Loading ...MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO
What can I say about U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho)? How about here we go again with another “socially conservative” elected official who ran on “family values” and made part of his living pointing out the moral short comings in others, getting caught, metaphorically speaking, with his pants down. When will these people ever learn?
August 28th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I can’t say from personal experience, but it may be that people like this have the same political values, yet not the same sexual inclinations as certain political parties.
They are put into a bind by not wanting to be grouped with another politcal philosophy (that may be more tolerant) that they don’t identify with, but would be ostracized if “outed” by many who have similar political beliefs, but not sexual beliefs.
It’s really sad that one must feel obligated to pay lip service to a long list of inflexible values, else be unceremoniously dumped into non-entity-ness.
August 28th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
I’m not sure how to be about this one: He indicated interest in sex (not a crime), he covered up conflicting sexual sensibilities in the public (troubling, hypocritical, though still not a crime), he smugly operated as if his status would get the officers off his case (nope, not a crime yet).
I think it’s the hypocrisy that gets me–his and ours. If you’re against gay marriage and believe that the behavior is wrong, then act like it.
(begin warning to behave)
When I was a grad student, I was a teacher’s assistant in a human sexuality course. We conducted a survey of beliefs of the gathered 80 or so underclassmen and women. The vast majority of women and almost all of the men reported believing that homosexuality was wrong. When asked about depictions of lesbian sex in porn (video and print), virtually every man in the class was a true believer, even though they believed guy-guy action was vile.
There were stats on the percentage of male focused porn with woman-on-woman sexual depictions (almost all of them) and woman-focused porn (absolutely no guy-guy action), but I don’t have them at hand. I think you get my point.
The way they parsed what was right and wrong in their minds was consistent from class to class, though it never made sense to me.
(end warning to behave)
We demand our men to be manly straight men (see Indy’s Bishop Tom Benjamin’s comments about those “silly silly homosexuals”) and our women to be pretty, easily-turned lesbian fantasy fodder.
August 28th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I commute to another city and have to park in a remote lot away from my place of work. The parking lot is across the street from a gay bar that is only open in the evenings.
In the very early mornings, while I and other fellow employees wait for a shuttle to the ofice, we often see men driving the alley behind the bar building looking for some kind of hookup. I don’t believe that the majority of these men would consider themselves anything but heterosexual, but they are looking for oral sex, and don’t seem to mind from whom they get/receive it.
It is this kind of behavior that I believe Senator Craig was attempting to participate in the airport restroom. It is sad that people feel that they have to troll public restrooms, public parks and public right-of-ways looking for activity that doesn’t appear to be illegal. His strong denials about not being gay doesn’t include that he wasn’t looking for something else. It is this omission that I believe says it all in this case.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:45 am
The lawyer who wrote my parents will was very clear. Even if they catch you standing with a smoking gun in your hand and a body with a gunshot in it at your feet, you don’t say ANYTHING without getting a lawyer. This guy should be out just for being STUPID, but then I guess we would have to toss our CCC!
August 29th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
This is why we need to not judge and just let people be whoever they are as an individual. If we did, we’d have a lot less hypocrites.