D.C. Police Arrt 26 Men for Gay Sex Feral Park, Lawyer Says It's Entrapment

Contents:

• D.C. POLICE ARRT 26 MEN FOR GAY SEX FERAL PARK, LAWYER SAYS IT'S ENTRAPMENT
• HILLSBOROUGH’S SHERIFF PUBLICIZED A SEX STG. DID TARGET GAY MEN?
• GAY MEN ARRTED WASHGTON D.C. FOR CISG ‘REMISCENT OF STONEWALL’
• JUDGE RUL HOLLYWOOD PD SHOULDN'T HAVE ARRTED GAY MEN FOR PRIVATE SEX ACTS
• 12 ARRTED GAY CISG AREA NEAR REHOBOTH BEACH
• MAR RUB WAS ARRTED IN 1990 IN A GAY CISG AREA
• THE FOTTEN HISTORY OF GAY ENTRAPMENT
• SOUTH FLORIDA MAN FIRED, OUTED AFTER POTLS GAY-CISG RAID BY HOLLYWOOD COPS
• NEIGHBORS TACKLE GAY CISG

D.C. POLICE ARRT 26 MEN FOR GAY SEX FERAL PARK, LAWYER SAYS IT'S ENTRAPMENT

"Sargeant Delgado was unable to nfirm whether the arrts were at the hands of uniformed or placloth Washgton Post scrib Meridian Hill Park as a "gatherg place for all of the District's disparate trib: black and whe, rich and poor, young and old, immigrant and lol, gay and straight, borg and bizarre. [ Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office]Sheriff’s spokwoman Crystal Clark fend the operatn as way of protectg children and said accatns that the stg was prejudiced agast gay men “are absurd, and que ankly, offensive.

HILLSBOROUGH’S SHERIFF PUBLICIZED A SEX STG. DID TARGET GAY MEN?

To her, appears that the Sheriff’s Office is targetg certa lotns, regardls of who’s havg sex there, rather than gay ncerns her that the operatns were nducted whout any plats om the public. Havg officers go unrver to target cisg — which men pick each other up for sex public — was a major aspect of those anti-gay efforts, cludg those by the Johns and raids targetg the LGBTQ muny cled the late 20th century, Stewart-Wter said — particular, police stopped raidg gay bars the face of public cricism. ”Durg the mid-century heyday of anti-gay policg, Stewart-Wter said, teachers and profsors arrted the stgs were often sgled out for particularly harsh public shamg, due to the myth that gay men pose a particular threat to said Chronister’s foc on the safety of children furthers that false and pernic stereotype.

A nvictn of an “unnatural and lasciv act” is nsired a send-gree mismeanor and is punishable by up to 60 days jail and a $500 discsg the circumstanc surroundg the Operatn Park Hopper arrts laid out the statement, Lambda Legal Director of Constutnal Ligatn San Sommer told NBC Out “entrapment is fely a law enforcement tool ed agast gay men. “They round up gay men and then do this really horrendo public shamg where they prt their mug shots and their nam and their ag and the towns where they live, ” Sommer said.

”“The ernment n certaly outlaw public sex, but mt take re to enforce such bans wh nstutnal lims, ” said Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, a gay journalist who has wrten on gay sex stgs the past. ”Stern poted to a prev se Long Beach, Calif., where a urt threw out the nvictn of a gay man who had been arrted for cisg, bee was led that the police partment had acted on unnstutnal “anim toward homosexuals.

GAY MEN ARRTED WASHGTON D.C. FOR CISG ‘REMISCENT OF STONEWALL’

”“Put simply, is not at all clear that the Volia County Sheriff remaed wh nstutnal boundari his zeal to arrt, imprison and huiate the men, ” Stern of the men arrted Operatn Park Hopper were middle-aged or olr, which Sommer speculated uld be ditive of generatnal differenc between olr and younger gay men. This past July 26, Hollywood PD raid a gay-cisg hangout and arrted eight men allegedly ught masturbatg a private backroom and two others acced of performg oral sex on each other. Around that piano the 1970s Deep South, gays and lbians, whe and Black queens, Christians and non-Christians, and even early genr mori uld st asi the racism, sexism, and homophobia of the tim to fd acceptance and pannship for a moment.

On the Sunday night of June 24, 1973, their voic were silenced a murro act of arson that claimed 32 liv and still stands as the adlit fire New Orleans history — and the worst mass killg of gays 20th century Ameri. This spect, an ternally nflicted gay-for-pay sex worker named Rodger Dale Nunez, had been ejected om the UpStairs Lounge screamg the word “burn” mut before, but New Orleans police rebuffed the ttimony of fire survivors on the street and allowed Nunez to disappear.

JUDGE RUL HOLLYWOOD PD SHOULDN'T HAVE ARRTED GAY MEN FOR PRIVATE SEX ACTS

Ignorg lls for gay self-censorship, Perry held a 250-person memorial for the fire victims the followg Sunday, July 1, culmatg mourners fiantly marchg out the ont door of a French Quarter church to wag news meras. Ls than a year later, he ed the money to open another gay bar lled the Post Office, where patrons of the UpStairs Lounge — some wh visible burn srs — gathered but were disuraged om sgg “Uned We Stand.

Gay el the cy’s power stcture began gaslightg the mourners who marched wh Perry to the news meras, stg spicn on their memori and re-characterizg their moment of liberatn as a stunt. An attu of nihilism and disavowal scend upon the memory of the UpStairs Lounge victims, goad by Esteve and fellow gay entreprenrs who earned their keep via gay patrons drowng their sorrows each night stead of prottg the jtic that kept them drkg. Into the 1980s, the story of the UpStairs Lounge all but vanished om nversatn — wh the exceptn of a few sanctuari for gay polil bate such as the lol lbian bar Charlene’s, n by the activist Charlene Schneir.

12 ARRTED GAY CISG AREA NEAR REHOBOTH BEACH

The New Orleans Cy Council, horrified by the story but not yet ready to take s look the mirror, enacted an anti-discrimatn ordance protectg gays and lbians hog, employment, and public acmodatns that Dec. A judge has led that police shouldn't have arrted men engagg nsensual sexual activy private theaters at a Hollywood, Fla., adult-goods store that's a popular gay cisg ground. One man was fired om his job as a Pleasure Emporium has two small theaters the back of the shop, one signated "Straight" and the other "Gay, " acrdg to South Florida Gay News.

A spokman for the State Attorney's Office said prosecutors are now termg how to proceed light of Wren's many observers, the raids and the ensug publicy were a throwback to a bygone, homophobic era. Angel Barrs the -operated-lndromat-owng childhood iend of Mar Rub is assuredly Angel Barrs, the man sued by Miami 2007 for nng a gay pornography stud out of one of his rintial properti.

MAR RUB WAS ARRTED IN 1990 IN A GAY CISG AREA

So, 1990, Mar Rub was found by the police “hangg out” a parked r, a dark and seclud park wh a reputatn as a gay cisg spot, wh another young man who he was very very close to, who he lived wh after high school, who went on to n a gay pornography stud out of one of his properti.

THE FOTTEN HISTORY OF GAY ENTRAPMENT

” Abetted by wispread shame about homosexualy, a fear of ernmental and medil stutns (particularly among undocumented immigrants) and cultural nial as ep as Havana Harbor, aids is movg silently and sistently through Hispanic Ameri. Snyr didn’t even notice that there’s no direct nnectn between safety and accintally seeg gay sex, ’s jt that gay sex is terrible and disgtg so clearly people will be srred for life if they see .

But then the goal is to arrt gay men and put fill up sex offenr registri (bee men who have sex wh adults and go to seclud areas to do clearly should not be allowed to live near schools or hold jobs). Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a men's rtroom at the Mneapolis airport for allegedly lookg to engage gay sex wrote his June report that he "regnized a signal ed by persons wishg to engage lewd nduct. Craig told reporters today that he did nothg appropriate and said his guilty plea was a plac like men's rtrooms, airports and tra statns, tck stops, universy librari and parks, have long been plac where gay and bisexual men, particularly those the closet, ngregate orr to meet for anonymo time, people faiar wh cisg told, gay men began g a dified system of signals to dite to others that they were terted sex.

SOUTH FLORIDA MAN FIRED, OUTED AFTER POTLS GAY-CISG RAID BY HOLLYWOOD COPS

In an effort to curb lewd acts public — or as some gays argue, an effort to persecute gay men — unrver police began stg operatns plac known for sex solicg and employed the same s. Bee much of the signalg is self benign behavr, some gay rights activists and lawyers have admonished police partments for arrtg men who have done ltle more than tap their feet.

If a se like this went to trial, police officers would have to produce evince to say here is how we n say wh certaty this is was really a lewd act, " he plead guilty to the charg and therefore opted agast a, Craig nied beg gay and said he ma a mistake by pleadg officers, for the most part, only vtigate an area after members of the public have plaed about beg ed for sex, said Rich Gregson, executive director of the California Peace Officers Associatn. "Wh many other optns available for gay men to meet each other, Gershen Kfman, a profsor emer of psychology at Michigan State Universy and thor of the book "Comg Out of Shame, " said public cisg is practiced maly by eply closeted men. The Fotten History of Gay EntrapmentRoute arrts were the lchp of a social system tend to huiate LGBTQ JonEdor’s Note: This article is part of a seri about the gay-rights movement and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Payne, a mic stunt and aspirg performer om Trenton, New Jersey, got his big break near the end of 1947, when he was 23.

But the bure’s regulatns prohibed the employment of anyone who “was or pretend to be a homosexual, ” an expansive le signed to prevent queer-themed entertament, cludg the so-lled pansy acts that had been all the rage New York clubs near the end of Prohibn, as well as homosexual entertaers themselv.

NEIGHBORS TACKLE GAY CISG

In January 1948, Payne’s applitn was rejected bee of “two arrts and nvictns for generacy, ” which the Cabaret Bure nsired prima facie evince that he was, fact, a homosexual. Between 1923, when the New York state legislature specifilly crimalized male homosexual cisg as a form of disorrly nduct (“generate disorrly nduct, ” or simply, police lgo, “generacy”), and 1966, when a loose aln of pre-Stonewall gay activists, civil libertarians, fé owners, and bohemian wrers persuad newly elected Mayor John Ldsay to end the police partment’s e of entrapment to arrt men on this charge, more than 50, 000 men were arrted for cisg bars, streets, parks, and subway washrooms New York Cy the e of entrapment was one of the signal victori of New York’s ant pre-Stonewall gay activists. At the same time, the movement’s extraordary—if plete—succs changg Amerin society the 50 years sce Stonewall mak all too easy to fet the sle of anti-gay policg the movement faced.

The tens of thoands of New Yorkers who were arrted for cisg the 45 years before Stonewall have been even more thoroughly fotten than the movement that fought on their the 1940s and 1950s, police surveillance was only the lchp of a broar social system that punished people who were disvered to be gay.

Above all, the men feared that their fai or their employers would learn they were gay if word of their arrt reached them, as sometim happened when the police or urt officials ntacted them or, more rarely, a newspaper published the man’s name. But employers were much more likely to dismiss men and women they disvered to be gay, and begng the 1920s and 1930s, state ernments New York and elsewhere ma queer life more and more 1927, the New York state legislature prohibed theaters om stagg plays wh queer characters, and the 1930s, the Hollywood studs adopted a censorship that prohibed the appearance of lbian or gay characters or even the “ference of sexual perversn” s films.