What did he do wrong?

[packsaddle 753]

Again, if any of us have personal objections to Craig or his personal life, that is sufficient reason not to vote for him if that is what we choose (and if we are residents of Idaho). I have no problem with that.

However, in my view the guy may not be guilty of an actual crime. THAT question rightly belongs to the courts and he should be given the chance to fight it any way he sees fit. Let the government present the hard evidence and let him present his defence. And then let a jury decide. But keep all that separate from our personal voting preference. They are separate questions.

[acco40 95]

I found this report enlightening:

 

Back in the 1960s, long before a U.S. senator got busted for lewd behavior in an airport bathroom, it was called "the tearoom trade."

 

But social researchers knew almost nothing about it.

 

So a young graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis started digging. He spent months hanging out in the public restrooms of St. Louis' Forest Park. He wanted to observe the tearoom trade in action: men who met for brief, anonymous homosexual trysts in public. He wanted to discover what compelled them.

 

Laud Humphreys' research was pioneering. It shattered stereotypes. It also cost him his job.

 

Humphreys discovered the majority of men visiting "tearooms" were married and generally upstanding citizens. Many did not think of themselves as gay or bisexual. In his groundbreaking 1970 Ph.D dissertation, "Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Personal Places," Humphreys detailed the trade's constant rituals: shoe-tapping and reaching under the stalls as a covert way to seek out willing partners.

 

"This is exactly what you find in the case of (U.S. Sen.) Larry Craig," said John Galliher, sociology professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia and co-author of a Humphreys biography.

 

The parallels between Humphreys' research and the accusations against Craig, the Republican senator from Idaho, are striking. The undercover cop described how the senator tapped his foot in a stall at the Minneapolis airport in June and reached under the divider as an invitation for "lewd conduct." Even the senator's very public "I am not gay" protest earlier this week matches the theme of men whose actions do not match their public identities.

 

It was as if the Craig case had been plucked from Humphreys' pages, said Wayne Brekhus, another Missouri sociology professor and biography co-author. "Even this dance of nonverbal anonymity, it seems to have been preserved for 35-plus years."

 

Humphreys, a former Episcopalian priest from Oklahoma, began his research to learn what motivates men to seek quick, impersonal sexual gratification in open areas.

 

He stationed himself at different Forest Park washrooms the same small, stone buildings scattered through the park to this day. There was no shortage of research material: He wrote of witnessing 20 sex acts in just one hour while he waited out a thunderstorm at one restroom.

 

Humphreys noted how the men would use silent signals call and response foot-tapping and finger-pointing to seek out willing partners.

 

Even in the 1960s, police were wise to the game.

 

"When a homosexual takes a seat in the adjacent commode and starts tapping his foot," Humphreys wrote, "the (police) decoy will tap back."

 

That is what allegedly happened in Craig's situation.

 

"At 12:18 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct," the airport police sergeant wrote in his report. "Craig tapped his toes several times and moved his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly."

 

Craig motioned with his hand under the divider, according to the officer, who then held his police ID by the floor for the senator to see. The senator claimed his intentions were misconstrued: He said he has a "wide stance" during bathroom trips and that he was attempting to pick up a piece of paper.

 

But the senator pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct. When the case became public this week, he claimed he was not guilty. Humphreys, who died in 1988, would have been transfixed by the senator's case, his biographers say.

 

Humphreys conducted in-depth interviews with 100 men. Half of those he interviewed in the bathrooms. The other half he interviewed using clever and controversial methods. He would write down the men's license plate numbers and track them down a year later. He donned a disguise and talked to the men under the pretense of a social health survey. The men presumably never learned they were part of Humphreys' study.

 

Humphreys found that 54 percent of the men were married and living with their wives. He found 38 percent considered themselves neither bisexual nor homosexual. The men wanted a sexual release that was quick and would not endanger their standing with their family or society. Just 14 percent of the men identified themselves as living-in-the-open homosexuals.

 

"Most of the people who do these things are actually heterosexual," said Joel Jackson, youth advocacy coordinator for Project Ark, a St. Louis-based AIDS outreach group.

 

So the tearooms a slang term of unknown origin were populated not by gay men, but by supposedly straight men. The idea that a man could identify as a heterosexual while having homosexual sex was shocking. Yet it fit a larger sociological research interest in the diverging roles of a person's identity and actions.

 

Humphreys coined the term "breastplate of righteousness" to describe men who used the cloak of social and political conservatism to conceal their deviant behavior.

 

So while some people scoffed when Craig, a socially conservative Republican, claimed at a press conference that he was not gay, some sociologists believed him.

 

"I think Senator Craig is a hypocrite," Galliher said, "but I don't see him as a gay man."

 

The senator's case also brought attention to the little-known tearoom trade. Today, websites share ratings and comments on different public places for homosexual sex. There are hundreds listed in the St. Louis area, from restrooms along the highway to big-box stores in Kirkwood to shopping malls in Chesterfield and Frontenac.

 

But the bathrooms in Forest Park have fallen largely dormant, according to these websites and police.

 

"Forest Park for a while was a huge problem," said city police spokesman Richard Wilkes. "It took awhile for it to be cleaned up."

 

And because of the covert nature of the signals used to gauge sexual interest, many people might not even know what is going on. "If you're not looking for it, you might not notice it," Brekhus said.

 

When Humphreys published his findings, the Washington University chancellor was outraged he felt Humphreys had committed a felony by witnessing a felony and not reporting it. The school threatened to withhold Humphreys' doctorate. He was forced to leave. He taught briefly at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He finished his career at Pitzer College in California.

 

At the time of the tearoom study, Humphreys had a wife and two children. Many people wondered why he was attracted to his area of study.

 

Years later he provided an answer.

 

He revealed that he, too, had been living a lie. He was gay.

 

Todd Frankel

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

 

[packsaddle 753]

Now THAT was interesting. I'll have to see if I can IL a copy of that dissertation.

There is similar behavior, perhaps not as well described or as elaborate, in other mammals as well. While the 'gayness' of these animals can't truly be determined, the behavior is very clear. Absolutely fascinating.

[eisely 13]

I do not have a great deal of sympathy for Craig. He was foolish to cop a plea to a lesser offense if he really felt that he had done nothing wrong. I will be surprised if the court goes along with vacating his plea.

 

The Republican Senate leadership has dealt with him harshly over a relatively minor manner. However, the media and the other party successfully hold the Republicans to higher standards of behavior. Maybe the choice over continuing in office should be left to Craig and the citizens of Idaho, but stripping Craig of his leadership positions was not unfair and totally within the authority of the party leadership in the Senate.

 

I don't know how big a problem this behavior is at the Minneapolis Airport, but I will leave it to the local authorities to decide how to allocate their resources.

 

This is a pathetic situation. What is more pathetic is how the media virtually ignored the scandal over the Democratic fund raiser Norman Hsu and the arrest of the two Florida students on a terrorist mission to provide endless coverage of the Craig situation.

 

In the meantime guys - keep your happy feet under control or risk arrest.

[Beavah 205]

Now THAT was interesting. I'll have to see if I can IL a copy of that dissertation.

 

Yeh can actually buy the book. Search Amazon for the title.

 

B

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

To add a new wrinkle, since Craig was traveling to DC to vote on a bill, his arrest was unconstitutional. It's likely the entire case will be thrown out.(This message has been edited by Merlyn_LeRoy)

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Is thie related to that guy from Lousiana who had cash stuffed in his freezer because he was accepting bribes and fought the search as he thought it was unconstitutional?

[GernBlansten 10]

Merlyn, got a cite for the provision that secures a traveling senator from arrest while performing his constitutional duties?

You might be onto something. Several years ago I got stopped for speeding. The cop asked me if had a valid reason to speed. I relented that I was fresh out, then asked what where the valid reasons. He said, 1) a medical emergency 2) being late to a vote in the legislature.

 

 

OGE, the Jefferson issue is that the FBI raided his official congressional office. It had members of both parties up in arms. When hunting big game, one must be wverrry wverry kwareful.

[John-in-KC 311]

Lisa,

 

From a parental POV, your point back to me is entrely worthy!!

 

Gern,

 

US Constitution, Artile I, Section 6:

http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html

 

Section. 6.

 

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

 

Boldface for emphasis only

[OldGreyEagle 5]

Ok, I will use hyperbole

 

So, if a Congressman wants to use his Official Congressional Office as a combination brothel/opium den, its sanctity cant be violated by law enforcement agencies?

 

The guy was caught red handed still in the cookie jar and all I heard about was how illegal the search was. No condemnation of what was done by the COngressman

[GernBlansten 10]

OGE. Yes.

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

Congressman Jefferson was indicted by a grand jury on 16 counts on June 4, 2007, so he's not exactly out of the woods. The money was found in a search of his house, not his office. It doesn't look like the investigation relies on anything from his office.

[eisely 13]

The application of the constitution to the Craig case had also occurred to me, but I suppose the burden is on Craig to invoke it. In the case of Jefferson, the issue was raised about the FBI raid on his offices in DC, not the seizure of the money he accepted. As I recall the resolution of the search question, the government agreed to return most files and the use of any files seized from the offices will be reviewed by the court.

[OldGreyEagle 5]

I did not mean to imply the money found was in the congressional office searched although I certainly could have worded my post on that topic better.

 

 

[eisely 13]

Since Jefferson is from Louisiana, there is a great quote from the original Huey Long pertinent to the question of corruption, "Louisianans do not tolerate political corruption, they insist upon it."