It’s just one scandal after another, isn’t it? All over the country during the last year and a half prominent social conservatives have been caught angling for gay sex. Some of us in the GLBT community view these closet cases with pity; others of us are in danger of rupturing something if we don’t stop laughing.

Personally, I’m fascinated by the audacity of a number of these fellows. They have more nerve than an exposed tooth.

Consider Lonnie Latham, an Oklahoma minister. He was a Baptist bigwig, serving on the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. Latham had his anti-gay credentials in order, speaking against gay marriage and in support of a Baptist directive urging gays and lesbians to abandon their “sinful, destructive lifestyle.”

In January of 2006, in an area of Oklahoma City known for male prostitution, Latham asked a male undercover police officer to have oral sex with him in his hotel room. He offered no money, suggesting either he has some sense of morality, or he’s a cheap so-and-so.

After being booked for lewdness, he told TV reporters, “I was set up. I was in the area pastoring to police.”

His claims of innocence lasted about as long as a church picnic.

The next month, Latham’s lawyer filed a motion to have the lewdness charge thrown out. Mack Martin said the Supreme Court determined in its 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision that consenting adults may engage in private homosexual acts.

“Now, my client’s being prosecuted basically for having offered to engage in such an act, which basically makes it a crime to ask someone to do something that’s legal,” argued Martin.

Lonnie Latham claimed after his arrest that he had been doing holy work; during his trial he admitted he had been doing horny work.

In a twinkle, Latham traveled from being a card-carrying homophobe to seeking the protection of a Supreme Court decision gays had to crusade for. He went from fighting gay rights to hiding behind them. For more than one reason, I’d call that ballsy.

Now to Glenn Murphy, who on July 7, 2007, was elected chair of the Young Republican National Foundation. Weeks later he quit, citing a “life-altering” business opportunity. The truth was indeed life altering, but a very bad business.

According to a police report from the Clark County Sheriff’s office in Indiana, Murphy, 33, and another man had been drinking at a Young Republican party. They crashed at the house of the man’s sister, with Murphy taking a top bunk and the other guy the bottom bunk. The guy awoke to find Murphy “holding my dick with one hand and sucking my dick with his mouth.”

Perhaps this is what Murphy meant when he said after his election, “I will essentially be the mouthpiece . . . for tens of thousands of Young Republicans.”

Later Murphy offered the man an explanation. Fearing he’d be sick, Murphy lay down on the floor next to the man’s bunk. The man, in his sleep, stroked Murphy’s hair, which Murphy interpreted as an invitation. The victim didn’t buy this creative recital.

It turns out this wasn’t Murphy’s first go at a sleeping man. In 1998, according to another Indiana police report, an acquaintance slumbering on the floor awoke to find Murphy performing oral sex on him. Rise and shine!

Somehow this incident didn’t prevent Murphy’s ascension in the party – nor did it suggest to him a different career path. I don’t know whether Murphy genuinely gets a thrill from sex with an unconscious person, or he so represses his gayness that he only does it in the dark. Either way, he’s got a problem.

And, like Lonnie Latham, a nerve.