As a liberal, I'd love to see the guy ousted from office. However, I'd love to see it happen for his failure in his oath of office to uphold and defend the constitution. Since he has repeatedly failed to defend the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, he should clearly be removed from office.

However, based on what happened in a men's room stall, I have no reason to be against him. Keep in mind, we go into rest rooms and pull our pants down without getting arrested for indecent exposure. Therefore, rest room stalls are NOT public places.

So, what happens in the privacy of the stall is not my business. If anyone sees what happens in a rest room stall it is because rest rooms in this country have insufficient privacy. In the civilized world, rest rooms have floor to ceiling sheet rock walls. and full height doors to close and lock.

When we join the civilized world and get clean public rest rooms with full height walls and doors, this will not be an issue.

Of course, I do hate the hypocrisy of a closet homosexual legislating against homosexuality. But, legislating against homosexuality is an issue regardless of one's one sexuality. The real issue with this bucket of scum is his failure to defend the constitutional rights of a minority.

Thanks for your comment, Scott. I thought it was very well-put. Stein points out -correctly- that Larry Craig is guilty of the charges brought against him. I find that attempting to legislate what one can and cannot do in a public bathroom is highly problematic. For starters, any such laws are going to unfairly target same-sex couples (however momentary their couple-dom may be!). There is a relevant argument that such behavior may impinge on others' capacity to use the bathrooms for their -ahem- intended purposes because of the noise, visuals and generally public nature of a sexual act in a relatively public place (Scott is right on this point, as well).

However, we then get into a slippery-slope situation. If two men having sex in a bathroom stall is judged to impinge on a bystander's right to use a public restroom (thus constituting some sort of "disturbance-of-the-peace" type crime, pardon me, I'm not a JD), then couldn't any public display of same-sex affection constitute the same? If, for example, two men going at it in a stall is offensive to John Q. Public' sensibilities and thus a criminal act, could the same not be said of two people of the same sex kissing or holding hands in a public place? How about obese people doing the same?

The point here is two-fold. First, as Scott points out, public restrooms should have a greater degree of privacy than they do. Secondly, any law that impinges on sexual expressions, especially when such a law tends to target same-sex couples, runs the risk of justifying further impingements on sexual expression outside the mainstream.
-MJ

Matthew,

You are correct. This will hit same sex couples harder than mixed sex couples (or really just couplings). One way around this is to look to Paris.

In Paris, many rest rooms have the sinks in a common area and then full height walls (i.e. little rooms) for the stalls. Except for the fact that they tend to put the urinals in the common area, for some bizarre reason, this can work.

If there is just a single rest room with small rooms for the toilets and possibly a well hidden alcove off the side for the urinals, this will provide the privacy necessary, allow mixed sex couplings in the same way as same sex couplings, and reduce the lines in the ladies' room all at the same time. It's a win-win-win situation. Unless, of course, sex in the rest room becomes so popular that the stalls are always busy. Then we might need reservations.