Come on. There are gay bars, porn shops, and adult movie theatres. And for a guy with Larry Craig’s money, there are high priced gay escorts who would do any and everything he wanted in the privacy of his home/hotel room.
I would hope that if I walk into a public restroom, I could use it for excretory purposes, or for hygeine purposes, without the insult of a homosexual propositioning me.
At what point would it stop? If he crawled under the stall and grabbed the officer’s penis, could the officer (undercover, and pretending a regular person) have simply said “no”, and then all was good?
Now, along the same lines, if I was in a restroom in a gay bar, then I should, as a reasonable person, expect a different scenario.
How did Larry Craig know that this wasn’t a 17 year old kid? Does that make it different, or is the “right” of homosexual behavior meant to transgress any and all social norms in an attempt to make it right?
One of the ways the undercover officer knew that he was soliciting sex was the fact that he placed his carry on luggage on the floor across the front of the stall, to block a view under the door of what might be happening once they started having sex.
So they each stay in their respective stalls and one gets his head down close to the floor (ugh!) and the other one gets on the floor (eeww!) so he can get his dick down under the partition somehow? Not that I’m looking to learn any new skills at this stage of life, I’m just asking.
My bolding. Poor choice of wording perhaps? If not, I think your prejudices are showing a little here.
For the record, I wouldn’t really expect any kind of proposition in any bathroom - from males or females. However, as noted above, if you marginalise sections of society, you can’t really be too surprised when such alliances take place.
Oh, and if it’s not entrapment per se, it’s certainly well on the way. Does the police officer just sit there waiting for potential ‘stings’. If so, that in itself seems like behaviour designed to draw attention and tempt the unwitting.
This holiday weekend I was in a very busy public men’s room, when I overheard an adult telling his little boy, “Don’t touch anything. And don’t tap your feet”. Spontaneous eruption of laughter ensued.
Wait, so you’re saying that sitting in a bathroom stall is a behaviour which would promt criminal actions in someone who wasn’t already inclined? I’ll have to reconsider my use of public toilets… I wouldn’t want to drive anyone to a life of depravity.
For me, the key appears to be the fact that Craig pled guilty. Had he not, he would’ve fought the charges and likely won, but there would’ve been bad press for him.
The guy pled guilty, therefore it was lewd or indecent behavior, therefore it was a crime.
It is never “entrapment” to present an opportunity for someone to commit a crime. Entrapment involves enticing someone who otherwise would not be predisposed to commit the crime to commit it.
Thus, if I’m running the same “gay sex in the airport bathroom” sting, and I come up to men in the bathroom and extol the virtues of gay sex, and encourage them to “give it a shot”, then arrest them when they consent to engage in it, that’s entrapment. But sitting in the stall waiting for the next person willing to proposition me is not.
True, but I think that’s by far the weakest evidence against Craig. I don’t engage in t-room sex, but I always put my bag in front of me when I take a dump in an airport. Where else are you going to put it? Leave it outside? I don’t think so.
Note, though, that I’m convinced Craig was indeed trying to make a t-room-sex hookup.
I’m not at all sure DSYoungEsq will appreciate your remark. He’s been discussing the legal aspects, not the practical aspects of just how one goes about getting your groove on under the stall dividers…
