James Kirchick thinks he’s got me on the ropes for some reason. He says that I confused or conflated anonymous and public sex. He says my older examples are irrelevant and he suggests I can’t come up with any more recent examples. In order to make these claims, he must ignore entirely my references to McGreevey and dismiss other inconvenient points I made. He misreads entirely my point about Sullivan. It is not that Sullivan is leftwing, nor did I say he was. It is that he is highly regarded and influential among liberals (and many conservatives) on gay issues and yet even he defends both anonymous and, if I heard him right in his discussion with McGreevey, public sex. And yet, there is no criticism of him for it. Nor did I hear any liberal boos among the standing ovations George Michael received after his arrest for bathroom cruising. Nor have I heard liberals rally in defense of Ft. Lauderdale mayor Jim Naugle’s effort to crackdown on public restroom trysts (though intellectual honesty demands I concede there are other reasons gay activists should dislike the guy). Kirchick also ignored (or perhaps missed since it was in a separate post) Glenn Greenwald arguing that such behavior is beyond anyone’s concern. Moreover, I was not focusing my initial comments solely at gays and gay conduct either. The left and liberals alike have a very long record of arguing that consensual sexual conduct per se is beyond public criticism, only to denounce it solely on grounds of hypocrisy when Republicans do the same thing. Indeed, quite a few liberals and leftists rallied to Bill Clinton’s defense even though he received oral sex from an intern whose name he barely knew under his desk in the Oval Office while on the phone with a Congressmen. That sounds kinda-sorta public to me.

But let’s turn the table for a second. He said that my assertion that the left doesn’t condemn the sex, merely the “hypocrisy,” was ridiculous and unsupported. He now says that the support I offered wasn’t sufficient. In a way he’s asking me to prove a negative, since the crux of my point is that liberals and leftists don’t object to sexual behavior when such behavior doesn’t advance a larger political agenda.

Hence Craig’s restroom romps are bad, but McGreevey’s not so much. Mark Foley, evil and sick Republican, Gerry Studds, hero of the House. Etc etc. But if my position is so ridiculous and unsupportable, why doesn’t James give us just a few examples of prominent liberals condemning Craig-like behavior? I suspect he won’t because he can’t.

As for the larger point he tries to make at the end about hypocrisy, he writes:

Craig thinks gays–like himself–are second class citizens, as evidenced by his support of the Defense of Marriage Act, the Federal Marriage Amendment and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as well as opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. A closeted gay man in a position of power who uses that power to enforce a system of second class-citizenship upon gays, while simultaneously trying to secretly enjoy gay sex, is by definition very much a hypocrite.

This is just typically frustrating. Liberals have this tendency in argumentation — maybe conservatives do it to, but I just see it less — of assuming they know the motives of other people. Who says Craig thinks he’s gay? Not Craig himself. Indeed, the evidence available supports the conclusion he’s bi-sexual. Who says he supports “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” because he thinks gays are “second class citizens?” (Indeed, what mainstream conservative anywhere has argued that gays are “second class citizens”?). Lots of gay activists say the results of such policies amount to making gays second class citizens, but that is a political characterization about results, not a psychological diagnosis of Craig’s own reasoning. James simply asserts that Craig sees gay rights as James does and then, abracadabra, Craig is a hypocrite, “by definition.” But Craig obviously doesn’t see the issue the same way, so the fact that he violates Kirchick’s principles is utterly meaningless.

Perhaps Kirchick can point me to Kirchick’s Second Abridged Dictionary that offers his own special definition of hypocrite. Because I think James is using it to mean “bad person.” Craig’s expressed reason for opposing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” wasn’t that he wanted to keep gays “second class citizens” as Kirchick simply asserts. His stated reason was that he cared about unit cohesion and the like.

We could really use some consistency here. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, to pick two prominent Democrats, support the Defense of Marriage Act, just like Larry Craig. If they got caught having same-sex romps, would they suddenly become hypocrites? Would Kirchick denounce them as such? Lots of gay (and black and female) libertarians oppose various anti-discrimination laws on strictly libertarian grounds. Are they hypocrites who want to keep gays (or blacks or women) “second class citizens?” Craig is certainly a hypocrite for violating his family values rhetoric and the like, but his votes on gay marriage etc. are entirely irrelevant to the charge of hypocrisy unless being gay requires accepting wholesale the political agenda of James Kirchick.

Let me put it terms I do not endorse but might help clarify the issue. Uncle Toms may be bad in all sorts of ways, but they aren’t necessarily hypocrites.

Correction: I said Kerry supported the Defense of Marriage Act. He didn’t. Or at least he didn’t vote for it. He did however “grow” his position in 2004. He came out against gay marriage and retracted his view that DOMA was unconstitutional arguing instead that it was the reason a constitutional amendment was unnecessary. It was all very nuanced, of course. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, signed DOMA. So he must think gays should be second class citizens.