"Lewd Conduct"

Hilarious as it is to learn that Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) got arrested in June in Minneapolis for "lewd conduct," I'm actually pretty puzzled by the legal issues in play here:

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could ... see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”

Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it.

Now, common sense indicates that the officer in question is correct and Craig's foot-tapping was a cruising signal, but surely tapping one's foot isn't a crime in Minnesota. Whatever Craig intended to do here, he doesn't seem, in fact, to have done anything lewd. I suppose that Craig, wanting to keep this whole thing hushed up, wouldn't have wanted to fight the charges, but it's still hard to see how he could have imagined that it wouldn't come out sooner or later.

Here's a history of gay life in Idaho.

Comments

I'm sure there's something in the USA Patriot Act that lowers the threshold for gay cruising surveillance/prosecution.

Posted by Bill | August 27, 2007 5:31 PM

BTW, I'm pretty much in Closeted GOP Congressman Big Gay Scandal Heaven these days.

Posted by Bill | August 27, 2007 5:34 PM

Gosh, it's like one a month these days.

Posted by stm177 | August 27, 2007 5:42 PM

Though, to bolster his case the plainclothesman shoulda held out for glory hole confirmation.

Posted by Bill | August 27, 2007 5:47 PM

Boy, I hope Senator Craig steers clear of the Tap Dancing Academy restroom or there could be some verrry awkward misunderstandings.

Posted by Media Glutton | August 27, 2007 5:53 PM

Back when I first visited Toronto in the early 1980s, before it became such a gay center, the city had a low tolerance of any gay behavior. I read in the newspaper that undercover cops patrolled men's rooms, stood at urinals, and if other men made eye contact with them, arrested them for soliciting lewd behavior.

Not making this up - apparently this sort of thing could get you in trouble.

Posted by hopeless pedant | August 27, 2007 5:57 PM

I suppose Craig may just have been looking to "low five" someone after a particularly satisfying bowel movement. But probably not.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | August 27, 2007 6:16 PM

Well, even if this were sufficient for conviction, the penalty would be a slap on the (limp) wrist. The reason it's yet important is that you cannot plausibly deny misconduct when you've been arrested in a men's room. Everyone knows and is openly discussing what he's been up to.

Craig's career is over. They'll find some nutcase to replace him in Idaho, but we can still make them play defense on an open seat (and, for that matter, milk the situation for all it's worth nationally).

Posted by Mike B. | August 27, 2007 6:17 PM

It seems crazy that picking up someone is against the law. Would it still be illegal if Craig had openly propositioned the cop? Just imagine the penalty if he'd done it in a bar?

Posted by shecky | August 27, 2007 6:21 PM

Craig appears to have been arrested for the crime of being gay. There's no way this could be consistently applied to heteros.

Craig also appears to be a closeted shithead who voted against even simple anti-discrimination laws.

I think the situation is broadly unjust, but seeing Craig get his comeuppance scores pretty well on the vengeance scale. The structures of homophobia that he worked to build and strengthen his entire career have now brought him down.

Posted by DivGuy | August 27, 2007 6:32 PM

It seems crazy that picking up someone is against the law.

It's not, generally speaking. What he was arrested for was (apparently) an attempt to pick someone up in a restroom stall. Context matters.

Posted by alkali | August 27, 2007 6:33 PM

I think DivGuy nails it. Craig sounds like he's worked hard to deserve anything he gets, but it isn't that clear to me why the alleged behavior - invasive and abusive though it seems to be - is more clearly illegal in a restroom than at a lunch counter.

Posted by Warren Terra | August 27, 2007 6:51 PM

It's not, generally speaking. What he was arrested for was (apparently) an attempt to pick someone up in a restroom stall. Context matters.

Explain how. What makes picking up a guy - totally legal activity - illegal the moment it happens in a restroom? It's not the world's nicest thing to do, but I see no explanation for the "context" other than the criminalization of being gay.

And, again, this is neither a defense nor an expression of sympathy for Larry Craig - I'll save most of my sympathy for the people who lost jobs, lost basic legal rights in their relationships, lost public recognition for their love in part because Larry Craig was campaigning and voting against them in Washington.

Posted by DivGuy | August 27, 2007 6:52 PM

This is not, btw, an incident without precedent for Senator Craig: in 2006 blogger Mike Rogers publicly claimed to have met several men who claimed to have had sex with the Senator in similar circumstances.

(I attempted to post this with a link to the actual story, but the Atlantic's spamfilter apparently did not approve, and Matthew never actually looks at his moderation queue as far as I can tell. So you'll just have to google for "Mike Rogers Senator Craig" to find the story.)

Posted by Doctor Memory | August 27, 2007 7:02 PM

One caveat, and a suggestion:

The caveat: it is possible that the "lewd behavior" for which he was charged was the peeking in the officer's stall, and the hovering around outside of it. If you are in a stall, not looking for sexual contact, and someone does this for reasons you are not appraised of, you would surely find it disconcerting, and perhaps perverse. It hardly seems like the conduct described in this aspect reaches a test of lewdness, but perhaps it would be sufficient to generate some just complaint -- though surely not arrest.

That said, I assume that the actionable offense turns out to be the signaling in search of sex; if mere peeking was enough to justify arrest, the cop could have gotten his bust right away.

On that assumption, I both agree with Matt and would suggest we actually proclaim loudly that an injustice has been done to Sen. Craig. Not only is the behavior described not lewd, it should be clearly protected speech.

Consider: if a man had started making eye contact and even playing what appears to be fully consensual footsie with a woman in the open seating area of the airport, we call that courting. If she objects to such behavior, then his persistence might be harassment, but here we have what looks like a coded conversation in the nature of courtship (albeit of a fleeting kind), and one that the officer participates in as an equal partner (he knows the codes and sends the signals that suggest he's a willing participant). There's no hint that this is a financial arrangement, so it's not soliciting for prostitution. It's plain communication of sexual desire in a private conversation which occurs in a public space. This is actually still allowed in in this country.

The only thing that seems to make it lewd is that it involves homosexual sex; and this supposed lewdness makes the officer's actions more than an objectionable exercise of police power; it's a violation of civil rights in several respects. Whether or not Sen. Craig wants support from civil libertarians, he should not be pilloried for this act, and in fact should be supported as a victim of an unjust act of policing.

His hypocrisy in his public office is another matter; it does not, however, make his arrest any more defensible.

Best wishes,

ScottA

Posted by ScottA | August 27, 2007 7:02 PM

What is illegal is having sex in a public restroom. Presumably he was soliciting the cop for sex right there, if he had said "hey lets go get a hotel room" no crime is commited.

What I find strange is that guys having sex in the Minneapolis airport restrooms is apparantly so rampant that they have undercover cops on sting operations.

Posted by Eric K | August 27, 2007 7:03 PM

DivGuy writes:

What makes picking up a guy - totally legal activity - illegal the moment it happens in a restroom?

Because by social convention there's an expectation of privacy in a restroom. The fact that public restrooms are sex-segregated reflects that social convention; if public restrooms weren't segregated by sex, I assume men would be busted for hitting on women in public restrooms as well. This is not so difficult to understand.

I don't dispute that various law enforcement authorities give an entirely disproportionate amount of attention to the phenomenon of cruising in public bathrooms, and it's hard for me to imagine that it should be criminally prosecuted, any more than we prosecute people for trying to sneak a cigarette in a stall of a non-smoking public restroom. But it's absurd to suggest that there's no reasonable public interest in trying to prevent that conduct.

Posted by alkali | August 27, 2007 7:06 PM

if public restrooms weren't segregated by sex, I assume men would be busted for hitting on women in public restrooms as well.

We had co-ed restrooms in college. Lots of people hit on other people. No one was arrested.

I see no reason to single out restrooms as a private space, except that they are usually single-sex, and as such criminalizing picking up people in restrooms is criminalizing being gay.

Posted by DivGuy | August 27, 2007 7:11 PM

The presumption that you won't be hit on in a restroom is obviously a heteronormative assumption. In the places in the world where co-ed bathrooms exist, touching someone's foot with your foot is creepy, not criminal. In single-sex bathrooms, it's apparently criminal. That's completely discriminatory.

Posted by DivGuy | August 27, 2007 7:14 PM

Again OT but I think that the liberal blogasphere had better be very concerned with the initiative in California which would divide its electoral votes proportional to the popular vote. If this initiative passes, the 2008 election is over and is a slam dunk for the Rethuglicans. There is no way in the world the Democrats can win without all 55 of Californias' electoral votes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/26/AR2007082601184.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

Posted by SLC | August 27, 2007 7:21 PM

In the places in the world where co-ed bathrooms exist, touching someone's foot with your foot is creepy, not criminal.

Data please. I think the places in the world I've been to (in California) such behavior could get you arrested for attempted rape.

Posted by jerry | August 27, 2007 7:36 PM

IANAL, but it seems obvious that the alleged criminality is "lewd conduct," specifically the solicitation of sex in a way that is defined as such.

Just exactly how solicitation of sex qualifies as "lewd" and therefore criminal presumably depends on local laws and customs and on the specific details of place and manner. Hitting on someone, say, over coffee in a mall food-court presumably is legal. Overt prostitution in that same food-court, even not for money, presumably would not be.

As you note, the arresting officer's affidavit makes clear that he knew foot-tapping wasn't "just" foot-tapping. He was being cruised and he knew it. (And Craig's guilty plea makes it clear he knew it as well.) And presumably there is local statutory or case law, or something other than the officer's own opinion, that defines solicitation for sex in a public restroom as "lewd."

Of course, this still begs the questions of WHY it is so defined, and whether that definition is just, and if so, whether it is deserved in this case. It certainly seems both homophobic and Victorian to me. But I'm guessing they're on pretty solid ground legally if they're detailing police officers to sit around in bathroom stalls all day...

Posted by bleh | August 27, 2007 7:38 PM

Well maybe not rape, but certainly some form of sexual assault.

I would think that if a male, in a male bathroom touched my foot, I would certainly be happy to see that person arrested for sexual harassment or assault. Presumably, with a stall between them, the person on the other side has no idea who is in the stall, male, adult/underaged teenager/large child.

You might be upset that the cop didn't require the behavior go further, but how much further could it have legally gone?

When cops arrest prostitutes the cops are certainly not allowed to engage in sex, and usually not allowed to even undress.

I am very gay friendly, but against allowing ANY sexual activities to occur in restrooms, if only because I like my privacy so I can take a goddamned shit without having to squat behind some half-door or other anti-sex preventive measure.

Posted by jerry | August 27, 2007 7:42 PM

I agree with somebody or other...the fact that he lurked outside the stall for two minutes, trying (and evidently succeeding) to look in, is pretty damned lewd.

Karsnia entered the bathroom at noon that day and about 13 minutes after taking a seat in a stall, he stated he could see “an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall.”

The man, who lingered in front of the stall for two minutes, was later identified as Craig.

“I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes,” the report states.

Posted by dan | August 27, 2007 7:43 PM

Thanks, SLC. Obviously no one in the blogosphere has posted anything about that, so it was essential for you to comment about it here even though it has absolutely no connection to the subject. Did you hear that Gonzales resigned?

Posted by KCinDC | August 27, 2007 7:44 PM

But I'm guessing they're on pretty solid ground legally if they're detailing police officers to sit around in bathroom stalls all day...

Now, if the situation was more fluid, the officers would probably be standing around bathroom stalls all day.

Posted by jerry | August 27, 2007 7:45 PM

The charges Craig copped to were just what he was willing to plead out for. He was likely facing stiffer and more unpleasant charges.

Pleading to "lewd conduct", you can always claim that you didn't mean to look into the stall, you'd dropped something on the floor, your "stance" is wide, etc.

If you went to court and were convicted on a solicitation charge, on the other hand, and you were in a men's restroom, it doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room, if you know what I mean.

Posted by darrelplant | August 27, 2007 7:46 PM

"So you'll just have to google for "Mike Rogers Senator Craig" to find the story."

I did, and all that came up was this comment thread.

Posted by Jim E. | August 27, 2007 7:46 PM

The presumption that you won't be hit on in a restroom is obviously a heteronormative assumption.

Is this parody?

Posted by jerry | August 27, 2007 7:49 PM

Um, Jim, If try it without the quotation marks you'll have better results.

And I'm just gobsmacked that Google indexed this comment thread inside an hour.

Posted by Warren Terra | August 27, 2007 7:52 PM

time to let Fox lose and destroy the reputation of the officer.

any chance Rove's Justice Dept took a look, made some calls to the Minn officals to get the thing thrown out?

Posted by jim | August 27, 2007 7:53 PM

jerry, in the comment you quote, I think the commenter was referring to as 'heteronormative' the idea that being in a sex-segregated space (such as, but not limited to, bathrooms) insures that you will not be hit on. I don't think the 'heteronormative' idea was that bathrooms are not an appropriate place for social interaction, let alone pickups. I could of course be totally wrong.

Posted by Warren Terra | August 27, 2007 7:57 PM

I would certainly be uncomfortable in a stall where I was privy to a neighboring sexual act whether homo- or heterosexual. We have all taken a tumble in the bushes but I think there is a reasonable expectation of propriety in a public and heavily used restroom like at an airport. If this has become a problem the question becomes what do we do about it? Arresting someone merely on the basis of a gesture seems silly but my impression is that taking it much further moves into the realm of entrapment. I don't think homosexuals should have any different expectations foisted upon them than heterosexuals. That said, I can see how this would be a tricky law enforcement issue.

Posted by Enzo | August 27, 2007 8:08 PM

On expectation of privacy (single sex or mixed sex) in public toilets. Absolutely. That's why there are stalls with doors.

Signaling with foot: this is so old as a tearoom sex practice that I'm appalled that people are surprised and appalled.

As to entrapment: the law is the law, and we've gone pretty far on surveilance (traffic light cams, sidewalk cams, etc.).

I'm all for gays and str8s being held to the same standards, as long as the standards are reasonable social attempts to prevent and punish bad behavior. Sex doesn't belong in public toilets. Having seen the results of jerkoff sex splattered on toilet stall walls when I really wanted just to 'do my duty' in a clean place, I can say this is totally disgusting.

One of the major consequences of making gay sex previously illegal (and still socially repressed in most places) is that creeps like Craig feel like they have to hide their homosexual desires in the closet, in this case the water closet.

That's not to say as a out gay man that I don't get some special pleasure in seeing the hypocrites on gay sex getting their due.

Fingers under the stall wall, Oh My!

Posted by JimPortlandOR | August 27, 2007 8:36 PM

The charges Craig copped to were just what he was willing to plead out for. He was likely facing stiffer and more unpleasant charges.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070827/ap_on_go_co/craig_arrest

"A Hennepin County court docket showed Craig pleading guilty to the disorderly conduct charge Aug. 8, with the court dismissing a charge of gross misdemeanor interference to privacy."

Posted by Arun | August 27, 2007 9:01 PM

The police officer was in the stall for 13 minutes when Craig came along? Is that right?

If true, I think that a good lawyer could have gotten Craig off. It's a reasonable guess that someone hanging inside a bathroom stall for that long is there for some reason other than moving his bowels. If you buy that, than we are at least halfway to a defense of entrapment.

Posted by Hal | August 27, 2007 9:34 PM

Hal, some people don't eat enough fiber (LOL) or do their news reading on the throne, so 13 min. doesn't sound very suspicious to me.

I don't see how Craig could justify the hand under the divider thing as some form of innocent behavior. Now maybe if Craig was down on his knees with his head under the wall it might be really clear what his intent was, but the hand waving seems pretty hard to ignore.

Since toilet detail seems to be regular work in Minn., I'd guess the cop was well trained by prosecutors as to where the line was on entrapment.

Why would anyone want to work on a vice detail?

Posted by JimPortlandOR | August 27, 2007 9:51 PM

Hal, some people don't eat enough fiber (LOL) or do their news reading on the throne, so 13 min. doesn't sound very suspicious to me.

News reading? Maybe we could get him for goldbricking.

I figure if some dude tries to play footsie with me, I get to stomp on his foot, same as if I try to play footsie with an unwilling woman, she gets to drive her high heel through my foot.

Courtship is risky.

Posted by daveNYC | August 27, 2007 10:48 PM

He was arrested for disorderly conduct - based on how he acted like an ass, like Chris Shays and Cynthia McKinney, once the cop confronted him - not lewd conduct. I'm not sure they would have had enough to go on based on foot tapping and putting the suitcase in front of the door, as opposed to on his lap or on top of his head, I suppose.

In the world of things I was completely oblivious to, tapping your foot in a stall is a signal? Damn - next thing you know using the stall in the bathroom will be considered a pickup. After that - going into a bathroom at all. Sorry for the excessive information, but things get boring in there sometimes - tapping your foot to some stupid tune in your head is about all you got to pass the time.

Posted by Dan | August 27, 2007 11:48 PM

"The police officer was in the stall for 13 minutes when Craig came along? Is that right?"

Good point. Were the other stalls full? Was Craig hanging out outside and peering in wondering what the hell was taking this guy so long, cause he really had to go? Airport bathrooms can range in size, and I have no first hand knowledge of Minneapolis' airport bathrooms.

Posted by dan | August 27, 2007 11:51 PM

Why would Craig have his wedding ring on his right hand - the one he would have reached under the stall with?

Wedding ring on his left hand:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/images/docs/4091_4275/Craig1.jpg

No rings on his right hand:

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/00dCdAbfCX72d/340x.jpg

Maybe he switched them for some reason - but it's rare to see a wedding ring on a right hand, especially if its usually on your left.

Posted by Anonymous | August 27, 2007 11:58 PM

These kinds of incidents make you wonder how times this has happened and was not reported. Kinda scary and ironic when you realize that the individuals who makes laws punishing molesters and people who conduct lewd acts may very well be one.

Posted by WChen | August 28, 2007 12:06 AM

"At 1213 hours, I could see an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall."
So the cop has X-ray vision to see through a metal door?

"My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall."
And MY experience has shown me that when I'm in an airport restroom, and need to use a stall, I don't want to leave my bags outside the stall, and there usually is not a convenient overhead rack or underseat storage compartment. Where ELSE would someone put their bag?
This affidavit is enough to gain a conviction? Imagine all the other crappy convictions happening every day all over this great land of ours. To people even less powerful and connected than sitting US Senators.
Of course, swiping a hand under the stall wall is pretty hard to explain . . . .

Posted by I'm just sayin' | August 28, 2007 12:42 AM

If he hadn't plead guilty thinking he could cover it up, again, I really don't see him embracing the gay rights people rushing to defend him shouting entrapment.

Posted by Gary Denton | August 28, 2007 12:49 AM

Funniest comment I've seen all day:

But I'm guessing they're on pretty solid ground legally if they're detailing police officers to sit around in bathroom stalls all day...

Now, if the situation was more fluid, the officers would probably be standing around bathroom stalls all day.

Posted by jerry | August 27, 2007 7:45 PM

That and the one from Baloon Juice:

Craig stated “that he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine,”

Yet another Republican stall tactic.

August 27th, 2007 at 6:12 pm

Posted by rec | August 28, 2007 12:58 AM

Note, the foot tapping is not the only activity which Craig allegedly engaged in. The officer was investing a complaint by a member of the public.

To date, I am not aware of what was in the complaint but it is quite possible that it is more lewd/disorderly that the foot tapping, etc.

Posted by jehrler | August 28, 2007 1:59 AM

According the police report, Craig was charged with disorderly conduct and interference with privacy. Here are the relevant parts of MN statutes:

Disorderly Conduct
Subdivision 1. Crime. Whoever does any of the following in a public or private place,
including on a school bus, knowing, or having reasonable grounds to know that it will, or will
tend to, alarm, anger or disturb others or provoke an assault or breach of the peace, is guilty of
disorderly conduct, which is a misdemeanor:
(1) Engages in brawling or fighting; or
(2) Disturbs an assembly or meeting, not unlawful in its character; or
(3) Engages in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct or in offensive,
obscene, or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others.
A person does not violate this section if the person's disorderly conduct was caused by
an epileptic seizure

Interference with Privacy
c) A person is guilty of a gross misdemeanor who:
(1) surreptitiously gazes, stares, or peeps in the window or other aperture of a sleeping
room in a hotel, as defined in section 327.70, subdivision 3, a tanning booth, or other place
where a reasonable person would have an expectation of privacy and has exposed or is likely to
expose their intimate parts, as defined in section 609.341, subdivision 5, or the clothing covering
the immediate area of the intimate parts; and
(2) does so with intent to intrude upon or interfere with the privacy of the occupant.

And yes - the disorderly statutes is very broadly written - its a catch all crime that gets people off the streets but may or may not impress a prosecutor

Posted by Syd B | August 28, 2007 2:23 AM

those of you interested in some gay reaction (and stories) regarding this senator, can check out andy's site and post, with comments, here

http://www.towleroad.com/2007/08/gop-idaho-senat.html#comments

Posted by michael72 | August 28, 2007 3:20 AM

Were the other stalls full? Was Craig hanging out outside and peering in wondering what the hell was taking this guy so long, cause he really had to go?

I agree. Come on, hasn't anyone else done this, especially when you really have to go and the person in the stall has been there long enough to have checked his voicemail, responded to all the e-mail on his blackberry, read 1/3 of the latest Harry Potter book and had outpatient surgery? Sometimes I start to wonder whether anybody's really in there.

As for foot tapping and where you place your luggage -- huh? I totally don't get how this meets the burden of proof for an arrest. The cop might be up on all the bathroom-cruising etiquette, but most people aren't, and the prosecutors would have to prove intent. This sounds a little like that appalling drug sting in Georgia where the cops claimed that Hindi-speaking convenience store clerks should have recognized American meth-user slang.

My guess is that Craig would have had a good shot at an acquittal but just wanted to settle this quietly and avoid the publicity. Maybe that's because he knew he was guilty, or maybe because he knew the accusation alone would ruin his career (especially if he also happens to be gay).

What I want to know is: Why did this take so long to become known? A U.S. senator pleads guilty in your courthouse and nobody gossips about it to the press?

Anyway, it's always funny to see self-righteous family values conservatives outed for their hypocrisy. But I wonder how many innocent people have been swept up in these kinds of stings if this is the kind of evidence the cops are relying on.

Posted by lucius bromley | August 28, 2007 4:02 AM

With so many discrete ways to satisfy these desires, which are his business alone, why a men's room in an airport? Much of the excitement must derive from the high risk of getting caught.

Posted by bob h | August 28, 2007 7:18 AM

lucius,
You're right. Innocent people put there hands into other people's bathroom stalls all the time.

Maybe most of us wouldn't recognize the signals, but the policeman did, and he was obviously right.

Posted by DR | August 28, 2007 8:45 AM

"You're right. Innocent people put there hands into other people's bathroom stalls all the time."

Perhaps he needed a roll of TP and assumed the guy was a deaf mute.

Posted by Njorl | August 28, 2007 12:46 PM

Read the arrest report in conjunction with the Minnesota statutes from above. The statute references conduct or behavior that may result in an assault. I seem to remember a case in Wyoming, Mathew Shepard, where he was beaten to death after allegedly propositioning men in a bar. Maybe the officer, by his actions, prevented Senator Craig from getting something worse than a misdemeanor.

Posted by eastiswest | August 28, 2007 2:00 PM

Craig was caught in a restroom that was notorious for public sex acts. The police were trying to get this situation under control. I would expect the police to intervene here. So, of course there's no crime in being gay but I think it's within the public's interest to prohibit public sex.

Posted by JEN | August 28, 2007 5:15 PM

What I want to know is this:

Craig has said that his actions at the airport were, in his words, "misconstrued". Ok then, start splainin'.

First, why exactly were you peeking into the stall over a period of two minutes? Even if you were waiting on that stall to open up (and why, exactly, did you need to use THAT particular stall?), most people understand that type of behavior in a public bathroom to be unacceptable, creepy to the max, and yes...probably an illegal invasion of privacy rights. So why were you doing it? Is the judgment of U.S. Senators THAT bad these days?

Second, why did you start tapping your foot (in a manner apparently well-known to those who solicit sex in bathrooms), and why did you subsequently touch the officer's foot? Here too, this is awfully bizarre behavior for someone who is now trying to claim his actions were merely "misconstrued". Can you explain this one too, please?

Yeah, Craig probably would have gotten off (no pun intended) had he fought the charges. And yes, some of the legal issues here should be examined further, even if I ultimately agree that there is a public interest in helping prevent sex - hetereo or homo - in public restrooms.

But in the end, only one thing about this story really matters: the law of karma has once again been proven. Craig has been dishing out some bad mojo towards gay people for 27 years, trying to distinguish himself as a pious, honorable character in comparison. This incident couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.

My only hopes going forward are that 1.) everybody recognizes Craig for the hypocrite he is, 2.) that everbody recognize Craig for the liar he is, 3.) that he lose his seat in Congress without further delay or "stalling", and 4.) That Minnesota authorities look at a perjury charge if Craig continues to use the media to claim that his guilty plea, didn't really mean he believed he was guilty.

Posted by Steve | August 29, 2007 10:56 AM

Putting Craig aside and getting to the "what exactly is the law broken here" question, just a thought from a female... a lot of these statutes generally were designed to protect me from peeping toms and unwanted solicitation and I am not sure why my male counterparts are entitled to any less sense of security using a bathroom stall (or for that matter using a dressing room or any other public accommodation that promises privacy)than i am entitled to.

Posted by cmf | August 29, 2007 12:13 PM

Is he really saying, " I'm not gay,I'm bisexual."

Was there any indication he was taking a crap.

Posted by Robert | August 29, 2007 2:53 PM

Let me clear up a couple misconceptions that are repeated throughout the above posts: 1) it would be VERY rare for a guy who was looking for public sex to come onto another guy (no pun intended) who was not also looking for same sex contact. There are various signals that give this away -- discreet lingering, mutual eye contact, foot tapping, etc and 2) if a kid is anywhere in sight, NOTHING would be going on at all. I have to laugh at the "str8" guys above who are worried about getting hit on in a bathroom or any other public place. If you are not sending out any sexual signals, you will not be hit on -- period. You have to understand that the guys doing this are VERY frightened of being caught (and are more often than not married) and are trying to do this on the sly and are very cautious. It's not like there are 20 guys out in the open in a public bathroom with their pants around their ankles! A final word about this -- it will never go away. Wherever there are men alone together (bathrooms, locker rooms, steam rooms, saunas, etc), there will always be the occasional sexual contact. Some men are pigs, plain and simple and it doesn't seem worthwhile to consistently police this sort of harmless, surreptitious activity (and often thereby ruin the lives of the people they catch).

Posted by CTM | August 31, 2007 1:53 AM

Queen of the Bilderberger.That's so sad. I thought the world of Larry; used to help him bring up his kids, as a matter of fact...
Not content to merely deface, you are compelled to destroy? I think Cheney had a hand in it too. He took out Miss Manners and he was going for Martha Stewart when the Bilderbergers stepped in and pulled her fat out of the fire. He got Billy Jack, though, and he got Hirohito and the Marlboro Man, so I'd say everybody had better just watch out, 'cause he's out to get us all.I am Queen of the Bilderberger, and much else besides. Beware!

Posted by Buddy Hinton sturmgewehr | September 9, 2007 3:47 PM