In what world does soliciting sex in a public restroom equal attraction to people of the same sex? Where did we get the notion that lewd acts equal same-sex attraction? Is it just something we connect because so many people think same-sex attraction is lewd, therefore any number of lewd acts can be inherently tied to same-sex attraction?
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I agree with the Senator that he's not gay. He clearly doesn't think he is, and much as nature may have intended one specific course for him, he intends a different course for himself. Rather than acknowledging what could be a beautiful, loving man who is happy and comfortable with being different from what some people in our society consider acceptable, he has instead chosen to be one of those closed-minded people, particularly with respect to himself. As a result, the attraction remains, but the acknowledgment is repressed.
I'm tired of people like Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, and now Larry Craig giving the rest of us gay folks a bad image.
Look, soliciting sex in a bathroom, sleeping with a male prostitute, or hitting on underage pages is not an expression of gayness.
It's just the opposite.
These are instead expressions of fear of one's innate nature and an unwillingness to live openly and honestly with oneself and one's family, friends, parishoners, and constituents.
So stop with all the "gay" talk. I'm gay. I have gay friends. And, you know what? We get knocked around and exploited all the time by people like Senator Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, and Mark Foley who think the only problem with being gay is acknowledging it.
Update: For those of you not understanding, I make the statement that he's "not gay" a little tongue-in-cheek, because obviously the guy has same-sex attractions. I just hate that solicitation for sex in a public restroom turns into talk of same-sex attraction, which is a separate issue. I mean, when Senator Vitter in Louisiana was outed as using prostitutes, did the conversation become about him being heterosexual?
Update 2: For those of you wanting a little more clarity around my point, it's things like this diary:
He made a clear definitive statement ["I am not gay."] that everyone who is reading this knows is utterly false. It's also a statement that is going to be easy to disprove. I expect that in the next couple of weeks, a number of Craig's gay-sex partners who until now have remained anonymous are going to come forward.
A same-sex encounter is not the same as being gay. And so long as the Senator claims he isn't gay, are you or I going to claim to know better?
Stop allowing this pitiful Senator to distract us from the real issue here. It's not that he's gay. It's that he broke the law in a very clear way (whether entrapped or not, which I think is an actually legitimate case that he probably will not touch). Soliciting sex from another man in a public bathroom does not equal gay. But, sadly, as the above-linked diary predicts, being gay might be reason enough to speculate on how many days he has left... something we've yet to do for Senator David Vitter, who just so happens to have cheated on his wife in his own way, but getting sex with other women isn't nearly as offensive to our sensibilities I suppose.
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