Sigh. Poor Michael Medved of Town Hall. He bloviates in his column that lifting Don't Ask, Don't Tell will result in an explosion of toe-tapping cruising in the latrines.
Imagine the impact on morale and unit cohesion if two guys from the same barracks engaged in toe-tapping hanky-panky (and perhaps much more) while occupying adjacent bathroom stalls in the military facilities?
Of course, advocates for gays in the military will insist that any such indulgence would involve a violation of the rules, with offenders facing stiff, severe consequences. But the impact of gay GI’s on bathroom atmospherics doesn’t just stem from the real chance of actual sex acts in the latrine, it involves whole sexualization of one of the most frequented and important conveniences on any base.
Does he not realize that Larry Craig has said he's not gay, and that the Atlanta police department found that the majority of men busted in his stings are married with kids? How, exactly then, will DADT prevent bathroom hookups if self-proclaimed heterosexuals are engaging in public, anonymous homosex? If you read on, it's clear the level of Medved's projection that he will be the target of amorous toe-tapping is, well, extreme.
The problem isn’t just the chance of molestation, it’s the radical change of mood and sensibility if you know you may be checked out as a sex object at a very private moment (of urination or defecation) when most normal people prefer to avoid any and all thoughts of physical intimacy.
...The national shudder of discomfort and queasiness associated with any introduction of homosexual eroticism into public men’s rooms should make us more determined than ever to resist the injection of those lurid attitudes into the even more explosive situation of the U.S. military.
Oh, please. How does the desire to serve one's country without being in the closet now turn into an orgy of bathroom sex? It's about the inappropriate nature and location of a sex act, not the orientation, Medved.
If Craig thinks he's straight and has to cruise public restrooms for same-sex encounters, it says more about homophobia and the pathology of the closet driving men like him to engage in this kind of public, anonymous, illicit behavior, particularly because of the deceit and the pain it causes their families.
