August 31, 2007
Larry Craig’s Antecedents IV Posted by John Steele Gordon at 11:05 AM EST I’m grateful to Alexander Burns for linking to the Los Angeles Times op-ed. But I wonder if the author has it exactly right. I’m not a psychiatrist by the longest of shots, but I suspect the persistence of “tearoom trade,” as the op-ed calls it, has a lot more to do with the erotic potential of the danger involved—the thrill of getting away with something so fraught with potential consequences—than with people who engage in such behavior simply being in denial. Mr. Burns writes, “In 1964, Jenkins was called a security threat by members of the political establishment. Today, similar political actors are condemning Larry Craig as merely ‘disgusting’ (see here and here). I guess this is a kind of progress, but it’s certainly not as much progress as one might have hoped for in 43 years.” Speaking of the security-threat excuse for being homophobic, it is interesting to put it mildly that when Walter Jenkins was hospitalized after the news broke, who should send him flowers but J. Edgar Hoover. In fairness to the writers in the two links, however, what they found disgusting was not Larry Craig or homosexuality per se but his behavior in a public restroom.
| 
