I suppose it should come as no surprise that, despite the abolition of sodomy laws, lives are still being destroyed by arrests for soliciting gay sex, as in this sad story about Florida State Rep. Bob Allen. The seven-year legislator is (was?) a Florida co-chairman of U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign.
A big difference between incidents like Allen's and, say, the exposure that Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) used an escort/prostitution service, is the fact that Vitter wasn't arrested and no one is even remotely considering charging him for soliciting heterosexual sex. Also, Vitter is a married, family-valued promoting hetero seeking hetero sex on the side. Allen, too, is married, but seeking gay sex in a park reeks of the closet, and the closet reeks of internalized homophobia.
Some stories have mentioned that Allen is a former Little League volunteer and has donated time to the Girls and Boys Town of Central Florida. Get the drift. The thinly veiled suggestion that his kind shouldn't be near innocent kiddies is also something never suggested in reporting on hetero transgressors like Vitter.
More. David Boaz blogs:
Vitter's hostility to gay marriage while cheating on his own is a matter of simple political hypocrisy. The more specific issue...is that Vitter (presumably) supports the laws against prostitution. Yet he himself, while a member of the United States Congress, has broken those laws and solicited other people to break them.
Vitter should be asked: Do you think prostitution should be illegal? If so, will you turn yourself in?
The answer, of course, is yes he does, and no he won't.
14 Comments for “A Tale of Two Scandals”
posted by Xeno on
The Wicked Witch is dead!
Good riddance. Shame on the media though.
posted by Brian Miller on
While I find both arrests to be ridiculous, I also find it ironic that Republicans are getting hoisted up on their own laws.
It’s a bit like Rush Limbaugh getting busted under the drug laws he so ardently shilled for.
posted by Bill from FL on
This has been all over the news and the talk of the town, sadly. Allen’s FL House district is close to mine, actually. I think he’s popular among law enforcement groups and definetely builders. I know the locations and have been to some of the parks the stories speak of as problem areas. (And no, I DO NOT and never have cruised public bathrooms or the like for sex or hookups!)
I feel that the difference between Vitter and Allen are this: Vitter solicited a hooker years ago-ostensibly long after a misdemeanor stature of limitations expired. He did it under fairly discreet circumstances. He was never prosecuted for anything and he wasn’t in FL-known for being very hard on sex crimes. Allen allegedly went into a PUBLIC bathroom with families and kids closeby and did this, so it shows moral turpitude. I have no use for homophobic itter or Allen, but I think there is a difference in the cases. His case sounds fishy but he also smells like it. I hope the gay left doesn’t turn this into a “boo hoo gays are victims again in the red states” thing. Allen isn’t gay, he is a half-assed anti-gay Roy Cohn who got caught.
posted by Xeno on
Bill, it won’t be the gay left who will cry a river about this, but more likely the gay right. They’re likely to bring back history about Barney Frank’s former house mate and Gerry Studds, so they can feel good about themselves for bashing the left.
posted by ETJB on
Their is arguably an important difference between ‘consorting’ (as it were) with a prositute in private versus having sex in a public bathroom.
Both would involve a ‘moral turpitude’ but one person seemed to have believed that discretion was the better part of the valor.
Also if a public figure is going to make an issue out of his ‘family values’, then their private life is fair game.
posted by Greg Capaldini on
Both men are total idiots if they thought no one would try to use knowledge of their sexual exploits against them politically. That’s one reason that a lot of people with a talent for public service avoid that arena altogether. Europeans think this country is nuts for making a big deal about these matters, and for once, I totally agree.
posted by Craig2 on
As a matter of interest, NZ decriminalised sex work altogether back in 2003…
Craig2
Wellington, NZ
posted by Alice A.N. on
I might be sympathetic to the plight of closeted gay men soliciting gay sex, and the double standard applied to them, if the closeted gay man in question was not a Repulican “moral values” “I am holier than thou” hypocrite.
Yes there is a double standard, but I have to point out it is people like Bob Allen who fan the fires in order to win elections. They can’t then turn around and cry foul when they become victims of the very policies that they champion.
My humble opinion.
posted by ETJB on
Should ‘sex work’ be legal? That is certainly a topic to debate, but it is not really the issue at hand here.
I would agree with Alice’s “humble opinion.”
posted by Bobby on
Jesus F Christ, you don’t offer $20 to a good looking stranger, you offer it to a crackwhore, or you call an escort service, or you put a profile on bear411 or gay.com. I hope he isn’t married, what an embarassment. He’ll probably have to resign, this violates republican standards. If he was a democrat, he could get away with it just like Barney Frank, Gerry Studds, Bill Clinton and all those other perverts. But republicans have to practice what they preach, and when they don’t, they get fucked. It’s still a fucking disaster, another friend of the second amendment is gone. The GOP should spy on democrats, let’s see who in the left is having sex these days.
posted by beergoggles on
let’s see who in the left is having sex these days.
Bobby, were it a case of who is having sex, we’d all be in jail, including you and your hand. It’s a case of who is PAYING for sex, not that there’s anything morally wrong with it, just that it’s, you know, illegal in this country. And most of the ‘left’ aren’t the stick up the ass values crowd like the Republicans are. And in the case of Frank, Studds or Clinton, they didn’t go around offering cops 20 dollars to blow them.
posted by Brian Miller on
if a public figure is going to make an issue out of his ‘family values’, then their private life is fair game
This sort of “thinking” is one reason why the sooner we get government out of the “family” and “morals” businesses, the better for everyone. Everyone, that is, except for the partisan muckrakers.
posted by Bobby on
Well Beergoggles, Frank brought a whore to his office and let him stay there. Studds had a “relationship” with a 17 year old page, or was he 16? Clinton fucked an employee which would get you fired at most corporations. Remember that CEO who was forced to resign?
A lot of people consider prostitution to be a victimless crime if it’s with an adult, sort of like running a red light or talking on a cellphone while driving (illegal in some places). I don’t want us to end like France where a president dies and the wife and the mystress show up to the funeral and get along. I’ll pass on french morals.
If there are bachelor republicans and they need sex, they should be discrete like most normal people. And if they’re married, they should get a divorce unless the partner agrees with the escapades. I don’t know, maybe Allen is married to one of those women that don’t give blow jobs and don’t like having sex. People say the same thing about Bill.
But if I go to the bathroom, I don’t want to be propositioned by some pervert. That’s how most Americans think and that’s why Allen is in deep shit.
posted by Randy on
“But if I go to the bathroom, I don’t want to be propositioned by some pervert.”
I agree 100%!
Unless, well, if the guy is really kinda hot….