Too often our community has sat back and cringed when they read about these cases. But rarely do we have a real call to action. We have pickets and protests over Eminem or Dr. Laura, but we barely write a terse letter to the editor when members of our community are threatened with 5 years in jail for basically nothing. That has to end.

Yes, yes, oh yes! There is so much misdirection about things like these, as if Dr. Laura having a radio show was the end of the world or something for us. (Not to take away from the importance that issue had for some, but there are definitely other ones as well that need attention.)

I especially like this line from the report you linked to:

Law enforcement agencies routinely claim that their entrapment operations are in response to citizen complaints. Just as routinely, when requests are made to produce these complaints (under the Freedom of Information Act), no legitimate complaints are provided.

I need to remember that every time people (like Dan Savage, and others)talk again about how police need to enforce the law when complaints are made. COOL!

Sean, thanks for this important work! I would add that I don't think people's names should be posted in the paper after a conviction either.

And Alex, does Dan Savage really say that police need to enforce the law when complaints are made?

Here's the link, Mattilda.

Apparently I now have a reputation as a Dan Savage hater, just because I've written three blog posts about some of the stupid things he's said.

Ugh. I've heard from someone who had heard from him, since I have this reputation as a Dan Savage hater for some reason (I don't hate him, I just think that he says some stupid things sometimes), that he's going to have an interesting column this week. Some big-time classism. I'll wait and see and respond. But the guy who told me that wants me to use the word "banal" to describe Dan Savage, so I think that I just might have to.

And no, I'm not up this late at all.

I'm of mixed minds on this one. I don't like the idea of oodles of gay men out having "orgies" in the parks, but at the same time solicitation is NOT a crime. If every time someone hit on another person and/or made a specific pass for sex, every damn bar in America would have to be shut down - and even some grocery stores and other retail establishments...

The newspaper printing the names (and sometimes addresses) of people rounded up in these "raids" really pisses me off though. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Sorry UAFA, but I find statements like this completely moronic.

A friend of mine eventually gave into temptation and cruised the park. Unfortunately for him he pick the wrong night to cruise and the wrong cruiser to hook up with. The man cruising young men in the park was a notorious "gift giver" in the bars. Yup, my friend contracted HIV during his first experimentation with anal sex. He was only 19 years old.

There is no justification for this type of behavior. HIV has completely destroyed our community, yet we are unwilling to clean it up. Stereotypes of sexual deviations plague our community, yet we do nothing to set boundaries upon ourselves.

Your friend didn't contract HIV by "giving into temptation." He got HIV by being stupid and not using protection. It's always amazing to me how so many people use excuses like this to explain away how they contracted a disease that's been around for two decades with TONS of information on how to avoid it. You're right when you say there's no justification for that type of behavior - but it has nothing to do with cruising in the parks. No matter where you pick up your trick you should be practicing safe sex. Would it make you feel better if he'd picked the guy up at the bar? Or a bath house? Or a grocery store?

I'm sorry about your friend, UAFA, but I'm not really sure that public sex can be blamed for that. Bil says it's stupidity that he didn't use a condom, I think it's probably more complicated than just stupidity, but either way that probably has more to do with it than the fact that the sex occurred in public. Whether he had unprotected anal sex with this person in the woods or in the privacy of his own home, he had just as much of a chance of contracting the virus.

Also, how did he pinpoint seroconversion to that one event? It seems pretty hard to do, and most HIV activists I've read from will say that it can't be pinpointed to one event.

But I think this is a question of goals, and you raise two, UAFA. Reducing AIDS is a worthy one, but I don't see how throwing people in prison will reduce HIV infection rates. I had a link to a great article, but I'm not going to look for it now, that showed that people are far more likely to contract HIV in prison than outside of it. If we really wanted to reduce HIV infection rates, it wouldn't really make sense to throw people in prison.

If the goal is to look good in front of straight people, well, then , I would advise you to pack up your bags and go home. It would be great if we could impress them with simply being kind and generous people, and we often do if the letters to Dear Abby this past week were any indication, but if they can't be impressed with us doing that, then they're probably not going to be impressed with anything else, and we'll always be just a bunch of faggots to those people.

Also, where are these public gay orgies? I always hear about them, and I've even asked about specific places where they occur, but it seems that they must know when I'm coming and all disperse when I approach!