation of an outed gay man.

For several days now, I have watched and listened as several supposedly liberal commentators have done everything they could to reinforce the bigoted notion that there is something inherently funny, comical, absurd, outlandish or undignified about being gay; and they have done everything they can to support the old notion that the desperate loneliness, isolation, self-deception and self-loathing of the closeted homosexual - which might lead such people to seek furtive and anonymous sexual companionship in a public restroom - is worthy of both ridicule and cruel, vulgar, frenzied persecution. They have shamelessly hitched a ride on the speeding homophobia express, and think they don't deserve a ticket because they have a gay friend or two, or have voted the right way on gay rights.

You expect this kind of crap from the wingers. But that we now have to put up with the same adolescent double-entendres and smirks from people like Keith Olbermann is just depressing. There are different kinds of hypocrisy. One kind is the hypocrisy Craig is accused of: stigmatizing a certain kind of behavior in one's public acts and pronouncements, while engaging in that behavior in private. But another kind of hypocrisy is pretending to be a liberal friend of gays, while abetting a gay-hating feeding frenzy with mean-spirited and childish sniggers and self-righteous, prosecutorial zeal.

Actually, the David Vitter episode seems to have passed by very quickly, without even 10% of the attention that has been lavished on this episode.

Sure, but my point is that this particular kind of sting is highly questionable as its basis for saying the law was broken is entirely subjective.

Listen to the audio tape of the interview with Craig. The Senator denies everything under repeated interrogation but his denial doesn't mean a thing because the police officer's subjective interpretation of what happened trumps any other explanation.

I find it hard to believe that this would hold up in court and suspect that this guy gets plea deals merely because people don't want to have such an embarrassing accusation aired in a public courtroom. There's no substance to the case.

So because he's gay it's wrong to find the fact that a moralizing Senator was cruising for anonymous sex in a public restroom funny? I'm sorry, but that's just crazy to me.

All I can say in response to the pun is that, well, you can be sure that the officer is now on Craig's List.

Good to see you're taking such a wide stance on the issue. :-)

Laughing at a moralizer getting caught is not homophobic.
Is it sad that in our society people like Craig feel they must deny their proclivities?
Yes.
But is is dead wrong that he would actively work against gays. For that he deserves some scorn and ridicule.

Actually, he has strongly denied being gay.

I admit, I first found this story amusing because I was looking at it through the lens of Republican hypocrisy on family values and all that other make-believe morality shit they campaign on. But basically, and in large part because of Craig's wierd defense of himself, the dominant focus has now become Craig's sexuality.

I've toyed between the idea that Craig is being hounded because the GOP wanted to protect a safe seat, or because they can't support potentially gay politicians... and ultimately I can't disentangle the two issues. The avalanche of scorn being heaped on Craig is exponentially more vile and vitriolic than what, eg, Vitter has had to deal with, and I can't find any other explanation other than the fact gay-bashing is still in vogue.

And I feel you guys are piling on here when you could do better.

I bet Sen. Craig wishes he could simply wipe this from his record.

Tittering and giggling over unremarkable, commonplace sex is something most people outgrow at a relatively early age. Depending on the relative ages, marital statuses and circumstances in which the sex or attempted sex occurred, I would find it either unworthy of mention, or sad and pathetic. People do solicit anonymous consensual sex in public paces all the time - for example in bars. I'm guessing even members of Congress do it sometimes. It's usually called "picking people up" or "hooking up", and I haven't noticed many news reports devoted to the practice, accompanied by the excited playing of police tapes and the reading of transcripts.

In fact, unless prostitution is involved, I can't even imagine what kind of police tape would be played. There are clubs and bars in which heterosexual couples sometimes have various kinds of sex in dark corners, in booths, in restrooms, etc. As far as I know, while there are stings aimed at catching a person soliciting prostitution, there is no such thing as a sting aimed at catching a person in the act of soliciting anonymous consensual heterosexual sex in a public place. I have never heard of such a sting at least. Straight sex is apparently not "lewd" enough. Can you recall a non-prostitution-related episode in which the police officer said something like this: "the female perpetrator moved closer to me, and performed various winks, hand and mouth gestures which I took to be a signal that she wish to perform free oral sex on me under the table. At this time I arrested her for attempted sodomy and solicitation to fornicate."

People don't usually have sex in the bars Dan.

"a sitting senator"

Andy G. you're a cruel man.

Come on, are you sure this incident wouldn't have happened? Maybe it wouldn't have been reported on so we wouldn't have known it had. But that would have zero to do with homophobia and everything to do with celebrity. The guy is a well known politician, that's why this was reported. If I got busted doing this over the weekend you'd likely never hear about it (unless the media is now scouring the nation for similar stories in the wake of this celebrity one).

All of this hemming and hawing about a cop busting someone for obviously inappropriate behavior is really sort of maddening. Why was the cop there? Who the hell knows! I'm going to guess that there were complaints and it was being addressed. But come on, this is not OK behavior for a public restroom which people of all stripes and ages go to do supposedly one thing - go. And simply because we haven't sat down for several months or years and legislated statutes explicitly spelling out what can and can not be done in a public bathroom I think is besides the point. This is something that I would not like going on in a restroom that I might be taking my child into...or I might be going into for that matter! This wasn't some singles bar bathroom either for crying out loud. At least there this sort of thing could be more expected (although to me no less reprehensible).

This is being turned into some Gay rights wedge issue by the media, by politicians and by many here in the blogosphere. This should not be a Gay rights issue but one of lewd public behavior.

"and harass him for it"

Excuse me? Where was the harassment? I must have missed that. Everything I read and heard showed the cops to be very professional and Craig to be disrespectful.

If it is accompanied by physical contact and some hands under the wall? Then yes, yes it is. Because that takes the tapping from "I have this catchy little tune in my head" and takes it to "wink-wink, nudge-nudge let's get busy". It makes this a form of soliciting sex (at least that seems to be the case although I had never heard of this before this incident).

You can not dissect this and simply take one aspect of it and say "that's not lewd" or "what's wrong with that". It's the entire encounter. And when you look at it in it's entirety this is a lewd and inappropriate situation. And when Sen. Craig plead guilty that pretty much confirmed things did it not? Certainly no one is going to buy that he didn't know any better and simply panicked. Especially when one reads the transcripts of his contemptuous attitude during questioning.

"Sometimes a banana is just a banana..." Thanks John Belushi, bananas are much better for us all then Freud's cigars!

But Mcboo, it's legal to solicit sex. Not for money, of course. But if I went to a club tonight and hit on a girl and then had sex with her... I should go to jail for hitting on her, even if I'm using codes and sign language and whatnot. This whole thing implies that it's illegal for a subculture to have nonverbal hook-up cues.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I must say that I cannot agree that the attention to this is solely about homophobia. Or even anything to do with homophobia. I do not think there is any question but that the response from the right is largely a matter of homophobia. But speaking for TPM, I think that our response, our attention to this as a news story, was close to identical to that of David Vitter, where, of course, the shoe was on the other foot, in terms of orientation. The closest analogue I can see to this story would be if conservative member of congress were arrested for being serviced for a hooker in a back alley. And when I ask myself, would our coverage have been the same? I don't have much problem saying, yes.

I see what you're saying, Josh. But this really isn't analogous to conservative with a hooker. Consensual sex between adults is legal. Sex with a hooker isn't. Okay, it should be, but it isn't.

In this case, yeah, we can point out that Craig is a hypocrite but the criminal aspect just strikes some of us as more tied to the homosexual aspect than perhaps it should be.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

It isn't against the law to have sexual relations with any adult, hooker or not. The illegal part is the paying. Similarly, it isn't against the law to "flirt" anywhere with another adult, although you can lose a few teeth if you flirt with the wrong person in the wrong way at the wrong time in the wrong place. So, if a cop arrests you, as this one arrested Craig, for what is clearly a flirtation, that is an improper use of police power, and in my book it is harassment. If the cop had caught Craig in the actual act of sex in any public place with anyone, that would have been a proper time to arrest him. I don't see how this is so hard to understand. Being disgusted by seeing men flirting with each other doesn't make that behavior illegal.

Hoppy in Sacramento

That's a good point. If two men engaged in the foot-tapping, hand-swiping routine that was the basis for Craig's arrest, but the result was that one of them simply invited the other back to his room, would that constitute lewd behavior? And if not, how can the police officer have any solid basis for inferring that what Craig did was aimed at lewd public behavior rather than private behavior?

I haven't followed your coverage of this story Josh. But my assertion at the top of this thread that the national coverage of this case has been steeped in homophobia is based mainly on what I have been seeing on television, from both liberal and conservative commentators.

What first set me off was Andrew's comment "you know you love it." I simply don't love or enjoy seeing people humiliated, even if they are guilty of whatever it is they are charged with, and even if the coverage is legitimately based on newsworthiness. This man has to endure national discussion of what he might or might not have done in a Minneapolis bathroom; news stories about what men he might or or might not have had sex with over the years; and every kind of childish high school humor born of very palpable anxiety about gay sex. And I've been hearing that humor from both the left and the right. Of course his family has to endure all this too. I guess I'm a few volts short in my Republican hate-o-meter, but I simply don't find this spectacle the slightest bit funny. It's excruciatingly painful to observe.

And while you personally might have covered the Vitter story in the same way, that story wasn't accompanied by anything close to the same level of national attention, nor with a fraction of the number of infantile jokes that have attended this one. As for the notion that the justification for the coverage of this story is mainly based on the public's right to know about cases of moral hypocrisy in public life, I don't buy it. I think that is mainly just an excuse to get the gayness, or at any rate sometime gay behavior, of Craig out into the public sphere and run with it. As I suggested before, I think this is a case where partisans are exploiting homophobia to get political mileage out of it.

As for mainstream media organizations, I don't think there are any deep principles journalistic involved other than the principle that sex scandals sell papers and airtime; and if it is a gay sex scandal, all the better.

Maybe I can help you out here with a few facts from Andy Birkey @ Minnesota Monitor, August 27:

...Karsnia was in the restroom as part of a sting operation to clamp down on lewd behavior. The restroom where Craig was arrested is well known among men who seek sex in public places.

Squirt.org is a site that runs a bulletin board for such men. "If you enter from the terminal, turn left and go past wash basins, urinals to the back where the stalls are. This place is THE most cruisy public place I have been," wrote one poster. "Just passed thru here the other day. This place is so hot. This place has a constant flow and variety of hot guys," wrote another. Even another poster wrote, "This is the best spot for anonymous action I've ever seen." Of all the postings in Minnesota, the airport restroom was ranked the top by that website.

The site, Squirt.org, lists how to get there: "Across from Food Court. Go through security to main Mezzanine where main shopping is located. Look for Starbucks Coffee stand and Men's Room is across from there," what to expect: "Very cruisy, no security cameras or guards. Most of the time, men will show themselves to you at the urinals and invite into stalls or nearby hotels. Plenty of dark stall action, too! Update: No one is permitted beyond the security checkpoints without an airline ticket now," and some of the biggest pet peeves: "Stall hoggers! Get off and get out! Cleaning crews may be overly curious, but won't interfere."

The details of Craig's arrest are not unique. According to a post in June at cruisingforsex.com, another public sex site, "Twenty people were arrested within the past week. Plainclothes officers wait in the stalls and tap their feet and even put their foot on yours and then arrest you when you look under the stall wall."

Craig had been the target of Mike Rogers of BlogActive who accused Craig of having sex with other men, particularly in public restrooms. "I have done extensive research into this case, including trips to the Pacific Northwest to meet with men who have say they have physical relations with the Senator," wrote Rogers in October 2006. "I have also met with a man here in Washington, D.C., who says the same -- and that these incidents occurred in the bathrooms of Union Station."...

The problems inherent here are the same with fighting any "vice squad" problem that as a necessity uses stings and does not wait until acts are committed. If you care more about civil liberties, then you should find stings that work on intent and not an actual sexual act troublesome, that includes MSNBC pedophile stings and any prostitution sting for johns. If you care more about community standards, you will not want the police to wait until your airport bathroom, which has become known on the internet as a place to find anonymous sex, has frequent actual sex going on in it, or until your block has the most of the hookers in town not just soliciting but giving visible blow jobs under the streetlights, or your block has all the high school kids hanging out on it smoking dope and drinking beer for that matter. It's basically like "broken windows" theory. And I would note that few cops care if its going on in an already bad neighborhood and no one complains, most vice stuff is considered a lousy job to be assigned to.

The story above makes clear to me that this is a kinky kind of sex in most people's judgment, gay or straight, whether they might like the idea or not, having to do with the thrill and danger of hooking up anonymously with a stranger in a public place for casual sex. A "vice" so to speak. One you often see in movies, but one that is still considered a "vice," titillating.

Keep in mind it's a misdemeanor. And in this case, apparently you don't even get your name in the paper like some communities do with johns, or we all would have known about it sooner? If your work doesn't involve people who care what you do with your private life, your job is probably not in danger by getting arrested for this.

And, of course, the reaction to the story is much bigger because it involves gay rather than straight sex. That's because it's still considered much more "purient" than hetero in our culture, which is partly the fault of people like the Senator. Still, once in a while you have a "Fatal Attraction" or "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" where hetero people like this get "punished" for their "vice."

"You know you love it" was supposed to preempt groans of lameness about the pun, not loving the scandal itself. I was expecting outrage against lameness. Shows how much I know.

The lady protests too much, methinks.

Look. A presumably educated, experienced older citizen, who deals with legal niceties almost every day, with immediate access to any level of legal advice, copped a plea. Guilty.

I haven't followed this at all, not listened to the cop audio, only when it's been in my face or ears, until now, but there do seem to have been undercurrents of reflexive homophobia the same way as there is racism every day, and some more open inappropriate commentary that would have caused offence couched in racial or sexist tones.

However, although I think it's crazy, that's the law. There had been complaints so the men's room was staked and he walked into it. Snap.

And he pled guilty. You have to ask why. He had time to think over the repurcussions and still pled. Case closed.

According to the arrest report, the Airport police had received 'numerous' citizen complaints about that bathroom. The same thing was going on at the Atlanta airport recently, too. Apparently, women traveling with young sons would send them into the bathroom and the kid would come out with wide eyes and a new education.

The worst thing you can do to a dogma is give it an empire. Anon

True. When I listened to the tape, it sounded to me like a cop with very flimsy, circumstantial evidence trying to browbeat and intimidate Craig into forgetting that he probably should have filed a charge of false arrest.

I don't find it at all funny because, for some odd reason, I don't find lousy police work all that funny.

"Why was the cop there? Who the hell knows! I'm going to guess that there were complaints and it was being addressed."

You all need to look at the actual Geography of where this all happened. Since 9/11 the Minneapolis Airport has been a high security area, and only those who have tickets, and have been signed in and through security, can be in the transit lounges and shopping area, bars, restaurants, and yes, restrooms in the airport. This particular men's room has long been a crusing zone, long before 9/11, and it became a problem for security, because locals who wanted to turn tricks for pay, had been found to be breaking security set-ups. This is why the stings were set up -- and it was at the request of the Joint Terrorism Taskforce and specifically the Department of Transportation and Homeland Security so as to discourage unauthorized persons from breaking through security. Ironically, one member of Minnesota's Joint Terrorism Taskforce that set up this sting policy was now Senator Amy Klobuchar, but then Hennepin County District Attorney Klobuchar.

I would imagine that Larry Craig voted, without a second thought, for all the Terrorism Legislation going, so maybe we should remind him that his arrest was an unintended consequence of really cracking down on Terrorism.

...the reaction to the story is much bigger because it involves gay rather than straight sex.

Let's try imagining the uproar if a woman senator, say Feinstein or Boxer, got caught in a dark airport bar that was known across the Internet as "This is the best spot for anonymous [heterosexual] action I've ever seen."

The worst thing you can do to a dogma is give it an empire. Anon

Sex is funny...period.
Maybe the way you do it.

The Google consensus seems to be "Only if it's done right." -- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex"

vedddy interesting:

America’s Toe-Tapping Menace
By LAURA M. Mac DONALD in the Sept. 2 New York Times guest op-eds.

Beginning excerpt:

WHAT is shocking about Senator Larry Craig’s bathroom arrest is not what he may have been doing tapping his shoe in that stall, but that Minnesotans are still paying policemen to tap back. For almost 40 years most police departments have been aware of something that still escapes the general public: men who troll for sex in public places, gay or “not gay,” are, for the most part, upstanding citizens. Arresting them costs a lot and accomplishes little.

In 1970, Laud Humphreys published the groundbreaking dissertation he wrote as a doctoral candidate at Washington University called “Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places.” Because of his unorthodox methods — he did not get his subjects’ consent, he tracked down names and addresses through license plate numbers, he interviewed the men in their homes in disguise and under false pretenses — “Tearoom Trade” is now taught as a primary example of unethical social research.

That said, what results! In minute, choreographic detail, Mr. Humphreys (who died in 1988) illustrated that various signals — the foot tapping, the hand waving and the body positioning — are all parts of a delicate ritual of call and answer, an elaborate series of codes that require the proper response for the initiator to continue. Put simply, a straight man would be left alone after that first tap or cough or look went unanswered.

Why? The initiator does not want to be beaten up or arrested or chased by teenagers, so he engages in safeguards to ensure that any physical advance will be reciprocated....

A note for Andrew: After reading that, I got to visualizing how most of my gay friends (long ago, I proudly acquired a "fag hag" label) would react to hearing about someone being caught playing "tearoom trade": I'm pretty sure that they would make crass jokes about such careless "naughty" behavior.

J. McCutchen

I'm in love

"sorry office, I pea'd down the wrong hole..."

To boldly go...

That's "Democratic" governor, not "Democrat".

The primary issue in this case seems to be the question of what kinds of behavior should not be permitted in a busy public restroom, especially one where unattended children may be present.

If the police report is accurate, Craig crossed the line. Either he was attempting to communicate with someone of unknown age and proclivities, or he spent way too much time peering through the crack in the door to pre-assess the person seated therein before taking the stall next to him.

I do not want my children, or anyone, subjected to such displays where there should be an expectation of a certain degree of privacy. I support police efforts to reduce that kind of behavior in public restrooms with known reputations, on behalf of people who are there to use those facilities for their INTENDED purposes.

Exactly.

And yes, I'm willing to show compassion and forgiveness, the very moment this lying hypocrite converts into an honest and sincere gay man, refuting his previous life of advocating discrimination and dishonesty. Until then, this asshole go f*ck himself 'cause I ain't no Mother Teresa and will not be handing out unearned good behavior points.

Aaaaaaaaameeeeeeen! (oops, was that a bad pun?) :D

The primary issue in this case seems to be the question of what kinds of behavior should not be permitted in a busy public restroom
You don't really see that as the PRIMARY issue, do you?

I do not want my children, or anyone, subjected to such displays
Would your children have been in Senator Craig's stall or the one occupied by the cop? I'm sure the intention in such a situation is to be as unobtrusive as possible for anyone except the intended audience.

And from what sort of lewdness are you hoping to protect your children? Is it the surreptitious tap of one foot on another? Do you fear that the sight of such behavior would scar your son for life?

The kind of behavior about which you seem to be obsessing is certainly not to be praised or encouraged; but you would put your energies to far more effective use by working to safeguard your kids from the predation of clergy.