Miserly Republican Rep. offers pittance for oral sex.

God’s Own Party is facing yet another sex scandal. The ink has hardly dried on the stories about Theopublican Senator Vitter and his escapades with prostitutes. Now, another elected Republican, State Rep. Bob Allen, of Florida, was arrested.

According to news reports the arrest, which has been confirmed, took place because the State Representative was hanging around a men’s toilet soliciting for sex. An undercover, male police officer was approached by Allen who allegedly offered the man money for oral sex.

According to reports a plainclothes police officer entered the toilet and went into one of the stalls. Allen then looked over the top of the stall and suggested that he and the officer go someplace more private where Allen would perform oral sex on the policeman. In exchange for this Allen said he would pay the man $20.

Allen says this is all a “big misunderstanding.” I would think so. Twenty dollars isn’t nearly enough.

Allen is the author of the “Lewd or Lascivious Exhibition Act” which, it appears, he would have been violating himself had the officer accepted his less than generous offer. He is also the author of the “Sexual Predators Elimination Act”. Under this law anyone designated a “sexual predator” would be sentenced to prison for life.

Let me make it clear that I don’t think Allen should be arrested for propositioning another man. I don’t even think he should be arrested for his miserly offer of financial remuneration. And, Allen at least had the decency to suggest they retire to a more private location for the anticipated coupling.

My problem is that the Republicans have tied their wagon to horses provided by the theocratic Right. The party of “limited government” joined the moralistic crusade of fanatical fundamentalists. And fundamentalists have major issues with sex in general.

By pandering to the perversity of the Religious Right the Republicans made themselves almost indistinguishable from the tent revivalists and televangelists that infest that movement. That means they are open to the same charges of moral hypocrisy that has plagued fundamentalism for as long as anyone can remember.

People’s sex lives, unless it involves coercion or children, ought to be their own private concern. But the Theopublican movement doesn’t believe that. They believe in making one’s sex life a matter of public concern. They want the state in the bedrooms monitoring positions. They want to regulate precisely how orgasms are achieved.

By their own standards, by Allen’s own standards, this solicitation of the police officer is the concern of the legal system. I want the state out of those areas. The Theopublicans don’t. So when one of them is hoisted by his own petard it is difficult for me to feel much sympathy for him.