Beware of Catchy Music in the Men's Bathroom

and don't tap your foot to it. Unless that's the kind of thing you're into.

Idaho Senator Larry Craig today announced that he regretted pleading guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct that stemmed from his arrest during a sting operation in a Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport bathroom. Allegedly, Craig was attempting to get it on with the undercover cop in the bathroom stall next to him by making repeated eye-contact, tapping his foot, and making sweeping gestures with his hand under the stall divider (Police Report).

Now I'm not fluent in "anonymous gay bathroom stall sex" sign language, or at least not the Midwestern dialect, but that does seem like odd behavior.

Craig said that he plead guilty to the lesser charge of "disorderly conduct," even though he did nothing wrong, just to try and make the whole thing go away.

The Log Cabin Republicans (a gay republican group) were quick to jump to his defense.

Senator Larry Craig's ability to continue serving the people of Idaho is in serious doubt . . . . He has violated the public trust, not just with his inappropriate and illegal behavior, but in the subsequent explanation of his actions. Innocent people don't plead guilty. The time to contest these allegations would've been before his guilty plea.

As an aside, I've never understood the Log Cabin Republicans to be quite honest. I don't get the metaphor (Lincoln?syrup?), and I don't understand how they can...you know...exist. And it doesn't look like I'm going to start now. "Gay Republican" just sounds like a non-sequitur. It would be like "Jewish Nazi" or "Bespeckled Khmer Rouge" or "Compassionate Conservative." These things just don't go together.

Anyway, I'm not really all that surprised that an anti-gay rights Republican turns out to be a little kinky with the boys. I mean, it's not like that's never happened before. And it seems Mr. Craig himself has had a few similar incidents in the past.

I disagree with the notion that no one pleads guilty when they're really innocent. For many, pleading guilty might be the best option given the time and expense it takes to fight criminal charges. To say otherwise would be the equivalent of saying that a prosecutor would never plead to a lesser charge when he or she believes the suspect is guilty of a more serious crime. Maybe like in this case. Sometimes it comes down to cost/benefit analysis.

I don't really know what's so bad about this really. As long as it's two consenting adults, what's the problem? I've had sex in a bathroom stall. In a girls bathroom though. It was a long time ago. What was I talking about?

Oh right. But I do think the Log Cabin Republicans are right in one respect. I think they're right to try and distance the gay community as a whole from this incident. I feel like a lot of the consequential outrage of this was unleashed toward the gay community as a whole, rather than the smaller subset that gets a kick out of this.

For example, here is Tucker Carlson's reaction. In this video clip from Gawker, he explains how when he thought he was being propositioned in a bathroom in Georgetown, he went and got a friend, came back to the bathroom and beat the crap out of him.

Anonymous gay sex in a bathroom is at the very worst, kind of icky. Hate crime in a bathroom is absolutely disgusting.