Compassion Now for Larry Craig [Steve Clemons]

Larry Craig won't be Idaho's Senator after September 30th.  He made his resignation announcement today.

There has been a lot of ridicule of Craig in the last several days -- much of which was deserved given his well-preened anti-gay persona, but now he's out. He's terminated one of the big contradictions in his life.  Now he has others he'll have to deal with.

Two things come to mind immediately after hearing his decision to resign. 

First, I am reposting Tom Toles' cartoon again -- particularly in commemoration of Andrew Sullivan's and Aaron Tone's wedding last Monday.  The Republican moderates -- the "main streeters" -- should use this opportunity to unwind their party's ridiculous objections to broader institution building (read: marriage) between committed same sex couples.

Toles (c) 2007 The Washington Post. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.

Second, there are a lot of people living dual lives.  When those lives finally clash, the answer is not ridicule -- but rather compassion.  Larry Craig has to sort this out -- but so do many, many others who have more than one track defining who they are.

Craig will soon be a former Senator.  I recommend he go spend time with one of the most enlightened Republican Senators on these subjects, Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who has done a lot of thinking about the gap between straight and gay worlds, particularly the political dimensions and all of the variations of identity between "gay" and "straight".

Simpson is one of the best counselors and friends Larry Craig could reach out to right now.

-- Steve Clemons