The news of the arrest for lewd conduct in a men's restroom and subsequent guilty plea by Idaho GOP Senator Larry Craig is a tragedy on so many levels. First, for the very obvious personal tragedy of a once successful political career being literally and figuratively flushed down the toilet. But perhaps even more importantly, for the personal tragedy facing Craig's wife and children who, at least publicly, were unaware of the inner turmoil facing this man they loved.
How tragic to be relegated to cruising men's rooms for sex? And yet even that tragedy has multiple layers. It's tragic that an intelligent, promising young politician is so terrified by the possibility that his own orientation might become public, that when news of a homosexual congressional page scandal broke in 1982, the young bachelor, freshman congressman issued a preemptive denial. By the next summer he was married and on the National Rifle Association's board of directors.
It's tragic that the socialization of gay Americans and even more deeply, gay Republicans, and still more deeply, gay Idahoans of Craig's generation, led him to take the path of secrecy and denial—and ultimately led to playing footsie under a men's room stall hoping for sex from a complete stranger.
Yet another layer to that tragedy is that young, gay Idahoans were denied the positive role model that might have been had Craig been able to proudly and openly declare his orientation. How many young teenage suicides would have been prevented? How many years of self-loathing and depression for how many teens and young adults could have been prevented? We'll never know.
But perhaps the ultimate tragedy is that the denial continues.
I agree with everything you say, except the literally flushing part. Per the officers' report, Craig didn't flush upon exiting. More evidence that he wasn't using the facility for it's intended purpose.
Posted by: Alan | August 29, 2007 at 08:02 AM