Craig's closet

Hilzoy, guest-blogging for Andrew Sullivan, looks at the disgraced Senator's voting record:

Craig seems to have made a habit of voting against laws that would secure the rights of gay men and lesbians. In addition to supporting the Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, he voted against a bill that would have banned job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, against expanding the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation, and was rated zero by the Human Rights Campaign in each of the last three Congresses (1, 2, 3; all pdf.) I truly can't imagine what it would be like -- how little self-respect a person would have to have -- to amass that sort of voting record while cruising for gay sex in airport restrooms.

And besides, if I had any sympathy for Larry Craig, the fact that he "handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, “What do you think about that?”" would have destroyed it. The laws are meant to apply to everyone, Senators included. ...

This kind of thing seems to happen quite a lot, and it will keep happening as long as many Republicans think homosexuality is something which should be hidden, denounced and denied. I have no idea what's going through Craig's mind, but I'll bet he can't even admit to himself that he's gay.

Damian P.

Update: "I am not gay. I have never been gay."

Posted by damian at August 28, 2007 07:02 AM