Larry Craig and the "family values" Republicans

Assailed by temptation

Sometimes I think I have some reasonable understanding of the attitude of the Republicans and white Christian fundamentalists toward sexual "misconduct" as defined by their own set of "traditional" and "family" values. Other times, like now, I find myself wondering if I am even close to understanding it. Yet another prominent Republican "family values" advocate proves that he, too, is human: Men's room arrest reopens questions about Sen. Larry Craig by Dan Popkey, McClatchy 08/28/07.

Glenn Greenwald in Larry Craig's bathroom behavior and the right wing - then and now Salon 08/28/07 examines the flip-flopping outrage for prominent conservative bloggers over the Craig case.

I'll confess here that I've never experimented with sex of any kind in public restrooms. Somehow if I try to imagine romantic or exotic settings for a moment of personal intimacy, the airport bathroom stall doesn't just instinctively pop into my mind.

The "sophisticated" thing to say about situations like this is something along the lines of, "I don't object to what he did, that's his business. But it says something bad about his judgment that he did it." That let's you cover all the bases without actually saying much of anything. Always a useful conversational skill.


The truth is, I kind of like the idea of not allowing sex in the toilet stalls at the aiport bathrooms. Call me a prude. But that just makes sense to me.

But I still think that after all the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothing over these cases, most voters (outside of maybe immediate relatives) just don't much care about this kind of thing. Sure, people like to make snarky gossip about it. But does it really decide their votes? As long as it involves consenting adults and doesn't involve serious bodily harm, I doubt it makes a difference, as long as the politician has a good base of support and is willing to tough out the embarassment.

Tags: larry craig

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