October 2007 Cover
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By
Mitzel
The sensational matter I am about to submit to your eyeballs happened many moons ago, happened since the last Ramadan, happened in the last week, and will happen again. One of the mighty has been brought down. The crash and burn involves sexual activity (or in this specific case, potential sexual activity). Shall I continue? Or have you heard this all before?
The case in the court of public opinion -- bad breath and flatulence are part of the package -- is that of Mr. Larry Craig, until recently the senior (I think) United States Senator from the great state of Idaho.
Y
ou all know this story, but for those ten of you who missed it -- such exist -- I will recap. The Senator, finishing out his third term from the great state of Idaho, was in a men's room hopper in the airport in Minneapolis. In the next hopper was a member of the constabulary who alleged that the Senator brushed his foot against his, did some sort of hand signal, whatever. The Senator was nabbed for solicitation, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, didn't tell his party leadership. It got leaked, got published, brouhaha ensued, mostly from his nearest and dearest, and the Senator resigned his august position to spend more time with his family.
Before I get onto my liberal empathy jag, let me join the chorus of those who think Larry Craig, as a public servant was, using a term Gore Vidal applied to the late Howard Hughes, "an All-American shit." I think he had the seat once held by Frank Church, the last Democrat the good folks of Idaho sent to Washington. Sen. Church turned out to provide some utility to the commonweal.
Mr. Craig was cut from different cloth. And it showed. But as to his downfall, it occasions several thoughts. Why are such events a constant in our public circus? Why has the latest rash of them involved public figures from the "conservative" end of the family? Why do (some) press and politicians get into high dudgeon?
I heard the chief honcho of the gay Log Cabin (Republican) Club not once but twice on the radio, declaiming that the Senator had engaged in inappropriate behavior, blah, blah, blah. It made me nauseated just to listen (on Public Radio, natch).
Other talking heads brought up the incident involving Walter Jenkins. Mr. J was a majordomo when LBJ was in the West Wing. Jenkins was married, father of five or six -- who's counting? -- and one day Mr. J. was arrested in a men's room. The recent recount said it was at the DC YMCA, which has been the official line since 1964, when it all happened. In fact, Mr. J was pinched in the john of the Hay-Adams Hotel, rumored at that time to be a homo hot spot. Turns out that Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, for decades the big cheese at the FBI, and his boyfriend, Clyde Tolson, also a big fish at the agency, were accustomed to having lunch every day at the Hay-Adams, and Mr. Hoover had the site of the scandal moved to the YMCA, a non-profit.
Barney Frank faced his day in the tank. Gerry Studds before him. And the list goes on and on. The former governor of New Jersey. A former Democratic president. Various religious types. A congressman from Florida, etc. I have watched them all. Who the fuck cares -- except the twisted, a vast throng. What seemed slightly unusual about the Craig news was that everyone found it so comedic. It was ha-ha-ha through six or eight news cycles. Yes, Craig was a good old-fashioned hypocrite -- this is news? This man's life is given a tumble, and, yes, he was the agent of his downfall, but why is this funny?
And why is the mouth of the Log Cabins trashing him? Wasn't the issue of police entrapment one of the very founding elements of the Mattachine Society? Is police entrapment of men soliciting same-sex activity still an issue? Apparently, it is -- headline style. For gay men, this is a long and painful scar.
A little history, please
Of all the blather about Mr. Craig's ordeal, the smartest comment was recently in an edition of the New York Times -- imagine that -- on the op-ed page. One essayist referred to John Gerrasi's book, The Boys of Boise, a 1965 account of an anti-gay witchhunt in Boise, Idaho, in 1955. It was the template of all the future anti-gay witchhunts for the next 25 to 30 years, alleging rape of boys, homosexual solicitation, men in high stations, etc. Yellow press on steroids. It's funny. I was just looking at the recent University of Washington reprint of The Boys of Boise, and it was my model when I wrote my little book, The Boston Sex Scandal, about a similar witchhunt here in Boston.
The other comment in the Times acknowledged the important work that the late Laud Humphries did in his seminal book, Tearoom Trade. The book is about men who meet and have sex with other men in public places, mostly public restrooms and parks, places considered in the phraseology of the old gay guides AYOR -- at your own risk. The book, alas, is long out of print, but Humphries makes the point that many of these men are married, respectable community members, and the more active they are sexually in these facilities the more well-liked, etc., they are in their communities.
The sexual behavior of men does not change. The state can put the entrapment officers all about to enforce whatever our moral-code-of-the day is. What's the point?
Former Senator Craig will get his pension, which is due him. That cop in Minneapolis -- a picture of whom I have not yet seen but would like to -- is probably on assignment, yet again, poor dear, toilet cop, sitting in the crapper, tapping his foot. Any comers?
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