Gay mecca upset over public-sex stings

[marmar]

from the San Francisco Chronicle:




Palm Springs cops feel heat over gay sex sting

Hank Plante
Sunday, July 18, 2010


Palm Springs has been a welcoming oasis for gays and lesbians ever since the days of Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter.

But new frictions have arisen between the city's Police Department and its sizable gay population - estimated to be as high as 30 to 40 percent - over a police sting of gay public sex.

Last summer, Palm Springs police used undercover officers to arrest 24 men in a gay neighborhood for allegedly trying to engage the officers in sex. While few in the gay community defend anyone having public sex - whether gay or straight - the anger is over the unusual charges in the case: The men are charged under Section 290(c) of the California Penal Code, making those who are convicted register as sex offenders for life, their names added to a police database.

That charge is essentially a life sentence, defense lawyers say, and has never been used against straight couples arrested for similar activity in Palm Springs.

Adding fuel to the community anger is surveillance tape shot inside a patrol car during the sting. One officer can be heard using an anti-gay slur, while another officer laughs. All of this flies in the face of city's reputation as a welcoming place for gays, says longtime gay rights pioneer Cleve Jones, who relocated to Palm Springs from San Francisco 10 years ago.

"They're really shooting themselves in the foot," Jones says. "Gay dollars are keeping this city afloat. Let's get real. The gay events are the largest events in the valley. The gay tourist dollar is crucial to the economic survival of Palm Springs. And this story has spread far and wide across the world, and it will have an impact because people are angry. It's ridiculous." ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/18/IN5J1EDCEL.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0u2UxtHf6

[SunnySong]

1. Honestly public sex if done right is perfectly fine...

Those laws are simply a way to selectively enforce against gays and minorities.

[marmar]

2. Agree.....I remember walking through Vondelpark in Amsterdam....

..... in the early evening, and there were clearly people having sex, discreetly, but publicly. Nobody batted an eye - it was no big deal.
Here, we think it's fine to carry a gun on your belt clip, but somehow sex is horrid !!!!

[HillbillyBob]

3. Ugly..i guess its a good thing I can't afford to go to

there..besides Im not wealthy(at all) enough to hang with the precious ones.

I don't go in for public sex of any kind ..unless it is in my own back yard..someone trying to arrest or molest me will get they butt shot off.

[Sparkly]

4. Somebody just wanted to make people THINK there was rampant "public sex"

The chief of police may be ousted for this, and is now "reaching out to several LGBT publications to stress that the police do not discriminate against gays."

Discrimination, however, is the basis of the defense's case, because straight couples arrested in similar cases have never been charged as lifelong sex offenders, says attorney Roger Tansey, who is representing several of the men arrested.

He maintains that it was the police who instigated any encounters in the sting.

"A typical scenario," Tansey says, "would be a couple of cops, who were dressed in tank tops, would walk around grabbing their crotches and staring at the defendants' crotches saying, 'Show me what you got. Show me what you got.' In no case did they come upon any man already having sex." Tansey adds that "in many cases the defendants were reluctant to participate and wanted to go back to a room or someplace more private and were coaxed to stay and allegedly expose themselves by the officers."

Imagine such a sting used on straight men.