Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

The DC Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported yesterday that Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct after he was arrested during a police sting for bathroom cruising in the Minneapolis airport.

That guilty plea was finally enough to get the senator's home-state newspaper, Boise's Idaho Stateman to run a story they'd been sitting on for months:

Sen. Larry Craig, who in May told the Idaho Statesman he had never engaged in homosexual acts, was arrested less than a month later by an undercover police officer who said Craig made a sexual advance toward him in an airport men's room.

The arrest at a Minnesota airport prompted Craig to plead guilty to disorderly conduct earlier this month. His June 11 encounter with the officer was similar to an incident in a men's room in a Washington, D.C., rail station described by a Washington-area man to the Idaho Statesman. In that case, the man said he and Craig had sexual contact. ...

The most serious finding by the Statesman was the report by a professional man with close ties to Republican officials. The 40-year-old man reported having oral sex with Craig at Washington's Union Station, probably in 2004. The Statesman also spoke with a man who said Craig made a sexual advance toward him at the University of Idaho in 1967 and a man who said Craig "cruised" him for sex in 1994 at the REI store in Boise. The Statesman also explored dozens of allegations that proved untrue, unclear or unverifiable.

The Stateman story by Dan Popkey is truly a must-read for insight into the ways of the closet. When Popkey recounted for Craig the claims of the gay man who said he'd been cruised by Craig at the Boise REI, the senator responded,

"Once again, I'm not gay, and I don't cruise, and I don't hit on men. I have no idea how he drew that conclusion. A smile? Here is one thing I do out in public: I make eye contact, I smile at people, they recognize me, they say, 'Oh, hi, Senator.' Or, 'Do I know you?'

"I've been in this business 27 years in the public eye here. I don't go around anywhere hitting on men, and by God, if I did, I wouldn't do it in Boise, Idaho! Jiminy!"

Hmm. Sure does know a lot about what he wouldn't do if he were gay, eh?

The Statesman story is late in coming, but more damning because it's more carefully sourced than previous accusations about Craig's occasional bathroom escapades. Although the paper didn't print anything about it at the time, the Stateman started looking into the senator's sexual escapades after blogger Mike Rogers posted a report on blogactive.com on October 17 about the senator. Rogers claimed in the post to have talked to three men who claimed to have had sex with Craig. All three men wanted to remain anonymous, Rogers said in the post.

The Stateman was able to contact and interview one of the three men -- the man who said he'd had sex with Craig at DC's Union Station.

During its investigation, the Statesman interviewed 300 people, visited the ranch where Craig grew up, and made two trips to Washington, D.C.

On May 12, two days before its interview with Craig, the Statesman finally interviewed Rogers' "best source," the man who says he is certain he had a brief sexual encounter with Craig at Union Station, which is two blocks from Craig's office. The man said the sex occurred in two restrooms on a weekday afternoon. He estimated the encounter lasted three or four minutes.

The man's motive was twofold. A lifelong Republican, he recently had re-registered as a Democrat because he's angry with what he sees as the GOP's gay-bashing. Second, he was tired of Rogers picking on congressional staffers and offered him the chance to "out" a senator.

The Washington-area man's story has remained consistent, beginning with his Aug. 9, 2004, e-mail to Mike Rogers: "I've hooked up with Craig ... why not out some actual members and not their staffers?"

But that story wasn't enough for the Statesman until the report of Craig's arrest and guilty plea.

Until Monday's report, Craig was facing a lone credible accuser. Rogers told the Statesman he had lost track of his other two sources, who he said described encounters with the senator, one in Idaho and one in Seattle. Rogers concedes he doesn't know those two sources' last names. "I was an amateur," he told the Statesman.

The Statesman followed dozens of leads about alleged sexual partners. Two prevalent rumors swirl around two men who are dead. The Statesman has found no written record of sexual intimacy between those men and Craig. Relatives of those men are dead, unaware of proof to substantiate the rumors, or unreachable.

Two other alleged partners unequivocally denied having been intimate with Craig. Other accounts are simply unfounded. Some were inconclusive.

There are, however, the two men who told the Statesman Craig made passes at them. Craig denied those accounts in his May 14 interview.

So, then... There still appears to be someone out there in Seattle who talked to Mike Rogers last fall about Larry Craig and know a whole lot more about this story. But then, there are also some who still doubted the stories:

Last fall, Craig's neighbors at a Washington marina expressed disbelief at Rogers' attempt to out him. Ed Johnson is an openly gay man, former local elected official and has been an acquaintance and neighbor of Craig's off and on for 15 years. He is president of the Gangplank Slipholders Association, a neighbor to the smaller Capital Yacht Club, where Craig lives.

A Democrat, Johnson works for the American Humanists Association, which he describes as "the godless, liberal, left-wing atheists."

"If I thought there was truth to the rumor, I'd be first in line to out him," said Johnson, who agrees hypocritical public officials should be exposed.

"But after 15 years in a close-knit community where everybody knows everybody's business, to be that clandestine and never have anything said ? it's just hard to imagine. I mean, if somebody has a fight and breaks up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, you know it the next day."

Labels: Idaho, politics

[We missed this when it happened (since nobody seems to tell us anything, he whined), but it's significant to highlight even a few week's late]:

Seattle's Pride Foundation has convinced one of the nation's largest engineering/construction firms, Boise-based Washington Group International (WGI), to adopt non-discrimination policies that protect gay and lesbian workers at the company.

In a letter to Pride Foundation, dated March 19, 2007, Boise-based Washington Group International (WGI), has agreed to add sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policies, thereby extending workplace protections to its gay and lesbian employees.

This move comes after Pride Foundation filed a shareholder resolution requesting the policy change last December. "Pride Foundation is very pleased that WGI has decided to create a fair and equal workplace for all their employees," said Audrey Haberman, executive director of the foundation. "Adopting this policy will help WGI retain a competitive advantage in recruiting and embraces diversity in the workplace, which ultimately improves employee morale and retention."

WGI, formerly known as Morrison-Knudsen, takes its name from the company's primary shareholder, Montana industrialist Dennis Washington. (His name also appears on the University of Montana's football stadium in Missoula, "Washington-Grizzly Stadium.")

WGI is a big outfit that comes in at #7 of 11 in the Fortune 500 list of construction and engineering companies. (The company's overall rank of 586 puts them out of the main Fortune 500 list.):

With approximately 25,000 employees at work in over 40 states and more than 30 countries, the company provides professional, scientific, management, and development services in more than two dozen major markets.

Here's CNBC's summary of the business:

The Group's principal activity is to provide designing, engineering, construction, construction management, facilities and operations management, environmental remediation and mining services.

Seattle-based Pride Foundation uses its large endowment to encourage change in the companies in which it invests its capitol.

Pride Foundation has been a leader in advancing social change through shareholder activism. The nonprofit, who provides funding for gay and lesbian issues in the Pacific Northwest, leverages its ownership of public companies through its endowment to ask companies to include sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression in their written nondiscrimination and employment policies. The first success came in 1997, when the organization convinced MacDonalds to change its corporate policies. Since then Pride Foundation has filed numerous shareholder resolutions and has added General Electric, Wal-Mart and Emerson to its list of successes.

Pride's next target, working with other large investers, is another major company based in Boise, chip-maker Micron. Today's Idaho Statesman story on the WGI decision says this about the Pride Foundation's pressure on the chip-maker:

Washington Group's decision comes not long after 55 percent of shareholders at Micron Technology voted in December to enact a similar change to the Boise-based semiconductor company's nondiscrimination policies. Micron's board of directors, however, opposed the change.

Despite the approval by shareholders, Micron's board is under no obligation to enact a policy.

William C. Thompson, New York City's comptroller, introduced the shareholder resolution at Micron to make the change on behalf of the New York City pensions funds. Thompson's office has persuaded dozens of Fortune 1000 companies to adopt new policies.

Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for Thompson's office, said Tuesday that Micron officials have yet to say whether they will follow the wishes of shareholders.

Micron didn't return repeated calls for comment Tuesday.

Micron's stance thus far against changing its policy has put the company in the minority of most larger publicly traded companies.

The Pride Foundation's Haberman told the Statesman that she hopes Micron's board will ultimately follow Washington Group's example.

"Our hope is that a company would make a decision based on their own philosophy and a desire to be a better and more competitive company," she said. "But perhaps a neighboring company showing they believe in it will be influential to Micron."

The Corporate Equality Index compiled by DC-based activist group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) assigns scores to various company's based on how they are treating gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors. Neither WGI nor Micron are included on the survey, which probably means that they didn't respond to HRC's survey questions.

Other companies in the "Construction/Engineering" category -- which is where WGI would probably be placed -- score a relatively low average rating of 54. The four companies that are included in the survey -- CH2M Hill, Perkins & Will, DPR Construction, and KB Home -- have non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation. They tend to fall down on other elements that HRC uses in its ratings. CH2M Hill is the most tolerant of the four companies with a rating of 80 (out of a possible 100).

Micron would probably be placed in the category "High-Tech/Photo/Science Equip." which is a generally more tolerant industry with an average score of 78. Ten of the 23 companies listed in that category score a perfect 100 on the HRC list. Those include Intel, Cisco, and Freescale Semiconductor. All of the 23 Micron competitors on the list include "sexual orientation" in their non-descriminaiton policies.

Labels: activism, gay organization, Idaho, Seattle