One Of Our Own

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

St. Bernard Parish Councilman Joey DiFatta, who on Thursday withdrew from the 1st Senate District campaign, has been stopped twice since 1996 for suspicion of engaging in lewd behavior in public restrooms in Jefferson Parish, records obtained by The Times-Picayune show.

DiFatta, 53, acknowledged that reports he had been stopped are true, but he denied any wrongdoing in both cases. He said he was not prosecuted in either case and has no arrest record.

"If I had done something wrong, I would have been arrested," DiFatta said Thursday afternoon. "I was not. I will deny that I was involved in any activity of that nature."
....

Kenner police issued a misdemeanor summons to DiFatta in September 1996 in connection with a peeping Tom incident in a men's bathroom at the former Mervyn's department store at The Esplanade mall, according to a Kenner Police Department incident report obtained by The Times-Picayune.

The report states that DiFatta watched a man use the bathroom while peering through a hole in a bathroom stall. The man held DiFatta until police arrived, at which time he was issued the misdemeanor summons and ordered to appear in court.

DiFatta said the man eventually withdrew his complaint, and the case was dismissed. A spokeswoman for the Kenner Police Department said the record was expunged.

Tapping foot in stall

In the second incident, Jefferson Parish deputies working an undercover detail in a men's bathroom at Dillard's at Lakeside Shopping Center in March 2000 stopped DiFatta after he indicated a desire to engage in sex with an undercover deputy in an adjoining bathroom stall, according to an interoffice memorandum written by Sgt. Keith Conley, one of the deputies involved in the investigation.

DiFatta said that he withdrew for health reasons, because he may have had a slight heart attack. I wish him good health in the future, but being caught in incidents like these, when you're running for political office, causes great stress, I'm sure, and is not good for the health.

If you want to get elected to a public office in Louisiana, and you're gay or lesbian, you must be in the closet, or you don't have a chance. I find the incidents like the one described above so very sad. This is not the way things should be, and lesbian and gay folks should be able to live their lives openly and honestly, along with everyone else, without getting grief for who they are.

At the same time, you must make choices. If you're gay, and you remain closeted, and you're running for public office, isn't it wise not to trumpet "conservative values" - whatever the words have come to mean in the political codes of the day?

On his website DiFatta, a Republican, promises to, "Defend our conservative values from attack by extreme liberal groups".

I presume that conservative values would not include soliciting gay sex in a public restroom. You see, it's the hypocrisy.

Reading about the woes of Sen. Larry Craig and Councilman DiFatta has given a whole new meaning to the phrase "tapping feet". All this time I've been thinking that it was about what Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly did in the old movies.

Check out the cover of this week's issue of The New Yorker.