I Am Not Gay
by Bill Shein

Because of recent news events involving departing Republican Sen. Larry Craig, I find myself compelled to state publicly that I, too, am "not gay."

Now, it doesn't really matter if you think I'm gay, does it? Because — and let me be crystal clear — I am not gay. Or I am gay. But maybe I'm not. Got it?

Just like Craig, who resigned under pressure Saturday, nothing for which I've been arrested makes me gay. For example, when I spray-painted "I'm gay!" on a New York City subway car in 1983, it did not mean that I was gay. In fact, moments later, I spray-painted "I am not gay!" on another subway car, leaving the police to wonder, "Is he gay? Or is he not gay?"

Of course, the issue at hand was not really whether Craig is gay. Unfortunately, that was the only issue for Republican Party leaders. That's why Craig held a press conference to say, "I am not gay. I have never been gay. And I have certainly not been gay while amassing a voting record that is not friendly to those who are, in fact, gay — perhaps because of my deep personal conflicts about whether or not I'm gay. Which, I repeat, I am not. Gay, that is."

But seriously, folks.

The real issue here is that the Republican Party — in Washington, at least — can't seem to get used to the fact that lots of people, including plenty of Republicans, are gay. (But not Sen. Craig! And not me!) And that while promising to get government off our back, the GOP still woos voters by proposing that government invade our bedrooms.

That's why Republican presidential candidates practically tripped over each other in the rush to denounce Craig, often in the harshest possible way. Our ever-less-impressive former governor, Mitt Romney, was quick to call the Idaho senator "disgusting." It was a word carefully selected to resonate with "religious conservatives" — the euphemism that makes discrimination sound Godly — that Romney's campaign is courting in early primary states.

In fact, right now Romney is running a commercial in Iowa that promises to "clean-up" the "perversion" in our society. It's a shameless reference to awful stereotypes, as if it's time again to discriminate against the homosexuals that Romney implies threaten our children and our marriages — if not civilization itself.

Worst of all, too many Republican candidates like Romney find it politically useful to link homosexuality to lewd behavior, criminal activity, child predators, and so on — as if these things aren't also present in the heterosexual world.

The GOP hypocrisy on "morality" is stunning and ongoing. It's absurd that Republicans last week referred the Craig affair to the Senate Ethics Committee, while doing no such thing after Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, recently admitted that he regularly used the services of a Washington call-girl service — even arranging his illicit liaisons while he was busy casting votes in Congress.

Apparently it's not a problem when a senator breaks the law by hiring female prostitutes during roll-call votes; it's only an "ethics" problem if it involves same-sex encounters.

If Sen. Craig is gay, fine. If he's not gay, that's fine too. In any case, he needs the support of friends and family to deal with his personal troubles and move forward with his life — support that he certainly did not get from his Republican colleagues.

In fact, the vicious piling-on of Craig's longtime Republican friends should be yet another nail in the coffin of so-called "compassionate conservatism" and "moral values" — both of which were long ago shown to be meaningless, calculated political slogans.

Let's hope that in a future, vastly better version of these United States, it won't make any difference to anyone if their senator is gay. And in that better America, let's hope that one of our major political parties no longer employs absurd stereotypes about gay and lesbian Americans simply to fire up the most intolerant part of its electoral base.

Because in the matter of Sen. Larry Craig, that's what's truly disgusting.

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Bill Shein asks that we now return to our regularly scheduled war — unfortunately still in progress.

(This column first appeared in the Berkshire Eagle newspaper on Monday, September 3. Click here to read Bill's previous column, "Tommy, We Hardly Knew Ye").