News Here’s Your Double Standard
posted by on August 29 at 14:03 PM
A press release from the NGLTF:
Senate Republican leaders are calling for an ethics investigation into the Minneapolis airport arrest of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) in a “lewd conduct” incident in a men’s public restroom. No such call was sounded by Senate GOP leaders following the scandal involving Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who last month admitted to “a very serious sin in my past” after his telephone number appeared among those associated with a female escort service operated by the so-called “D.C. Madam.” Vitter even reportedly received “thunderous applause” from Senate GOP colleagues during a policy lunch held a few days after his admission.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, meanwhile, has filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee asking for an investigation into whether Craig violated the Senate rules of conduct. The group had filed a similar complaint in the Vitter case, but says the Ethics Committee did not respond to that request.
Statement by Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force:
“Let’s see—one Republican senator is involved in soliciting sex from a man and the Republican leadership calls for a Senate investigation and yanks the rug from underneath him. Another Republican senator admits to soliciting the services of a female prostitute and there’s not only no investigation but the senator is greeted with a standing ovation by his Republican peers. What explains the starkly different responses? I’d say rank and homophobic hypocrisy.”
Yeah, but are any of us remotely surprised by this?
It's the classic "live boy or dead girl" standard -- tempered just a bit by the fact that Craig's indiscretions were semi-public, and Vitter's private.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/19/lgbt.politics.ireport/index.html?iref=werecommend
Some CNN respondants. I guess what amazes me is the whole people homophobes who stick by the whole "because the bible says so" rhetoric in defense of their issues.
To which I simply respond. God doesn't hate gays, you hate gays.
It really makes it so much easier.
It's not the double standard you think. Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, is a Democrat. The Republicans are happy to push any pervert, gay or straight, under the bus; as long as it doesn't mean they'll lose a seat in Congress.
#4 is right. very simple.
Ted Haggard and Paul Huberty must both be so relieved to have some of the media attention deflected elsewhere....
Why not just resign and let a small government no foreign wars of adventure fiscal discipline Dem take the seat?
It would be good for America ...
There's another difference. Craig was actually arrested and plead guilty to a crime, albeit a misdemeanor. Vitter has not yet been arrested or charged with anything, much less found (or plead) guilty. I don't see a double standard. Certainly yes if both had plead guilty.
Prostitution is a crime, unfortunately, even though Vitter has not been charged.
I tend to see this as bigotry in enforcement. Looking for gay sex is considered so offensive that it is a crime, yet the act of engaging in prostitution (which is a crime) is not enforced in this case. Geeze. I'd like to know that I could at least look at another woman and ask her if she were interested without risking arrest, just as the hets do.
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST
Senator Craig knows every nook and cranny of Idaho, the geography and the political mind
He will run again and win
He will turn this into country boy set up by the evil big city - and all the Mormons will forgive him
He strikes me as very determined and having been elected so many times, warring with media and east coat king makers might fuel a good campaign
It is Idaho, not any other place
How times change.
In 1907, Sen. Reed Smoot (R-UT) survived a committee recommendation of expulsion from the Senate.
The accusation? Mormonism.
The gay double standard is more about IOKIYAR (its okay if you're a republican) than the differences between Vitter and Craig.
The real reason for the double standard is that Craig would be replaced by an appointment by a Rep governor, while Vitter would be replaced by an appointment from a Dem.
gex nails it IMHO. They'd be defending Craig or trying very hard to bury the story if they were genuinely afraid they'd lose the seat.
Dan, it's nice that you can give interviews for CNN in Kerry Park without being blinded by camera flashes. Did the public intern shoo the tourists away first?
There must be something wrong in the Senate, first it was Bob Allen trying to get a blowjob from an undercover male cop for $20 in Florida. Then we get David Vitter with a prostitute, and now Larry Craig soliciting in a bathroom in Minneapolis. Either we have to admit that the world is going to hell, or maybe we need the Christians to stop running the country, so we can admit that these behaviours are normal. Banish Christians and Intelligent Design, legalize Prostitution and Marijuana, and the world will be a happier place.
This is what happens when you forbid politicians from having sex with their interns--where else are they gonna go?! We've dismissed the brave service of those young men and women of the intern corps as mere "abuse" or "harassment" when, in fact, they were performing a vital public service. None of this would have happened during the Lewinsky era.
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