I think the news reports focus too heavily on Larry Craig, the man, and not enough on Larry Craig, the symbol of America’s emerging victory over wide-stanced toe-tappers.

Let’s not forget, Larry Craig did his wide-stanced toe-tapping in a Minneapolis Airport bathroom stall. There were massive machines hurtling about! Someone could have been hurt! What if it wasn’t a policeman in the next stall, but a potential terrorist waiting for just one more crazy American homosexual to ask him for sex before blowing up a plane? What if the terrorist had a shoe bomb armed to detonate on impact? Omigod, what if a pilot was in the next stall? A flight could have been delayed.

The story gives us hope that, through vigilance, and paying cops $30 an hour to sit on toilets, Americans can finally be free from having to verbally decline offers of gay sex. But we aren’t stopping there! America’s freedom is rolling on, all across this great land of ours!

In Miami last Friday, Black Enterprise Magazine held a Golf and Tennis Challenge and contracted comedian Eddie Griffin to do stand-up, only to have to hear him use the N-word over and over again. No American should have to hear a Black comedian use the N-word repeatedly, not even if the comedian is paid to do it and it’s mainly what he’s known for. And they won’t have to! Thanks to the tireless efforts of Al Sharpton and the little people on the front lines like Earl Graves, publisher of the magazine, Black America is Free! — Free at Last! — from the oppressive derogatory language of one of its own people. And when Black America is free, the rest of us can be sure Our Day Too Will Come.

Freedom marched on after Jerry Lewis’ thuggish behavior during his Labor Day weekend telethon for Muscular Dystrophy, when, 18 hours in, he named a piece of studio equipment “Jesse the Illiterate Faggot.” Gay studio equipment all across this land rose up in outrage. Not right away, of course, because nobody was watching, but later, when the video was posted to YouTube. The uproar forced a contrite Lewis to apologize by email to someone. An unknown person or piece of studio equipment, who may or may not have been gay, who had been offended, was reportedly gladdened by Lewis’ apology, but could not be reached for comment. The rest of us will sleep better at night next Labor Day weekend, free from the fear that Jerry Lewis might dare insult the illiterate again while we didn’t care.

In a way, Jerry Lewis has done me a great service. By his bad example I now know that it would be unwise of me to use politically incorrect language while insulting anthropomorphized characters in this column. I will resist the temptation, for example, to call the periods within my quotations “retarded.” I will instead call them “learning challenged.”

Just before I sat down to write this, Freedom rang out again, when a beautiful blond woman in San Diego was kicked off a Southwest Airlines plane for being dressed like any young woman on any daytime soap opera, but with less cleavage showing.

America is strong. America is fighting back against oppression. No longer can office-holders tap my foot with impunity. No longer can Black comedians say the N-word, even when asked to. No longer can a worn-out Jewish comedian say “faggot” in the privacy of his own telethon. No longer must our children be subjected on our airlines to as much skin as they see on our billboards on the drive over.

And, soon, in Seattle, thanks to the Downtown Seattle Association, we may be free from having to hear our own poor people beg. Hooray for us, as we bathe in sweet Freedom.

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