Gay Sex in Idaho History

U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R–ID) was arrested in June for an incident in a public men's room at the Minneapolis airport. In brief, the arresting officer says that Craig repeatedly peeked into the officer's stall before taking the adjacent stall. Craig tapped his foot on the floor several times and then pushed his foot under the divider to press against the officer's foot. He then repeatedly swiped his hand under the divider.

I'm a single gay man who has never had nor sought to have sex in a public restroom, but in 44 years I've certainly seen enough graffiti to know that Craig's behavior — he did not dispute the basic facts of the officer's account when he pled guilty — was an unmistakable sexual proposition. Craig's current explanation that he has an "unusually wide stance" isn't remotely close to convincing. The Idaho Statesman, Boise's major newspaper since 1864, has published details of allegations of Craig's homosexual conduct going back a quarter century. But you've probably heard about all this on television. What you might not have heard about is another gay sex scandal in Boise, Idaho, back in Larry Craig's childhood.

In the fall of 1955, when Larry Craig was 10, Boise was rocked by reports trumpeted by The Idaho Statesman of a sex ring supposedly recruiting hundreds of teenage boys to have sex with the pillars of the community — mostly married, churchgoing men. Three men were arrested on Halloween night, and a zealous police detective began tracing the connections between the men and various boys — ranging in age from 15 to 22 — whom they allegedly paid for sex. The newspaper portrayed the vice of homosexuality — never mind homosexual prostitution — as completely foreign to the fine, upstanding Christian community of Boise. "The Boys of Boise," as they became known, had discovered that they could loiter in the public men's room in a certain park downtown and find local businessmen on their lunch hour, willing to pay for the privilege of getting on their knees to give the boys oral sex. Several of the men accused eventually went to prison for years for "unspeakable unnatural acts" — an official legal designation at the time. Others fled Idaho, fled the United States, or even committed suicide.

The synergy between the police detective, the newspaper and the city council, created a genuine witch hunt, with the community expressing its determination to stamp out the homosexual menace from their midst — in the Statesman's words, "Crush the Monster." For the men involved, the mere suggestion of involvement was enough to ruin their careers and their families. For the boys — and I'd say it's a bit of a stretch to refer to a 22-year-old as a "boy" — the only course available was to play the victim of these predatory men, even though many of the young men got involved by their own conscious decision, knowing exactly what they were doing. Furthermore, the police investigation expanded beyond allegations of teenage and twentysomething prostitutes into private consensual sex between adults. The allegations even involved the son of a city councilman, although his name was not publicized.

There's even more to the history of gay sex scandals in Boise. Back in 1920, there were reports of gay sex in the men's room at the trolley station, so workers drilled a hole in the roof. They then caught two men in the act: a local laborer and the assistant secretary of the county Republican Party. So, if the reports in The Idaho Statesman are true, Larry Craig isn't by any means the first closeted Idaho Republican politician. There's also Jim West, the Republican former mayor of Spokane (not in Idaho, strictly speaking, but only 20 miles from the state line), who campaigned on a rabidly anti-gay platform and then masturbated during an online gay web chat while sitting in his office. You can't protect your own closet by attacking others'.

A dozen years after the scandal of the fall of 1955, CBS News said, "The people of Boise tried to 'stamp out' homosexuality. They discovered it couldn't be done. In the learning process, everybody suffered." Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Technorati tags: Larry Craig, Idaho, Minneapolis, Public Sex, Boys of Boise, Fall of '55, Gay Sex Scandal

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