WIDE STANCE LARRY HAS A HISTORY OF SEX WITH MEN THAT STRETCHES BACK MANY YEARS-- YEARS HE SPENT WORKING AGAINST GAY PEOPLE

For over a year people have been telling me that Dan Popkey of the Idaho Statesman was working on a thorough investigative piece on a secret that had long been out in DC gay circles, that homophobic right-wing Republican Senator Larry Craig was addicted to sex with men. Some of the closeted gay Republicans on Capitol Hill occasionally-- rarely but occasionally-- get a pang of conscience about demonizing other gay people and will refrain from voting to destroy the lives of gay men and women and their families. But not Larry Craig. All the time he was out hunting for anonymous sex in toilets and gay bars he was part of the 100% crowd of hysterical anti-gay extremists. He strongly opposed prohibiting job discrimination against gays and lesbians. He strongly opposed expanding hate crimes legislation to include crimes perpetrated against gays and lesbians. He strongly supported legislation and even a constitutional amendment to prohibit same sex marriage. Every opportunity he's had to vote against gay people he's taken. And all the while, according to the "he-said, he-said" report in today's Idaho Statesman, he was sneaking around in the dark having sex with strange men.

Basically Popkey tells the well-known-- well known in Washington, but certainly not in Idaho-- stories of David Phillips, male prostitute Mike Jones (the guy who was bonking Rev. Ted Haggard), Greg Ruth and Tom Russell, 4 gay men who have admitted having sexual encounters with Idaho's senior homophobic senator. "A fifth gay man, who is from Boise but who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, offered a recent and telling account: He was in a men's restroom at Denver International Airport in September 2006 when the man in the next stall moved his hand slowly, palm up, under the divider. Alarmed, the man said he waited outside the restroom and then identified the man in the adjoining stall as Craig, whom he had met in Idaho."

Craig has been denying he was having sex with men and boys at least since 1982 when he was suspected of having sex with underage congressional pages. Had the congressional leadership not swept it under the carpet, it is likely Mark Foley would have looked elsewhere to sate his sexual appetite over the years than the boys dorms at the Congressional Page School. But before anyone could even publicly accuse Craig, he issued a denial. Popkey points out that "Craig married a year later and adopted the three children of his wife, Suzanne. In 1990, the Idaho Statesman asked Craig about an allegation that he was gay made by an opponent in his first Senate race. 'Why don't you ask my wife?' Craig replied. Many older Republican gay men have taken wives to help cover up their gay double lives. Louisiana congressman Jim McCrery did the exact same thing after he was exposed, marrying his secretary and sending her to live in Louisiana. Look at all the Republican legislators caught this year trolling for sex in public restrooms-- all have two things in common: wives and virulently anti-gay voting records.

In October 2006, Craig directly denied the claims of a blogger [Mike Rogers of BlogActive] who reported he'd spoken with three anonymous sources who said they had sex with Craig. In May 2007, after hearing a tape of an accuser who said he and Craig had sex in two men's restrooms at Washington's Union Station rail depot, Craig said, "I am not gay."

And when he emphatically told Matt Lauer he was neither gay nor bisexual, Craig persuaded 28 percent of viewers to believe he had been wrongly charged in Minnesota, according to a survey of 606 viewers by HCD Research and Muhlenberg College.

Craig refused to be interviewed for the story by Popkey (in his state's only large newspaper). The conservative, staunchly Republican newspaper reviewed "travel and property records and background checks on all five men, found nothing to disprove the five new accounts. The men offer telling and sometimes similar details about what happened, or the senator's travel records place him in the city where sex is alleged to have occurred, or his accusers told credible witnesses at the time of the incident. Craig has said he hoped to keep his guilty plea secret. Only after news of the guilty plea broke Aug. 27 did he tell his wife, staff, colleagues and constituents. His admission of guilt, taken together with the three accounts published Aug. 28 and the five new statements, add weight to the evidence that Craig has been living a double life."

The details, both lurid and mundane, of the double life, if you want to read them, are here. But, speaking of lurid, perhaps you'd enjoy the little clip I made, an updated look at the Sex Pistols' classic, "God Save the Queen."