Silver Linings

Another Republican senator caught attempting sexual improprieties with a member of the same sex. Could there be a more stale topic in the news?

But there's something significant happening with Senator Craig that no one has picked up on. He's claiming that he's not gay and never has been. Yet the media is jumping all over him for hypocrisy. He's voted against gay marriage, gays in the military, etc.

In the spirit of my previous post, I think it's time for the LGBT community to pick of definition for "gay." For as long as I've been alive, political activists have been arguing that being gay transcends that sex act. They've argued that being gay is an emotional identity, above choice. As support for the argument, men in women who've lived for decades in heterosexual marriages have been trotted out and encouraged to tell the stories of how they were able to perform sexually and build strong relationships, but finding something missing.

Therefore, if it's possible to perform sexually with a member of the opposite sex, but ultimately identify as gay, is it not possible to divorce the sex act from emotion, perform sexually with a member of the same sex and identify as straight.

Craig's hypocrisy is not found in his voting record. It's found in his stance that homosexuality and the accompanying acts are immoral, and yet seeking partners for those acts in the most sordid manner possible. And the evidence would indicate that not only was this not the senator's first cup at the tearoom, but that he was comfortable enough to be pretty aggressive in pursuing. Such comfort comes only with practice.

The hypocrisy comes, not in any obfuscation of sexual preference, but in the obvious fact that his marriage at least is not particularly sacred. His plunking a business card in front of a law enforcement officer and asking him what he thought of that indicates that Senator Craig saw himself as empowered and protected by an authority that transcends the average citizen, and his actions in a Minnesota lavatory would seem to say that he also believes he answers to a higher moral authority.

Yesterday I watched almost the entire first season of Project Runway. Wendy Pepper was cast as a ruthless, no-talent hack who back stabbed her way to the top. Given my recent experience in corporate America, I'm here to tell you that Wendy Pepper wasn't particularly sophisticated in her strategies. She set out to win a game, and she achieved a pretty high level of success. The other participants were very quick to hop on their high horses and not only condemn Wendy's "duplicity," but to indignantly huff at every turn that they would never stoop to such manipulations.

Yet in the final episode, we see Kara Saun using custom-made shoes that were provided at a deep, deep discount. While she held herself to the letter of the law, and only after she was forced to comply with her contract, she blatantly disregarded the spirit of the contract. Yet, when she was exposed, she had no problem defending her strategy and once again becoming indignant that anyone would question her integrity. She probably fails to see that she may very well have forfeited the victory because of her iron-man twisting of her ethics. She believes herself to be ethically pure, all evidence to the contrary. And by huffing and puffing about Wendy Pepper's lack of ethics, she seems to believe that no one would think to look at hers.

I suspect that Senator Craig is doing a similar mental gymnastic routine, convincing himself that there's nothing wrong with a little bathroom hanky panky. He's been a good provider and loves his wife. Anything else is no one else's business.

There's a temptation to pity or sympathize with Mrs. Senator Craig. I'm finding it difficult to nurture such an impulse. Such blatant hypocrisy does not exist in a vacuum. Even contestants on a reality game show are able to pierce such moral ambiguity. Faced with day after day, Mrs. Craig has got to have witnessed enough in her marriage to at least suspect her husband is capable of this. After decades of marriage she has either turned a blind eye, or she's outright wilfully stupid. Neither deserves pity nor compassion.

At the end of the day, there are a couple points of good news in this story. The first is that it becomes increasingly clear that attempts to legislate sexual behavior only forces that behavior to become covert. Sexual drives must be innate, or someone so vehemently opposed to them as Senator Craig would be able to resist.

Secondly, at age sixty-two, Senator Craig was randy enough to risk his senatorial career and marriage for the opportunity to play advanced tonsil hockey in public. And in spite of looking the way he does, he must be having some success. Oh, happy day for those of us slipping into middle age!