Officer's who arrested Idaho Senator for lewd conduct gives statement

[TiQuinn]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/craig-arrest-doc/

Up until the part where we reached underneath the stall divider, I was thinking there's no way this is going to hold up. I guess I'm not up on my "lewd conduct" protocols, but I didn't realize tapping a foot in a bathroom stall indicated you wanted to get it on with the guy in the next stall. But reaching underneath the stall divider!? This guy is screwed! And not in the way he was hoping for. :D

[PWD]

Gotta love those hard-working republicans. Always engaging in private research projects to try to understand and eliminate the homosexual threat. Good for them, I say! Good for them.

[Limper]

What a complete dumbass.

[Space Cadet B^3]

Maybe he needed a square?

[Ancalagon]

I'm not really sure what he did that was "lewd" though... tapping his foot, moving his fingers around... that's pretty darn weak. Am I missing something?. As much as I like going *haha!* at republicans engaging in sexual misadventures, and well I think the cop is probably right in interpreting the Senator's action, I'm not sure there is enough here to really have a case.

Ancalagon

[TiQuinn]

I'm not really sure what he did that was "lewd" though... tapping his foot, moving his fingers around... that's pretty darn weak. Am I missing something?. As much as I like going *haha!* at republicans engaging in sexual misadventures, and well I think the cop is probably right in interpreting the Senator's action, I'm not sure there is enough here to really have a case.

Ancalagon


That's what I thought up to the point where he reached underneath the stall divider. It's up to the police to prove that that is a signal for wanting to have sex.

[Varaj]

That's what I thought up to the point where he reached underneath the stall divider. It's up to the police to prove that that is a signal for wanting to have sex.

He already plead guilty they don't have to prove anything. :)

[TiQuinn]

He already plead guilty they don't have to prove anything. :)

Yeah, that's the other thing! What made this guy think that wasn't going to affect his Senate career, or that by pleading guilty it would just "go away"?

Now he's trying to "erase" the guilty plea.

[Sobek]

WTF? I don't get what was lewd about the whole deal. Obnoxious, maybe, but what was lewd? Guess I'm just not up on my gay bathroom sex subculture.

Whatever. I'm all for exposing corrupt pols no matter what party they're in. I just don't see what's corrupt here.

[Varaj]

WTF? I don't get what was lewd about the whole deal. Obnoxious, maybe, but what was lewd? Guess I'm just not up on my gay bathroom sex subculture.

Whatever. I'm all for exposing corrupt pols no matter what party they're in. I just don't see what's corrupt here.


I believe sex in public restrooms is considered a crime, soliciting for sex is often a crime (lewd behavior). Using known signals he solicited for sex in a public restroom.

[Bagpuss]

Oh come on the cop moved his "foot up and down slowly" talk about entrapment... :rolleyes:

[Varaj]

Oh come on the cop moved his "foot up and down slowly" talk about entrapment... :rolleyes:

Entrapment means to get somebody to do something they wouldn't do otherwise, it doesn't mean "don't encourage them".

[Space Cadet B^3]

I agree, if the guy hadn't plead guilty we could argue misconstruements all day long. He pled. He likes the cock.

[Bagpuss]

Entrapment means to get somebody to do something they wouldn't do otherwise, it doesn't mean "don't encourage them".

Exactly no doubt that cop knew just how to rub his foot to make him crave dick.

[Ancalagon]

I'm still not ok with the arrest. Having sex in a public bathroom is wrong because it's disturbing to other people (at a big crazy party, not really though...). Trying to pick up someone else for gay sex is not.

but well, since he pleaded guilty...

[JavaElemental]

I think the big part of the problem here is the fact that, like others have said, Sen. Craig pleaded guilty to the charge. Prior to that, a decent lawyer probably could have gotten the arrest thrown out.

Now it's all blown up in Craig's face, thanks to his own foolishness, and he can get in line with Mark Foley and other hypocritical Republicans who've been caught in sex scandals after railing others for the same crime.

My question is, are there really that many self-hating, gay Republicans, or is it just that we're hearing about so many all of a sudden?

[TiQuinn]

My question is, are there really that many self-hating, gay Republicans, or is it just that we're hearing about so many all of a sudden?

I'm sure there are. They may've grown up in an environment where it's not acceptable to be gay. I'm sure many chose to repress it.

[Hatter]

I'm sure there are. They may've grown up in an environment where it's not acceptable to be gay. I'm sure many chose to repress it.

On the contrary, his lifestyle of picking up strangers in restrooms is threatened by legal acceptance of gays. The more guys who are at home and married, the more accepting society is of gays in general, the fewer you'll find trolling public restrooms for anonymous sex.

[Ancalagon]

On the contrary, his lifestyle of picking up strangers in restrooms is threatened by legal acceptance of gays. The more guys who are at home and married, the more accepting society is of gays in general, the fewer you'll find trolling public restrooms for anonymous sex.

repression leads to perversion

[Varaj]

I'm still not ok with the arrest. Having sex in a public bathroom is wrong because it's disturbing to other people (at a big crazy party, not really though...). Trying to pick up someone else for gay sex is not.

but well, since he pleaded guilty...


In theory solicitation for sex (lewd behavior) is illegal for everybody but the laws are almost always used specifically against homosexuals. I agree the laws are pretty stupid.

[PWD]

My question is, are there really that many self-hating, gay Republicans, or is it just that we're hearing about so many all of a sudden?

The amount of bile you see from certain republicans on the issue leads directly to the self-hate diagnosis.

And then there's Cheney, who'd throw his own daughter under a bus for political advantage.

[Hatter]

And then there's Cheney, who'd throw his own daughter under a bus for political advantage.

I'm not a Cheney fan, but he's always been publicly supportive of his daughter.

[PWD]

I'm not a Cheney fan, but he's always been publicly supportive of his daughter.

Except when it comes to, you know, being part of a campaign built on distrust and hatred of homosexuals, supporting the president's attempts to get a constitutional amendment in to make it illegal for her to marry, fiddling away as rome burns because loyalty to the presidents vision was more important to him than speaking his mind in forming policy... that kind of thing.

[cnath.rm]

In theory solicitation for sex (lewd behavior) is illegal for everybody but the laws are almost always used specifically against homosexuals. I agree the laws are pretty stupid.When things get to the point where (as was the case near where I used to live) that the city/state is getting complaints about rest areas being used as pickup joints, I don't care who it is hooking up there and don't have a prob with laws being enforced. That said, I'd prefer enforcing laws across the board if we are to have laws.

[Hatter]

Savage Love from today:

Lost in the oohing and aahing over the outing of another socially conservative lawmaker—something that no longer surprises me—is the fact that there was an undercover police officer in a bathroom at the Minneapolis airport specifically for the purpose of rounding up men looking for sex. This concerns me. Why shouldn't someone, even a closeted senator from Idaho, be able to pick up a sexual partner in a bathroom? I can understand arresting someone for public sex, but for public hitting-on? As a gay man, doesn't this concern you?

Confused And Scared Here



Before I answer your question about U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idahomo), CASH, I want to dispute the vicious assertion you've made about my private life: that I am a "gay man." Let me be clear: I am not gay and never have been. Yes, it is true, as the Idaho Statesman has reported, that as a teenager I "came out" to my mother shortly after my father, a police officer, asked her for a divorce. But I was motivated by a selfless desire to take my mother's mind off her marital woes, not a selfish hunger for cock.

I want to put my state of mind into context on the day I told my mother I was a homosexual: I assumed that my mother, a practicing Catholic, would react negatively to my "coming out." I expected her to say, "Oh no! First a divorce and now this! Why me, God! Why me!" And then I would say, "Psych! Just kidding, Mom! I am so totally not gay! Never have been!" I hoped this would help put her impending divorce into perspective—yeah, divorce sucks. But at least none of her sons do.

Unfortunately for all concerned, my mother took the news so well—she seemed quite thrilled—that I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was, in fact, not gay and never had been.

I have been living a lie ever since.

As an advice professional, I fully realize that my life is open for public criticism and scrutiny, and I take full responsibility for the mistake in judgment I made a decade and a half ago when I "came out" to my mother. Maintaining this lie has forced me to deceive more men than I care to remember—including my lovely husband, Terry, who is everything I ever wanted in a spouse, despite his large penis and stubborn refusal to get breast implants. But I assure my readers that each time I sexually serviced another man, which I did only to maintain the facade of my homosexuality, I was thinking of warm, wet pussy.

Mmm. Pussy.

Moving on: I'm sure that Senator Craig takes comfort in knowing that some regard him as a victim of police entrapment, CASH. And despite the fact that I am not gay and never have been, I don't think it should be illegal for one man to hit on another man. But if a bill making it illegal for men to hit on other men in airport toilets—or anywhere else—had come up for a vote, Senator Craig—with his perfect anti-gay voting record—would surely have voted in favor of it. So even if Senator Craig is the victim here, as some are insisting, it's hard to feel much sympathy for him.

However, CASH, as I'm sure you and others involved in the homosexual lifestyle are aware, the kind of man that plays footsie in an airport toilet fully intends to have sex in that same toilet, and a public toilet is a public place—and public sex is illegal for gay people like you, CASH, and for straight people like me and Senator Craig.

And while I would be the first to argue that most of the men looking to get it on in toilets and other public sex environments are discreet and don't bother anyone—and I argued just that on CNN last week—some are not discreet and some do bother people. (I also argued that most of the men getting it on in toilets are straight-identified, just like me and Senator Craig.) There were complaints about that particular bathroom at the Minneapolis airport, and the police did what the police are supposed to do when there are complaints—they responded. If straight men, like me and Senator Craig, had been fucking women in the toilets at the Minneapolis airport, the police would no doubt have responded to those complaints, too.

Finally, part of the thrill of public sex—getting it on in toilets or parks with strangers—is the delicious danger, the exquisite risk, the trouble you know you'll get into if you get caught. So it's hard to have much sympathy when someone who is aroused by the risk of discovery is discovered. It wouldn't be a career-destroying event for an out gay man today—like, say, a George Michael. It would, however, be career-destroying for gay-bashing, straight-identified hypocrites like, say, Senator Craig.

[Ancalagon]

he nailed it all right...

[qstor]

I'm a lawyer. Here's the statute.

http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/getpub.php?type=s&year=current&num=609.72

Seems like you can't say fuck etc insert (Carlin's 7 words) on stage, thus violating the First Amendment. (Liberal Democrat here) thus making it unconstitutional. Thats just me...its pretty vauge too.

I guess you can't pick your nose cause some old lady might think its offensive...

Mike