Fiddling around

I put up a lawnsign a few weeks ago urging voters to vote no on the proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage. I mention this only to give some context to the following comments.

The Trib has done a good job outing Rep. Gauthier who was caught by police just after a hurried act of intimacy at a highway rest stop with another fellow. Tawdry, embarrassing and human.

I’ve never had a very positive feeling about Rep. Gauthier. It wasn’t because he was rumored to be gay but had more to do with his personality. Despite that I can’t help feeling a little pity for him. At 56 he came around long after gay liberation which has been a great improvement over the bad old closeted days. He may be one of the last gay Americans to suffer the indignity of such a public outing.

He’s unmarried. The act was consensual. Also, as the DNT points out with some apparent irritation, no laws have been broken. Its too late for the DFL to field another candidate and I know nothing about the Republican challenger except that before this he had zero chance of being elected.

I long for the day that voters can vote against a guy like Gauthier in good conscience because he fiddled around with a kid and not because he was fiddling around with a boy.

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