The Hallelujah Glory Hole Choir

Now that Senator Larry Craig is having his fifteen minutes of infamy along with such other notable tycoons of family values as defrocked Rep. Mark Foley, the absurdity of his having been a vocal, and virulent, opponent of gay marriage isn't lost on anyone.

What is getting lost in the shuffle is the perfunctory manner in which we, in America, accept dragging someone through the public square on charges of "lewd behavior" without questioning exactly what the phrase means, who gets to apply it, and what penalty must be paid. How willingly we give up our personal privacy.

Make no mistake, the issue isn't whether or not this Idaho senator deserves outrage, and stoning---the issue is whether the neo-Conservatives who still walk among us will be allowed to turn his arrest into a backlash against gay men and sodomy. What takes place between consenting adults is, after all, their business. It's the context, not the act, that is tacky and sleazy.

After all, what constitutes "public decency?" Who gets to decide that, and at what price? In recent years, the Federal Communications Commission has been caught with its pants down when it comes to this matter, too.

Larry Craig's real "crime," apart from the obvious hypocrisy, is perjury if, as he said, he entered a false guilty plea. What bitter irony given Craig's role in working to impeach a former president, Bill Clinton, for lying before a grand jury.

If the radical right is permitted to use this sensationalism, and widescale titillation, to reactivate homophobia, then every person who reads, or writes, about what would be considered a tasteless, and insipid act, if committed by "ordinary" folks in a men's room, will be used as an indictment against all homosexuals.