Box Turtle Bulletin

If he is referring to sexual acts performed in public spaces, that’s one thing. Yet if he is saying that NC is violating the Lawrence decision, I need to get myself down there quick! Why the millions I’d make in damages would be more than enough to retire on!

Mecklenburg County needs to be de-infested of d–chebags.

wackadoodle

Atleast he’s honest about wanting to arrest gay people because he hates them. He doesn’t make up some BS about ‘public intoxication’ like Forth Worth did.

Aconite

Uhhhhh…â€œHomosexual conduct is illegal in NC (even after Lawrence V Texas).” WTF?!

Maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t that like saying “Interracial marriage is illegal here (even after Loving v. Virginia)”? The U.S. SUPREME COURT ruled those laws unconstitutional. When the U.S. Supreme Court says something is unconstitutional, states don’t get to just ignore that if they don’t like it.

Perhaps Bill James slept through all his civics classes.

Lynn David

Mr. James is obviously ignorant. There were a few articles on problems in Mecklinburg parks about cruising. Here is one, Cruising for Trouble:

Cruisers don’t seem out of place because they often look like they belong in these places. They’re often older men who have none of the mannerisms of gay culture that homosexual men often adopt. They drive family type vehicles, because many of them are married. They don’t go to gay bars because they’re afraid someone they know might find out about it.

Alan Rosenberg, President of the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard of Charlotte, counsels a group of men struggling with their homosexuality. Like so many men in their position, he began cruising for sex with other men while still trapped in a marriage to his wife of 25 years.

And also here, Naming Names:

On April 21, six detectives had set up a sting operation to target gay men who cruise some areas of Freedom Park looking for sex with other anonymous gay men. As a result of the sting, six men ranging in age between 23 and 80 were arrested on soliciting for crime against nature and public masturbation charges, both of which are misdemeanors.

Offenders arrested on misdemeanor charges rarely make the department’s e-mail release list unless they are wanted for questioning in a bigger, more violent crime. But on May 3, the names, birthdates and addresses of the six men were released by CMPD.

Because men who cruise parks looking for gay sex are often not out of the closet, and in many cases are married with a family, the move had the potential to ruin the men’s lives, say some members of the gay community.

I’d almost bet Jim blogged about it back then.
…

Ray

Timothy,
Have you had a response from the district attorney or the police department? I’m guessing they’ll say Bill James is off his rocker

Timothy Kincaid

Ray,

Not yet. Nor have I seen any MSM coverage of his latest comments.

Jerry Sloan

Timothy,

It may come as a shock to you but it is illegal in California to solicit homosexual sex.

While the legislature in 1974 passed Willie Brown’s consenting adult bill, AB 489 they did not change the soliciting laws.

If you were to ask an undercover cop to have sex it is illegal to do so even if you proposed to go to your home to have wild sex – no money has to be involved.

The law applies equally to both heterosexual and homosexual persons.

So the bottom line is, in Califoria it is legal to do it – just don’t ask to do it. :-)

Timothy Kincaid

Jerry,

If you mean that it is illegal to solicit sex for money, i.e. prostitution, that is not at all surprising.

If, however, you are stating that it is illegal to ask someone to have sex with you, I have to ask that you provide a link to the code section.

Regan DuCasse

There was a double shooting of a couple in front of a Valley hospital a few days ago. Gang related.
Indeed, a lot of domestic or gang related violence has taken many lives just in the last year.

I haven’t seen the comparable statistics on what happens in NC yet. But I’m sure that drug and alcohol related problems are many.
To say nothing of poverty, and neglect of children in that state certainly are.

For this man to refer to gay people as an ‘infestation’ on any level reminds me of the offense he takes that gay people exist, and the pernicious perception that they cause a lot of problems in any given neighborhood they live in.

I defy ANY law enforcement professional to be honest about what really poses a threat to innocents in our country.
Even what poses a specific NUISANCE that’s real and I doubt any of them could say it’s gay people.
And certainly not beyond or out of proportion to what hetero people do.

But one thing gay people DON’T do, and HAVEN’T done, is form into organized criminal gangs that outnumber and outgun law enforcement agencies.
There is no tradition of shooting up neighborhoods in which children are gunned down on a basis similar to war zones in the Middle East and Africa.
Nor do gay people RECRUIT children into street gangs.

I see a conspiracy to claim that gay people might as well be gang members and violent organized entities in neighborhoods to hear the conservative or religious right tell it.

If their obsession weren’t so dangerously ONE track and utterly without merit or substance, I’d laugh at their folly.

But for every crime scene, or incident recorded where I have to work, few involved gay people who were PERPETRATORS.
VERY few.

I’m not saying intra sexual orientation crimes don’t exist.
But the ones that are the most violent, and chronic…the gay community isn’t responsible.
And for a city the size of Los Angeles, where there is a concentration of gay folks, that’s saying something.

And believe me, I’m not one or blind sided about this. It’s a fact.

So, this particular political official is the sort of person I’d LOVE to school about a few things.

Tim, thanks for breaking it down about solicitation regarding a monetary transaction and sex.
THAT is illegal.

But picking up someone because of mutual attraction isn’t.

Another thing I’d like to point out, that’s been impossible on another site to educate folks on.
The chronic MYTH that gay people (i.e. gay men) are overrepresented in sex crimes against children or conviction rates for it.

I had to do some research for a project and I did some cross checking through the INNOCENCE Project and other organizations.

What the anti gay FAIL to mention whenever they start talking about crime stats and information is that same sex sex crimes are not or cannot be attributed to homosexuality.
Men who rape boys, are not identified as GAY, but simply as male on male assault.
And of those young boys who were assaulted, their attacker did so out of the perception that the boy was weak or gay.
Any sex crime expert will tell us that aim is to control, humiliate and hurt the target, it’s NOT attraction.
It’s not ORIENTATION that makes a person a rapist. And sex assault is about the most vulnerable target and in any given social situation where the target is isolated, politically and socially weak and vulnerable as well, they are the most preyed on.
And gay children, or those perceived as gay ARE the most preyed on. And gay adult women are the most preyed on as well.

In fact, as you’re all witness to, female victims of priest abuse are barely a part of the conversation. And gay males being considered legitimate to ban from the priesthood as if that would solved the problem of any kind of sexual abuse.
Indeed, abuse from the priesthood is reflective of the similar reasons it happens outside of the church for the same reasons stated before: hetero priests would abuse a boy because the boy was vulnerable, not because the priest was homosexual.

Anyway, I always do some homework before I say something.
And this post is not my opinion, but a matter of criminal statistical facts.

Political figures like this would do a great deal more good by addressing the most persistent and threatening factors in their constituent’s lives, rather than pointing fingers at gay people as the element of most interest that does.

He’s no help to anyone committed to fighting crime, and he’s not influencing the public to be more informed of reality, than just having their bigotry increased and validated.

He deserved to be smacked by that fellow commissioner the way he talked about her son.
People like him have NO idea and never appreciate just how much restraint and patience is required to deal with him and his ilk.

Thanks for letting me vent. The people who need to hear this never want to, but it’s good how respectful you are in comparison.

paul j stein

While I don’t agree with Mr James opinion I can say with some personal experience on the subject that the Interstate 77 rest area in Charlotte is/was very popular with gay men. By the time you got your hand on your zipper to get your fly open , “BANG” center stage. I felt like selling tickets and doing private shows for road money to finish my trip to Florida. A recent remodel will help to clear up that whole issue I’m sure.

Timothy Kincaid

Regan,

Thanks, as always, for your passion and your ability to slice right through the BS.

Jason D

Regan, Bravo!

Ben

The section of the California Penal Code is 647(a) “Lewd Conduct in Public.” It requires you to conduct sexual acts (include touching yourself). California also as a requirement that a the accused knew or reasonably should have known that someone who might have been offended by the conduct was present.

You can also be arrested in CA for soliciting lewd conduct in public, and in this case it does not mean prostitution, but simply requesting a person do preform lewd conduct.

I believe that the NC law is similar.

These are the same types of crimes that Sen. Larry Craig and FL Rep. Bob Allen got charged with.

Richard

So why is he still in office? Let’s target him and expose him. Let’s make his life miserable as we should to every right wing nut job. We are too complacent as a people (I dislike the term community, it is too dismissive), and do not respond in force to these very dangerous zeolots who would really like to see gay people dead without any remorse. Where is HRC to get this asswipe removed? Too busy throwing expensive fundraisers I guess and letting these douchebags get away with comments like this. Don’t forget, many ignorants will follow him.

Mykelb

The NC police use an anachronistic “Crimes against nature” statute in order to arrest people, purely for harassment in order to humiliate and embarass gay men in their communities. It is an insidious method of legally harassing LGBT people and causing them psychological abuse such that they will leave the state. After arrest, they can hold you for 24 hours, but they know that they must release you because they cannot make the charges stick because of the Lawrence decision. THEY HATE US IN N.C. and do not want us there.

darkmoonman