Sen Craig's Wide Stance

This weekend, Republican Senator Larry Craig resigned after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct and invasion of privacy in a Minneapolis men's room. Rumours of Craig's man on man encounters have persisted for years. If these rumours are true, Sen Craig has been leading a double life, and that is certainly a sad thing. No man should ever be forced to deny an integral part of his identity simply because of societal bigotry. The anxiety, depression, and self loathing that Sen Craig experienced behind the closet door is deserving of compassion.

But this is not some run of the mill case of hypocrisy. Sen Craig did not simply say one thing and do another. Sen Craig and his cohort did all they could to keep the closet door nailed shut and too make sure that gay Americans were never truly and fully free. They used "family values" as their calling card and trucked out homosexuality as their favorite wedge issue come election time. Karl Rove boasted that gay marriage was an effective tool in turning blue districts red and at every turn Republican candidates parted on about the dangers of gay soldiers in the showers and gay parents on the sidelines. (Remember all the gay marriage proposals Republicans put on the state ballots in 2000?)They used bigotry to their advantage both to define themselves and bring their voters to the polls. They divided America against itself and we are all less for that effort.

So in the end ... could not happen to a nicer guy.