Trogs In Tearooms

Back in the day, what were then called "fairies" were abundant in certain circles, notably the arts high and low, from opera to hairdressing, and in certain neighborhoods, such as New York's Greenwich Village. The rubes supposedly weren't aware of metropolitan pansydom, to use another archaic term.

My father, a very straight lawyer, represented lots of designers. Some, from time to time, got caught soliciting vice cops in places such as Riverside Park near the Soldiers and Sailors monument. Dear old Dad was a clever lawyer, and often got them off (no, not THAT way) with tactics such as showing that vice cops seemed always to be solicited in the same exact language.

Paw had three thoughts on this. He couldn't fathom why anyone would want to have anonymous sex in a park; he thought cops should mind their own business unless the boys were frightening the horses; and he didn't want to become a specialist in gay solicitation cases.

Fifty-some years later, my reaction to the Larry Craig case is pretty much the same. What a sordid way for a cop to spend his day! What a pathetic way to get one's ashes hauled! And yet . . . it's a public bathroom in a busy place, folks. Moms send their little boys in when they start to protest being brought into ladies' rooms. I suppose we need vice cops to keep such places safe.

The charge among the liberals is "hypocrisy." But not all of us can conform our behavior to our beliefs. I may believe it's wrong to raise my voice in anger, and still scream at my kids or another driver. That doesn't make me a hypocrite, just a sinner. So if Craig believed that whatever acts he intended to perform were wrong, but couldn't conform his conduct to his beliefs, he's not necessarily a hypocrite.

Now he COULD be a hypocrite, if he doesn't really believe what he says about sexual matters, but preaches on the subject for political advantage. No one knows.

There is, of course, a great tradition of secret faggotry in right-wing circles, from J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn to Richard Bauman to . . . you name it. There is hypocrisy in the fact that inside-the-Beltway and political junkies know about it and really don't care--but oppose the gay political agenda to win votes from the rubes. When I was mixed up in the GOP, gays were everywhere. They had the time to spend and no wives and children to hold them down. Privately accepting what you publicly denounce IS hypocrisy. If you think it's OK, don't pretend otherwise.

Meanwhile, Sen. Craig continues to shoot himself in the foot. If he succeeds in withdrawing his guilty plea, he's in for one hell of an embarrassing trial. Are past similar acts, to show predisposition and modus operandi, admissible under Minnesota law? Why is he putting his wife and kids through this?

Well, at least he hasn't blamed alcohol or gone into rehab. Not yet.