Source: Pop Politics.com
Author(s): Bernie Heidkamp
Date: September 4, 2007

Finally, some context. Over the weekend I read the first media account explaining why Sen. Larry Craig's behavior in a Minneapolis airport restroom constituted a crime.

While everyone else seemed to be jumping with joy (or shaking their head in moralizing sadness) over Craig's desperate, closeted life and his (and others) outrageous, public hypocrisy -- all I kept wondering was why the prosecution of public sex acts always seem to be focused on gay men.

It felt obvious that sting operations like the one that caught Craig were thinly-veiled operations of the morality police -- even though, in this case, it was conducted by real cops.

Does law enforcement cast such an elaborate net to catch heterosexual couples getting it on in public places? Clearly not, as many walks through my local parks would attest.

Yes, I know about efforts to combat prostitution -- but what was happening with Craig in the restroom was presumably between consenting adults, with no payment involved. I'm not condoning public sex here -- I'm only pointing out that the only sex that seems to irk the authorities is gay sex.

This is homophobia in action, with the full force of the state behind it.

So thank you, University of California-Santa Barbara professor Aaron Belkin, for providing a history lesson.

Belkin actually is out to answer his own question of how someone could be prosecuted for a sex crime without coming close to having sex. But his analysis also exposes the long-standing double standard in the prosecution of "moral crimes."

Here is a fascinating story that brought together the Navy and the YMCA long before the Village People:

In 1919 the Navy hired "decoys" to frequent the lobby of the YMCA in Newport, R.I. Orchestrated by officers at the local Naval Training Station, the cleanup campaign sought to eliminate gay men from the ranks. Following an introduction, decoys would accompany their suspects to a hotel room and then have sex. At least three dozen sailors and civilians were arrested, and many ended up in jail.

According to conventions of the day, if men confined themselves to masculine behaviors and sex roles, they could engage in sex with other men without inviting accusations of being gay. Because perversion was seen primarily as a function of effeminate mannerisms and passive sexual tastes, government decoys could have sex with gay men with impunity as long as they assumed the active position during those encounters. Or so the Navy assumed.

When the 1919 sting operation ensnared a local minister, the Episcopal Church fought back, and what had been a local operation became a national scandal that almost ended the burgeoning political career of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was then assistant secretary of the Navy.

The church persuaded the Navy and the Senate to investigate the sting operation, and when it became apparent that the military had enlisted heterosexuals to engage in sex with other men, there was a public outcry.

Thus began the shift away from sting operations involving sex acts with government agents, and a recognition by military and other investigators that they would have to rely on evidence short of actual sexual conduct as the basis for convictions.