Creep of the Year: Larry Craig and Bob Allen

Oink, oink. 2007 was the Year of the Pig and my goodness did Republicans do their best to live up to that name.
Competition was tough for Creep of the Year 2007. GOP Presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, John McCain and Mike Huckabee all made quite a showing this year as Creeps in the service of the basest instincts of the most right-wing of voters. But all three failed to take the top spot (better luck next year, guys. I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty more where that came from).
Creep of the Year is, in fact, a tie. Sharing the honor – or, rather, the shame – are U.S. Senator Larry Craig of Idaho and State Representative Bob Allen of Florida. Both are, surprise, surprise, Republicans.
But party affiliation isn't the only thing Craig and Allen share. While we don't know if they like pina coladas or getting caught in the rain, we do know that they're tired of their ladies. We also know that they don't like gays (both have solidly anti-gay voting records). What they do like, however, is picking up dudes in public bathrooms.
I know, I know, the whole anti-gay blowhard getting caught in a man-on-man tangle is almost cliche now. But Craig and Allen worked hard, er… gave it their all… no, that's not right, either. Let's try this again: Craig and Allen did their best to make it that way and for that we bestow the Creep of the Year crown (but we only have one, so they'll have to pass it back and forth under the stall door).
Let's start with Allen, the ugly stepsister, if you will, of the two. Since Allen was only a state rep, Larry "U.S. Senator" Craig stole most of the restroom thunder in the media this year. But Allen's story is a storm in itself.
Back in July, Allen was arrested in a public park for propositioning an undercover officer in the men's room. Allen, who at the time of his arrest had a 92 percent approval rating from the anti-gay Christian Coalition of Florida and who signed Gov. Jeb Bush's friend-of-the-court brief supporting the state's ban on gays adopting children, denied that he had done anything wrong. It was all just a big misunderstanding.
"I'm not in anyway associated with what they are saying," he said. "This is disgusting."
And it was. Disgustingly hypocritical considering Allen was the author of the Lewd or Lascivious Exhibition Act, which would have increased the penalties for public sex, the very thing he was hoping to have when he offered that cop $20. The bill died in the Florida House earlier in 2007. Perhaps he was just trying to prove everyone who voted against it wrong.
Whatever his motives (the most likely being that he wanted to give another guy head), Allen was cuffed and had his mug shots taken.
Luckily for Allen, he's a fast thinker. On his way to the police station he came up with the perfect excuse for the whole thing. You see, Allen offered a guy $20 for a blowjob because black people scare him.
"This (undercover officer) is a pretty stocky black guy, and there's other black guys around in the park that–you know," Allen was reported to have said.
"You know" what? Other black guys around in the park that might do "scary black guy" things?
Allen, who was the Police Union's 2007 Lawmaker of the Year, told police he offered the big scary black man "what he thought he wanted" so he could get out of the restroom in one piece. "I went ahhh–I'm about to be a statistic. You catch all kinds of people, so a legislator is like whoa! You know, especially one that's the (police union) guy of the year…this is too ironic!"
Ironic, indeed. So, out of fear for his life, Allen offered a big black man a blowjob because Allen thought that then the big black man wouldn't hurt him. Really?
In other words, Allen, a publicly elected official, would rather the public see him as a racist than as a homo.
Thankfully for the public, the whole elected official thing didn't last long for Allen after that. I don't know if he tried the "black panic" defense in court, but a jury of three men and three women found Allen guilty as charged.
Speaking of guilty, pleading as such is what got Larry Craig in all his trouble this year following a similar restroom experience.
Here's a brief recap: Craig was arrested awhile back for cruising an undercover police officer in a Minneapolis airport restroom. Three months later Craig pled guilty hoping the whole mess would just go away. It didn't, prompting Craig to go on national TV and declare his straightness. He also stated he would resign from the Senate. After attempting, and failing, to get his guilty plea thrown out by a Minnesota judge, Craig has vowed to stay in the Senate for the rest of his term.
The GOP wasted no time scrambling to distance themselves from him. "My position is that when you plead guilty to a crime, you shouldn't serve," John McCain said on CNN. "That's not a moral stand. That's not holier-than-thou. It's just a factual situation."
Truth be told, the case against Craig was flimsy at best, entrapment at worst. He was arrested for allegedly propositioning an undercover officer in an airport men's room. Reportedly he tapped his toe, touched his foot to the officer's foot and waved his hand under the stall door. That's it. No dirty talk, no genitals exposed. Just tapping.
But while his arrest was dubious, his gay records were not. His voting record is solidly anti-gay. His "other" gay record includes allegations from several men. According to the Idaho Statesman, "[A man] reported having oral sex with Craig at Washington's Union Station, probably in 2004. The Statesman also spoke with a man who said Craig made a sexual advance toward him at the University of Idaho in 1967 and a man who said Craig 'cruised' him for sex in 1994 at the REI store in Boise." There was also a "1982 pre-emptive denial that he had sex with underage congressional pages."
Since his restroom debacle, even more men have come forward claiming to have a gay connection with Craig. And there is now a talking Larry Craig action figure (Seriously. I'm not making this up. See for yourself: www.stupid.com/stat/LCAF.html) that immortalizes his famous words: "I am not gay and have never been gay."
"It seems like the people who are the most vocal, the most condemning, the most judgmental, seem to be people struggling deeply with their own personal conflicts, and that's where the scandals come from whether it's the church or politics," Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, told the Times Union when Allen was arrested. "It's fairly routine. Find someone banging the drum of hysteria around an issue, and you'll find someone, generally speaking, who is wrestling with themselves internally."
In fact, a whole slew of these anti-gay creeps have turned out to be pro-wrestlers, sans the spandex unitard. I'll bet we haven't seen the last of these anti-gay closets bursting open. Stay tuned for 2008.