Time Out: Have you met Gladys yet?

Blowoff Winter Lineup 2009

Blowoff

For my DC Bear and Leather friends to dance their butts off: Blowoff’s Winter Lineup, per Facebook:

Fri Feb 6 — New York — Highline Ballroom
Sat Feb 7 — Washington — 9:30 Club
Sat Feb 14 — San Francisco — Slim’s
Sat Feb 21 — Brooklyn — Southpaw
Sat Mar 14 — Washington — 9:30 Club
Fri Apr 10 — New York — Highline Ballroom
Sat Apr 11 — Washington — 9:30 Club
Sat Apr 25 — Brooklyn — Southpaw
Sat May 9 — San Francisco — Slim’s
Sat May 16 — Washington — 9:30 Club
Sat May 23 — Chicago — Metro (IML Weekend)
Sat Jun 13 — Washington — 9:30 Club
Tue Jul 14 — Provincetown, MA — Boatslip

NYC Police Arresting Gay Men for Being Gay: What is this, 1967?

I’m just now hearing about this story, which has been percolating since late last year. Hot young NYC Police are trolling for older gay men in NYC, offering them consensual sex, then at the last minute, offering them money. With this entrapment, gangs of cops surround and arrest the victim, toss him in the slammer for a few hours, and convince him to plead to a bogus charge.

Robert Pinter, a 52-year-old gay man who was arrested for prostitution at the Blue Door in the East Village on Oct. 10, spoke at the town hall meeting. He said a young man — a 29-year old undercover cop who, Pinter said, looked even younger — cruised him in the store. He was “charming and persistent, and we agreed to go home for consensual sex, but as we were leaving he said, ‘I want to pay you $50 [to have sex].’ I didn’t respond, but I thought it was strange,” Pinter recounted. As the men left the store, Pinter said, a group of men who did not show police identification pushed him against the wall

“I thought I’d been set up by a gang,” he said. “I asked them why they were doing this to me. I was totally clueless. They handcuffed me and said, ‘Why the f— do you think we’re arresting you — loitering for the purpose of prostitution.’”

Pinter spent several hours in a police van, more time at the Seventh Precinct, and “16 or 17 hours in the Tombs,” the city jail downtown. His Legal Aid attorney “strongly suggested I plead guilty to disorderly conduct,” which he did, although he now regrets it. He was also ordered to go to city-sponsored classes on how to engage in prostitution more safely.

…The arrests at the Blue Door, (Duncan Osborne of the Gay City News) said, “are suspect and improbable. While overall, 17 percent of men arrested for prostitution in New York City are over 40 years of age, 66 percent of the men arrested at this location targeted by police were over 42.

via Police Charged with False Arrests of Gay Men at Adult Video Stores (Gotham Gazette, February 2, 2009).

The city is also trying to deny gay men the civil rights of free speech and freedom to assemble by even prohibiting discussing meeting for consensual gay sex!

The city first sued Blue Door in June, citing ten prostitution arrests that occurred there in January and February. The business owner signed a stipulation with the city in which he agreed to end all prostitution, lewdness and “assignation,” or agreeing to sexual encounters with or without money exchanged, in the location. That last provision would preclude any two men in the shop from agreeing, for example, to leave the venue and go to one of their apartments to have sex.

This is all in an effort to harass gay patrons of adult bookstores and to use the false arrests as evidence to sue and close legitimate gay businesses. If this can happen in New York, who is to say they couldn’t do this to any member of the LGBT community in any town? How will they close your favorite bar, or nab you on the street in front of your home? We must stop this now.

This is direct government oppression and false imprisonment in the United States of America. An investigation must start. If it is shown to be true it must be stopped, and whoever formed the policy must be fired, with civil and possibly criminal penalties. I am calling on LGBT America to make a real stink about this.

We finance the department and pay the salaries of government oppressors? Where is our outrage now?