Senator Larry Craig’s defiant claim that he is “not gay” is an interesting one.  He didn’t say “I don’t hang around in public restrooms where men commonly have sex with men.”  He said he was not “gay.” 

Is it possible for a man to have sex with other men but not be “gay”?  I suspect that most people would claim that a man who has sex with other men is, by that very fact, “gay.” But is it that simple?

Scientist Alfred Kinsey argued that “heterosexuals” and “homosexuals” were both located on the same continuum running from “Exclusively heterosexual” to “Exclusively homosexual.”  This continuum is represented in Kinsey’s scale of sexual orientation.  He argued that society’s efforts to pigeonhole people into one type or the other was a political move.  It was possible, according to Kinsey, that a man (or a woman) might be predominantly heterosexual, but only incidentally homosexual.  Perhaps, this is what Senator Craig meant when he claimed that he was not “gay.”  Perhaps he was honestly (and desperately) claiming that he liked sex with women as a rule, though he did the public restroom gig with other men on the side.

Senator Craig obviously feels the pain of the “gay” label a lot more than he feels the pain of being caught in a restroom where men commonly have sex with other men.  Thus, his continued protests denying his alleged homosexuality.   But maybe he’s protesting the “gay” label for yet another reason.   Maybe he is honestly (and …