08/09: The Real Sin of Larry Craig
Category: Politics
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Tying up some lose ends. Last Saturday, I drafted a sub-heading for this post:
"It is finished. The Ordeal of Larry Craig is Over."
But this week contradictory signals continued to emanate from the senator's camp. At week's end, however, the long, strange journey of Senator Larry Craig seems to be nearing its terminus.
Who is responsible for the tragic demise of this career public official?
1. Larry Craig. From any angle, the Senator from Idaho committed egregious errors in judgment and/or conduct.
2. Republicans. At the heart of this matter is the deportment of Craig, but give the panicking Republican Party a big assist. So frightened by polls and the upcoming elections, GOP politicians abandoned loyalty and compassion in the rush to throw an embarrassing friend overboard post haste.
3. The Axis of Liberalism. The shameless inconsistency of Democrats and the so-called progressives was even more revolting than Republican cowardice. The shock troops of "tolerance" declared open season on Craig. Formerly fastidious mavens of open-mindedness tossed aside all previous protestations that the sex lives of public officials should be off-limits to scrutiny and inquiry from the unsophisticated mob.
Craig was not just fair game for these erstwhile sophisticates, they ravaged the wounded senator with a sense of righteous entitlement and a palpable giddiness.
Why was it suddenly appropriate to delve into the private sexual affairs of public figures?
Nancy Gibbs offered an excellent analysis in the 10 September edition of TIME Magazine:
"[O]ne gleeful wing of the commentariat seized on Craig as just the latest family-values conservative unmasked as a hypocrite for opposing gay marriage in public while soliciting gay sex in private...."
But was "hypocrite" the right characterization?
Gibbs again:
"[I]f Craig truly believes homosexuality is wrong, his fault would be weakness, not hypocrisy."
Who are the real hypocrites?
"We can be a country that commemorates gay marriages in the Sunday papers and exalts gay characters in our sitcoms but still views it as career suicide to be an openly gay actor or athlete or politician unless you represent some very select ZIP codes."
The Gibbs essay in full here.
But it was more than mere hypocrisy, some said. What about the rule of law? Craig was a convicted law-breaker.
Reality Check: In truth, the reviled senator plead guilty to a misdemeanor (disorderly conduct to be precise). More to the point, roll tape on the Clinton years. Does any of this newly minted puritanical devotion to law and order pass the smell test? Not even close.
As I said earlier, considering the circumstances, a reasonable person will likely conclude that Craig was seeking a homosexual encounter in the Minneapolis airport. Notwithstanding, the evidence is thin and completely inferential. No one really doubts that Craig could have easily beaten the charges—but, apparent to all, the real issue was the question of sexual preference.
Was Larry Craig a latent homosexual in the habit of cruising public restrooms for a little action? Was this a long-standing pattern of conduct?
Once again: probably, but the evidence was pretty thin. After an exhaustive investigation on the part of the Idaho Statesman and a host of others, the fourth estate uncovered a person who remembered Larry Craig suggesting a homosexual rendezvous back in 1967 at a fraternity party, and a homosexual who claimed that the Senator followed him around a grocery store in Boise back in 1994, giving him the eye and raising his prominent eyebrows in a suggestive way. The Statesman also affirmed the plausibility of the anonymous source who initiated all this with an accusation of an oral encounter in the restroom at Union Station in 2004.
However, the forces that combined to deconstruct Larry Craig really didn't give a damn about sexual deviancy or the rule of law. If this cause celebre had cut the other way politically, it is easy to imagine that the questions of evidence, police procedures, and even the law itself would have played a much more significant role in the public discussion.
Larry Craig's great sin?
Craig's intolerance for homosexuality. To be more precise, Craig articulated a belief system that viewed homosexuality as unnatural, outside of God's plan, and a less-than-optimal option for society.
Craig committed the cardinal sin of the post-modern world in which "intolerance" is the root of all evil. There are some exceptions. Intolerance for intolerance is a great virtue. That is, intolerance for racism, homophobia, or conservative religious fervor marks one as enlightened and...tolerant.
But Craig judged a politically protected lifestyle, homosexuality and same-sex marriage, inferior to the traditional prescription for the health and stability for a community, heterosexual marriage. When his conduct made him vulnerable, the agents of tolerance descended upon him and meted out a humiliating public excoriation.
What could have saved Larry Craig? Admission and repentance. Not repentance for his alleged sexually aberrant behavior--but for his cultural apostasy. That is, if Craig had come clean as a tortured person with inclinations toward acts that he vehemently disapproved of and disagreed with morally, he would not have satisfied the ravenous pack assembled against him. He could not have propitiated liberals by coming clean and committing to continue his imperfect struggle with sinful desires, pledging to diligently police his proclivities in the future.
Actually, Craig could not have passed muster with either side of the cultural divide with an admission and promise of that nature. Social conservatives, generally, do not accept the sin of homosexuality the way they do heterosexual infidelity. That is, the David Vitters and Bill Clintons of the world can contritely announce their peccadilloes with the opposite sex, apologize, ask for forgiveness, and move on. Edwin Edwards had it right (politically) years ago when he bragged he was untouchable as long as no one discovered him in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.
Nancy Gibbs is absolutely right to speak to the double standard in American politics. Larry Craig properly understood that any admission of homosexuality would finish him with conservatives.
However, he very possibly could have won over his progressive critics. Craig could have "come out" as a homosexual, repudiated his former heterosexual life as a self-destructive lie told repeatedly to conform to the unrealistic demands of a repressed society, and fully embraced the gay lifestyle. If he had repented his sins of intolerance loudly and publicly, Craig would have instantly won a place of honor and merited a pass among the liberal inteligentsia.
However, as long as Craig holds to his view that the gay lifestyle is something less than normal and beneficial, he will find no mercy among the true believers on the ideological left.
"It is finished. The Ordeal of Larry Craig is Over."
But this week contradictory signals continued to emanate from the senator's camp. At week's end, however, the long, strange journey of Senator Larry Craig seems to be nearing its terminus.
Who is responsible for the tragic demise of this career public official?
1. Larry Craig. From any angle, the Senator from Idaho committed egregious errors in judgment and/or conduct.
2. Republicans. At the heart of this matter is the deportment of Craig, but give the panicking Republican Party a big assist. So frightened by polls and the upcoming elections, GOP politicians abandoned loyalty and compassion in the rush to throw an embarrassing friend overboard post haste.
3. The Axis of Liberalism. The shameless inconsistency of Democrats and the so-called progressives was even more revolting than Republican cowardice. The shock troops of "tolerance" declared open season on Craig. Formerly fastidious mavens of open-mindedness tossed aside all previous protestations that the sex lives of public officials should be off-limits to scrutiny and inquiry from the unsophisticated mob.
Craig was not just fair game for these erstwhile sophisticates, they ravaged the wounded senator with a sense of righteous entitlement and a palpable giddiness.
Why was it suddenly appropriate to delve into the private sexual affairs of public figures?
Nancy Gibbs offered an excellent analysis in the 10 September edition of TIME Magazine:
"[O]ne gleeful wing of the commentariat seized on Craig as just the latest family-values conservative unmasked as a hypocrite for opposing gay marriage in public while soliciting gay sex in private...."
But was "hypocrite" the right characterization?
Gibbs again:
"[I]f Craig truly believes homosexuality is wrong, his fault would be weakness, not hypocrisy."
Who are the real hypocrites?
"We can be a country that commemorates gay marriages in the Sunday papers and exalts gay characters in our sitcoms but still views it as career suicide to be an openly gay actor or athlete or politician unless you represent some very select ZIP codes."
The Gibbs essay in full here.
But it was more than mere hypocrisy, some said. What about the rule of law? Craig was a convicted law-breaker.
Reality Check: In truth, the reviled senator plead guilty to a misdemeanor (disorderly conduct to be precise). More to the point, roll tape on the Clinton years. Does any of this newly minted puritanical devotion to law and order pass the smell test? Not even close.
As I said earlier, considering the circumstances, a reasonable person will likely conclude that Craig was seeking a homosexual encounter in the Minneapolis airport. Notwithstanding, the evidence is thin and completely inferential. No one really doubts that Craig could have easily beaten the charges—but, apparent to all, the real issue was the question of sexual preference.
Was Larry Craig a latent homosexual in the habit of cruising public restrooms for a little action? Was this a long-standing pattern of conduct?
Once again: probably, but the evidence was pretty thin. After an exhaustive investigation on the part of the Idaho Statesman and a host of others, the fourth estate uncovered a person who remembered Larry Craig suggesting a homosexual rendezvous back in 1967 at a fraternity party, and a homosexual who claimed that the Senator followed him around a grocery store in Boise back in 1994, giving him the eye and raising his prominent eyebrows in a suggestive way. The Statesman also affirmed the plausibility of the anonymous source who initiated all this with an accusation of an oral encounter in the restroom at Union Station in 2004.
However, the forces that combined to deconstruct Larry Craig really didn't give a damn about sexual deviancy or the rule of law. If this cause celebre had cut the other way politically, it is easy to imagine that the questions of evidence, police procedures, and even the law itself would have played a much more significant role in the public discussion.
Larry Craig's great sin?
Craig's intolerance for homosexuality. To be more precise, Craig articulated a belief system that viewed homosexuality as unnatural, outside of God's plan, and a less-than-optimal option for society.
Craig committed the cardinal sin of the post-modern world in which "intolerance" is the root of all evil. There are some exceptions. Intolerance for intolerance is a great virtue. That is, intolerance for racism, homophobia, or conservative religious fervor marks one as enlightened and...tolerant.
But Craig judged a politically protected lifestyle, homosexuality and same-sex marriage, inferior to the traditional prescription for the health and stability for a community, heterosexual marriage. When his conduct made him vulnerable, the agents of tolerance descended upon him and meted out a humiliating public excoriation.
What could have saved Larry Craig? Admission and repentance. Not repentance for his alleged sexually aberrant behavior--but for his cultural apostasy. That is, if Craig had come clean as a tortured person with inclinations toward acts that he vehemently disapproved of and disagreed with morally, he would not have satisfied the ravenous pack assembled against him. He could not have propitiated liberals by coming clean and committing to continue his imperfect struggle with sinful desires, pledging to diligently police his proclivities in the future.
Actually, Craig could not have passed muster with either side of the cultural divide with an admission and promise of that nature. Social conservatives, generally, do not accept the sin of homosexuality the way they do heterosexual infidelity. That is, the David Vitters and Bill Clintons of the world can contritely announce their peccadilloes with the opposite sex, apologize, ask for forgiveness, and move on. Edwin Edwards had it right (politically) years ago when he bragged he was untouchable as long as no one discovered him in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.
Nancy Gibbs is absolutely right to speak to the double standard in American politics. Larry Craig properly understood that any admission of homosexuality would finish him with conservatives.
However, he very possibly could have won over his progressive critics. Craig could have "come out" as a homosexual, repudiated his former heterosexual life as a self-destructive lie told repeatedly to conform to the unrealistic demands of a repressed society, and fully embraced the gay lifestyle. If he had repented his sins of intolerance loudly and publicly, Craig would have instantly won a place of honor and merited a pass among the liberal inteligentsia.
However, as long as Craig holds to his view that the gay lifestyle is something less than normal and beneficial, he will find no mercy among the true believers on the ideological left.
an okie gardener wrote: