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From Pam Spaulding, posting at AMERICAblog:

As we reported yesterday (and how it always is for these guys) Larry Craig’s public record as a social conservative is solid. He:

* Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
* Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
* Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
* Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
* Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)

Craig also has a 0% rating in HRC’s 2006 Congressional Scorecard.

There’s nothing wrong with being gay.

There’s nothing wrong with being gay and in the closet.

But there is something wrong with being gay, being in the closet and fighting endlessly to deny gays equal rights. There’s something deeply wrong with someone who would demonize gays, make them second class citizens, fight against their God-given rights as Americans…and solicit gay sex in an airport men’s room.

I understand that sometimes there’s a lot of pressure to stay in the closet, and that coming out poses enormous risks-especially if you’re a Republican. But these gay Republicans are the ones who perpetuate the culture that makes coming out so difficult.

I feel sorry for Larry Craig and all the closeted, self-loathing Republicans like him. I pity them because they, for whatever reason, feels the need to deny who they are, to spend their whole lives living a lie. They are so uncomfortable with who they are that they attack and denounce and demonize those who are brave enough to come out, to admit who they are and to live their lives happily and honestly.

I’m not gay, but I know a lot of people who are. I know people who have come out and been disowned by family members, abandoned by friends. I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be gay and to face a culture that, in a lot of cases, is openly hostile to who you are. But I see people like Larry Craig as sad hypocrites who, inexplicably, help perpetuate the culture that forces them to deny who they are.

It must be a sad, difficult life. But hypocrisy is hypocrisy, and I wonder how all of this will affect Craig’s standing in Idaho come next fall. That is, if Craig doesn’t resign before then-something numerous conservatives have begun to call for.

We’ll have to see…

UPDATE: Joe Sudbay over at AMERICAblog brings attention to this article from the Idaho Statesman:

Sen. Larry Craig has spent 27 years in Congress — with rumors about his sexual orientation following him almost from the outset.

Now, after the report of Craig’s arrest at a Minnesota airport restroom, Idaho’s senior senator must speak candidly with the people who have hired him for more than a quarter of a century. He owes this to voters — no matter how difficult that may be for him and for his family. And voters owe Craig a chance to explain himself.

Craig should simply be honest about himself and his sexuality. It’s sad to think, though, that if he does, it may hurt his chances for re-election.

Of course, if people like Craig weren’t on their crusade-attacking and stigmatizing gays-we could build a society where coming out of the closet wouldn’t be a nail in the political coffin.

UPDATE II: DailyKos’ mcjoan has a write-up of Dan Popkey’s investigation into Senator Craig’s sexuality-it’s lengthy, but revealing.

UPDATE III: Via RawStory:

When the ethics committee voted to boot Bob Packwood from the Senate for lewd sexual harassment in 1995, Sen. Larry Craig lamented the difficult decision, but called it “the right one.”

After Packwood resigned the next day, Craig, then a member of the Senate ethics committee, shared a tearful embrace with his former colleague.

“One particularly poignant moment came during an exchange between Packwood and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a member of the Ethics panel,” Edwin Chen reported in the Los Angeles Times Sept. 8, 1995. “Afterward, they shook hands and hugged one another. Then Craig began sobbing and quickly strode into the GOP cloakroom, his hands covering his face.”

“It was not an easy decision to vote to expel a colleague from the Senate, but it was the right one,” Craig said of the ethic’s committee’s sanction related to charges that Packwood made 18 “unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances” against women.

Now an independent watchdog wants the ethics committee to begin an investigation that could see the Idaho Republican face a similar fate. The group wants a formal investigation of reports reports that Craig tried to solicit anonymous sex in an airport bathroom.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington charges the three-term senator’s alleged conduct reflects poorly on the august chamber.

CREW filed a complaint with the Senate ethics committee calling for an investigation of Craig after Roll Call reported that he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after being arrested in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

“The Senate Select Committee on Ethics should immediately commence an investigation into Sen. Craig’s conduct,” Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, said in a statement. “If pleading guilty to charges stemming from an attempt to solicit an undercover officer in a public restroom is not conduct that reflects poorly upon the Senate, what is?”

[...]

In its formal complaint, CREW notes that the ethics committee has previously disciplined members for engaging in improper conduct that reflects upon the Senate.

“In 1995, the Committee recommended that Senator Bob Packwood be expelled for repeated sexual misconduct,” Sloan writes in a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the ethics committee, and its vice chair, Sen. John Cornyn.

The committee also has the option to formally reprimand a senator, without officially sanctioning him or her.

“Therefore, even if the Committee is not persuaded that Senator Craig’s conduct reaches the level of improper conduct — though given the circumstances it appears obvious that it does — at the very least, the Committee should issue a public statement criticizing the Senator’s conduct,” Sloan wrote in CREW’s complaint to the committee.

Will Craig receive the same treatment at other Senators who engaged in sexual misconduct? I’m not sure, but the Senate needs to at least open up an investigation into this incident and determine the appropriate course of action.