So Larry Craig is having second thoughts:
U.S. Sen. Larry Craig says he might reconsider his decision to resign if he clears his name in his arrest for disorderly conduct in a restroom sex scandal.
That’s why Craig chose his words carefully during his resignation speech Saturday in Boise, according to a voice mail message he mistakenly left on a stranger’s phone. In the message obtained by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, Craig tells a man named “Billy” that his choice of language is deliberate because it leaves the door open for him to stay in office.
Craig made the call just minutes before his speech.
“We have reshaped my statement a little bit to say it is my intent to resign on Sept. 30,” Craig said. “I think it is important for you to make as bold a statement as you are comfortable with this afternoon, and I would hope you could make it in front of the cameras. I think it would help drive the story that I’m willing to fight, that I’ve got quality people out there fighting in my defense, and that this thing could take a new turn or a new shape, it has that potential.”
Good for him. And I am delighted it is pissing off his colleagues, who were pretty quick to chuck him overboard:
The GOP Senate strategist said senators are frustrated they will now spend another day or more deflecting questions about Craig and his bathroom behavior. McConnell got a taste of what’s to come at a press conference he held Tuesday.
Why, he was asked, did the GOP leadership seek an ethics investigation of Craig while giving a pass to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) after he acknowledged in July that his phone number was among those on the client list of an alleged prostitution ring?
“No charges have been made,” McConnell said of Vitter. “And it appears whatever might have occurred, occurred before this individual came to the Senate, therefore raising serious questions as to whether the Senate has jurisdiction over it.
“The situation last week was, there was something admitted to; the legal case was, in effect, over,” McConnell continued. “The only question was what the attitude was going to be in the Senate regarding the admission that was made. It is clearly distinguishable.”
McConnell was pressed again: Were the responses different because the Craig incident involved alleged homosexual activity?
“This had to do with the admission of responsibility as opposed to charges or suggestions,” McConnell said.
That is the standard, apparently- not just admitting guilt, but legally admitting guilt. If Craig can get the charges overturned, they have no recourse but to accept him back in the fold, since unlike Vitter, Craig has never even admitted to guilt publicly.
All in all, it is a no-win situation for the Republicans. The real damage to the party as a whole is giving their critics one more piece of ammunition to paint them as hypocrites, which may hurt them with the base (although in some corners they cheer hypocrites). And we know they won’t learn from the matter, as their bread and butter is wedge issues like the all important battle against gay sex. While that is tedious and time-consuming, and we all know that most of them are privately tolerant of gays, at least we can enjoy the fact that in a couple of months another one of their ranks will be exposed as a closeted queen, and we can watch them all scurry again. Not much solace to homosexuals who just want to be left alone and be allowed to marry and so forth, but it is something.
28 Percent
I am writing him a letter of support to encourage Senator Craig to stick to his guns and do the right thing. He should stand up for the principal that he is not gay and has nothing to be ashamed of.
I will not rest until Senator Craig has had a chance to tell his story, repeatedly, to the whole country. I will support him for as long as he does not rest in mounting a vigorous defense. He deserves justice which he did not get when he plead guilty that was his only mistake. I will remind him that the people of Idaho voted for him and that he has represented their beliefs very faithfully, so anybody who says that he betrayed his constituents is a liar. I think I will put $10 in the envelope too. Every little bit helps.
ThymeZone
I totally agree. He knows he’s been had, by a witch hunt. The case against him is absurd, he has a good chance to fight it and win. Which I hope he does.
He apparently understands how shitty his GOP “friends” are and that’s a good sign. Maybe now even a few Democrats will have the good grace to stand up for him? I doubt it, because (as we see on these pages) the haw haw schadenfreud factor always takes priority over good sense on the ‘Tubes. But as I said from day one, the right thing to do here is to stand up for Craig. And as luck would have it, the guy apparently has the good sense to at least stand up for himself. I hope he follows through and wins, thereby exposing the absurdity of a world that criminalizes gay behavior just because it can.
Jake
Fixed.
There’s always a chance the entire 28% will suffer simultaneous cranial explosions, which would be amusing if not a little messy. Will Bush’s admission: “I do tears” be enough to set off a massive chain reaction of suspicion that end in bigotted brain bits flying through the air?
We can hope. We can hope.
John Cole
Hunh?
The GOP may be a bunch of hypocrites and most assuredly were chucking him aside because it was homosexual sex, but the crime he allegedly committed was not homophobic based. I support people having as much gay sex as they want. I also support the public telling people they can’t have ANY kind of sex in public bathrooms.
There are a lot of things to be pissed about here, including the flimsiness of the case against him (foot tapping and eye contact now are lewd conduct?), the fact that the GOP has a history of policy positions that tend to keep people closeted, and so on, but accusing the Minnesota Police of being a bunch of anti-gay goons is just fucking stupid. They arrested him because that bathroom was apparently a hotbed of public sex- so much so that the cops knew about it. Translation- it was a problem.
capelza
Didn’t Barney Frank say he thought Craig, though a hypocrite, shouldn’t resign? Of all the Congresscritters I found it ironic that Frank would be the one did that.
If Craig stays, will he look around the Senate and the House and remember that it was a an openly gay liberal who first said that. Then of course Spector did his usual flip-flop and said perhaps they had been too hasty.
Do they need Craig back in the news to distract the media from Iran? j/k….sort of.
Jake
Wins what? He plead guilty to disorderly conduct. He missed his chance to use the Latham Defense. So, leaving aside the difficulty of revoking a guilty plea, what is there to win?
Please don’t say “His good name,” or “Reputation.”
Everything he’s done has been calculated (albeit using The Math) to save his own arse. He’s out to expose the absurdity of expecting a Republican to face the consequences of his actions, period. Full stop. End of Story.
chopper
this guy sure changes his mind a lot.
Punchy
By “them”, you were referring to the Log Cabin Republicans, right?
Uh, no he doesn’t. He pled guilty on paper. This was after a plea agreement. He knowingly waived a shitload of rights, and it was weeks (read: plenty of time for his lawyer to contest) afterwards. Morally, he’s got a case. Legally, he’s guilty.
Pb
Except for the “not gay” part, he’s pretty firm on that.
grumpy realist
Oh my….pass the popcorn. This is gonna be the funniest thing since Gonzales’s testimony before Congress.
semper fubar
Does anyone seriously think that this is a “teaching moment” for Craig, and that now, having seen the error of his unfair, gay-bashing ways, he’s going to stop voting for every piece of anti-gay legislation he can? Now he’s going to see that BARNEY FRANK is his only real friend? Please. It is to laugh.
If he pulls this one off, his stance on gay issues (har har) will be worse than ever.
“Sex for me, but not for thee!”
No folks, the hypocrisy won’t end here. We’re just warming up!
As far as predictions for the next Republican Closet Queen Outing – would it be too much to hope for Lindsay Graham? Or does he not even count, because he’s so obviously flaming gay. OK then, I’ll go for Specter. That’d be fun to watch.
OxyCon
Obviously, if Craig wants to remain a Senator, he should change his wardrobe. He should wear a giant, cotton diaper, black socks and shoes. And he should crap the diaper while the Senaate is in session, every single day he remains in office.
ThymeZone
On that, we absolutely do not agree. There is no practical reason, no moral reason, no theory-of-government reason to charge him with a crime for essentially announcing that he is gay and interested in sex, if that’s what he did. That is unwarranted criminalization of behavior. Did he HAVE sex in the restroom? Under what twisted view of law are we going to suggest that we can charge him because he MIGHT have had sex in the restroom?
It’s a rigged deal from the get-go. It’s a witch hunt, and it’s cobbling up a scheme to criminalize being gay. To me that is as obvious as the nose on your face. If MSP really wanted to reduce something vaguely called “gay cruising” (someone else’s description, not mine) in the airport, you can never convince me that putting a cop in the crapper to arrest people is necessary, or appropriate, or even smart, or cost effective. It’s bullshit. That’s my point, they are not out to reduce gay cruising, because if that were their true objective, I am pretty sure they could come up with measures that were more effective and less costly … AND which left no criminal record for the victim of the witch hunt, and no embarassment or humiliation … or phony screams of outrage for his job. An arrest might be necessary if a shoo-away turned into a scene, which seems pretty unlikely unless the shooee were drunk or loony, but drunk and loony situations and arrests for disturbing the peace are not uncommon in airports anyway, so who cares? But to rig up a sting and bust queers basically because they can? Hey, if you like that program, you’re a Republican authoritarian. Which I know you are not, so you might want to consider the awful possibility that I am right about this and you are wrong.
Nope, we are not going to agree on this at all ANAICT.
ThymeZone
Can’t say, I don’t know what his lawyer is telling him.
But winning here might mean holding his seat and telling the witch hunters to kiss his ass (so to speak).
And I hope he manages to do that. I hope he stands up for himself and exposes those shitheads.
ThymeZone
Where are the arrests for actual sex in the restroom?
Either at MSP, or anywhere else? Where is the data to support this idea that sex in restrooms is a big enough problem to warrant rigged stings to arrest people for being gay? I have been asking for any such information for a week and have seen exactly zero data or facts. I myself went out and looked up arrest records in a big volative county (Los Angeles) in a recent year and found that “lewd behavior” was somewhere in the realm of one quarter to one half percent of all arrests, out of about ten thousand plus arrests a month. Closer to twelve thousand, actually.
Anyway, the idea that we have to arrest people for tapping their feet because they might have sex in a restroom is just horseshit. And if somebody has the facts to prove me wrong, produce them.
And even if by some miracle facts show up which indicate exhibitionist sex is actually happening at MSP, then explain to me how a $14 an hour restroom attendant isn’t a better and cheaper and more libertarian solution than a cop sitting in a crapper for 120 days to arrest 41 people?
I cannot fucking believe that any sentient person can look at that factlet and not shake their head. One queer every three days? Are you fucking kidding me?
grumpy realist
If Craig is going BACK on his guilty plea….doesn’t that mean that everything that putatively happened can get dragged out again? Oh boy, more popcorn!
Unless he’s trying to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis with “yeah, I’m guilty, but it’s only a tiny thing and I shouldn’t be hauled up before the Ethics Committee on this, nor lose my position.”
Punchy
It’s the same law they use to bust people propositioning hookers. The undercover doesn’t have to wait until the pants are down; the mere solicitation is the crime. Why you continue to think this type of law is biased towards gays is a mystery, honestly.
Dreggas
hehe you want to support him mounting…vigorously…
rachel
What? Why? Vitter’s the one with the thing for wearing a diaper.
ThymeZone
Sorry, my figures on the LA thing were missstated. All sex crimes represented about 1% of about 170k arrests, and “lewd behavior” is one of a large suite of crimes in that category. I extrapolated the rest, and quite honestly, gave “lewd behavior” a bigger slice of the sex arrests than it probably actually has. In other words I am pretty sure I erred on the side of “lewd behavior” being a bigger problem than it actually is.
If I feel like I will do the ten seconds or so of Googling you need to find those numbers yourself, or, you could do your own Googling. For that matter, Google yourself silly and come up with the facts that show that sex in restrooms is a public menace, anywhere. Not foot tapping; sex. Actual sex.
aliceandbob
No, it’s not. It’s a crime to pay some one to have sex with you, so the cops can only bust you once there’s money involved. There’s no law against asking someone to have sex with you for free except, apparently, in Minnesota airports.
ThymeZone
Nope. The bust people for making an agreement to have sex for pay. An agreement to engage in illegal activity.
Where was there an agreement to have sex in this case? Where was there an agreement to engage in an illegal activity?
Zifnab
Under the same twisted view that lets us bust guys for handing $100 to a girl in a red light district. That’s the nature of these busts. You don’t wait till someone has actually committed the crime.
That said, I totally encourage Craig to fight this type of policing and prosecution. Maybe his court battle will draw itself out all the way to the upper courts, and he can set a solid precident – the Senator Larry Craig precident – that can be used to defend future restroom romantics.
The great thing about our legal system is that it functions on precedent. Craig will be trail-blazing the way for gay rights in Minnesota that can have ramifications for years to come.
ThymeZone
Nope, not letting you get away with that. Prostitution busts are made when the customer makes an agreement to have sex for pay, an illegal act.
There was no such agreement in this case, was there? I haven’t seen anything even close to that. Can you show it?
If there was such evidence, then why did they let him plead to a disorderly conduct charge? Because they had no “sex” case to begin with.
ATS
The people who underwrote the cost of that Men’s Room did not envision it as a locus for assignations of ANY kind. The people who send their kids into that bathroom do not expect or want them to witness assignations of ANY kind.
The sex acts are as unwelcome there as doggies in the flower box around my Red Maple. That doesn’t mean I hate dogs.
Gay sex is only the focus here because the GOP is so nose-on-the-windowpane about it.
Face
I wanna see this thing go to trial, just for the courtroom re-enactments of the wide stance, the foot tapping, the stall-door voyerism, and “I’m not gay!” waterfalls on the stand. In addition to, of course, a simulcast of the GOP headquarters, so we can see Mel Martinez’s head explode. (with these guys, pun intended)
I bet CourtTV pays millions for the rights to this.
ThymeZone
That is so true.
Dreggas
If the shoe doesn’t fit you must aquit?
Was the tapping to the tune of “In The Navy” or was it to “It’s raining men”? Please, the answer is important as it would denote just what the accused was looking for
Sirkowski
This is much welcomed news.
ThymeZone
Without doubt, the funniest Craig line so far.
ThymeZone
“Assignations” are illegal?
An “agreement to meet” is a crime?
(Per my dictionary which describes an assignation as a tryst, or agreement to meet. I can’t really believe I am even having to type this. Do we live in a fucking police state?)
Truly, truly amazing.
Andrew
I think if we write to Sen. Craig and tell him that resigning is proof that he’s gay, he’ll do his darnedest to stick around.
Punchy
Craig misread this as an “agreement to meat”…
Andrew
An agreement to commit a crime, coupled with actions to further that crime, can indeed be a crime, even without the underlying crime taking place. They’re not agreeing to meet. They’re agreeing to public sex in the bathroom.
Dreggas
and that’s without getting into what it would have meant had the tune been YMCA or anything by Streisand *shudder*
myiq2xu
Why waste your time John, when the only response you’ll get is that you have to provide statistics to prove it was a problem and anyway gays should be able to have sex in the privacy of a bathroom stall.
The other argument you’ll keep getting thrown at you over and over like a broken record is that anyone who objects to someone peeping at them in their bathroom stalls isn’t manly.
ThymeZone
I personally dont care if he stays or goes. If he goes he’ll be replaced with a another Idaho Potatohead republican who thinks it’s okay to trap and arrest queers in restrooms. And who supports DOMA. So politically in that sense, makes no diff.
In the sense that his agony here exposes the absurd witch hunt attitude in this country against gays and gay sex, it serves a purpose. For that reason I hope he makes a lot of noise.
And because sticking up for him for being a victim in this ridiculous situation is the right thing to do, I hope he prevails and even if HE doesn’t change his shitty attitude toward his gay brethren, maybe some other people will.
Pb
Well, we do have the largest prison population in the world. What does a country have to do to be considered a police state?
Dreggas
Well….not too sure on that. I mean the signals could have been sent and they could have gone elsewhere. Not that, that would have been the most likely result but that is a possibility. There was “intent” there, the intent being sex, but it seems the “suspect” would have to be caught in the act in this case since if it was “solicitation” no money was involved or even pulled out for exchange.
To me if he was engaging in “lewd conduct” it would mean flashing himself to others in the restroom or, as had been reported in other circumstances, masturbating where everyone could see.
Andrew
Craig could have asked some guy in the bathroom, “You’re quite a strapping young lad and I like cock, so let’s go get a hotel room” and this is totally legal. Instead, he was preparing to commit a crime, that being sex in public. I don’t think that there is any requirement for whipping it out or exchanging money.
myiq2xu
Larry Craig was not charged with lewd conduct or with soliciting lewd conduct. He was charged with two misdemeanors, intentionally peeping into an occupied bathroom stall with disorderly conduct.
The latter charge is non-specific and is a less serious misdemeanor, and is often added to the complaint to allow the defendant to plead to the lesser charge as a plea bargain, which is exactly what happened here.
News reports state that the police had made 41 arrests over a four month period. That does not mean that they had an officer in that restroom 24/7 for 120 days.
The police report states that there had been complaints of lewd conduct in that restroom. It also states that the officer went in there at noon, and encountered Craig at 12:13pm.
The decision whether to place a men’s room attendant in that restroom would not be made by the police. The decision to file charges is also not made by the police, but is made by the local DA after reviewing the arrest report.
Dreggas
See there’s the problem, Craig wouldn’t have “asked” in that way, not in a public restroom. Using the “code” he could have done so and not attracted attention. Now, it seems to me for there to be any real crime, in this case where no money changed hands, he would have had to slide more than a foot or hand under the stall.
He “flagged” intent but was that intent to do it there or go somewhere else? If it was somewhere else would that place have been private?
The police here, it seems, were using these arrests as a fear tactic to discourage further “attempted” acts since they weren’t nailing people (figuratively) in the act in the first place.
myiq2xu
Fixed
ThymeZone
I never said that they did. But the fact is, they managed to get one queer every three days. Wow, that is quite an earth shaking thing. One foot tapper every three days.
So when you are done making an ass of yourself, do you have any facts about actual sex in the restroom? Or any restroom? Anywhere? Anytime?
Because a lot of people around here talk as if this is about sex in a restroom. Craig wasn’t charged with having sex in a restroom. He wasn’t charged with agreeing to have sex (specifically, illegal sex), which would constitute “solicitation.” He was charged with what amounts to nothing. Have you ever looked into a stall to see if someone was in there? Have you ever had anyone look in your stall? Were you injured by that, or did you cause injury? WHAT THE FUCK are we talking about here?
Where is the wave of crime that warrants posting cops in crappers to trap gay people? SHOW ME THE GODDAMMED MONEY.
That may be so, but it only serves to support my argument.
You cannot convince me that cops and arrests are the most effective, the most cost effective, the most sensible, or the most appropriate way to do that discouraging. The only way I can justify it is to assume that it’s just okay to set up a rigged deal and arrest gays for being gay, that nobody will fight back, that embarassment and humiliation and things like lost jobs are the real goal.
In other words, a witch hunt.
Pb
Here’s a classic Craig quote:
See, Craig is smarter than that… which is why he got arrested in Minnesota, and not in Boise, Idaho! Jiminy!
ThymeZone
What business is that of anyone’s? If exhibitionist sex is performed (in public) then I am pretty sure that the same law applies to gay and straight sex in public.
Why would this cop assume that a gay assignation is going to lead to public sex? What warrants an assumption like that?
Andrew
Well, no, he probably would be a bit more subtle and asked the dude if he wanted to get a drink, with a wink and a nod, or whatever, like anyone else does to pick up a date in the airport bathroom. However, he used the well known signals for why don’t we do it in the stall.
The Other Steve
How do we know this for certain without having an investigation?
aliceandbob
They aren’t womanly, either, since we’ve already established that women don’t get or need crapper cops to protect them from creepy old guys.
Anyone who sincerely believes that it’s good or necessary to post cops in the john to protect people from the potential of being peeped at is kind of a sad and pathetic individual who should probably stay out of restrooms and other public places just to be safe.
capelza
Can someone tell me how to embad links. Over at the Last Hurrah, in the comment section for the topic “We’re Sorry For Spiking the News” there are a few posts that go to explain why THIS particular bathroom was targeted. It goes all the way to DHS and way back into the 80’s, when safe sex posters were actually posted in that specific bathroom becuase of the history it, in particular has.
I do have to wonder if Craig were to have sent his own son into that same bathroom and said son were to come out having experienced some guy playing footsie with him what Craig’s response would have been.
Oh, and one more thing, if Craig were to go to trial, what kind of jury would he get? Isn’t that area the one that elected Keith Ellison to Congress?
Dreggas
perhaps previous evidence of the sex occurring somewhere else on the premises that would constitute a “public space”. Perhaps I should have left that part off.
myiq2xu
Propositioning someone is not a crime, unless there is an offer of money or the intended act is to be performed in a public place. So:
a) Asking a hooker to have sex with you is legal unless you offer money
b) Offering sex for money (or money for sex) is illegal
c) Asking another man to go back to your place (or hotel room) for sex is legal
d) Asking someone to give you a blow job in a bathroom stall is illegal
The Other Steve
Come on, how many actual complaints did they get? And what percentage of them came from Republicans versus Democrats?
Wasn’t this whole thing just a setup to get the GOP in trouble?
Why aren’t we investigating this cop? Didn’t he show questionable loyalty to Dear Leader?
ThymeZone
So, in your view, the sex police are appropriate, and his arrest was appropriate. And therefore, his record, his public humilation, and his possible lost job, those are okay?
Just trying to figure out how much Larry Craigism you are willing to support here. Because if people like the Craig approach to this, which is to fuck over the gays, they are disposable, then why don’t they stand up for him as a brother in arms? Why do we waste our time bashing Republicans, who I used to think were the only people shitty enough to actually support such an absurdly rigged system, when we apparently agree with them? Help me out, Andrew. You might be the smartest guy here. Help a brother.
myiq2xu
See what I mean?
ThymeZone
What you said in that post was mostly true.
Item d is problematic. Mainly for the reason that they had no case against Craig for that, which is probably why they let him plea to something relatively innocuous.
It’s also problematic because, as I said LAST WEEK, a $14 an hour attendant would probably scare off the gay cruisers more effectively and more humanely than a cop in the crapper. And if the MSP Authority doubts that, then I’d suggest they try an experiment and find out.
myiq2xu
I rest my case.
Dreggas
I am betting he’d get a jury of his PEErs…
jenniebee
Actually, cops don’t have to wait for somebody soliciting a prostitute to actually pay the money, they just have to make sure that it’s absolutely clear that that is the intended arrangement, and they absolutely don’t have to take part in anything overtly sexual to make the bust. In Craig’s case the arrangement to perform a criminal act was made non-verbally and the cop didn’t make the arrest until the point where, to play along any further, he’d have had to drop his dick into Craig’s hand. Not arresting because the preludes to sex are brief and the hints for it are not general public knowledge is ridiculous – one might as well let the fellows at Enron go because most people don’t understand corporate accounting and, if one views complex transactions through a veil of total ignorance, they can seem innocent, however significant they may in fact be to the criminal behavior.
Why TZ insists that the intent was not to perform sexual acts in public is just beyond me. Surely he doesn’t think that, in this day and age, Craig would have felt it necessary to use semaphore if what he wanted to say was “if you’ve got time, I’ve got a room…” And it’s not like it was Craig’s first time.
Andrew
The sex in public police are appropriate, in so much as basically everyone thinks that people shouldn’t be having sex in super-public places like airports, and if you really want to have sex, motels are cheap. I don’t have a personal problem with sex in public myself, especially if it’s at a club or bar or off in the woods, and the particular notion of gay sex in a bathroom is hardly troubling after spending college living with a bunch of gay men who got pretty freaky in the dorm showers.
On the other hand, I can see how it would be troubling to a parent or some religious type who doesn’t want to be exposed to sex. So, don’t do it in the public bathroom, okay?
n.b. The lost job is primarily a function of being a member of the Homophobic Bigots of America, and I’m pretty okay with him being humiliated after trying to cheat on your wife in a high risk sexual activity.
Tsulagi
Go Senator WideStance! Don’t stop with just reclaiming your Senate seat, time to tap into the prez race! Take a stand, or stance, whichever works for you.
What I’m really hoping for if this continues is that Matty Sanchez, star of Tijuana Toilet Tramps, weighs in with his special perspective on proper stall and bathroom etiquette for not-gay gays in the Party of Bush. Take a stance for the values set, Matt. Maybe suggest pink elephants need to do it over there say in Tijuana rather than here in Minneapolis.
Maybe while he’s hard at it, Matt could also explain how that homophobe thing works in the minds of the 28%ers. Where if you question the stylings on The Surge by an avowed not-gay gay like Matt, or his Beauchamp musings, you are a homophobe. But if you join the torch and pitchfork mob to carry a men’s room toe-tapper to a bus depot then run him over with every bus on the lot, you are not a homophobe. While embracing a guy who dials and pays for female hookers to dress him up in diapers. How does that work for the values set. Matt?
Jake
If it isn’t “Senator, shut the fuck up!” He needs a new lawyer. Assuming he has one. Craig doesn’t need to screw anyone, he does a fine job screwing himself.
A sincere question: If instead of tap dancing in a stall, Craig had dropped trou in the middle of the bathroom floor and taken a dump, would that, in your opinion have been worthy of an arrest? What about walking around the bathroom stark naked?
myiq2xu
The sting that bothers me is where you have a guy driving through the city, he stops at a red light, and sees a scantily clad woman standing on the corner. She smiles and asks “Wanna party?”
He replies “How much?” Then the light changes and he drives off, only to be pulled over by a cop a block away and cited for “soliciting prostitution.” The woman turns out to be an undercover cop.
It doesn’t matter that he didn’t wait for her answer and had no money with him, he gets charged anyway and in some jurisdictions his name ends up in the paper.
myiq2xu
Do you really think that if there had been complaints that some creepy old guy was going into the women’s restroom and peeping at women in the stalls the cops would do nothing?
chopper
you don’t have to make a formal arrangement to be in violation of the law. people came up with all these code words and hand movements or whatever to try to skirt the law for things like solicitation and give themselves some plausable deniability in case they got caught.
thing is, the law just turned around and used those codes etc against em. you can get arrested for solicitating a hooker by asking an undercover cop where ‘john street’ is. you don’t need to flash cash or even talk about money.
John Cole
I am so behind the times. Is he a pimp?
Dreggas
Yes you are behind the times, the question should be:
Is he a motherfucking P. I. M. P.?
chopper
me? i do wear a four-fingered ring with P I M P written across it. and i wear a fur coat.
Dreggas
Wife was in vegas, saw a couple of pimps dressed like that with the full on hat with the feather and everything and heard one say to the other “Bitch better have my money”.
aliceandbob
Airport security would have escorted him off the premises. That’s about it, unless he actually physically assaulted someone. And if you actually think the cops would be called in for a simple case of leering, you’re incredibly naive.
mrmobi
The Senator’s lawyer was all over TV this morning, saying that there is simply no precedent for a Senator losing his job over this kind of misdemeanor. He said it has never happened, and compared it to being thrown out for getting a parking ticket.
I’m with TZ on this one, especially the waste of resources and ability of having a trained cop sitting in a stall waiting to be “signaled.” Do they not have real crime in Minnesota? It seems to me that where we cross the line on this is simply because of the amount of interpretation of “foot movements.” Jesus!
This is a witch hunt for gays. For you concerned parents, go into the restroom with your child, and if something looks wrong, leave! All of this would probably not have happened in the presence of a bathroom attendant. Could this be any simpler?
Let’s also not forget that Craig is one one of the very few (only?) Republican Senators to vote against renewal of the Patriot Act, for which our noble and wise leader called him “a fucking traitor.” The Party of Torture was more than delighted to throw this man under the bus.
grumpy realist
Well…that’s the problem, ain’t it. If you end up using coded behavior in order to signal your willingness to commit an illegal act, then it’s not surprising that acting out that very same coded behavior will be interpreted by the cops in particular ways.
Such as Padilla and the references to zucchini, which were argued, if I remember correctly, as being “highly suspicious activity.”
So ThymeZone, obviously if you don’t support the ability of the cops to read meaning into totally innocuous signals, you’re Against The War on Terrah.
(I’m also sardonically amused, considering what there are a heck of a lot of males out there who think that brushing a woman’s hip “oops, I’m sorry, I thought you had a piece of lint there” or grabbing a woman’s breast to be perfectly appropriate come-ons and when women make a fuss about such behavior we’re considered feminazis and accused of over-reacting. Feh. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If women are supposed to put up with this sort of activity as “acceptable behavior” in public places, I don’t have too much sympathy for guys freaking out because a gay guy made a pass towards them.)
myiq2xu
That’s a strawman argument, no one said anything about leering being a crime.
I’ll bet a man busted for peeping in a woman’s restroom (or dressing room) would be arrested, not just 86’d. If you think otherwise, you never worked in a public defender’s office.
Jake
I imagine if a guy strolled into the ladies’ room and started leering at the occupants the cops would at least be called in to scrape up his beaten and bloody body.
myiq2xu
See what I was talking about? We’re bigots if we don’t let gays have sex in public bathrooms. If it bothers us, we should leave.
Faux News
Senator Craig’s comeback cries out for a theme song. My (obvious) choice: “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor.
Drag Queens are optional.
mrmobi
Nice try, but that’s not what I said. I was talking about parents with children. Personally, if I ever encountered such activity in a public bathroom, I’d raise hell about it. I was simply talking about preventing a child from witnessing it.
In my 60 years on the planet, I have never encountered such activity, and I remain skeptical that it is a real problem.
myiq2xu
No way. “The Bitch is Back” by Elton John.
Andrew
You are obviously not visiting the right/wrong bathrooms (pick one).
Dreggas
well…it could be something by Queen, we are the champions or something?
Dreggas
In the stall again, sung to the tune of Willy Nelson’s On the road again, did this one myself:
In the stall again
Just can’t wait to get in the stall again
propositiong all those strange men
And I can’t wait to get in the stall again
In the stall again
playing footsies with other men
Seein’ penises that I may never see again,
And I can’t wait to get in the stall again
In the stall again
Like a band of fairies we go down in stalls along the highways
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world be turnin’ our way
And our way
Is in the stall again
Just can’t wait to get in the stall again
propositioning all those strange men
And I can’t wait to get in the stall again
In the stall again
Like a band of fairies we go down in stalls along the highways
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world be turnin’ our way
And our way
Is in the stall again
Just can’t wait to get In the stall again
propositiong all those strange men
And I can’t wait to get In the stall again
And I can’t wait to get In the stall again
Cassidy
Heaven forbid, we don’t allow gays to have sex in public restrooms. That would be bigoted!
It was enough of a problem for the police to feel they needed to conduct a sting. This is a retarded argument. Having sex in public, any kind of sex, is illegal. Whether it’s gays in bathrooms, or hetero’s in a club, it’s illegal. Period. That’s it. Attempting to have sex in public, is illegal. Period. What is so hard to get about this.?
Cassidy
To put this in another perspective:
If you’re sitting on a park bunch, pants down around your ankles, with your favorite date (male or female) on there knees in front of you, there doesn’t have to be any witnessed head-bobbing to make a pretty decent assumption that a sexual act is occurring.
And while technically, you may not be convicted of having sex in public, some other less charge of public nudity, or lewdness, etc. can be thrown at you.
myiq2xu
Would you complain to the cops? What if they perpetrators were gone by the time the cops arrived? What if there had previous complaints, but the people were always gone by the time they got there?
What if the elected representatives of the people decided that it wasn’t cost effective to place an attendant in every public restroom 24/7/365, and since lewd conduct is a crime, they told the police to “do something?”
Since stationing an attendant wasn’t cost effective, posting a cop as a guard probably isn’t either. So should the police periodically stake-out the restroom and see if they can catch some of the perpetrators and by doing so, deter others?
If they did stake-out the potty, would they place an officer inside or outside? At what point should the officer make the arrest? My choice would be when he has probable cause to believe a crime has been committed.
How long should they keep the stake-outs going? 41 arrests in four months is probably quite a few for an airport, but we don’t know how many hours the officers were actually there. I seriously doubt they were diverting resources from catching murderers and rapists to go after gay men.
The District Attorney has an ethical duty to only file criminal charges if he or she believes that there is probable cause to believe that a crime was committed.
BTW- Since this happened at an airport, there’s a good chance that civilian witnesses would not be local, so if the prosecution had to depend on them testifying that would be problematic. Cops on the other hand, would be available for trial.
myiq2xu
The rational, cogent argument part.
aliceandbob
And if you think that cops would arrest a guy for peeping in a ladies room, you’ve never worked at a mall, or an amusement park, or a train station, or anywhere else with a public restroom. The cops don’t care if it’s not dudes getting freaky in the boy’s room.
myiq2xu
Where exactly do you live, Homophobia?
The cops around here arrest peepers, and the DA prosecutes them. They recently busted a restaurant manager who drilled a peephole from his office to the women’s employee restroom.
Jake
Heh. For Craig, lots of things.
Time for my annual agreement with Cass. You can debate this as OMG HOMOPHOBIC SEX KGB! but it would be more realistic to say it’s a debate about what you can do in public, what you can’t do in public, what your friendly neighborhood legislators should do about it and when the cops should make an arrest. To use the guy crapping in public example should the cops wait until they see dookie or is squatting and straining enough?
Anyway, Craig had a very simple defense that would have struck a blow against the Sex Police, he decided not to use it. Screw him.
ThymeZone
Apparently, we’ll do anything to run the gays out of our public places.
Craig tapped his foot and waved his hand in public, as near as I can figure out. Despite the weeklong attempts of a few fools here to turn this into a story about “sex in the mens room” there isn’t any actual sex in the case.
It’s a debate about whether people should be left the fuck alone. It’s a debate about whether it’s possible to manage gay cruising in restrooms without using the police to do it. It’s a debate about a case (Craig’s) where there is barely any evidence of anything, much less of a crime being committed, and so-called liberals jumping up and down about imaginary sex in a restroom.
It’s a debate about whether anyone who pretends to be “against” the politics of a guy like Craig has the balls to stand up for him when he is a victim of his own bullshit, and say that the bullshit is wrong.
What’s that you say? Nukes over the Heartland wasn’t about gay sex? Neither was the Stupid Cop in the Crapper about gay sex. It was about gay harassment and using the law as an inappropriate tool to carry it out.
Tsulagi
I’ve never worked in any of those places, but sometimes cops do apparently arrest male peepers in ladies rooms like this guy in a mall bathroom.
But good to see they’re fair and balanced. Here two chicks got busted for oral in a bathroom while their lady friend was taking photos.
Damn, if I was a cop I’d love to be doing the lesbian patrol in women’s bathrooms.
Tsulagi
Oops, forgot the link for the oral ladies. Maybe the bidet was out of order and they were improvising?
ThymeZone
So what? Where is the actual danger to society, the injury, the case histories, the statistics, the data, the facts, to support the bogus idea that this is an actual problem?
What 76 IQ morons devised a system where the response to “I think I saw two guys getting it on in the restroom” is to send in the police? Is there an actual problem? Then there are better ways than the police to deal with it, one would think. Is there not? Then …..
If there is a real problem, then where is the flood of sensational cable tv footage and scandalous tape recordings and arrest records to prove it? Where is this scary boogeyman and why can’t we actually see what he looks like?
I looked up the arrest record data for a county with a population of about ten million and I’d extrapolate about 5 lewd behavior arrests a day based on the figures I saw. Look up your own and see if your mileage varies. 5 lewd behaviors in the la-la land of Los Angeles County per day for a year, on average. Maybe as many as ten, but if you look at the numbers I saw, ten would be a stretch. Do your own investigation.
Ten million people, huge fucking area, five, maybe ten arrests a day for lewd behavior over a year. That’s based on “all sex crime arrests” being about 1% of total arrests and “lewd behavior” being one of dozens of offenses in that category, making a reasonable estimate since the actual count for that offense wasn’t readily available.
What I have here is a bunch of people ready to submit, without even the simplest questioning and due diligence, to a policing decision to criminalize gay behavior based on a problem whose size and actual capacity to injure anyone is apparently unknown at best, and apparently miniscule at worst. Submit, bend over to the sex police, as it were, without batting an eye.
When did that become okay in “progressive” circles? When did we decide to start letting the police decide when something should be a crime, and criminalized? Who decided this stuff …. if not people like Larry Craig, and those who voted for him, and those idiots who would howl for his job, in the first place?
If gay assignations (agreements to meet) are crimes, why aren’t straight ones? Why aren’t there sex police in bars looking for men touching the breasts of women, or women touching the trouser legs of men on barstools?
Why would anyone assume that a gay assignation means “lets have sex right here in public” but a straight assignation doesn’t mean “lets have sex right here in the bar?”
Are gay people just animals who can’t be trusted to keep their genitals covered up in public? Who made that decision, and what data did they use to make it?
myiq2xu
He says:
and:
The record is stuck, is stuck, is stuck, is stuck, is stuck . . .
Jake
Look, I can’t do anything about people who can’t be arsed to read that he pled to disorderly conduct. I also can’t do anything about the fact that Craig decided to lie his brains out both during and after the arrest. So far as I’m concerned he’s in the same position as a guy picked up for driving around and around the red light district. The poor slob could say he was lost and he doesn’t consort with prostitutes and flash his Senator ID or he could demand a lawyer and StFu.
No, I’ve decided it was about sexism. When shit like this goes down the Republicans give a mighty yawn. Bush even appeared with Don “The Strangler” Sherwood during his last campaign.
But let one of their members make any movements that might be interpreted as an unwanted advance to a male and all hell breaks loose.
myiq2xu
Where does it say “gay” in those stats? How many were “sting” arrests and how many were people caught in flagrante delicto? How many were hetero couples busted getting it on?
ThymeZone
Why don’t you cough up a fact to prove me wrong, asshole?
Is ankle biting all you know how to do?
Get some facts. Get some information. Make a case, construct an arguement.
Where are the crimes, the injuries, the statistics, the data, the case histories, the articles, the exposes and the investigations? Put up or shut up.
Read my previous post if you need an example on how to do that, which you apparently do.
ThymeZone
You tell me, dumbshit. Where is the gay crime?
Where is the injury due to gay crime? Where is the gay open sex? Where is the injury, the outrage, the local tv “investigations,” the tragic tales of lives ruined by happening onto man on man action?
Where is it, you blubbering pipsqueak?
Punchy
He also wasn’t charged with being gay, despite what you continue to claim they busted him for.
myiq2xu
So that indicates either that these offenses rarely occur but the offenders are usually caught or, more likely, that these type of offenses occur at a higher rate but are a low-priority for the police. That hardly seems like a homophobic witch hunt.
myiq2xu
How about that guy Larry Craig and the other 40 men arrested in the restroom?
How about the 10 people a day arrested in Los Angeles?
Those are crimes, statistics, etc.
Begone, Troll!
Punchy
She was praying? And got arrested?
ThymeZone
What are you doing? Defending the sex police? Why the hell would you do that?
If you don’t have enough sense to know when you are being duped by the authoritarians, I can’t understand what you are doing here masquerading as a liberal and/or libertarian?
Craig’s arrest was bullshit. The sting was bullshit. The law here is bullshit. The entire paradigm is bullshit. All aimed at making it look illegal or immoral to be gay.
Let’s suppose that the 20+ year “story” about Craig, namely that he’s gay or bisexual, is true. In fact, I’ll stipulate that it’s true.
Can you produce a single fact to support the idea that any member of the public has ever been actually injured by his gay behavior? Are you really willing to submit to cops hiding in the crapper to arrest the Larry Craigs of the world? Then you deserve the shitty sex-police sexual bigotry world that Larry Craig would gladly consign you to.
Maybe you don’t have enough sense to just say “leave people the fuck alone” but I do.
myiq2xu
Worshipping :lol:
ThymeZone
What it does not indicate is any reason to believe that there’s a big problem out there requiring cops to be hiding in the crappers, you idiot.
ThymeZone
Leave them alone. It isn’t necessary, practical, ethical, or reasonable to criminalize their behavior in order to maintain order in the restroom. Any more than it is necessary to do so in a bar where straights congregate for assignations.
myiq2xu
Same song, different verse.
reid
I’ve gotten pretty anti-authoritarian over the last several years, but I really don’t have a problem with the police trying to clean up what is apparently a notorious public sex spot. I also wouldn’t mind it if it was a heterosexual sex spot, but that happens to not be the case here. TZ, I don’t really understand why you’re so fired up over this; you think public restroom sex is okay (gay or otherwise)? I’d be with you if someone was suggesting installing cameras in every stall or posting a cop in every restroom in the land, but no one is.
Rome Again
Only a dirty mind, my friend.
myiq2xu
Yes, I am, if and when necessary, as it clearly was in this case.
Punchy
Now the police have names? Should I only support the Murder and Rape Police, but dog on the Speeding Police and the DUI Police?
Last time I checked, they enforced EVERY FREAKING LAW. They don’t really have a choice.
Jake
Whoa. What part of the relevant laws (lewd behavior or disorderly conduct) states that they only apply when the two parties are or the same gender?
OMG, not the “You’re not really a liberal,” snot-nosed college radical bullshit again. I grant you make some interesting points but if you need to make authoritarian arguments (Agree or Begone!) to attack other people’s cred. I don’t see why the fuck should anyone listen to anything you have to say.
Unless they disagree with something you say, in which case they should prepare to have their asses chewed off.
myiq2xu
He does seem emotionally invested in this issue, doesn’t he? In previous posts he described himself as “pretty” and claimed he had been propositioned in restrooms by other men “many times.”
Do the math.
Rome Again
You know, I have had my fair share (or more) of come-ons and I have NEVER experienced this. I think you are setting up a false premise here. That’s not to say that it never happens, but, I’m not one who is inexperienced or a wallflower and I have just never see it myself.
Rome Again
You would be wrong.
DougJ
Regardless of whether or not you think the case against him has merit (I do think it does), it has nothing to do with his duties as a Senator. And it’s only a misdemeanor. This is not all that different than forcing a Senator to resign over a speeding ticket. Really, it’s not.
Craig should not resign.
Rome Again
What’s so clear about this case? Granted, the cop said that foot tapping occurred and he saw Craig’s hand containing a ring finger slide under the stall divider, but, what exact crime was so clearly broken here?
Was there sex? No. Was sex actually agreed to? No. Was any money exchanged? No… so what is so fucking clear about this case?
reid
myiq2xu, I have enough virtual TZ spittle on me from reading his posts, I don’t want to make things worse by doing his math.
DougJ, as much as I despise Craig’s hypocrisy and positions, I think you’re right. He shouldn’t be forced to resign. Was he? And I don’t mean by republipeer pressure.
(And here I’ve been trying to avoid this sordid story, but you lured me in!)
Rome Again
It seems some here don’t mind if a police state exists, as long is it’s their kind of a police state.
Jake
Heaven forfend. The dear man should hang around until his gay-bashing cronies fart flames of angst and launch themselves into the stratosphere.
Rome Again
He is emotionally invested in keeping a police state at bay, one that would go after John Q. Public for any petty behavior that is not mainstream (that includes YOU as a person who writes on a political blog). I really think you should change your name to Birdbrain.
Andrew
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that arresting people for cruising for public sex doesn’t really fit the definition for police state.
ThymeZone
It’s the enforcement, not the spirit of the statute, that makes it disciminatory against gays. In this case, what was lewd about Craig’s behavior? A foot tap is lewd? A hand wave is lewd? Oh, if you “decode” it, it’s lewd?
Give me a break.
As for the existence of the statute, I think it’s absurd as currently understood. Why should public displays of adult interest in sex be made a crime? “Lewd” to me means pulling it out for purposes other than urination or medical emergency. What does it mean to you? What did Craig do that was lewd? If he did nothing lewd, then why are we talking about him here?
Andrew
Oh dear jesus that is ridiculous.
ThymeZone
Why should I care what you think?
The fact is, the arrest of Craig is witch hunt material, it’s inappropriate, it’s not defensible, it serves no public interest, it’s designed to harrass gays.
I’ve made that case in spades for a week. If you don’t like the way I do it, fuck you. I don’t have to please you, that’s not my goal. The case here speaks for itself and if you don’t have the sense to see it, I don’t give a shit. I am not doing this to make friends or win an essay contest.
ThymeZone
FUCK! What public sex is involved in this case, man?
Where’s the sex? Show me the fucking sex!
Rome Again
So you say. You have a pretty good chance of eating those words one day.
ThymeZone
By an obscure poster on an obscure blog. What part of that equates to being arrested and charged with a crime in your fucking upside down universe?
chopper
fixed.
ThymeZone
Where, for the hundredth time, is the evidence of public sex, in this spot or any other spot? In this case?
Where is it? Who is seeing it? Who is being affected by it?
What public menace constitutes the need for sex police hiding in crappers? A fucking week of this and not a single fact on the table yet.
chopper
agreed. otherwise, we’ve been in a police state for a long time, since you can be arrested for soliciting a prostitute without even opening your wallet.
Rome Again
First they came for homosexuals, but I wasn’t a homosexual…
chopper
then they came for the painful, yet unavoidable holocaust comparison…
ThymeZone
Of course they do. If “cruising for sex” is a crime, why aren’t they in bars and all manner of public places, like high school cafeterias and arresting men and women for making suggestive passes at each other? Why don’t they hang around well known “straight hot spots” hiding in shadows and arresting people? Because straight cruising for sex, or declaring an interest in sex, isn’t a bad thing?
Who’s having all the sex out there in cars and under stairways and under blankets at the park in broad daylight and in airplane restrooms? Mostly straight people, to my knowledge. Where’s the public outcry? Where are the cops hiding in the shadows?
When did you decide that you needed police to protect you from people looking for sex? Or did you let the police decide that for you? Or did you let the nervous little old ladies and the Republicans decide that for you?
There’s more sex on cable tv that there is in your public restrooms. Where are the sex police protecting you from that?
How much sex police protection do you think you need? Where’s the threat they are protecting you from?
ThymeZone
But you have to make an agreement to have sex for money.
Who made an agreement to have sex in this case?
And why are you making that bogus comparison?
reid
I referred to it as a notorious sex spot because that’s how it’s been reported in the media. I have no data to back that up, but I also saw no reason to doubt it. I assume you could check with the police department to see how many complaints there have been if YOU doubt it.
As for who’s affected by it, I assume the people who have walked in on sexual activity and complained to the police. I wouldn’t want to walk in on that, or someone jacking off, or step in the residue, or similar things. Again, are you really suggesting that public restroom sex be condoned?
(Note: No mention of gay/hetero.)
Dreggas
No but it does bring up the idea of “thought police” after all he was cruising for sex, period, and as such they busted him for that cruising because his intent was sex.
This whole case is a lot of bullshit mixed with a little bit of reason. Of course being me, I am more likely to agree with TZ on this only because of my lifestyle and knowing full well just how these things tend to go down (no pun intended) and yes, they can be and most often are witch hunts.
Want a perfect example? Look at that asshole mayor down in florida going on about supposed rampant homosexuality occurring in the restrooms of the city’s beaches. No real proof to back it up but he’s using it to whip up hysteria.
Yes 40 some odd others were arrested in this restroom but you’d have to look at the arrest reports to see what they were actually arrested for. Propositioning (in other words saying the equivalent of nice shoes wanna fuck) is not a crime.
Yes there is annecdotal evidence that this spot was a hotspot for sex in the mens room, however was Craig busted for anything that could truly be called lewd? Did he expose himself in some lewd manner?
To me, if he had stuck his dick under the stall then yeah, bust him for whatever, but he put his hand underneath it. Yeah he may have been trying to give a reach around (or reach under in this case) and yes he probably was looking to get his hand around something hard and meaty but did he, at any point in time, do something that was actually lewd or disorderly? Forget the so-called code for a moment and think, did he do anything that you, as a citizen, would report him for as a crime?
myiq2xu
Intentionally Peeping into an occupied bathroom stall, which is the crime Craig was charged with.
myiq2xu
Dunno, where it it?
Craig wan’t charged with being gay, no matter how hard you try to make it so.
myiq2xu
Straights congregate in bars to meet, not to have sex right there with the people they meet. If gays prefer to hang out in public restrooms to meet each other, more power to them, but they need to go elsewhere to have sex.
chopper
no you don’t. you don’t have to make any official agreement. you just have to say something like ‘i have $200, you want to have a good time?’. no mention of sex at all.
hell, you’ll get busted for saying ‘you know the way to john street?’ or ‘which way to rod avenue?’. that’s about as much a showing of intent to solicit sex for money as craig’s shenanigans were a showing of intent to solicit sex in a restroom. again, people came up with codes and what-not to avoid actually full-on soliciting this stuff. so the law responded by taking those codes as de facto solicitation.
what i find funny is that all this talk about treading on freedoms. dude, this happened in an airport. a place where you can’t even use the word ‘bomb’ offhand without getting thrown in the hoosegow.
Dreggas
He wasn’t busted for that though, according to the timeline by the cop, he looked in the stall through a crack, then went into an unoccupied stall. Now unless you can see that the latch is engaged or some other clear indication a stall is occupied you might look through the crack as well.
myiq2xu
Amen, brother!
Last week we were worse than the Republicans for not leaping to the defense of a hypocritical bigoted Republican who was being pressured to resign by his own party.
Cassidy
Ahhhh…so Craig was only reaching under the stall to invite his fellow squatter to a group prayer.
You know, I was trying to think of a snarky, smart-assed comment regarding this, but I think I’ll just grin and le the comment speak for itself.
myiq2xu
So saith the sockpuppet
Cassidy
Call me blind, but I’m not sure I could fins the part of The Constitution that says it’s okay to have sex in public restrooms.
myiq2xu
They have eyes but cannot see, they have ears but cannot hear.
Randolph Fritz
Setting aside the question of the legitimacy of Craig’s behavior, I can see no good coming of this. The best we can hope for, I think, is that Craig’s conviction stands and Craig resigns–remember he plead guilty to a lesser offense, which pretty strongly suggests that in fact he knew the police had him to rights. Overturning this conviction will not protect J. Random Gay–in fact, enforcement may increase. If Craig succeeds in somehow revoking is guilty plea, we take one more step towards a legal system which grants different treatment to the rich and power and, likely, it harms the cause of gay rights as well. As if that were not enough, it leaves another right-wing Republican in the Senate. This is a loser for liberals and gays, and I hope everyone here sees it for what it is and drops it.
Rome Again
You’re an idiot.
myiq2xu
For two minutes? Just one stall?
Cassidy
You know…we could just set up separate bathrooms for gays, so they don’t feel forced out of public restrooms. And separate water fountains, and separate seats on the bus and separate…
(j/k)
Rome Again
That’s called speculation. No sex occurred, no exchange of money occurred, no agreement for sex occurred and yet you come up with the above. How judgmental of you.
By the way, the bible quote you used is actually an interesting one, it means “it is right in their face and they don’t see it”. This case is not about “in your face” anything.
Rome Again
THERE WAS NO SEX IN THE RESTROOM. Nobody is saying it’s okay to have sex in the restroom as far as I can see, but, only that meeting someone in a restroom and being interested in having sex with them (for one reason or another) should NOT be a crime.
Grumpy Code Monkey
First, from the arrest report:
Emphasis mine. A couple of things to note here:
1. The airport has its own police department (true of every airport I’ve been through). This isn’t some homicide or narcotics cop being taken off the beat to protect public morals.
2. There have been prior incidents of sexual activity in the men’s room, leading to complaints. The airport police were responding to a real problem. Maybe not as substantive or earth-shattering as foiling terrorism (or at least grand larceny), but a real problem nonetheless.
At this point, it can be argued that Craig has violated Minnesota Statute 609.746:
But wait, there’s more (Craig has since moved into the stall on Karsnia’s left):
At this point I can hear TZ’s eyes rolling. “He’s just tapping his foot! What’s so lewd about that?!” By itself, nothing. However, it can also be a signal for something else.
See, that goes from perfectly innocent to just a touch creepy.
The arrest report goes on to describe how Craig swiped his left hand under the stall several times, and how he was not reaching for a piece of paper (the report is a raster image, not HTML, so I can’t cut and paste, and I’ll be damned if I manually type in another line). At this point Craig has given all the known signals that typically result in the kind of “lewd conduct” (which could be anything from a blow job to teh buttsecks) that had been occurring in the men’s room (I dunno about you, but 40 arrests in the 3 month period strikes me as a bit on the high side).
Craig signaled an intent to engage in lewd conduct in a public place. Lewd conduct in a public place is against the law. At the very least, he violated a privacy statute.
In the end, he pleads guilty to disorderly conduct (more fool him, but hey). I don’t think he should resign, and I don’t think the Republican leadership should force him to. I have to say I look forward to the coming shitstorm. There’s an outside chance Mitch McConnell’s head may explode on live TV.
Dreggas
that still doesn’t necessarily constitute a crime, had it constituted a crime the officer should have arrested him then and there not waiting for any of the stuff that followed which is, according to the report, what led to the arrest. Now yeah if someone was staring at me through a crack in the stall I’d find it odd and probably make a wise ass comment or flip them off or in general tell them to buzz off, if it were an old man I would probably add on old pervert to whatever I said but it’s not something that would be a crime.
Rome Again
Everything about this case is Cop said/Congressman said. Did the cop have a stopwatch and did he start timing as soon as Craig started to look through the crack? If Craig was standing outside the stall, what kind of a view did the cop have that he could see Craig’s eyes were locked on what was going on inside the stall? Do you ever stare off into space with your eyes open when you’re bored? I do.
I’m not saying Craig wasn’t looking for a sexual tryst. Personally I think he probably was, but I dont’ see where a crime occurred. You would judge him guilty with he said/she said evidence.
Grumpy Code Monkey
There had been numerous reports of prior sexual activity in that restroom; that’s why Karsnia was there in the first place.
Craig, using well-known (by the cops and the perps, anyway) non-verbal indicators, signaled an intent to engage in the same kind of activity. And sometimes merely signaling intent is enough to bring the hammer down.
Rome Again
Agreed. Only problem is now every time I see you here I’m going to have a picture of you in my mind taking a dump and flipping the bird. Oh NO, make it stop!
Dreggas
The only problem here is that if one wants to make the argument that a person should have a reasonable expectation of privacy within the confines of a bathroom stall in a public restroom then where does this turn from being a “private act” into a “public act”.
There is no real privacy, nor is any expected in a restroom where the door does not close and lock. It’s a public restroom and hell, if stall doors are broken and you have to take a crap you do so and people will see.
Nevermind the fact that in many mens rooms you don’t even get a divider between urinals so you either stare straight ahead or get an eyeful.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Ah, now we enter into the “lying/overzealous cop” phase of the argument.
So far the rationalizations are tracking quite nicely.
Grumpy Code Monkey
I don’t have a reasonable expectation that people won’t be able to see me. I do have a reasonable expectation that I won’t have someone staring at me for minutes at a time through a crack in the door.
Rome Again
Where’s the proof? Got a cite for it? What kind of “sexual activity”? That sounds like a qualification of the situation. Is merely meeting someone in a restroom and hooking up but going somewhere else for sex considered “sexual activity”?
Does signaling the desire to have sex mean someone is going to have sex right there? Perhaps it was an invitation to find a more private place together. You can’t know that Craig was planning to do it right there.
Rome Again
There is no absolute proof. And the cop did lose it on the interview tape. Personally he sounded like he was in over his head to me.
S.W. Anderson
John Cole wrote:
A defendant’s signed guilty plea and the proceeding in which a court accepts that plea are both matters of public record..
Craig might not have shouted his mea culpa from a second-story window or call a press conference to discuss it prior to the media getting the story, but he certainly did publicly admit guilt.
Dreggas
Very true, however being that from what is known all stalls were occupied maybe Craig was looking in with the “hey buddy I really have to go here” type look and was fidgeting because of it. Not that I am defending him because I believe a word coming out of his mouth but it sounds to me like there was no crime committed and the evidence is circumstantial at best. In truth I am relishing watching this pissant squirm because he is having to sleep in a bed he helped make.
Wilfred
FWIW, after following this thread from the beginning, Thymezone persuaded me. It means I have to can my ‘I saw him sitting wide’ parody, to the Beatles’ ‘I saw her standing there’ but…c’est la blog). TZ is right – fair play’s a jewel. I can’t maintain the necessary contradictions without feeling like a hypocrite.
myiq2xu
Yes it is. It’s right in your face that Larry Craig was not charged with having sex, asking for sex, or offering money for sex. He was charged with intentionally peeping in a bathroom stall.
He wasn’t charged with “gayzing” into a stall either.
Rome Again
Exactly, and with that I bid you all a good evening.
Rome Again
Prove it.
Now, goodnight.
ImJohnGalt
Personally, I think Senator Craig made an excellent 007, and I was among the skeptics.
myiq2xu
That’s what on the complaint. Proven.
Good riddance, sockpuppet!
ThymeZone
That’s the problem with this case. No matter how you slice and dice it, the contradictions just won’t go away.
Personally, I think Larry Craig is detestable in his own lovable Republican way. And that’s exactly why I would fight for his rights to the bitter end. If I won’t fight for the people I can’t stand, then I am just a fair-weather defender of liberty, which is about one inch from being a Republican.
I hope Craig beats the phony charges against him, and stuffs the GOP hypocrisy up the tailpipes of the McCains and Romneys who threw him out like a moldy piece of cheese.
LBNL, I think Craig is a liar. I think he is as bisexual as they come, in all liklihood, and it’s too bad that he has put a lot of people through a lot of crap over it. His poor wife, his friends, his staff. I’d admire him more if he just came out and said, as John suggested, hey, I have had gay relationships and that’s part of who I am. And you can all kiss my figurative ass. And now I am will need some private time to repair my personal relationships. I was wrong about Bill Clinton, the Sex Police have no place in our society or in our politics.
But he isn’t likely to do that. Despite this, I fully support his efforts to beat the witch hunt and keep his seat.
ImJohnGalt
Heh, TZ said he put his staff through a lot of crap. Heh heh.
/beavis
myiq2xu
I love it, trolls demand proof and when it is presented, they ignore it or question its credibility. They resort to every logical fallacy in the book.
The big bad homophobic PO-lice man just went into the restroom and arrested somebody at random, and that person just happens to be gay.
During the interview, Craig admits to tapping his foot, touching the officer’s foot with his own, and reaching down/under the wall of the stall, but offers alternative explanations for what’s a known gay cruising code.
If the cop says there have been previous complaints, he’s lying. Even though Craig pled guilty to a lesser, non-specific charge, he must be the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
When patiently presented with evidence to refute their arguments, the trolls insult total strangers. When all else fails, they leave for a few hours and when they return, they repeat the same tired talking points that have already been thoroughly shot down by numerous other posters, as if their arguments were new and relevent.
Wilfred
Amen, man, when you’re right, you’re right.
ThymeZone
Not sure, but you are probably the stupidest idiot I have seen here in three years of this. Really. And that is saying a lot. You beat out some tough competition, amigo.
DougJ
If he admitted that he was gay and renounced all of his crazy right-wing ways, do you think the Democrats would let him caucus with him? Seriously.
And please not jokes about “caucusing”.
ThymeZone
Hey, it happens :)
Thanks.
Your fifty bucks is in the mail.
ThymeZone
Well, I certainly would. I am a big fan of redemption.
I don’t think he has it in him, but who knows?
chopper
from the complaint:
sounds pretty intentional to me. repeatedly staring through the crack into the dude’s stall over the course of 2 minutes or so aint an accident.
capelza
You know, that did cross my mind. That would be the best “fuck you” to the GOP in Congress of all time. IF he did, the Dems would be nuts NOT to. What a coup. But I doubt that would happen.
Maybe that’s why the Pubs are back tracking, maybe he made some kind of noise about doing exactly that. :)
ThymeZone
Scary shit, huh? So scary that the doomed victim of the peep couldn’t say “What’s your problem, bud? Can I help you? Occ-u-pado, compadre.”
You know, like a normal person (not a cop hiding in a crapper) would do. Whereupon the gay fiend would disappear faster than a fart in an exhaust fan.
See, this whole thing is predicated on the notion that you need police protection in the rest room. Just think about that and how fucking ludicrous it is.
Fifty plus years of public waste elimination, no police protection, many a proposition, and look at me. Not a mark on me, not a single gay sex attack. Not even a frown. Am I the bomb, or what?
Good god, people.
myiq2xu
You left out the the part of my statement that you then immediately proved to be true.
Does cognitive dissonance hurt?
jake
Why are we talking about lewd behavior at all? The man waited nearly a month, didn’t get a lawyer (possibly) and then copped to disorderly conduct. Are you going to argue he was railroaded into that?
I seem to have touched a nerve. What then prompted the authoritarian comment? Think that if you repeat it enough we’ll all agree? Hoping we’ll see some shit sucking bigot who has voted at least three times to fuck gays over as a pitiable man say “Aww, poor puppy,” and stop laughing while he keeps digging shoveling more dirt out of damn hole he’s in?
Oh no, I forgot, this is about homophobia (sorta) and if I understand you correctly, public lewdness statutes are used primarily to harass gays and lesbians. Stats?
Obscure? Toi? I do not think that word means what you think it does. My point was and remains that your response to someone who disagreed with is the same sort of authoritarian bullshit that I hear from cretins who think we need a cop under every bed to make sure only the appropriate genitals touch.
Either: People have the right to do, say or think whatever they want unless there are stats to show it causes tangible harm.
or
What people do, say or think should be limited for reasons beyond tangible harm.
Which is it?
myiq2xu
So we should legalize peeping, right? Because making peeping illegal is discrimination against gays.
Whoops, there it is!
t. jasper parnell
I used to see on my ride to work and at least three times a week observed cars driving by a specific corner the driver would roll down his window and rap three tims (just like the song) and somebody came running out the bushes; they would then exchange money and a small package. In this situation would the cops (after having observed the behavior and busting the drug carrying guy — as I assumed him to be) be allowed to arrest the roof tapper absent the drug carrying guy?
Grumpy Code Monkey
The fucking arrest report:
Now, why is that not satisfactory? Do you need surveillance footage of men having teh buttsecks with a digital watermark that shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sex is happening in that restroom? Would that be adequate proof? Or would you need something more?
Do you think the cops are lying about what’s going on in the men’s room? If so, why?
Or are you spoofing and I’m just not catching it?
myiq2xu
Definite maybe. I’d say they have reasonable suspicion to detain. As far as arrest, the standard is probable cause. At trial, it would require proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Did the cops only observe this tapping a few times and assume it meant “sell me dope?” Or did they observe the same pattern a few hundred times? Did they have an informant who told them what the signal meant? Would the informant testify as to it’s meaning?
The meaning of non-verbal signals and slang terminology would require some kind of “expert” testimony. Expertise can mean only a few hours of training or a few prior experiences.
Admissibility is up to the judge, the weight the evidence should be given is up to the jury. The judge also determines if there was sufficent probable cause to arrest, which can be very important, especially regarding evidence found in a search incident to arrest.
Andrew
I blame A Prarie Home Companion for this incident.
myiq2xu
You’re getting warmer. Trolls and their sockpuppets will never acknowledge the existence of any fact that destroys their bogus arguments. No matter how overwhelming the evidence, they will not concede a single point.
They will ignore evidence, making arguments based on logical fallacies, shifting from point to point until you have them completely boxed in, at which point they will disappear for a few hours and then reemerge and start over like nothing ever happened.
I keep smacking back down until I get bored or have other things to do. The blogosphere version of “whack-a-mole.” “Whack-a-troll?”
Andrew
I’m mostly just depressed about the apparently earnest comment that satisfied Godwin’s Law.
myiq2xu
Would you have us break the law?
Grumpy Code Monkey
So, when someone comes to the police to complain about men having sex in a public restroom, should the police tell that person to grow the fuck up? That it’s ludicrous for that person to expect the police to enforce public decency laws? That if that person came across two men in a public restroom giving each other blow jobs or whatever, that person just doesn’t understand that they’re being unreasonable?
myiq2xu
Actually, TrollZone keeps trying to argue that gays should be allowed to have sex in public. That’s why I just keep cutting and pasting my response to John from earlier.
We’re bigoted assholes if we disagree with him.
Rome Again
Define sexual activity, it is such an ambiguous term. Does sexual activity include foot tapping? Peering into the open spaces of stall doors? Wiping a hand along the bottom of the stall? Is proposing sex (for free) with someone else considered sexual activity?
“Sexual Activity” doesn’t say WHAT kind of sexual activity it is. No, I am not satisfied, and you shouldn’t be either, but of course, you’ll never figure that out.
Who is complaining, perhaps a couple of right-winger church men who don’t want to see anyone who might look at them funny?
No, this report does NOT explain what actually happened and you shouldn’t assume such.
If the activity in this particular restroom was such a problem, why did they only catch about one suspect roughly every three days? I would think if this restroom was a bastion for gay sex, the sting would have been MUCH more successful.
No, I want to see specifics of what sort of sexual activity occurred in this report. I could do without a surveillance tape, but apparently you might like one, because you’re so certain that an actual act of gay penetration was taking place.
Craig did not engage in penetration, at least on that day, and there is no proof that it was happening in that restroom at all. You assume it was, and you have no actual proof.
Birdbrain, I’ve been here for going on three years, and I am not a spoof, troll or sockpuppet. I am merely not willing to concede that gay penetration was the problem you are making it out to be. There is no actual proof, but you would convict on hearsay.
Rome Again
Actually TZ never said that from what I saw. Would you like to produce the post where he stated such?
He is arguing (and so am I) that it isn’t the huge problem that you guys are making it out to be.
ThymeZone
Very dramatic. Did any of that actually happen?
When? Where?
Where is the public sex taking place, please? Dates, places, facts? Where is this problem and what about it warrants police hiding in crappers for four months?
This starts the second week I’ve been asking this question here, I still don’t have a single documented incident or any facts to support the suggestion of a problem …. anywhere.
Are you quite sure that your police officers are best serving the public by sitting in crappers for days at a time waiting for a gay proposition? Who made that decision and what facts did they base it on?
myiq2xu
Read a law book before you lecture me on the law. Hearsay is an out of court statement introduced in court to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Several types of hearsay are admissible as evidence, including confessions, admissions and prior inconsistent statements. Hearsay is admissible to prove probable cause.
I don’t want or need to convict anyone, Craig admitted his guilt when he pled “GUILTY.”
Of course the police officer’s report must be wrong because you are right. What kind of sexual activity is not defined in the report but it is irrelvant because that only provides the reason for the sting, not the basis of the arrest.
I assume nothing, and the report is mostly descriptive rather than explanatory. The officer’s report is a factual description of what he observed except for his explanation of the meaning of the foot tapping and hand gestures. Craig admitted to most of the actions the officer described, although he claimed a different explanation of his actions.
We have no information as to how often and how many hours were devoted to the sting. The officer was only in the restroom for 13 minutes before he encountered Craig. How successful it was is irrelevant to Craig’s guilt or innocence.
NO SEXUAL ACTIVITY OCCURRED IN THIS REPORT. Pay attention.
I do not assume there was penetration on that day or any other. Craig was not charged with penetrating anything but the door crack with his peeping eye. I have actual proof of that in the officer’s statement and Craig’s guilty plea.
ThymeZone
It’s vague, and describes no actual verified incidents of anything. The arrests you alluded to appear, from published reports, to have been for supposedly “coded” messages such as foot tapping and hand waving, not “sexual activity” at all. Craig was not accused of performing any sexual activity. Not agreeing to any sexual activity that I am aware of.
I don’t believe the justification. Plain and simple. I carry a card in my wallet with the big letters ACLU on it for the reason that I don’t trust the authorities to properly look out for my liberties. I don’t believe that they are responding appropriately or effectively in this case or any such case. I think that if there is actually gay cruising going on in a restroom, and I say this as a person who has received something like 100 or so gay propositions in restrooms over a 15 year period of time, it is easily discouraged by simple measures that cost less and accomplish more than criminalization of the activity. Signage, audio announcements, video surveillance, and attendants, for example, would probably reduce this activity to near zero without using any police or arresting any but the most extreme nuisances (just as one might arrest someone for making loud noises in a restaurant and refusing to leave, one could arrest a “cruiser” for refusing to leave, and I make comparison deliberately because I consider the two things comparable, namely, two examples of people being inconsiderate or annoying in a public area). There is no reason to elevate something as innocuous or harmless as a supposedly “gay” signal like foot tapping into a criminal offense. None whatsoever.
Police protection of your peepee is not necessary. If you fear for your peepee in a public place, rehearse these words that have worked many times for me when approached, not with mimed hand signals and foot taps, but with overt verbal suggestions: “No thanks.”
In my case I can assure you that it worked every single time. Every gay fiend was rendered powerless by these magic words. No armed protection of my peepee was ever needed. Fifty years and years of travel on airplanes and through airports coast to coast, never a problem, never a sex act seen or heard.
I realize that the dainty men of Minnesota with their pearly white skin and Lutheran upbringing are unfit to defend their own peepees, but even given that tragic situation, I think they can defend their restrooms without involving police, courts, judges, and criminal records for queers.
Don’t you?
myiq2xu
myiq2xu
Whoops, there it is again1
myiq2xu
From the police report:
Got anything NEW?
ThymeZone
Yeah. See, shit for brains, when you are right, you dont have to keep making up new ways to say it.
Im sorry you cant defend your peepee, and Im glad that you have the manly Minnesota Police to guard it for you. Really. Not all of us can defend ourselves out there in the rough and tumble restrooms of America.
And when you grow up, you can stand up for lesser mens’ peepees too, just as I am doing for you now.
ThymeZone
Already asked and answered, shit for brains.
Meanwhile, this crummy site is in its nightly crash mode and this is getting on our nerves.
You sit here and hold on to your delicate peepee and I will be back tomorrow to help you defend it.
myiq2xu
Fixed
mrmobi
Ummm, not in any of the evidence I’ve seen from the “airport” police, TZ.
For those of you who think Craig is trying to overturn the conviction, think again. His lawyer said this morning that their approach is that this is a misdemeanor, and therefore, according to the rules of the Senate, not proper grounds for removal.
myiq2xu, I’ll bet you were on board with Al Gore’s wife when she was trying to get “offensive” music banned, eh? Whatsamatta, life too scary for you, need police everywhere to solve every problem? You know, you kind of fit in with the whole bed-wetter authoritarian bent of the Party of Torture. Sure you don’t want to change sides? You might feel safer.
myiq2xu
I feel perfectly safe, I’m all for freedom of speech and opposed to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
But despite efforts to hijack this issue, it’s not about gay rights.
BTW – I thought Frank Zappa’s smackdown of Tipper’s Bridge club was great and well deserved.
Rome Again
That’s disingenuous Birdbrain. You have seen TZ mention numerous times recently that having an attendant there would solve the problem of having actual sex acts performed in a restroom. He also offered other alternatives, including signs, and video surveillance (which I happen to disagree with – I don’t like the idea of video taping in bathrooms, I’m female after all and that is a problem for ladies, probably more than it might be for men).
Rome Again
You are correct, no sexual activity occurred in this report. No sexual activity occurred at all, the only thing that occurred was innuendo, or what TZ is calling “coded messages”.
I need to apologize for my “hearsay” statement. I didn’t state what I meant the way that I should have. What I meant to say is that if you were on a jury charged with deciding the guilt or innocence of Craig in this incident, you would not care to know what the motivations were for the complaints (and those complaints might have not been as unmotivated as you seem to believe). You wouldn’t care what the definition of “sexual activity” was either. You could be entirely wrong, and you just wouldn’t care to know. You would judge him guilty based on a term which contains ambiguous information, “sexual activity”.
When I am wrong, I admit it. I was wrong, I am admitting it. I still don’t agree with you though, and you are not being declared winner, I merely stated what I was saying in a lazy way and I am acknowledging that.
myiq2xu
So he (and therefore you) admit that there is a problem with actual sex acts performed in a restroom, and his only issue is the best way to deter such activity?
I’ll make it simple for the both of you – Should it be illegal for people (gay or straight) to engage in sexual intercourse (anal, oral or vaginal) in public restrooms.
Yes or no?
Why do I know already that I won’t get a straight answer? (No pun intended.)
scarshapedstar
Over at Jeff Goldstein’s, the commenters swore up and down that they talked to all their gay friends and basically the #1 issue among the gay community is that they never be allowed to marry.
No, really.
merlallen
I think chickengeorge is gay. He cries a lot, uses the word fabulous, and can’t keep his hands off of bald men.
myiq2xu
There are so many issues that have been raised here we could discuss it for days, but trying to force the whole case into a preconceived shape wastes everyone’s time and resolves nothing. This comment is not a detailed description of any one issue but is a Cliff Note’s version of the whole freakin mess.
1) Larry Craig is most likely gay or bisexual. There were reports and rumors to this effect long before this story broke last week, going back to 1981, but Craig has always denied that he is gay or Bi.
2) Craig’s sexual orientation should be irrelevant to his qualifications as Senator, except that he is a conservative Republican, he espouses the GOP’s standard anti-gay rhetoric and has voted against gay rights and gay marriage. His sexual orientation is therefore relevant, because if he is in fact gay or Bi he is a hypocrite.
3) Whether or not Craig is gay would not affect my decision to for or against him (assuming I moved to Idaho and voted.) His hypocrisy would not make the difference either, because I would already vote against him for other, more important reasons.
4) Hypocrisy in a candidate would matter more to me than the fact that he was unfaithful to his wife. Bill Clinton didn’t run on a platform of “family values” and didn’t demonize and seek to discriminate against people who had extra-marital affairs.
5) Marital infidelity would be no more than a tie breaker slightly before “coin-flip” in deciding between two otherwise equal candidates.
6) There is a activity in the gay community known as “cottaging” or the “tearoom trade.” It involves gay men(both closeted and out) meeting in public restrooms for anonymous sex. There is a fairly elaborate system of non-verbal signals involved that include peering into stalls, toe-tapping, hand gestures and other actions that are described in many places on the Internet.
7) The actions alleged to have been made by Craig that are described in the officer’s arrest report conform to the tearoom trade signals.
8) The officer states in his report that there were complaints of sexual activity in the restroom where Craig was arrested. This is confirmed by various postings on gay websites made prior to Craig’s arrest that list the restroom as a tearoom and at least one that warns of an on-going police sting.
9) Sodomy is a term that means “unnatural sex.” It’s original definition included any type of sex between two people other than vaginal intercourse between a man and a woman. Although it has been used against hetero couples as recently as the 1980’s, it was generally only enforced against gays and lesbians. It is no longer a crime in any state.
10) Lewd conduct is generally defined as having sexual intercourse (oral, anal or vaginal) in a public place. Although statutes vary from state to state, it usually requires more than just being outside, like also requiring that other people (besides police officers) be present who were offended or were likely to be offended.
11) Lewd conduct is a crime in all 50 states. It is generally a misdemeanor meaning it is punishable by no more than 1 year in jail. Having sex in a busy public restroom or dressing room would meet the definition of lewd conduct.
12) Soliciting is asking someone to commit a crime. It does not matter whether the crime takes place or even if the other party agrees, the gravamen of the offense is the request itself. While conspiracy is similar, that offense requires a “meeting of the minds” between two or more people. A police officer or informant and one other person connot commit conspiracy because there can be no “meeting of the minds.” An undercover police officer or informant can be solicited. Any crime can be solicited, including murder.
13) Asking someone to have otherwise lawful sexual intercourse with you is not soliciting lewd conduct. Asking someone to commit the crime of lewd conduct is a crime, as is asking someone to engage in prostitution.
14) Intentionally peeking at or spying on someone in a bathroom stall, dressing room, locker room, hotel room, bedroom or other place where their “private parts” are exposed or are likely to be exposed is a crime, and has been since the days of Lady Godiva. Most states now have laws against “upskirts,” hidden cameras and other similar high tech versions of peeping.
15) Entrapment is an affirmative defense to most crimes. Entrapment is an admission to the underlying offense but occurs if the police or a police informant induced an otherwise law-abiding citizen to commit a crime. Police are permitted to run “stings” where they act like drug dealers, prostitutes, “johns” and/or tearoom traders, but they are not permitted to instigate crimes.
15) Although it can be argued in good faith that there are better ways to deter lewd conduct and other related offenses than police stings, that has nothing to do with Larry Craig’s guilt or innocence.
16) A tearoom sting is, by its very nature, going to predominantly target gay or bisexual men, just as a prostitution/john sting will predominantly target hetero men.
17) Sting operations are almost always done at the direction of police brass and are conducted according to protocols approved by the local DA. The protocols define exactly what the officers can and can’t do, and at what point arrests should be made. In each individual case the DA makes the ultimate decision on whether or not to prosecute, and he or she has an ethical duty to only do so if he or she believes that probable cause exists to believe a crime was committed by the defendant.
18) The police department can recommend alternative methods to deter criminal activity, but those decisions are made by elected representatives of the people.
19) Most cops do not like participating in tearoom stings, if for no other reason than they don’t like hanging out in a shitter. I see no evidence that this arrest was the result of a hysterical, homophobic witch hunt. Why the police decided to do the tearoom sting, the number of previous complaints or the number of other people arrested is irrelevant to Craig’s guilt or innocence.
20) If I were cross-examining Det. Karsnia, I would be leery of a couple possible traps in his report. He states that Craig exited the restroom stall without flushing the toilet. Questions as to whether there was anything visible in the bowl, whether the lid was up or down, and whether Craig had to fasten his pants before coming out of the stall could easily backfire. Which stall Karsnia was in and why could also create problems for the defense, especially if he was in the next to last stall and Craig was in the last one.
21) Craig’s expressed concern in the interview at making his flight indicates that he didn’t intend to rent a hotel room to have sex with Karsnia. He also admits to most of the actions described by Karsnia, but offers alternative explanations (i.e. wide stance, etc.) He should have only said two things: “I assert my Fifth Amendment privilege” and “I want a lawyer.”
22) Craig was cited and released and returned two months later to be arraigned, at which time he made his guilty plea. The charge he pled to is disorderly conduct, which is a non-specific charge often included in the complaint (or the complaint is verbally amended at the time of the plea) to facilitate a plea bargain.
23) If I were representing Craig I would have told him to plead “nolo contendere” (no contest) because unlike guilty, a NC plea is not an admission of wrongdoing. In fact, under California law Craig would not have to be present in court to enter a plea to a misdemeanor, so I would do it for him giving him the opportunity to argue he was too busy representing his constituents to go to Minnesota to fight the charges so he just agreed to pay a fine.
24) I don’t think Craig should have to resign, nor do I think that anything he did warrants action by the Senate Ethics Committee. Being a horny gay man is not unethical, nor is committing a misdemeanor that does not involve moral turpitude.
25) The voters of Idaho might decide that Craig should retire (assuming he doesn’t resign first) but that’s their choice. I don’t vote in Idaho. As I said before, nothing he did would change my vote.
26) The GOP is a bunch of bigoted assholes. This is evidenced by their demand that Craig resign. But their demands have no legal effect and they’re his friends, not mine.
27) The GOP are also hypocrites for not also demanding the resignation of David Vitter. I don’t think Vitter should have to resign either (although he is a hypocrite for not doing so considering the things he said about Bill Clinton) but the GOP should treat Craig and Vitter the same.
28) I believe the reason the GOP is treating Craig and Vitter differently has less to do with the type of sex (gay or straight) than the fact that the Governor of Idaho is a Republican and the Governor of Louisiana is a Democrat. For all their pious moralizing, the GOP has no true morals or principles.
29) I don’t feel any obligation to defend a bigoted hypocritical asshole like Larry Craig, even if he is a self-hating gay or bi-sexual. He deserves what he got, which is a slap on the wrist. What the GOP does to him is between him and his fellow Republicans.
30) My respect for Craig would increase (as would the chances of me voting for him) if he came out of the closet and denounced the anti-gay bigotry of the GOP.
jake
Stats, facts? Oh, you used the magic word: “Probably.” Apparently by using the word probably one can say whatever contradictory rubbish that comes to mind.
I find it interesting Lord Anti-Authoritarian Leave People Alone is now suggesting cameras in toilets. Or I would if I didn’t know how this sort of person operates.
That’s why TZ so easily goes from declarations that we have to leave people the fuck alone because there is no proof that sex in toilets is a problem and anyway using cops to catch potential practically non-existent bathroom ballers is a waste of time and money and we’re all homophobes from Red State if we disagree; to:
Every toilet should have an attendant on duty 24/7, every stall should have a camera (and someone to watch those cameras), stern announcements warning against sex should emanate from the PA and there should be signs saying PLEASE DO NOT HAVE SEX IN THE STALLS in several languages (hopefully with some sort of international pictogram because that would be fucking hilarious).
How the fuck does this work? Being left alone (the right to privacy one assumes) becomes a negative right, namely and solely the right not to arrested. Or maybe it could be summed up as “If you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to fear.”
chopper
just because you wouldn’t call the cops over a creepy old peeping tom staring in your daughter’s bedroom window doesn’t mean the rest of society is cool with it.
chopper
note also that the DA’s protocols are rooted in case law.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Any of what? The complaints? The prior arrests?
chopper
i also don’t understand this attitude that those of us who believe in this arrest need ‘protection for our peepees’. it’s an attempt to black-and-white the issue.
look, if someone solicits me in an airport bathroom for public sex, i’ll tell em to screw off. if some dude is staring into my stall, i’ll tell em to screw off. no need for me to call the cops in that case.
but if the dude gets busted for peeping on a cop later, well too bad. peeping is against the law and he got busted.
if i catch some dude peeping into my daughter’s room, i’ll likely scare him away with a shotgun. but if he tries the same shit with the neighbor, he’ll likely get arrested. well, too bad. peeping is against the law and he got busted.
if some trampy-dressed woman comes up to me on the street and says she can show me a good time for $50, i say no and walk away. no need to call the cops. but if she says the same thing to an undercover cop and gets busted, well, hooking is against the law.
in short, despite my own preference to not get the cops involved over something like that, i’m not going to defend someone who got busted for it. peeping is against the law and he got busted.
if people are trying to hook up in airport bathrooms, i imagine there’d be a few airport cops hanging around to stop it. what’s the problem here?
jenniebee
It’s awfully nice that TZ thinks that a separate code of justice ought to be applied to people who are especially embarrassed by their crimes. Let’s get that made into law; then, I shall conduct all my armed robberies while wearing a lobster bib.
Craig’s record is appropriate, as he solicited a criminal act and was caught doing it. His public humiliation is a result of his being a public figure (the other 40 men arrested for similar acts over the course of those four months certainly haven’t been profiled on national television…) and public figures take on the risk of public humiliation when they perform illegal acts.
I really am astounded that TZ thinks both that public sex should be decriminalized (why take all the fun out of it? the risk is the thrill) and suggests that video surveillance to discourage it would be an alternative, essentially saying that it’s an okay thing to closely monitor a population for non-criminal acts. Time to turn in your ACLU membership card, bud.
myiq2xu
If Larry Craig had been busted soliciting a female undercover cop posing as prostitute would we still be seeing the same histrionics?
Would TZ be so emotionally invested in his concern for the “Pee Pee Police” and the rights of straight men to cruise for prostitutes? I doubt it. Nor would the wingnuts be screaming for Craig’s resignation, especially if Idaho’s Governor was a Democrat.
Craig committed a minor offense, got caught, pled guilty and other than its tabloid value that should be the end of it. It’s good for shits and giggles, but it isn’t important, kinda like anything involving Paris Hilton.
myiq2xu
TrollZone has been going on (and on and on) for over a week about how they don’t need the police in the Manly State of Arizona to protect their “pee pees.”
I suppose they should take this statute out of the Arizona Criminal code:
I suppose that since it’s not a problem in Arizona TZ wants this one repealed as well:
However, for the sake of the pets and livestock I think this one should remain:
Arizona, where the men are men and the sheep are nervous.
Rome Again
No, I think it should not be an crime. I think it is a nuisance, and it should be handled more delicately. I agree with TZ’s restroom attendant remark. I think having an attendant present would solve the problem.
I am not one who feels I should be dictated to in my sexual tastes by what others want. Now, I don’t have sex in restrooms, but, I do like unconventional things, and once they start seriously enforcing laws against unconventional sexual activities, I can expect that the next time I want to go into a secluded spot in a natural outdoor setting and have a romantic sexual encounter, I might be arrested too. Who am I hurting if I like outdoor sex? Animals have sex outdoors all the time, no one complains about them.
I think some people here are too easily talked into giving up their liberties.
Andrew
Okay, this is pretty good spoofery.
Punchy
Can you (guys) imagine if your job was watch for 8 hours a monitor of a men’s airport bathroom? 8 hours of grunts, splashes, odd noises, sweaty old men fidgeting with their fly, etc? Seriously, that job better pay $15+/hour. I’d rather go to Gitmo than have that gig.
Heh. Lobster. I keep picturing the episode where Homer Simpson fattens up his lobster, Pinchy…
Punchy
Holy. Shit. RU seriuz? You would allow sex in public restrooms? So any 11 year-old could bust in there with a full bladder and come out with high-impact splatter?
chopper
maybe rome watched a lot of porn as a kid. instincively knows, when walking into a public restroom and seeing two people getting it on, to look at the camera and give that slow creepy nod of smutty agreement ala glenn quagmire. giggidy, giggidy.
Andrew
Giving an 11 year old a porn show is the same thing as squirrels having relations in my yard, haven’t you heard?
Rome Again
You are blowing what I said out of proportion, but have at it if it entertains you. I really don’t care.
A thought for you: where do animals go when they are involved in intercourse? Where do the babies of those animal mothers go? There are no private doors in the animal world. Babies are sometimes fairly close by and they are not ill affected at all. Our ideas of sex (as humans) have been turned into dirty notions due to the prohibitions of sex. If we were never prohibited from sexual activity, it would all seem natural.
Due to the prohibitive stances taken by religion, sex is now a dirty thing, and I wouldn’t want an 11 year old exposed to it at all. Previous to the religious authorities, thousands of years ago, I’m sure 11 year old boys were witnesses to sex on occasion and it was not the harmful thing that it is now.
While I agree that children in this day and age shouldn’t be exposed to our currently tawdry ideas of human sex, I do not agree with keeping up the false wall of “sex is dirty”, I choose to break it down. I am not suggesting exposing 11 year olds to sex, I’m suggesting trying to go back to our natural ways and not making sex a dirty thing.
Rome Again
Maybe Rome doesn’t like porn at all and thinks that sexual relations between two people are not a dirty thing and shouldn’t be treated as such.
The problem isn’t with the people having the sex so much as the people who are affected by that act, mainly people like you, who have to turn it into a dirty act to be despised.
chopper
sorry, but in the real world ‘people shouldn’t be having sex in public places’ doesn’t equate to ‘sex is a dirty act to be despised’.
really, i don’t want airport bathrooms, public parks, courthouses, farmer’s markets etc being turned into de facto porno sets. that doesn’t mean i hate sex.
chopper
so essentially, i’m a sex-hating prude if i don’t want to hop on the subway or bus on my morning commute and sit down next to two people having teh buttsecks.
that is pure spoofery.
Punchy
Out of proportion? Huh? IF YOU LEGALIZE BATHROOM SEX, PEOPLE WILL FUCK IN THE JOHNS. If you find it acceptable for your 10 year-old to hear and possibly see this experience, you’re a wholly diff parent than I.
Rome Again
What 10 year old? I don’t have a 10 year old. If I did have a 10 year old, I would shield them from the vile acts that humans do these days, and that is not just limited to sex. What I am saying is that long ago religion and people in general created a depraved society and it never should have been.
Define sex. That’s the problem. There is a lot of things that I would think are not sex and you apparently would. Would a man saying to another man that he thought he was attractive be sex? It wouldn’t be to me, but it might be to you.
I’m not advocating full out copulation of any sort in restrooms, as I said, but there are other means to curb it, that’s all.
Rome Again
So tell me, I happen to be very affectionate with my lover in public, is that sex? We kiss a lot, we hug a lot, we hold hands a lot, is that sex? Would you think it warrants a cop comng over and dragging us off to jail to put a stop to it? How about if my lover were of the same gender?
Rome Again
No, I’m saying that the bus driver should be the one to say “knock it off”, not a cop. And exactly how many times have you seen this type of behavior (you did include penetration in your example) on a bus?
chopper
you went to public school, didn’t you.
of course not. now, if you made it quite obvious that you intended to have sex in public (say, you were making out and started passionately disrobing each other on the bus right then and there), and there was a rash of bus sex so much so that plainclothes cops had been patrolling buses, then yeah i’d expect a cop would likely give you some trouble over it.
gender has fuck-all to do with it. public sex is public sex.
bus drivers are supposed to drive. if they don’t pay attention, they kill people. trust me, i live in new york, and the bus drivers are scary when they’re watching the road.
i’ve never seen a rape or a murder to this day. or any number of illegal actions, both big and small. that means nothing regarding whether or not they should be illegal.
i can’t believe i actually have to argue that sex on a public bus should be illegal.
Rome Again
I can’t believe you think people would actually engage in such behavior on a public bus. There is NO privacy, so anyone who tried to do it there would only be doing it for the purpose of creating a major disturbance.
Those people shouldn’t be hauled off to jail, they should be hauled off to a mental hospital.
chopper
first off, there are people who get off on sex in public. seriously. even busy places, but usually bathrooms or mostly-empty stuff. hell, there was even a simpsons bit about it.
second, i live in new york. believe it.
chopper
shit, i once got a beej on the DC metro. the hell.
Rome Again
If someone wants to have sex in busy places where children can see it, then they belong in a behavior modification program. The important thing is not that someone gets points on a record resulting in loss of job, etc…, it’s that they change their behavior.
Rome Again
So, you’re arguing for your own arrest?
chopper
so you don’t think that public sex on the bus, the subway etc should be against the law. that’s fantastically idiotic.
oh, what i did was totally illegal. and if i was caught, i would probably have gone to jail. for good reason.
chopper
oh yeah, and:
and what, pray tell, is going to compel them into a “behaviour modification program” if what they’re doing is perfectly legal?
now, let’s say we’re not talking about full on teh secks. how about jerkin it? you think it should be fully legal for every old pervert in town to jerk off on the subway?