Posted on 07/23/2008 1:54:04 AM PDT by goldstategop
In a desolate public park in Columbus, Ohio, a man responded to the advances of a topless woman. She asked him to "show me yours." When he did, police officers arrested him. Columbus law says her being topless is OK; exposing his genitalia is not.
Why did cops hide in the shadows to arrest a man no one but they could see?
On last week's "20/20", Dr. Marty Klein pointed out that the police weren't protecting children.
"There were no children anywhere in sight. In fact, there were no adults anywhere in sight."
Klein says it's part of "America's War on Sex."
"American society attempts to restrict what adults can do, what adults can see ... more than any other industrial country."
Ken Giles was jogging in a park in Johnson City, Tenn., when, as he put it, "nature called." He went off the trail to go take care of business. Then an undercover agent "put the badge in my face and told me that I was under arrest. I just thought I was in trouble for urinating in public."
It was much more humiliating than that. The park was the site of a police crackdown on gay men using the park for sex. But the police went beyond arrests. Before anyone was convicted, they posted the names, addresses and photos of the men.
Giles's wife saw his picture on the news. Then his employer fired him. "When I lost my job ... my wife was so upset that she had a ... a major heart attack."
Another man named by the police killed himself.
Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council says he has no sympathy for such sex offenders. "There's not a presumption of confidentiality when you're arrested and charged," he told me.
It's intrusive enough when police arrest someone in a public place, but worse when the police turn their sights indoors, to places where people choose to be exposed to sex.
Chippendales, the male burlesque show, has toured the country for years. Their show is not as racy as you might think. The men dance, show off their bodies and flirt with some women in the audience. There's no nudity.
Chippendales never had a problem with authorities -- until it came to Lubbock, Texas. Ten minutes before their show, the police told the dancers, "Don't ever simulate a sex act."
The dancers did their usual show and then ventured out into the crowd. The police then shut down the show and took the dancers to jail.
The crowd was angry. "City council sucks!" the audience shouted.
Mayor David Miller told me, "In the judgment of our police officers that night, they violated one portion or more of [the city's] ordinance."
What were the police protecting willing adult customers from?
"From these types of activities spilling over into their neighborhood."
Within a week of the Chippendales arrest, three murders occurred in Lubbock. Wouldn't those police officers have been better used elsewhere?
Some states have laws that creep right into the bedroom. In Alabama, legislators banned the sale of sex toys. That upset Dave Smith, whose wife owns Pleasures, "Your One Stop Romance Shop."
"In the state of Alabama I can buy a gun. I can carry it in my pocket. ... But if I buy this [sex toy], someone could get arrested!" Smith said.
The ACLU helped challenge the law. But an appeals court ruled that the politicians have a "legitimate legislative interest in discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex" -- in other words, masturbation -- because that may be "detrimental to the health and morality of the State."
Oddly, Pleasures is still in business because the law makes an exception if a sex toy is sold for a medical purpose. To buy a vibrator, customers need only answer yes to a questionnaire asking things like, "Have difficulty having an orgasm?"
I asked the Family Research Council's Sprigg whom the government protects when it closes down sex shops.
"The government is protecting actually the people who patronize those shops because I don't think it's in their interest to use pornography and sex toys."
Give me a break.
Why can’t people (police and extension thereof) just learn to mind their own business?
Yeah .... Ken Giles was jogging in a park in Johnson City, Tenn., when, as he put it, "nature called." He went off the trail to go take care of business. .. and citizen Ken, like a good citizen he used to be [now with a record as a sex offender], shouild just pee in his pants, then hurry over and get the law changed. s/ What ever happened to common sense in law enforcement???
The cops then used that technicality to seduce the man, so legally it's probably not entrapment.
Yeah, right. And Juan MeCain is a Conservative.
The problem is homosexual men and their culture of random, anonymous butt sex in our public toilets, in our parks, and on our beaches.
The problem is not strippers in a private club where minors are not allowed.
“The government is not the address to uplift people’s moral deportment. “
In times past the church did that by influence and not by legislation.
Like the Taliban?
Which is why, even though I am a born-again Christian, I treat a large component of the Social wing of Conservatism like the plague. To be honest, a number of them are very similar to communists in their belief that Big Brother should 'take care' of everything and ensure all is as 'white as hysop.'
I wish the Republican party stood by the key tenets of Conservatism (a good starting point would be fiscal conservatism and small government, but I guess we are not much different from the Dems on that one), but it seems as if that is a thing of the past.
BTW: What the lady officer was doing (walking about topless) ....is that not entrapment? Or, at the very least, indecent exposure(even though it appears from the article it is NOT illegal for women to walk around topless in that area, which ups the ante on the level of irony present)? Furthermore, if they are trying to catch gay men having public sex, isn't a topless lady (term used losely) acting as bait a tad bit tantamount to hunting bear with a pellet gun (i.e. wrong tool for the wrong target)?
The thing is this, some (note: SOME) members of the Social wing of conservatism are actually Communists who just happen to not adhere to some of the more Leftist aspects of communism. for instance, they would fit better in a real communist environment, but the problem is that communists are anti-religion and thus automatically anathema.
However, if you look at their penchant for Big Government, Government control over what other people do (look, I really do not understand why it is Government's role to ensure people do not masturbate, although apparently certain towns think that it is alright if Government states that it is not in the best interest of people to use sex toys ....goodness ....that is Big Brother at his best ), and other factors.
Not all social conservatives are like that, and in fact most are not, but there is a number of them that (were it not for the anti-God factor in communist set-ups) would fit very very very well over there.
I'll probably get flamed for that, but some people on the social conservatism wing are actually Flaming Liberals that just happen to believe in God.
The problem is homosexual men and their culture of random, anonymous butt sex in our public toilets, in our parks, and on our beaches
You approve of this kind of stuff, I see. Well, where in the following clip from the article, does it even hint tht Ken Giles was or is a queer?
Ken Giles was jogging in a park in Johnson City, Tenn., when, as he put it, "nature called." He went off the trail to go take care of business. Then an undercover agent "put the badge in my face and told me that I was under arrest. I just thought I was in trouble for urinating in public."
It was much more humiliating than that. The park was the site of a police crackdown on gay men using the park for sex. But the police went beyond arrests. Before anyone was convicted, they posted the names, addresses and photos of the men.
Giles's wife saw his picture on the news. Then his employer fired him. "When I lost my job ... my wife was so upset that she had a ... a major heart attack."
But then you, being the always-proper citizen that you are, would have peed your pants rather then seeking out a bush to get behind, so as to avoid doing so.
I just dearly love good citizenship -- particularly at other people's expense.
That’s a really catchy slogan. Does it have any real meaning, especially in a horseless society?
I think equating public urination (behind a tree in a park, not under the streetlight) with a sex offense is stupid TOO. That’s not the point.
Not unrelatedly, I saw a family drinking their coffee in the DC Metro today. There’s a $100 fine for that. A few years ago, a 13-year-old girl was ARRESTED for eating french fries in the Metro. I would bet that $100 that what she was REALLY arrested for was giving the cop ‘tude, and I’d also bet that’s what got Giles in trouble really. A simple apology would probably have elicited some common sense law enforcement. And THEN, he should have called his councilman and said, WTH is this? You gonna cite every kid who gets his diaper changed too?
I don’t recall the Taliban allowing the community to vote on what the standards were going to be. If you can point me to a source for that, I’d be most grateful.
I saw the video of the sting. It looked like entrapment to me. Plus, many cops were involved in the trap (An attractive half naked lady was involved). Not a very good use of the police IMO.
The entrapment of the Ohio man is an outrageous injustice that the American people should not tolerate!
So is the treatment of the man who urinated in public! One of the jokes circulating on the internet right now is "The world's your urinal," speaking of men. What man hasn't urinated in forests, behind trees, etc., in a presumption of privacy? There's a well known photograph of Al Gore.
And as for intrusion into the bedrooms of consenting adults, that too is outrageous!
I'd much rather put up with the sleazy sex shops than this kind of government intrusion, liberty, and interference with the persuit of happiness.
Bill Clinton is a slob. But, unseemly as it was, his affair with Monica warranted nothing more than disapproval in my opinion. I objected to intimidation of witnesses, obstruction of justice, and perjury, and I considered the allegations of rape and sexual assault to be credible enough for a serious investigation and possible prosecution. I also objected to so powerful a man's using his position to prevent such an investigation and prosecution. However--Monica was a consenting adult--so was Bill--if the affair had not lead to the things to which I objected, I would have shrugged it off. Most people would have.
People should NOT shrug off the injustices committed agains the Ohio man, the Tennessee man, men--or women--who urinate i private with a minimum assumption of privacy, and consenting adults who engage in sex in privacy.
There are countless cultural laws in the US, and no one got to vote on them.
Currently in the news, by presidential edict, contraception is being redefined as abortion, and no one got to vote on it.
Which is a catchy little oxymoron spewed by hateful know nothings.
When your local church starts executing adulteresses in the high school football stadium, let me know.
I love the smell of your intolerance in the morning. Thanks for enforcing the concept of fundamentalist intolerance.
LOL! Intolerance?
Whose calling others “Taliban?”
I called you on your hate, and you resort to more anti-Christian bigotry hyperbole.
Using a topless woman as bait to catch gay men? Does “gay” again mean “happy” and not “homosexual”?
I've read about prostitution stings in OK where the male cop not only exposed himself to the woman, but allowed her to start "working on him" before announcing that she was under arrest. And the OK courts have allowed these arrests and convictions to stand, because the ladies were too good at figuring out who was a cop and who wasn't.
Of course, in other places, you can be arrested (for solicitation, even though sex or money is never mentioned) for simply talking to a woman on a street corner (this has happened repeatedly in MO).
Mark
I agree with you that communities should not just allow peeing in public... However someone who does so should NOT be charged with a sex crime, which can very well follow him for life.
Mark
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