Poor Larry Craig. He’s being held to the same standard of sexual conduct he imposed on the U.S. armed forces.

Fourteen years ago, in his first term as a Republican senator from Idaho, Craig helped enact the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The Air Force, for instance, now says that any airman will be discharged if he “has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act.”

According to the report filed by the police officer who arrested Craig at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in June, Craig stood outside the officer’s bathroom stall for two minutes, repeatedly looked at the officer “through the crack in the door,” sat in the stall next to the officer, tapped his foot and gradually “moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot . . . within my stall area.” Craig proceeded to “swipe his hand under the stall divider for a few seconds” three times, palm up, using the hand farthest from that side of Craig’s stall. Most of these gestures, the officer said, are known pickup signals.

I feel sorry for Craig, who pleaded guilty three months ago to a charge of disorderly conduct. I hate the idea of cops going into bathrooms and busting people for coded gestures of interest. I’d rather live, let live and tell the guy waving his hand under the stall to buzz off. But that’s not the standard Craig has applied to others. Any gay soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who admitted to doing what Craig has admitted would, at a minimum, lose his job for violating “don’t ask, don’t tell.” In fact, many have been kicked out for less.

Most people think “don’t ask, don’t tell” means that if you don’t announce that you’re gay, you can keep your job. It should mean that. But in practice, if you don’t tell, the military can — and often does — investigate and interrogate you until you’re forced to tell.

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