WASHINGTON - A government watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against Idaho Sen. Larry Craig Tuesday after Craig said he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges stemming from complaints of lewd conduct in a men's room.
The conservative three-term senator, who has represented Idaho in Congress for more than a quarter-century, is up for re-election next year. He hasn't said if he will run for a fourth term in 2008 and was expected to announce his plans this fall.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Senate ethics committee seeking an investigation into whether Craig violated Senate rules by engaging in disorderly conduct.
It's a really long article. You can read the rest here:
Senator's future in question after sex arrest - Politics - MSNBC.com
Evidently this bathroom was known as a spot where men have sex with each other. law enforcement had gotten many complaints about people having sex there.
It's pretty clear to me, if the officer's report is accurate, that Craig was looking for bathroom sex. Perhaps more telling than the foot touching or hand motions was his initial contact, where he stared through the crack in the officer's stall door and made and held eye contact. Even women, who don't have so much atavistic fear of being thought gay, would not do such a thing in the normal course of using the toilet. If you're in the bathroom "for its intended use" as the officer puts it, and you happen to glance through a door crack and catch someone's eye, the normal reaction is to look away hastily.
Craig said the reason he was running his hand along the bottom of the stall divider was that he was reaching for a dropped piece of paper. Which wasn't there, according to the police report, and even if it was, fondling the toilet cubicle is an odd way to retrieve something on the floor.
I suspect he pled guilty hoping no one would notice, especially since the crime he pled to was "disorderly conduct," not something inherently associated with illicit public sex.
Speaking of which, I'm pretty damned liberal about allowing consenting adults to chose what to do in their sex lives, but I can understand why cruising for sex in a public bathroom should be illegal. If you're outrageously flirting in a bar, presumably your plan is to go to a private place for consummation. Subjecting random strangers to intimate observation of your copulation is (in addition to being incredibly gross) worthy of legal prohibition, in my opinion.
I don't give a damn if he's gay. Whatever. It's the hypocrisy of pushing anti-gay agendas and generally being a hateful ass, while concealing membership in the persecuted group.
Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)
