"I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport." Sen Larry Craig.
That was the only true statement he made, this closeted liar who is another hypocrite who backed DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act].
"I am not gay. I never have been gay." This is a LIE and queerly rendered phrase, "never have been".
Let me give you a quick lesson about your country and how it has treated gay men.
CNN and the major media in the first 24 hours of this news release that Craig was caught in a bathroom police sting at the Minneapolis airport: are treating his behavior as a psychotic episode rather than an indictment on what the West has wrought on gay men.
Veteran journalist and MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews tonight wants to draw a distinction between the gay lifestyle and breaking the law.
Mr. Matthews, laws are lines in the sand written by men with power and can sweep any class of person into a prison cell. Not too long ago, gay lifestyle AND cruising a park were equally illicit acts, at the very least deserving the person a good beating by your local police.
I resist being made into the moral equivalent of hegemonic straights, being asked to follow their line.
It was not until a stone's throw away that we've seen a proliferation of gay night spots, raves, journalism of many stripes, stars coming out, Republicans endorsing civil unions.
But I remember as a teen in the 80's and even into the 90's that there was only THE ADVOCATE, a rather right-wingish gay magazine that was kept tucked away in some magazine stores in the PORN SECTION. Mind you: THE ADVOCATE is strictly a news magazine, nothing pornographic about it, but the very topic "gay" was enough to have it hidden in certain magazine shops where we knew where and how to get it. This was the Reagan Era.
Meeting each other as youth meant relying on the good graces of older gay men who would open their homes for our parties and our youth-organizing meetings, which I sneaked away to every Tuesday. In St Louis where I went to college and the Inland Empire where I mostly grew up: there were no gay bars. None! You had to drive to East St. Louis or Hollywood for that. Meanwhile, Gay men of many various reputations met in the park. It actually was a social thing, laughing, joking, and checking out ... always aware that the St Louis police would descend on us at any moment and make arrests. Missouri was one of 24 states where being gay was illegal.
We also knew that many gay men met in public bathrooms of airports and bus stations. The locker rooms of gyms were also known spaces to meet gay men.
If you don't know the signals we would give each other, read the Craig story: the peering, the foot tap ... Craig sounds really dumb having an excuse for these signals. Straight men do not peer into closed bathroom stalls, tap the foot of men in neighboring stalls, or make hand gestures under the stall to other men. This is a private tale of gay men, mostly gay men of a certain time.
For mystical reasons from Heaven, this same phenomenon exists in Mexico where I spent three months and Cuba, where I spent a month. The famous park in central Havana, La Copelia, is a big cruising ground for gay men. La Copelia is known in Latin America as the place to get the best ice cream, and Cubans line up for hours for a scoop. Sweets and Sweets at La Copelia!!
When I worked at the YMCA men were often caught being naughty in the sauna or elsewhere. My straight coworkers and my younger gay coworkers could not relate to this phenomenon, but I had had enough of their bafflement and had to let them know what country they lived in.
Now you know. By the way, the new so-called openness in the gay community has thrown our gay elders to the trash, since the young no longer need their good graces, but that is another diatribe.
