Repeated Announcement
Mark your calendars folks! In a Safe Zones coordinator meeting, we talked about having a brown-bag lunch discussion of the sting operations conducted by Harrisonburg police. These "stings" involve undercover officers, posing as gay men, who solicit sex from other gay men and then arrest them for breaking sodomy laws and having sex in public areas. This has been going on for a LONG time in Harrisonburg and is usually one of the topics in the DNR in the Letters to the Editor section.
My opinion - these officers are trying to weed out a section of the population that they have a bias against, and they're doing it with the help of some EXTREMELY archaic laws. I'm sure they don't think that they're breaking VA law when their girlfriends/wives are bent over the bed, takin' it doggy style ... or even when they're gettin' a blow job! I sincerely hope that the Supreme Court ruling, regarding the abolishment of the sodomy laws in Texas, will influence the termination of this issue.
I guess another issue with this is whether or not it is just for officers to arrest these men for having sex in "public." Thats kinda sticky ... sometimes, they're really not in public - they're having sex in establishments that actually condone that kind of behavior. Nevertheless, they still say that it is in "public." And then, on the other hand, sometimes I think that gay men do actually solicit sex in some of our public parks, late at night. I don't really condone that ... although, I've never objected to a friend's similar actions. I've known several people that have had sex in public parks and playgrounds! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
We are getting the Commonwealth Attourney, Marsha Garst, to come in and talk about this. She is the attourney who prosecutes these gay men. We (Safe Zones) are very excited about this and all are welcome to attend ... the more the merrier. Its called a Brown Bag session ... people bring their own lunch and we have a roundtable discussion about the issue at hand.
It will be held on Tuesday, September 30th at 12pm in Taylor Hall (room 309). Come on your lunch break if you can!
See my previous post about this and you'll read a recent article about the issue.
My opinion - these officers are trying to weed out a section of the population that they have a bias against, and they're doing it with the help of some EXTREMELY archaic laws. I'm sure they don't think that they're breaking VA law when their girlfriends/wives are bent over the bed, takin' it doggy style ... or even when they're gettin' a blow job! I sincerely hope that the Supreme Court ruling, regarding the abolishment of the sodomy laws in Texas, will influence the termination of this issue.
I guess another issue with this is whether or not it is just for officers to arrest these men for having sex in "public." Thats kinda sticky ... sometimes, they're really not in public - they're having sex in establishments that actually condone that kind of behavior. Nevertheless, they still say that it is in "public." And then, on the other hand, sometimes I think that gay men do actually solicit sex in some of our public parks, late at night. I don't really condone that ... although, I've never objected to a friend's similar actions. I've known several people that have had sex in public parks and playgrounds! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
We are getting the Commonwealth Attourney, Marsha Garst, to come in and talk about this. She is the attourney who prosecutes these gay men. We (Safe Zones) are very excited about this and all are welcome to attend ... the more the merrier. Its called a Brown Bag session ... people bring their own lunch and we have a roundtable discussion about the issue at hand.
It will be held on Tuesday, September 30th at 12pm in Taylor Hall (room 309). Come on your lunch break if you can!
See my previous post about this and you'll read a recent article about the issue.