Florida Republican (and John McCain campaign co-chairman) Guilty In Washroom Sex Case

(Tampa, Florida) State Rep. Bob Allen (R) has been convicted of offering an undercover male police officer cash for sex.

Allen, a longtime foe of LGBT rights in Florida, will be sentenced next Thursday. He could be facing 60 days in the county jail and a $500. fine. Republicans in the legislature said the conviction will allow them to move forward with plans to remove Allen from office.

Following the verdict his attorney accused the prosecution of misconduct and said he will seek a new trial.

Allen was busted in July during a sting at a men's washroom at Veteran's Memorial Park in Titusville, Florida.

In taped statements made by Allen to police following his arrest and released by the force Allen admits to soliciting the male officer but claims that it was the result of being nervous by the high number of black men in the park.

Read the rest on 365gay.com.

ANOTHER Republican gay sex scandal

SLOG has a nice roundup of the coverage around one cross-dressing, adult bookstore trolling, anti-gay voting, barebacking (?), apple pie loving, married with children Washington State legislator Richard Curtis.

Of course, he was just trying to help the poor fella out.

From the police report:

Curtis stated both he and the male walked into the lobby together. He told the male gain that he would give the male $100 to help him out but he was not paying him to have sex. Curtis and the male went up to Curtis’ room, which was 968. Once in the room Curtis gave the male $100…. Curtis and the male ultimately had anal intercourse on the bed in Curtis’ hotel room. The male performed intercourse on Curtis and the male’s semen and/or DNA would be on the inside of the condom while Curtis’ DNA would be on the exterior. Curtis said he was the person who received the anal sex.

WHY POLICE BOTHER IS ANOTHER MATTER

Craig was talking the talk

By Rex Wockner in the Chicago Tribune

Even though a judge ruled last week that Sen. Larry Craig cannot withdraw his guilty plea stemming from a Minneapolis airport sex sting operation, the Idaho Republican says he has changed his mind about resigning from Congress.

Which raises the question: What will it take to make this guy go away? Here we are six weeks after Craig's arrest became public, and the story just will not die. This is intolerable -- even for gay folks like me. I can only imagine how straight people must feel.

So, if you don't mind terribly, I'd like to do my part to help kill this story off, put it out of its misery, make it go away forever. This will require a bit of setup, and I'll have to spoon-feed some straight readers some gay secrets.

The most amazing thing for me is that Craig still insists he wasn't "cruising," which is gay lingo for looking for partners in men's rooms, forest preserves, rest areas and the like (remember George Michael? Wham!), or even just while walking down the street or shopping at Jewel.

Assuming the airport police report is accurate, and by ruling against Craig on Thursday that is exactly what a Minnesota judge did, the insurmountable problem with Craig's insistence is this: We know better.

Read the rest in the Chicago Tribune.

America’s Toe-Tapping Menace

By LAURA M. Mac DONALD in the New York Times
Published: September 2, 2007

WHAT is shocking about Senator Larry Craig’s bathroom arrest is not what he may have been doing tapping his shoe in that stall, but that Minnesotans are still paying policemen to tap back. For almost 40 years most police departments have been aware of something that still escapes the general public: men who troll for sex in public places, gay or “not gay,” are, for the most part, upstanding citizens. Arresting them costs a lot and accomplishes little.

In 1970, Laud Humphreys published the groundbreaking dissertation he wrote as a doctoral candidate at Washington University called “Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places.” Because of his unorthodox methods — he did not get his subjects’ consent, he tracked down names and addresses through license plate numbers, he interviewed the men in their homes in disguise and under false pretenses — “Tearoom Trade” is now taught as a primary example of unethical social research.

That said, what results! In minute, choreographic detail, Mr. Humphreys (who died in 1988) illustrated that various signals — the foot tapping, the hand waving and the body positioning — are all parts of a delicate ritual of call and answer, an elaborate series of codes that require the proper response for the initiator to continue. Put simply, a straight man would be left alone after that first tap or cough or look went unanswered.

Why? The initiator does not want to be beaten up or arrested or chased by teenagers, so he engages in safeguards to ensure that any physical advance will be reciprocated. As Mr. Humphreys put it, “because of cautions built into the strategies of these encounters, no man need fear being molested in such facilities.”

Mr. Humphreys’s aim was not just academic: he was trying to illustrate to the public and the police that straight men would not be harassed in these bathrooms. His findings would seem to suggest the implausibility not only of Senator Craig’s denial — that it was all a misunderstanding — but also of the policeman’s assertion that he was a passive participant. If the code was being followed, it is likely that both men would have to have been acting consciously for the signals to continue.

Read the rest.

Sen. Larry Craig: Sexual Behavior, Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation Understood

The National Black Justice Coalition's
H. Alexander Robinson (left) responds to the Senator Craig restroom incident

Sen. Larry Craig’s recent sexual restroom exploits have given the American community an unexpected but valuable teachable moment that should be embraced and further understood.

Instead of running from the tabloid fodder, late night talk show jokes, and Sunday morning sermons that will undoubtedly come from this incident; the LGBT community should instead embrace Sen. Craig’s gay sex solicitation incident as an opportunity to talk candidly and knowledgeably about the fluidity of sexuality and its effects upon gay identity and gay sexual orientation.

There are four vital lessons that can be learned from Sen. Craig’s situation, each of which flies in the face of conventional wisdom and understanding of sexuality.

Read the rest.

Larry Craig is Definitely Not Gay

From LifeLube pal Stewart Landers, of the Landers Health Report

A proud gay man lives his adult life with his male partner or husband, not a wife and kids. Gay men do not support a constitutional amendment to prohibit same sex marriage. Gay men do not vote against long-overdue legislation that would protect gay men and lesbians from discrimination in the work place (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or ENDA).

On the other hand, repressed, hypocritical, right-wing politicians with homosexual tendencies behave exactly as Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has done in the past two months and throughout his political career. How ludicrous to believe that one of the hundred or so most powerful people in the United States was intimidated by a Minnesota beat officer into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit.

Read the rest.

The Daily Show - Prostitution Gate and Beltway Unbuckled

The predicament of one Randall "have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage" Tobias (former Mr. PEPFAR, former Director USAID) makes for much merriment on last night's Daily Show. Click and giggle.

Make sure to watch:

Prostitution Gate - "Sex scandal, baby! It's like we got our pre-9/11 boners back."

Beltway Unbuckled - "Jason Jones understands the tension that builds up in the balls of power."

See previous post on this matter.

Tobias Latest Evidence of Bush Hypocrisy

by Jodi Jacobsen in today's RH Reality Check

In the final moments of the Washington work day last Friday evening, emails began shooting across my screen announcing the immediate resignation of Randall Tobias as Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The official press release cited "personal reasons," and this was clearly important news, so I passed it on to colleagues right away. One immediately wrote back asking for the "back story," on suspicion that a late-Friday release always means something fishy. I offered that Mr. Tobias might have a family emergency, and while I've long been a critic of the policies over which he has presided both as Global AIDS Coordinator and in his current capacity, I nonetheless felt compassion for him in what appeared to be a serious personal matter.

Boy was I wrong. Little did I realize that this was in fact a "back" story....Tobias's had been inviting some "gals" over to his condo for personal massages. Problem is those "gals" were employed by Pamela Martin and Associates, described in court papers by owner Deborah Palfrey as a "high-end adult fantasy firm offering legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior."

Read the rest.