Good news! Larry Craig and David Vitter are on the case. Some liberals see irony here, but I see two men well-positioned to know what a tenuous strand it is holding the institution together and how easily a handful of gay weddings could plunge us all into an endless wide-stance, hooker-filled dystopia.
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Defending Marriage
28 Jun 2008 03:03 pm
Comments (47)
It's really too bad Vito Fossella isn't promoting this as well. I mean, that guy loves families so much, he has two of them! Hard to beat those family values.
Craig and Vitter are heroes in the cause. However, let's take a moment to celebrate those who receive less recognition for their commitment to family values, monogamy, and the dignity of women. Like John McCain.
Hey. Aren't "liberals" the folks that go around saying that gay rights aren't such a big deal; so conservatives shouldn't make such a fuss over it.
Well, if it's not such a big deal then liberals themselves shouldn't make a fuss either.
Not that they would feel constrained by such a point.
McGuff, I think the point was that it's ironic but somehow fitting that Craig and Vitter are the GOP's most vocal defenders of marriage traditionally defined.
I think it's true that Craig should not be mocked for being gay. He should be mocked for pretending he's not gay while at the same time attacking gay rights.
He should also be mocked for pretending that marriage is threatened by gays first and foremost, when in fact at 3% of the population they are no threat at all. The real threats are men who cheat on their wives (like Larry Craig) and men who catch clamidia and whatnot while spilling their seed at whorehouses (like Vitter).
If you don't understand this, you should check immediately to see if there's any blood in your veins. Because the rest of us are positively cracking up.
Liberal I know don't make a fuss about Craig's homosexuality -- it's his hypocrisy that attracts the ridicule, and you obviously disapprove of that (for liberals, anyway).
I was reading David Brooks' latest piffle yesterday & at one point, he waxes nostalgic about 'the good old days' (the '50s) when "the divorce rates were lower".
Brooks was right, divorce rates were a lot lower in the '50 (& the '60s), but that's because it was a helluva lot harder to get a divorce during that time -- basically you had to prove infidelity, abuse, abandonment or criminality.
With the introduction of the all-purpose "Irreconcilable Differences" clause in the '70s, divorce rates shot up by 40-60%. The "Irreconcilable Differences" clause was signed into law in California in 1969/1970 (damned libruls!) & gradually spread to all the states (except for NY, which remains a hold-out), with North Dakota being the last to sign on in 1985.
So there you have it. As soon as it was easier to get a divorce, a lot of people started getting divorced.
So don't blame 'libruls', or 'teh gays' for crumbling 'traditional marriage values', it was due to a piece of legislation that made it easier to get a divorce.
If you absolutely need to blame someone, I guess it would have to be the guy who first signed "Irreconcilable Differences" into law, the Governor of California at that time ('69/'70). And that guy would be Ronald Regan (ironically, the act of making it easier to dissolve a family was called "The Defense of Family" act).
Imagine that.
Hmmm... I guess the thing to see would be whether all this personal behavior that is destructive to the traditional heterosexual marriages of Craig and Vitter began around February 3rd 2004. I suspect this is probably the case, and thus with California's action we can expect that even more staunch conservatives are going to be spontaneously induced into the arms of hookers or anonymous gay bathroom patrons. As people who have seen first hand the marriage destruction that homosexual rights can bring, it does seem natural that they would be first to the wall to defend it.
Those two don't seem to realize what a joke they've become. You have to wonder if they are intentionally sabotaging themselves.
Also, the link doesn't work.
Liberals think it is a pretty big deal indeed when an entire demographic has it's civil rights recognized and guaranteed. At a minimum, something like 3% of the human population is gay. In the U.S. that would be close to 9 million people. Pretty big deal. We should applaud our country for it's slow accumulative movement toward greater opportunity for it's gay citizens.
If I were a private dick, no pun intended (maybe), I'd definitely try to sneak into any party given by Craig and Vitter, as there's bound to be a spouse or three who will be divorce their wayward other after seeing such pictures.
A minor point on Craig: it's not just the hypocrisy, which is of course part of it. But just as big an issue is that he was engaging in an illegal activity--at least, propositioning for a sex act in a public bathroom. Lots of discussions of what he did wrong unfortunately come down to is it that he was gay or that he was a hypocrite, which does a disservice to gay men everywhere by implying that gayness equates to skanky activity in airport bathrooms and elsewhere.
Zephyrus: it's not just the hypocrisy, which is of course part of it. But just as big an issue is that he was engaging in an illegal activity--at least, propositioning for a sex act in a public bathroom.
Well, now, wait a minute. Plenty of us don't think what Craig did (tapping your foot on the floor?) should be an arrestable offense, and plenty more don't think that the police resources of an airport in a major city are well served by patrolling the bathrooms for circumspect cruising. Plenty of liberals decried Craig's arrest as an invasion of privacy and a misuse of power; our beliefs compel us to, or else we'd be the hypocrites.
Mr. Tomemos,
If your 'liberal' values compel you to believe that men should be allowed to commit sexual acts in a bathroom stall with other men whose names they do not even know, then perhaps your liberalism needs to be re-examined. Sexual intercourse is meant to take place within the context of a loving and committed relationship and is meant to be the physical aspect of a deeper emotional and spiritual union in which the man and woman 'co-inhere'. When sexual acts takes place outside of this context it is a falling away from the true purpose of sexuality. Mr. Vitter's solicitation of prostitutes and Mr. Craig's solicitation of promiscuous and anonymous bathroom sex are flagrant and monstrous perversions of the norms of healthy and ordinate sexual love. So monstrous, indeed, that it is hard to see what could have inspired Mr. Craig to act as he did- what satisfaction could there have been in it? Lust alone is not a sufficient answer- it can only be explained by a deliberate act of rebellion against nature, inspired by the dark forces that work inside every one of us. Such a gross perversion of natural and normal sexuality must be a crime as well as a sin.
Your whining about 'privacy', 'abuse of power', and so forth are beside the point. Anonymous bathroom sex is a gross perversion and satmping it out is more important than your nonsense about privacy. Those who fail to see that are indeed mired in the swamp into which liberal civilization has dug for itself. A society that tolerates anonymous bathroom sex is a society that has lost the disticntion between Good and Evil.
Oh, God...moralizing asshole Hector is back with his bag of bullshit. Fuck you, Hector.
Yeah, you're missing an important point, Hector, which is that no one had sex in the bathroom. A guy tapped his foot. If the cop had just ignored it, nothing at all would have happened.
"endless wide-stance, hooker-filled dystopia"
Or utopia, depending on one's viewpoint.
They say that like it was a bad thing.
Hector: "Sexual intercourse is meant to take place within the context of a loving and committed relationship and is meant to be the physical aspect of a deeper emotional and spiritual union in which the man and woman 'co-inhere'."
Yeah, I hear bonobo chimpanzees are really into "loving and committed spiritual relationships".
Moron.
Sex has almost nothing to do with "love", since it predates "love" in evolutionary terms and according to scientists serves any number of personal and social functions. Not to mention that "love" is an almost meaningless term, as opposed to "bonding" or "cooperating".
Sex exists because evolution selected for species that are capable of bonding rather than purely competing on an individual level. Species in which individuals bond have survival advantages over those that don't. This is especially true the higher on the conceptual processing scale one goes. But the higher on that scale one goes, the less required the connection is between sex and bonding, while paradoxically the deeper the connection can be if chosen.
As someone once said, "Love is for animals. Only humans can truly appreciate sex." Sex for a gorilla is a fifteen-second affair (if a very frequent affair).
Based on average primate activity, humans should be having sex at least daily. Based on the sexual activity of primates in captivity - which is what civilized humans are - humans should be having sex hourly.
And homosexuality is rampant in the animal kingdom. Many species, especially primates, engage in it. Scientists consider it unusual that it's so rare in humans (no doubt due to cultural conditioning.) Absent cultural conditioning, most humans would probably be bisexual like many primates.
Anonymous sex might be creepy, but evil? Hector's weird delusions that he can decide how everyone else must live seem a bit revealing about his own "dark forces."
Hector, no one with a lick of sense would turn to a creepy freak like you for the scoop on 'the true purpose of sexuality.'
But anyway, yeah: You totally missed the point.
I've had deuce of a time trying to get the babes to co-inhere with me. Which is why I occasionally cheat and pull out the gold mastercard like a good Republican.
How does Hector know the context in which sexual intercourse 'is meant to take place'? Wow, messiah complex much?
That said, I'm as liberal and pro gay rights/marriage as anyone, but public sex should be illegal. (I know, Craig hadn't gotten there yet... and arresting over foot tapping feels police statey, and kinda strikes me as entrapment. Maybe Craig would've invited the feller to share a motel room?)
Yeah, you're missing an important point, Hector, which is that no one had sex in the bathroom. A guy tapped his foot. If the cop had just ignored it, nothing at all would have happened.
And you know this, how? I doubt all this foot-tapping is going on if it never leads to any sexual encounters. True, Craig might have just met someone in the bathroom and then gone to a private location to have sex. But apparently, men do sometimes have sex together in public bathrooms, and you certainly can't assume that "nothing at all would have happened" if the police had not intervened in this case.
I don't particularly care if men have sex in public bathrooms as long as they're reasonably inconspicuous about it and it doesn't happen on such a scale that it becomes a serious public nuisance. I think the police probably have better uses of their time than to engage in this kind of operation. But it's still tawdry. If Craig wants to meet men for sex there are plenty of other and more private ways of doing it.
Mad6789,
Er, evil concists in the choice of a lesser good in preference to a higher good.So yes, anonymous bathroom sex is an evil because it grossly deforms the appropriate context of sexual activity. We are talking about a man performing sodomitical acts through a _hole_ in the _wall_ of a _restroom._ A more gross perversion and parody of the proper context of the act of coition is hard to imagine. Inasmuch as sex is the physical aspect of a spirtual and emotional relation, anonymous sex where you don't even know the person's _name_ is a gross separation of the physical from the spiritual.
It appears as though these lines of teleological reasoning from nature and final ends are a form of reasoning that doesn't normally occur to you people. To which I can only respond that you people appear to be woefully uneducated. Please read some of the Platonic dialogues, then a brief look at St. Augustine and the medieval scholastics, and then perhaps at some twentieth century thinkers in the broad Christian tradition.
It appears as though you are in thrall to the idea that sexuality has the meaning that people choose to give it, that each person's choice of lifestyle should have equal value and respect, and that we have no final end. These propositions are fairly common today but of course they are totally false and extremely pernicious.
I doubt all this foot-tapping is going on if it never leads to any sexual encounters.
I'm not saying nothing would have happened ever,, I'm saying if the policeman had ignored the foot-tap then nothing would have happened at that time. If the policeman had caught Craig in flagrante in the bathroom, I'm in favor of an arrest then. But saying that the foot-tap is lewd, or disorderly conduct, because it could lead to public sex…well, you could say that about almost any seduction maneuver, from buying a drink on up. And unlike other maneuvers, the foot tap has the benefit of being indecipherable to almost anyone who isn't interested in the encounter in the first place.
I don't particularly care if men have sex in public bathrooms as long as they're reasonably inconspicuous about it and it doesn't happen on such a scale that it becomes a serious public nuisance.
So we're in agreement. What in God's name are we arguing about? You've done this in two different threads now.
I'm not saying nothing would have happened ever,, I'm saying if the policeman had ignored the foot-tap then nothing would have happened at that time.
As opposed to when? Five minutes later? The difference doesn't seem terribly relevant to me.
So we're in agreement. What in God's name are we arguing about?
Your silly claim that "nothing at all would have happened" if the police had not intervened. Whatever one thinks of the merits of this kind of police operation, the idea that men soliciting sex in public bathrooms never leads to actual sex is just ludicrous.
Hector,
Yes, Hector, if only we read Plato and St Augustine we'd agree with your Catholic "natural law" gobbledygook. Or is that Episcopal gobbledygook? Either way, it's not terribly persuasive any more even to the religious. Ever noticed how few Catholics pay attention to the "no contraception" rule any more?
Mixner, you're intentionally misreading me, so I think I'll leave you alone forever.
Hector the Live-Action Pretend Crusader seems to know an awful lot about sex in public bathrooms. Of course, plenty of Richard the Lionheart's contemporaries thought he was a big ol' gayer.
Hector,
Get help. Most well educated people understand that the world of learning and the learned did not cease with the Greek philosphers and Augustine. The notion that they had some monopoly on wisdom or understood the true nature of things (yes the four humors and all that) is preposterous.
Of course, I did read a bit of Plato here and there and my recollection is that he was a passionate proponent of the virtues of man-boy love. Am I wrong about this?
Craig and Vitter? It's the "Pansy and Pervert Show"!!!
Never mind public bathrooms -- why do i suspect men are having a lot of furtive, anonymous gay sex in Hector's head?
A bit more seriously, I'm pretty sure there has never been a society on earth, no matter how virtuous, in which there wasn't a lot of furtive gay sex going on. If those societies eventually crashed and burned, do you really want to argue that loose gay sex was a causal contributing factor?
Hector writes: "A society that tolerates anonymous bathroom sex is a society that has lost the disticntion between Good and Evil."
Hector has never had anonymous bathroom sex. He always asks the clergyman's name first.
"It appears as though you are in thrall to the idea that sexuality has the meaning that people choose to give it"
Have you not also chosen to give sexuality a certain meaning? Your lengthy diatribe is pretty good evidence that you have in fact chosen to give sexuality a clear and distinct meaning. You simply deny the right of others to do the same. You try to hide behind the works of others like Plato and St Augustine (who was quite the hedonist, actually), but you have in fact chosen to give credence to those works while rejecting the works of others. Your views are every much as chosen as those of anyone else. Simply choosing the philosophy of someone else doesn't mean you aren't choosing. And guess what? We don't all make the same choices. You can have your St Augustine, and I can have my Kama Sutra. And who among us can really say which book is more true than the other? I know I can't, and you can't either.
“Lots of discussions of what he did wrong unfortunately come down to is it that he was gay or that he was a hypocrite, which does a disservice to gay men everywhere by implying that gayness equates to skanky activity in airport bathrooms and elsewhere.”
Maybe that was the whole point! Craig said that he wasn’t gay and had never been gay. He was telling the truth!
The good senator purposefully sought out gay sex in a public bathroom, in order to pound home the message…
Excuse me. Sen. Craig, by soliciting gay sex in a public bathroom, bit the bullet…
Damn it. I’m sorry.
Basically, Larry Craig wanted to get caught trying to have gay sex in a public bathroom so he could then turn around and propose anti-gay legislation in Congress, using the public spectacle of his own gay sex escapade as justification.
Wow, what a culture warrior!
Sexual intercourse is meant to take place in Hector's ear.
I'm sorry, I can only take so much Christofacism before I snap.
“A bit more seriously, I'm pretty sure there has never been a society on earth, no matter how virtuous, in which there wasn't a lot of furtive gay sex going on. If those societies eventually crashed and burned, do you really want to argue that loose gay sex was a causal contributing factor?”
I teach history for a living and I’ve never encountered a serious scholar, (by encountered I mean read his or her work), who argued that some level of toleration for homosexual activity had even an ancillary effect on the stability of any society.
I suppose that you could argue a society like Rome was so filled to the brim with gay sex that it became known as the best place to have some sodomy…..and all those barbarian tribes were really just marauding bands of bored gay men…nah, that still doesn’t quite explain the massive monetary inflation, reoccurring plagues and routine food shortages. Not to mention the almost complete withdrawal of wealthy Romans living on the Italian Peninsula from the tradition of public service…unless you want to argue that they were too busy having gay sex…and I’d still want you to cite your sources.
Oh and this just in; somewhere in D.C., a saucepot has just remarked to a tea kettle on the kettle’s black @ss. The tea kettle is reportedly incredulous.
The link is wrong.
Re: Hector writes: "A society that tolerates anonymous bathroom sex is a society that has lost the disticntion between Good and Evil."
Or maybe just the distinction between decent and sleezy. "Evil" is a one megaton word: I would reserve it for Big Bads lest it lose its descriptive power. The merely gross and obnoxious can be described as such without resort to the term "evil."
Re: I suppose that you could argue a society like Rome was so filled to the brim with gay sex that it became known as the best place to have some sodomy
Rome was not particularly tolerant of homosexuality. While it was acceptable for men to be "serviced" by other men, a man who took the servicing role was seen as sacrificing his masculine dignitas and becoming a slave.
So Hector, is public bathroom sex "Teh Evil" when the people involved (two or more) know each other? How about public sex in general outside of a bathroom (Oh no, I'm going to hell!)? Just because you hide your sexual immaturity behind religion doesn't mean you aren't a jackass.
Look, even if we don't buy into hector's viewpoint can we all agree that public bathrooms should not be used as places for the solicitation and enjoyment of sex? We are all trying to be liberal here, but there is a difference between liberal and stupid liberal.
When I send or take an eight year old child to the men's room , I sure as hell don't want him to be confronted with two men getting hot and heavy on the bathroom floor, and I would actually support police activity aimed at making sure that scenario doesn't happen.
I can also take this out of Hector's other point: its a good and worthy goal for society to promote sex as the highest expression of love between two people, rather than just mere physical activity. That's part of what makes us human, IMHO. Sure it may lead to a lot of tedious moralizing and , worse, sappy romance novels, but a sense of romance and specialness about sex is a good thing, says this hopeless idealist.
stonetools,
Totally agree about the sex in public bathrooms -- ugh!
Totally disagree about promoting romance or other moralistic views of sex -- short of public health messages about avoiding disease and unwanted pregnancy. Beyond that I don't think it's anyone's business.
$10 bucks Vitter talked Craig into backing this bill while sitting on Craig's lap, then scurried off to Old Town Alexandria to give the Arabian Goggles to Vito Fossella's mistress. Thank God we have the Republicans around to act as the Values Police!
"When I send or take an eight year old child to the men's room , I sure as hell don't want him to be confronted with two men getting hot and heavy on the bathroom floor,"
Why?
May I suggest it's because you don't want YOUR kid becoming gay? Or finding out what sex is about before you can tell him whatever bullshit you believe about it?
The only reason I'd complain about coming on gay sex in a public restroom is that it might interfere with my taking a piss.
"a sense of romance and specialness about sex is a good thing"
Nobody - not even I - said it wasn't. What needs to be said is that it's not a requirement because it never was in animal evolution or human evolution.
It also depends on what you consider "romance" or "specialness". A case could be made that bathroom sex fits both definitions. Not comprehending that reveals a lack of imagination and a lack of understanding of the underlying nature of human sexual behavior.
May I suggest Georges Bataille's "Sex and Death", or Julius Evola's "The Metaphysics of Sex."
"its a good and worthy goal for society to promote sex as the highest expression of love between two people"
Really? Why? I think it's a much better goal for society to let people do what they want. And that is especially true given that science has demonstrated that forcing people into uncomfortable sexual roles is emotionally unhealthy. So explain to me why I should go against my nature and accept your morality. I know that it would be unhealthy for me to follow your morality, but you seem to have a special knowledge that going against the lessons of science will do me well. So enlighten us to that special knowledge. But keep your Bible on the shelf, we don't all believe it. As for public sex in restrooms, we already have laws against that. And for good reason. You'll note that not a single person here has advocated against those laws. It's been a question about solicitation, not action.
"Rome was not particularly tolerant of homosexuality. While it was acceptable for men to be "serviced" by other men, a man who took the servicing role was seen as sacrificing his masculine dignitas and becoming a slave."
Yes, I know. I was joking around in the quoted text.
It was about misogynistic attitudes towards women and men adopting the role of women by being penetrated. Older men of a higher class could only penetrate younger men of a lower class. Anything else and there would be societal fall-out.
Comments closed July 12, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
if there is some kind of blog-post-if-the-year award, somebody tell me where it is so I can nominate this one.
Posted by nobi yuno | June 28, 2008 3:12 PM