Story of the Week -- Aug 27-31

You Know How I Know You're Gay?

You know how I know you're gay?

You're an ultra-conservative Senator from Idaho with a wife, kids, and grandkids and yet you still feel the urge to solicit strange men for sex in airport bathrooms.

That's pretty gay.

Actually, it's so gay that calling it gay is an insult to gay people. Because men who like that they're gay and know that they're gay go to gay bars and Celine Dion concerts to find other gay men and they go home and have sex with them like normal people.

But Senator Larry Craig doesn't like the fact that he's gay. He tried to hide it with a loving wife, a family, grandchildren. And still, he couldn't resist the occasional romp in an airport bathroom.(we can only guess) Listening to the tape and reading the police report, the evidence is pretty clear - Craig was caught red-handed and then made stuff up like and eight year old with a hand in the cookie jar and chocolate on his face.

Ooh, sorry. Bad imagery.

Anyway, a while back I wrote about Rev. Ted Haggard. A male prostitute in Colorado said he slept with the evangelical leader on a number of occasions. Haggard went to "gay rehab" and in 3 weeks was "cured of his gayness." I opined then, and I still believe, that maybe if Haggard had been allowed to be gay none of this would happen. Same goes for Craig. Who's to say the people of Idaho don't elect a gay congressman? Or at least, a single congressman they suspect to be gay?

Craig's fatal flaw is the hypocrisy. Not only does he have the beard family, he has the beard congressional record. He was one of the most conservative Senators. He voted in favor of a constitutional ban on gay marriage and spoke out against gay rights at every opportunity. This guy takes shame and self-loathing to the highest degree. Then he has the balls to say "I'm not gay. I've never been gay," after he literally gets caught with his pants down.

And he's supposedly a good guy, a good representative of the state of Idaho. He's served well and been re-elected twice. I don't like his politics, but other than that, I never remember having anything against him. In fact, I'd never heard of him. Now that he resigned, I feel a little bad for him. A little.

Why? Because, sadly, there are more Larry Craigs out there (nice to see you again, Mr. McGreevy, how's your wife? Ohhhh....). People like Craig are brought up being told that who they are is wrong and that they should be ashamed, so they cover it up, bury it deep down. Until it springs a leak elsewhere. Maybe, just maybe, if these people weren't ashamed of themselves, they could be the good politicians they're capable of being, and they could leave the sex scandals to their deviant, corrupt, perverted hetero colleagues.

What Craig did is gross, it's shameful, and it's not something I'd like to see happen in any airport bathroom I visit. But it never had to happen, if only the senator was allowed to be himself.