did Craig commit a crime?
[as amusing as it is to see Craig de-pantsed, it’s ludicrous that
what he did is considered a crime, esp since it appears not to be]
http://thegarance.com/archives/670
Is Solicitation a Crime in Minnesota? Posted by Garance ()
A lot of people are asking, “Is solicitation a crime?” That is: Was
there anything criminal about Sen. Larry Craig’s gestures if they
suggested a desire for consensual lewd behavior of some kind with the
man in the adjacent restroom stall?
The answer, as far as I can discern, is a clear no. (See University
of Minnesota Law Professor and Independent Gay Forum contributor Dale
Carpenter for more. And also, surprisingly, Captain’s Quarters.) It
is not a misdemeanor in Minnesota to ask a person to have sex with
you, whether by gesture or voice, and even if the person finds the
request unwanted. Think about it: If it were, the women of that state
would have a field day with creeps at bars and cat-callers on the
street.
Solicitation of children to engage in sexual conduct is a crime (as
it should be), as is solicitation of prostitution. But, again, I can
find nothing in Minnesota state law that makes asking someone to hook
up with you a crime, rather than a civil tort (as in sexual
harassment law) regardless of the circumstances.
Why, then, do police continue to act as though it is? Because of the
long and only-recently ended practice of firm legal discrimination
against gay people. Until 2001, consensual sodomy was a crime in
Minnesota, meaning that it was only six years ago that gay people in
that state stopped being treated by the letter of the law as, quite
literally, outlaws and criminals.
Meanwhile, in Idaho, the state Sen. Larry Craig has represented in
Congress since 1981, consensual sodomy was a felony punishable as a
“crime against nature” by five years to life in prison until 2003,
when the Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that a similar
statute in Texas was unconstitutional, thus striking down the state’s
law. From 1996 until then, the state sex offender registry was
written so as to add those convincted of even consensual sodomy to
the sex offender rolls for life.
Until the sodomy laws were struck down by the Supreme Court,
solicitation of sodomy was a crime in many of the states that had
sodomy laws, and it was this “solicitation for sodomy” provision that
allowed men who sought sex from other men to be targeted for arrest
by police in, for example, public restrooms, under circumstances
where there was no money or coercion involved. (More on which in a
minute.)