Larry Craig's curious stance

You may have come across Larry Craig recently. I mean [blushes] you may have seen his name in the news... he's the Republican Senator for Idaho who has consistently voted for any homophobic legislation he can get his grubby little hands on and has just resigned having been caught by the cops trying to solicit sex in a men's toilet.

Whilst there's quite a bit on the US blogosphere on this (I particularly liked Sexual Intelligence's piece "Having Sex With Men Does NOT Make Larry Craig Gay") what no one seems to have picked up on is his curious statement that whilst on the loo he has a "wide stance" which is supposed to explain why he pushed his foot into the stall of his neighbour (the cop) and tapped him on the foot.

Does he take his trousers off when he's going to toilet then? Or slip them down ever so slightly - just enough to "open the bomb doors" as it were? Or perhaps he was wearing a kilt? I mean, of all the excuses he could come up with is this not a touch flimsy? How does he manage this "wide stance" whilst wearing "dress pants"?

Craig's enthusiasm for an elicit rendezvous really did leave him in a sticky situation - and not in a good way. Rightfully he is no longer a danger to the public having resigned his position as Senator, although obviously I would have preferred him to go because he's consistently attacked gay rights rather than a dubious incident in a public lavatory.

A second question I'd like to ask is why are the cops spending so much time trying to find men engaging in consensual sex? Aren't there any war criminals around they could be arresting? Are all the corporate executives in America safely behind bars already? If so - good job, kudos - if not - get your priorities straight people.

As Queersighted says "Sexual repression is likely the biggest health threat to [the USA], beating smoking, obesity and unsafe sex hands down. It's one of the last vestiges of the Puritan scourge and an artifact of a time before the Enlightenment and the birth of modern democracy and the concept of popular freedom. The right to self-expression and individuality is both a critical part of our Constitution and as a human right, an essential part of mental health."

If you have a situation where someone's sexuality is an electoral liability it's no wonder some elected representatives overcompensate. The easy thing to do is to blame the weak willed hypocrisy of a Senator willing to accomodate and reinforce the bigotry of sections of the electorate to further his own career- and that's why we do it. After all why make work for yourself?

The real task, of course, is shifting society so the political elite, the cops and the voters of America all agree that being gay is not a sin, that the internal and external policing of our sexuality is not particularly helpful and that in order to help people live honest lives we shouldn't demand some horrific "Christian" purity from our elected officials.