Louisiana Police Arrests 2 Men for having Sex ARE They Using this as tool for Harassment?

                                                                                

Concerned about whether conservative states will acknowledge the legal reality of marriage equality—even if it’s handed down from the Supreme Court? Well, Louisiana is still having a hard time accepting the demise of anti-sodomy laws, despite the fact that SCOTUS ruled them unconstitutional more than a decade ago. newnownext.com

                                              

The police chief of Baton Rouge, La., had to apologize after it emerged that officers recently charged two men under an anti-gay law that the Supreme Court of the United States rendered unconstitutional over a decade ago.

The incident happened on Thursday night, say reports, when two men, ages 33 and 25, were caught having sex in a stationary car at a local Baton Rouge park. Officers arrested the men on a count of trespassing and also “crimes against nature” — Louisiana’s version of an anti-gay sodomy ban. 

There’s just one problem: same-sex consensual acts aren’t illegal in the U.S. and they haven’t been for over a decade. To their credit, when the police force realized this error they quickly moved to correct it. Administrators have said that no anti-gay intent was meant and that this was a simple case of those particular officers not knowing the statute was no longer enforceable:

“They were charged on counts of trespassing and crimes against nature and then we recognized that the crimes against nature  (charge) was unconstitutional,” NOLA.com quotes Baton Rouge Police Cpl. Don Coppola as saying. “(BRPD) Chief Carl Dabadie immediately contacted the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s office to have those charges removed.”

Coppola says a memo has now been sent to all officers telling them that the crimes against nature statute is not constitutional and should never be invoked. He has also apologized to the two men involved, but has characterized this as a “simple mistake.” Taking this on good faith, we can recognize it very well might have been a simple mistake, but it’s worth stressing that this isn’t the first time East Baton Rouge’s police force have made this error.

In 2013 the Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office garnered national attention after an investigation by The Advocate (not the LGBT title but one that covers state news for the Louisiana region) found the Sheriff’s Office had used the unenforceable crimes against nature statute as part of a sting to trap at least 12 men who agreed to or discussed consensual sex with an undercover agent at a local park.

At the time, the department had claimed it was unaware that the Supreme Court of the United States had rendered the law unenforceable as part of  its Lawrence v. Texas ruling in 2003. Then, the court found that it was unconstitutional to regulate private consensual acts between same-sex consenting adults. This meant that every statute used to make the act of same-sex sexual acts illegal was rendered unenforceable. However, because the Supreme Court (rightly) cannot make or repeal laws, the statutes remained on the books.

Several states have repealed their anti-sodomy laws–because it’s pointless and confusing to have them written in law–but around 13 states still have those laws on the books, including Louisiana. This is how the so-called mistake came about in 2013, and apparently many of East Baton Rouge’s officers still haven’t got the message today.

“It’s outrageous that we have people in this state sitting in jail accused of a crime that’s been declared invalid,” Marjorie Esman, executive director of the ACLU in Louisiana, is quoted as saying. “The Baton Rouge Police Department needs to get the message that they can’t arrest people illegally.”

This is especially aggravating, not just because it’s the same police force that has yet again attempted to use this law (and, it appears, the only police force in Louisiana), but because Republicans in the state House last year refused to take up a simple measure that would delete the crimes against nature statute’s anti-gay provisions.  To repeat again, the Supreme Court has ruled these laws unconstitutional, but they are still occasionally being used. Simple logic dictates that the legislature must do something about this, but it continues to hold on to this anti-gay provision, as do several other states. We have to ask why?

Unfortunately, religious conservative lawmakers are on record as saying that they believe repealing the statute would amount to “condoning” or “approving” of what they believe is sinful behavior; this is another example of how someone’s private beliefs yet again are encroaching on and harming the lives of others in the secular world. Legal groups have signaled they are prepared to sue to get these laws off the books, and unfortunately it appears that may be necessary. care2.com

Louisiana arrests on the average of once a year men having sex with men going back to  the Supreme Court decision stopping such actions, in which arrests were more. Is the Police not instructing cops on the law? like any other law or the police including the cop on the beat arresting gays knowing charges will be dropped but instead using it as a tool for intimidation and harassment of the gay community?? Lets not go too far to the south when in NYC the police Dept under Mayor Bloomberg had a squad of young stud officers going to adult porn stores to arrest their patrons wether they were inside or just passing by. It took a major effort of the gay community and openly gay legislators to make the mayor and it’s commissioner dismantle the unit. Wasted millions of dollars and no arrests that stuck on the original charges. On most of them the charges were dismissed or plead down. Eventually all charges were dismissed but who refunds the city for the moneys and those actions and who is going to give back the lives to those men that had families and were forced to come out this way. Iam for every gay to come out and critical of anyone that don’t at least to their families or close friends but still I believe with the universal thought that coming out is a personal act and only the person coming out knows best when is the time to do so and should not be blackmailed or exposed by the government to come out.

Having said that I will expose any politician or closeted homophobe whomever they are who   damages the community by playing the double card. If you are closeted shut up! and stop criticizing those that had the heart and the moral compass to come out.

Having said that I keep calling on US Senator Linsey Graham to come out! If he is not gay he should clearly deny it! History will not be kind to any good he might have tried to do compared to the damaged he is done by hurting gays by standing by the homophobe stance of no gay marriage, no gay soldiers and anything that has come through the senate that had to do with helping the gay community get out of the hole of the treatment we were receiving in our own country. There are still people that think that we are so alien we should not even get married instead rent a room or have sex like the men in Baton Rouge that got arrested for having sex at night inside a car, under a highway in a park.  Adam Gonzalez