The cost of the closet

August 29, 2007

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, may soon suffer the same fate of other arrogant, secretive and dishonest public figures like former Rep. Mark Foley, ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Scooter Libby, Ted Haggard and even recently resigned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. They all thought their power and influence would save their own career. They were wrong.

Ironically, police records indicate that Craig may have been entrapped. Yet, he still pled guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge on Aug. 8 stemming from a June sting in an airport restroom in Minnesota. Unlike Foley and Haggard, Craig feverishly denies that he is gay or that he did anything wrong.

The incident involved no money, no participation with a minor and no actual sexual act. It appears that the entire scandal has emerged from a basic and blatant act of aggressive flirting with an undercover male cop.

Tasteless? Yes.

Criminal? No.

But the damage is done. Entrapment operations aim to do exactly what has been achieved here: humiliate and embarrass.

No one is the winner in this.

Not the public, not the police and certainly not Craig’s family or even his detractors.

Unfortunately, all the lurid details about the restroom encounter further marginalize gay people and may even push people like Craig deeper into denial or desperation.

Yes, of course, Craig is a hypocrite. He has one of the most anti-gay voting records in all of Congress. Not only did he work to block basic hate crimes and employment protections for gays and lesbians but he even took the radical step of supporting state and federal constitutional amendments to ban marriage equality for gay families.

But focusing on the obvious hypocrisy of Craig gets us nowhere.

We need to examine why fundamentalist religious attitudes about homosexuality are causing scandals like this.

If there were no shame around being gay, there would be far fewer sham marriages of convenience, fewer desperate acts of secret sexual encounters, fewer cases of sexually transmitted diseases and fewer legislative attacks on gay and lesbian people.

Hundreds of gay elected officials, including some in Congress, serve their communities openly without any fanfare. Craig appears to have chosen instead a path of shame and secrecy that harms gay people.

I don’t personally care if Craig is gay. But I do want him to support full equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Some closeted gay officials don’t support these issues because they believe it would be political suicide to be honest about their sexuality.

We may never know if Idahoans would have accepted Craig if he is gay and if he came out on his own terms.

Now it is too late.

And his legacy is a voting record based on fear instead of fairness, cowardice instead of leadership.

Sean Kosofsky is the director of policy for Triangle Foundation, Michigan’s leading civil rights organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. He also blogs at www.Bilerico.com and www.BlogOQueer.com. He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.