ACLU: Afraid to say he’s gay, Larry Craig took wrong case to court

[The Straight Story]

ACLU: Afraid to say he’s gay, Larry Craig took wrong case to court

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s mistake wasn’t letting the clock run out on appealing his airport bathroom sex-solicitation case to the Minnesota Supreme Court — it was bringing the wrong case in the first place. That’s the view of Charles Samuelson, executive director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota (ACLU-MN), who thinks that a refusal to acknowledge his homosexuality impeded Craig’s ability to make his legal arguments.

In an interview with the Minnesota Independent, Samuleson didn’t disagree with Craig attorney Tom Kelly, who said that asking the state’s high court to take the former Idaho senator’s appeal “would have been a futile exercise.”

“ can only take what his lawyers bring,” Samuelson said, and Craig had his attorneys bring only “a very small and limited technical issue about his guilty plea.”

But Samuelson said an appeal might have been effective had Craig made civil liberties arguments that the ACLU-MN raised in a friend-of-the-court brief. “Our issues would probably be more attractive to the Supreme Court,” Samuelson said.

The ACLU-MN asserted that Craig’s arrest in a police sting meant to ensnare men seeking gay sex at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport men’s room was a classic example of government suppression of unpopular speech.

“The problem is he was reluctant to say he’s a gay man,” Samuelson said, adding that Craig’s recent retirement from office likely lowered the stakes beyond the point at which Craig would press his case, no matter what the issue.

http://minnesotaindependent.com/22517/aclu-afraid-to-say-hes-gay-larry-craig-took-wrong-case-to-court

[Terran]

1. Sigh...ya know, as weird as this sounds...

A man who seeks an anonymous blowjob from another man in an airport bathroom is not necessarily gay. I know this is probably too fine a point to be considered in legal discussions like the above, but it is true.

Now, if Senator Craig was seeking to *give* an anonymous blowjob to someone, well, then, yeah...he's gay. Or bisexual. But we'll never know, will we?