When is Something a Crime?

       Now You all know that I love to ridicule Republicans who are "closet gays" and get caught with their pants down (pun intended), but today I have to stick up for the latest - Senator Larry Craig.
It seems Sen. Craig was in a mens room stall and used "signals" to solicit gay sex from a Minneapolis Airport cop. This consisted of his foot touching and or rubbing against the cops foot who was in an adjacent stall, followed by the Senator supposedly putting his hand under the stall, another gesture that the Sen. supposedly wanted sex.
Now, are there unspoken gestures or actions to solicit sex? Sure there are.
in fact there are gestures that will get you many other things as well. In Manhattan in NYC, i can raise my hand on any street corner and in no time i'll have cab drivers trying to kill each other to get to me, assuming i want a ride. Go to an auction house and raise your hand and you might be the winning bid on something you dont want. BUT, does that mean i have to get in the cab, does that mean i have to buy that item i supposedly bid on? NO, make that HELL NO!  Just because a silent signal can mean one thing, it doesnt mean it cant mean other things as well.

In the case of soliciting sex, the purpose of a "silent" system is to avoid getting arrested for outright "asking for it."  I can go anywhere and depending on the neighborhood I can make connections to buy drugs, sex and more with little or no conversation. Once one or the other person feels its safe, then a more explicit conversation takes place to complete the transaction. Now THIS, in my opinion is when a crime is committed, not before. I find it awfully presumptuous that a person can get arrested for what they are thinking, No correct that, for what someone else thinks you are thinking!!!.
Now granted this cop (who joined the airport police department just out of college in 2000, promoted to sergeant in 2005 & got his master's degree in criminal justice, leadership and education in 2006) appears to be on the "fast track" to something, whatever he has planned for his future, BUT that doesnt make him a mind reader.
He likely did have probable cause to assume the Senator wanted sex, and perhaps he should have pursued it further, until it either ended innocently or until the Senator actually did something illegal, like say exposing himself. Now we have a crime, not before, or at least that how I think it should be in this country. We shouldnt be able to get arrested for what we think, want or need, but rather ONLY for acting upon these
 things IF they are illegal. I mean him getting arrested for what he did is just as wrong as me assuming perhaps the cop, in his zeal and "career pursuit" used his overactive imagination to make a crime out of something that wasn't.
The Senators painted himself into a corner by pleading guilty, either because he was or because he didnt trust our justice system. Either way there's nothing left for him to do now but become a Democrat, a penalty worse than death for some....