THE LARRY CRAIG EFFECT

He’s only a former city commissioner and prominent realtor in Daytona Beach but news of his arrest in a Sears mensroom is spreading worldwide.

According this story in the Daytona Beach News Journal Online, poor Mike Shallow was dissed thus by the chief of police:

"It's scumbags like this that erode the quality of life that we have here," Chitwood said. "What scares me is that these are people that we trust to be political leaders, these are people that we trust with our children."

Note: the News Journal article includes mug shots of Shallow and eight other men including a school teacher arrested in the police sting operation. They take these things seriously in Florida. Chitwood sounds like he wants to cut the guy’s balls off.

Shallow is caught between two worlds: the heteros reject him because of the bathroom blowjob thing, fashion forward gays will reject him for associating homosexuality with the Sears brand.

Bloomingdales, Sax maybe. But Sears!

[PageOneQ, a news aggregator, included the above photo with its story/link. The file name is craig_terlet.jpg. Someone thought it appropriate for this story. Why not?]

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AMERICAN GOTHIC

The Matt Lauer interview with choirboy Larry Craig and his grandmotherly wife was white-knuckles all the way, but the Craigs came through just fine.

Matt failed to attack the gaping hole in “Mensroom Larry’s” argument. Craig's position:

1. I’m was an innocent traveler, naïve regarding any mensroom sex happenings, and I entered the airport mensroom simply to use the toilet.

2. I was using the toilet normally when I was arrested. I had no idea why I was being arrested.

3. I made a big mistake by not consulting a lawyer, keeping it secret, and pleading guilty.

4. The reason I made this big mistake was because I was deeply embarrassed by the event and hoped it would “go away,” and I wouldn’t have to tell my wife and kids and the public.

If #1 and #2 are true, then there is no reason for any “embarrassment.” Outrage would be the appropriate response. I’d demand a lie detector test.

Getting arrested is no embarrassment, it’s what you get arrested for that’s embarrassing.

Then, making your spouse face the music with you?

Has any man in America ever inadvertently “touched shoes” with the man in the next stall? Except as part of a sex-advance?

Larry Craig said in the police interview: “I looked down and saw that our shoes were close, but I don’t recall them touching.”

Almost sounds like “quivering lips.”

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TITLE IX AND PARK RESTROOMS

I played gay softball for twenty years, seventeen of them in San Francisco. During that time the SF Gay Softball League went from ten to forty or fifty teams.

At first there were only a few women playing, and those on mostly men’s teams. The league now includes two women’s division.

At some point, maybe in the early 1990’s we began to hear complaints from the women players about locked or substandard restrooms at the public parks where the league played.

When I first heard this, I scoffed. “These gals must be from out of town,” I figured, “no San Franciscan expects adequate public restrooms in the parks. How silly.

“They’ll learn.”

But they didn’t. They spoke at every meeting about working with city Supervisors and with Rec and Park to get the restrooms opened. The even wanted toilet paper!

Our softball playing lesbians were the first generation to be raised under Title IX, a 1972 federal provision mandating equal resources for male and female students, with the major focus becoming athletics.

So our women grew up thinking their lockerrooms should be as good as those provided for male athletes.

While Rec & Park did provide equal restrooms for men and women (i.e. none) the women nonetheless demands facilities for themselves.

A few months ago Newsom was so irked about the toilets at Portsmouth Square that he made Rec and Park and the PUC actually clean them. Those two agencies made the bureaucratic overhead so burdensome that Newsom would never spasm like that in their direction again, but the issue was engaged.

So, now we have a bond issue on the ballot (which sfwillie’s blog opposes) that includes $11M for new park restooms. That aspect of the bond has made San Francisco an international laughing-stock—but that’s another rant.

Anyway, I find it interesting that San Francisco’s restroom issue has been advanced by Title Nine-inspired lesbian athletes. Good for us!

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