(Would I be committing that crime if I masturbated all alone in a public toilet? No idea.)
[/QUOTE]
Well, since no one else seems to know, I guess you’ll have to give it a try and report back to us.
[Sorry about that, but you provided the setup. . . .]
Anyway, it occured to me a few minutes back that the width of one’s stance doesn’t matter when you’re sitting down.
I would say that Craig is going down, but y’all’d start throwing hamsters at me, so I won’t.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Sure. But why should that be illegal and why do the police need to waste my tax dollars setting up stings for it? I mean- if I smile in a certain way, send a drink down through the bartender, and ask “How* yew* doin’?” to a woman,* those* are generally recognized signals for a one-night stand, but would I be arrested? No, but only because I am going for casual sex with someone of the opposite sex.
[/quote]
Yeah, but you’re not trying to fuck her in the bar, that’s the difference here. It’s not illegal to publicly proposition someone for private sex acts (maybe rude, but not illegal). It doesn’t have to be done secretively, you can stop people on the street and ask them to come to your apartment for hot gay sex. There’s no need to make secret signals under the bathroom stall unless you’re trying to get away with it in public.
From the evidence of this incident (and the prior one at Union Depot in DC), Senator Craig’s ‘type’ is hunky, well-built late-20’s to 30’s studs. He’s unlikely to be interested in 17-year-old pages; most people have a pretty definite idea of what type turns them on.
[/QUOTE]
I was referring to his denial of the 1982 incident, which did in fact involve a 17 year old page.
[QUOTE=jayjay]
What it comes down to is that there’s no way he could, as an Idaho Republican, be elected or re-elected if he were neutral about same-sex marriage or ANY gay-positive political initiative.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure that is completely true. It says here that a constitutional amendment to the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage failed to gather a 2/3 votes in the state senate there. And, I read somewhere else in the last day or so the claim that there were in fact some impassioned speeches against it made by some Republican senators although a half-hearted google search failed to turn up anything about that.
Idaho is a pretty conservative place…but I think it is a mix of religious conservatives and more libertarian conservatives.
[QUOTE=askeptic]
Of course they would. His seat is safe for any Republican except him. Why risk the seat running someone with potential “issues” when they can run any other warm body and safely retain the seat?
[/QUOTE]
I wish the senate would shut up already. They don’t realize that Idaho stands for one thing “Keep the federal government out of our business”. The more they talk against him the more the locals start circling the wagons. You have to remember that these are the same folks who made a folk hero out of cold blooded murderer Claude Dallas.
And in alot of Idahoan’s minds he is innocent and being harassed. God I love this state and my mountains, but there are alot of idiots in Idaho. My only hope is that Mitt Romney coming out against him will have a positive affect. The man is practically worshipped here.
It’s not the foot tapping that’s disturbing. It’s the fucking. And if I’m trying to do my business in a public restroom, and some guys are humping in the next stall over, yeah, I’m going to be pretty disturbed by that.
[/QUOTE]
But he wasn’t humping now was he? All we have is an “intent”, and “foot-tapping”. :dubious:
[QUOTE=Waverly]
This is all quite frightening. Who among us has not peered luridly through the gap between the stall and the door for several minutes? It’s a natural human reaction. And tapping your foot? There is a law against that? I too stand to urinate with my legs wide enough to make contact with they guy in the next stall. It happens all the time! Finally, don’t we all reach under the stall next to us sometimes and signal, as if to say, “Everything is OK in here, how about you? I’m just checking, not looking for sex or anything.”
[/quote]
I was pretty certain this was comedy, but a later post by Waverly makes me think it might have been serious. Am I being whooshed or not?
Surely every male in every country with public bathrooms has been rigidly socialized to keep strictly to one’s self there? Ever read Caves of Steel? As a closeted youth in America, no one kept more to himself and kept his eyes on the floor more than I. The public troughs at Wrigley Field horrified me. I can’t imagine the kind of nerve it would take to actually peek through the gaps in the stalls for two minutes or to actually wave your hands and feet under the stalls, deliberately or inadvertently.
[QUOTE=Waverly]
If Senator Craig can get railroaded like this, it can happen to anyone. Next thing you know people are going to be arrested for putting their wussnames through holes in the bathroom wall. Like that makes you a deviant or something.
[/QUOTE]
Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell are “wussnames”?
From the evidence of this incident (and the prior one at Union Depot in DC), Senator Craig’s ‘type’ is hunky, well-built late-20’s to 30’s studs. He’s unlikely to be interested in 17-year-old pages; most people have a pretty definite idea of what type turns them on.
[/QUOTE]
Really? I don’t think it’s at all unlikely that Craig would be interested in a 17 year-old. I mean, he’s so incredibly desperate that he’s willing to solicit other guys in an airport bathroom but he’s so picky he’d turn down a strapping 17 year old?
[QUOTE=ambushed]
Really? I don’t think it’s at all unlikely that Craig would be interested in a 17 year-old. I mean, he’s so incredibly desperate that he’s willing to solicit other guys in an airport bathroom but he’s so picky he’d turn down a strapping 17 year old?
[/QUOTE]
He might not turn them down if offered, but they are not the ‘type’ that he pursues, apparently.
Also, the young men interested enough in politics to get appointed and serve as pages in Congress are generally NOT the type described as “strapping”.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
But he wasn’t humping now was he? All we have is an “intent”, and “foot-tapping”. :dubious:
[/QUOTE]
IANAL, and I’m hoping that Bricker would show up to explain the legalities, but this is what he was charged with.
[QUOTE=t-bonham@scc.net]
He might not turn them down if offered, but they are not the ‘type’ that he pursues, apparently.
Also, the young men interested enough in politics to get appointed and serve as pages in Congress are generally NOT the type described as “strapping”.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, still not buying it. For one thing, you can’t determine someone’s “type” by who looking solely at those few who have decided to try to out him. Why would that be a representative sampling?
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
But he wasn’t humping now was he? All we have is an “intent”, and “foot-tapping”. :dubious:
[/QUOTE]
I all Sen. Craig was doing was tapping his foot, I’d agree with you, but if you add in that he had been staring into the officer’s stall for two minutes, running his hand under the stall, and tapping the officer’s foot with his own, intent becomes clear.
So, intent is:
1 - Tapping you foot.
2 - Staring into another stall for two minutes.
3 - Running you hand along the underside of the stall.
4 - Tapping another person’s foot with your own from under the divider.
And Rocking out to good tunes on your iPod is:
1 - Tapping your foot.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Nor would you be arrested if you came on to someone of the same sex in a gay/lesbian bar. Different story if you tried to have sex while still on the premises.
[/QUOTE]
Had sex actually happened, I could see the problem. This is so much more like Thought Police to me.
