From Townhall.com

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertKnight/2007/08/30/the_story_stalls_here

The Story Stalls Here
By Robert Knight
Thursday, August 30, 2007

As Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was figuratively dragged out of the restroom and into the spotlight this week, the media have been ignoring another compelling story about sex in public toilets.

Fort Lauderdale’s Democratic mayor, Jim Naugle, has incurred the wrath of homosexual activists for publicly addressing the problem of men having sex in public places. 

It all came to a head, so to speak, in July, when the mayor backed an idea that would frustrate the thrill seekers: switching to automated stalls.  Automated stalls make it difficult for trolling swingers to hook up, and they protect small boys from walking in on lewd behavior. 

The reaction was brutal.  The local South Florida Sun-Sentinel ran a piece effectively accusing Naugle of gay-bashing.  Predictably, the “gay community” came out of the woodwork, attacking the mayor as “homophobic,” “bigoted” and full of “hate.”  Critics said Naugle was undermining Broward County’s carefully cultivated reputation as a “gay-friendly” vacation destination.

Responding to the media-fed flood of criticism, the mayor, like so many pols before him, announced that he would apologize at a press conference on July 24.  The local press gathered, notebooks ready and cameras rolling, to enjoy the latest example of self-immolation on the pyre of political correctness.

Naugle delivered an apology all right, but not the expected groveling before the rainbow flag.  Instead, he apologized to “the children and parents of our community” for not being informed about “how serious the problem was of sexual activity that’s taking place in bathrooms and public parks.” Then he made a shocking assertion: that Broward County leads the nation in new AIDS cases. 

Say what? Did he just do what we think he did? How many Americans do you suppose would have found this interesting: a newsy city’s mayor under siege who, instead of kowtowing, comes out fighting and even raises the stakes? 

National press coverage of the Naugle saga has been skimpy.  CNN finally covered the story on August 6.  In a news segment of 5 minutes, 10 seconds, CNN gave Naugle a total of 35 seconds to speak. Reporter Susan Candiotti noted Naugle’s explosive claim that Broward has “a record increase of new AIDS cases in the county, the highest in the nation,” but she didn’t explore the significance of the statistics.

Here’s what Candiotti ignored:  According to the Broward County Health Department, AIDS Surveillance data, in 2006, 70.2 percent of new HIV cases involved men having sex with men (MSM) and another 2.8 percent involved MSM who inject drugs intravenously, for a total of 73 percent.

On August 13, CNN gave the story another 5 minutes, 12 seconds. Anchor Rick Sanchez affected a skeptical, aggressive tone, but to his credit, Sanchez gave Naugle time to make his case.  Sanchez showed no interest in the public health concerns. ….

Click HERE to read the rest of Bob Knight’s column on Townhall.com

 In its online “Little Black Book,” the homosexual legal group Lambda Legal tells homosexual men seeking sex partners in parks and public restrooms to “Cruise Safely.” See our story, Lambda Legal’s ‘Little Black Book’ Helps Homosexual Men ‘Cruise Safely’ for Public Sex in Parks and Bathrooms.

Americans For Truth News Release 

Contact Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631

CHICAGO, Aug. 30 – Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera issued the following statement today on Sen. Larry Craig’s ‘homosexual toilet sex’ scandal:

“First of all, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) needs to step down, and spare himself and the Senate any further embarrassment. As Roll Call reported, ‘Craig was arrested by a plainclothes police officer who accused the Senator of seeking sex in a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, [and] pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct earlier this month.’

“It is hard to conceive of police officers – trained to spot these perverse ‘toilet sex’ solicitations – somehow misinterpreting his odd behavior outside a bathroom stall.

“The Republican Party needs to clean its house of all secret perversions and adulterous lifestyles – gay, straight and in between – if it is to have any credibility as a “pro-family” party. The Democrats are worse off: they need to stop pandering to homosexual activists and the radical abortion lobby and become a pro-family, pro-life party.

“As to charges by homosexual activists such as National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman of Republican ‘hypocrisy,’ they should know that ‘h-word’ well: the Task Force and another homosexual group, Lambda Legal, have enabled and promoted homosexual ‘public sex’ – of the type alleged against Sen. Craig – for years.

“Lambda Legal publishes a ‘Little Black Book,’ which is linked to on a homosexual ‘Cruising for Sex’ website, as a helpful tool for “cruising” men to stay out of legal trouble. Click HERE to view the PDF. “Cruising” is a “gay” male term describing the search for sexual partners, including in public places such as parks and store restrooms.

“Rather than tell men outright not to engage in such reckless depravities, Lambda Legal’s “Little Black Book” features headlines like “Cruising Safely,” and advises, “If you cruise in parks, bathrooms or other spaces open to public view, trust your instincts, be aware of your surroundings — and know your rights.”

“As for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, before calling others hypocrites, Foreman should check the speakers’ logs for past Task Force conferences. In its 1998 “Creating Change” conference, the Task Force invited as a panelist the webmaster for the ‘Cruising for Sex’ website – which lists thousands of locations across the country where men can find sex with other men – including so-called ‘cruisy toilets’ like the one in Minneapolis that will help end Larry Craig’s Senate career.”

Americans For Truth exposes and opposes the “gay” activist movement.

By Peter LaBarbera 

Here’s a little exchange I had with St. Louis-based homosexual writer Larry Handlin of the liberal blog “Archpundit.” Handlin calls me “Petey” — something he learned in Putdown School — and he restates the tired “gay” cliche of me and Americans For Truth as “obsessed,” purient perverts because we expose homosexual excesses — like the organized public “cruising” network that is part of Sen. Larry Craig’s current sex scandal. Here’s the exchange on Handlin’s blog:

________________________

Petey’s on the Case 

by ArchPundit [Larry Handlin] on August 28, 2007.

He’s got the Idaho Values Association call for Craig’s resignation:

If the senator did indeed engage in the behavior to which he pled guilty, then the appropriate thing for him to do is to resign from office. Character is an essential qualification for public service, and the essence of character is what you do when you do not think anyone is looking.

The problem here, for Petey, is that as a guy who makes a habit of going undercover to investigate homosexual practices, he might want to be careful about supporting such convictions…..

The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://archpundit.com/blog/2007/08/28/peteys-on-the-case/trackback/

3 Responses to “Petey’s on the Case”

Peter LaBarbera Says:
August 29th, 2007
Oh I get it, anyone who criticizes or exposes homosexual perversion is perverted himself. So according to that logic that would make Archpundit a … raging Christian fundamentalist.

ArchPundit Says:
August 29th, 2007
Exposing…

Petey, you have an unnatural obsession with gay sex that even my gayest of friends do not share. Going to your web site is a bit different than going undercover to gay sex hangouts.

Peter LaBarbera Says:
August 30th, 2007

Grow up, Larry, and stop playing “Kill the messenger.” “Petey”… nice touch. Why don’t you focus some of that critical energy on your fellow “gay” activists — groups like Lambda Legal with its “Little Black Book” for keeping gay cruisers out of trouble (who’s obsessed now?) — or the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which actually invited the webmaster for the “Cruising for Sex” website to speak at its “Creating Change” conferences?

Nope, makes more sense to focus on the critics of homosexual public perversion than its “gay” enablers.

 Below is the first part of the statement by Idaho Values Alliance — the Idaho affiliate of American Family Association — calling for Sen. Larry Craig’s resignation, following reports that the Republican senator was arrest for lewd homosexual conduct in a restroom in the Minneapolis airport (emphasis added).  

IVA regretfully calls for Sen. Craig’s resignation
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Bryan Fischer, Executive Director

IVA REGRETFULLY CALLS FOR SENATOR CRAIG’S RESIGNATION IF ACCUSATIONS ARE TRUE

By now virtually all of America is aware that Idaho’s Sen. Larry Craig pled guilty on August 8 in Minnesota to a charge that he engaged in lewd behavior in an airport restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. (The charge was technically reduced to disorderly conduct.)

There are disturbing questions raised by the police report (which you can read here) that the senator needs to address in full, so that Idahoans will have all the information they need to make an informed judgment about what happened and how it reflects on Sen. Craig’s fitness to continue in public office.

The report suggests that the senator was familiar with the protocol used by homosexuals to arrange anonymous sexual encounters, which, if true, indicates that this is not the first time the senator has practiced this behavior.

According to the Minnesota Monitor, the restroom where the senator was arrested is “well known among men who seek sex in public places.” Directions to this particular restroom are posted on a gay website bulletin board, and one visitor to the website said, “This is the best spot for anonymous action I’ve ever seen.”

The police officer had no motive to lie, particularly since he did not know who was in the adjacent stall at the time, whereas the senator, out of simple self-protection, had reason, when the events came to light, to shape them in a way that put his conduct in the best possible light.

It strains credulity to think that the senator can provide an explanation for his guilty plea if he did nothing more than accidentally brush someone’s foot with his shoe and pick up a piece of paper off the floor.

The Judeo-Christian tradition says that the standard for identifying the truth is that “by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact is confirmed.” The senator’s guilty plea, when added to the officer’s testimony, satisfies the biblical standard for confirming the essential truth of what happened, and unless the senator can provide a compelling and convincing explanation for his plea, we will need to regretfully accept that the fact of his behavior has been established. It seems unlikely that he can “unring the bell” his guilty plea has sounded.

Click HERE to read the full IVA statement on Sen. Craig

If the senator did indeed engage in the behavior to which he pled guilty, then the appropriate thing for him to do is to resign from office. Character is an essential qualification for public service, and the essence of character is what you do when you do not think anyone is looking.

 Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho)

Since this story broke, the Idaho affiliate of the American Family Association has called for Sen. Craig’s resignation if the sordid allegations are true. Below are excerpts from a WorldNetDaily report:

GOP senator arrested for lewd conduct
Larry Craig pleaded guilty to incident at airport bathroom

——————————————————————————–
WorldNetDaily.com
Posted: August 27, 2007 

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, was arrested at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men’s public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call.

The Capitol Hill publication said Craig was arrested just after noon June 11 and pleaded guilty Aug. 8 in the Hennepin County District Court to misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Later today, Craig responded to the Roll Call story with a statement, declaring, “At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct.”

“I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter,” the senator said. “In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.”

Craig, who is married, paid more than $500 in fines and fees and was given one year of probation with the court that began Aug. 8, Roll Call reported. A 10-day jail sentence was stayed. …

The incident report, according to Roll Call, said the plainclothes officer, Sgt. Dave Karsnia, was investigating civilian complaints regarding sexual activity in the men’s restroom of the Northstar Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal. A number of arrests already had been made there.

Karsnia took a seat in a stall, and about 13 minutes later, a man later identified as Craig lingered in front of the stall for about two minutes.

The report states: “I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes.”

Karsnia reported Craig then entered the stall next to him and placed his roller bag in front of the stall door.

“My experience,” the officer stated, “has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall. From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me.”

Karsnia wrote:

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area.”

Click HERE to read the full WorldNetDaily report

Click HERE to read the statement by the Idaho affiliate of AFA calling for Craig’s resignation

Steamworks, a 24/7 homosexual bathhouse — where men go for anonymous sex with other men — in the heart of Chicago’s homosexual Boystown neighborhood, had a booth at the city’s 2005 “Market Days” street fair. The fair was promoted by Illinois’ tourism agency. Other booths at the event hawked “gay” porn and an anti-traditional-Catholic homosexual organization. More photos at: Illinois Family Institute’s website.
  

By Peter LaBarbera 

We missed Chicago’s “Market Days” earlier this month in the city’s homosexual neighborhood of Boystown. So will have to rely on an account I wrote in 2005 for the Illinois Family Institute to illustrate the perils of using taxpayer dollars to promote homosexual tourism.

When states like Florida and cities like Chicago promote “gay” tourism, invariably they promote (mostly male) homosexual sexual promiscuity and anti-Christian homosexual activism — such as the counterfeit Catholic homosexual group ‘Dignity Chicago,’ which had a booth at Market Days, as shown in the IFI story. 

Where else but a homosexually-oriented street fair would you see a bathhouse sponsor a booth in which people (presumably including children) lined up to play “Skeeball”; a booth right on the street hawking hundreds of “gay” porn videos; a sadistic sex store table featuring to its own life-sized wax dummy — a fat, hooded “leatherman” standing in a cage; a heretical “gay Catholic” booth — and a “health” group passing out booklets informing teenaged “boyz” that “BEING QUEER is something SPECIAL. Something to CELEBRATE”?

All that and more was found at the 2005 Chicago “Market days.” Yep, sounds like a great use of tax dollars to me.

The truth is, “gay” tourism — and homosexual events sponsored by major corporations — are unlike most other special interest promotions because they celebrate sexual immorality. Pushing the sexual (and now gender) envelope is part and parcel of the modern “GLBT” movement.

Mayor Naugle is right

Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle is urging his state’s tourism officials to stop promoting homosexual bathhouses — 24/7 walk-in sex clubs where men go for anonymous sodomitic encounters with other men — as a way to reduce HIV infections (apparently, at his urging, Florida is now going to remove the bathhouses from their “gay”-oriented travel guides). He is right. But the larger problem with governments promoting “gay” tourism is that it puts the average citizen in the position of financing — and, thus, in a way, condoning — homosexual lifestyles. Governments act on behalf of citizens.

For Americans and politicians who worship at the shrine of the Almighty Dollar, sponsoring homosexuality-oriented events is not a  problem. “Gay” dollars are green, not lavender, and broke cities need cash, while local businesses benefit, they say. But I suspect that most taxpayers would not want to subsidize and celebrate pro-homosexuality events with their hard-earned dollars.

So let the private sector finance these dubious festivals — and the sex-filled “gay” tourism industry — on their own dime. Moral-minded and fiscally prudent taxpayers want out of the homosexuality promotion business.

 Click HERE to view the actual online web page for Lambda Legal’s “Little Black Book” to help homosexual “public sex” cruisers “keep out of trouble.” 

By Peter LaBarbera 

From AFTAH’s “We-Couldn’t-Make-This-Up-if-We-Tried” Department:

Lambda Legal, a high-powered homosexual legal group, publishes a “Little Black Book” to help homosexual men “cruise safely” in public parks and restrooms. The booklet is linked to on a homosexual “Cruising for Sex” website as a helpful tool for “cruising” men to stay out of legal trouble. Click HERE to go to the Lambda web page for their “Little Black Book, and  HERE to view the PDF.

“Cruising” is a popular “gay” male term describing the search for sexual partners, including in public places such as parks and store restrooms. See the “cruising” site’s listings for Ft. Lauderdale HERE. 

Typical irresponsible “gay” activism here: rather than tell men not to engage in such reckless depravities like oral sodomy in a public restroom, Lambda Legal’s Little Black Book advises, “If you cruise in parks, bathrooms or other spaces open to public view, trust your instincts, be aware of your surroundings — and know your rights.”

The Lambda Legal booklet continues (emphasis added): “While Lambda Legal and other groups are fighting against the ways police target men who have sex with men, having sex where others might see you and take offense can subject you to arrest, publicity and other serious consequences. If you feel unsafe, you should leave.”

 Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle held yet another extraordinary press conference Tuesday, in which he called on the Florida tourism officials to stop promoting homosexual bathhouses — places where men go for anonymous sex with other men — as part of their marketing to homosexuals. 

You can watch portions of Mayor Naugle’s statement on the Sun-Sentinel website (click on the main video). On the same website — go to the third video on the right: “Mayor Naugle’s latest press conference turns heated” — you can watch another video in which homosexual activist Michael Rajner of the Campaign to End AIDS begins yelling to drown out the comments of pro-family activist Janet Folger. For more on Rajner’s ugly, intolerant antics, see our story HERE.

Of course, Rajner’s was rewarded for his anti-First Amendment bullying by being given his own one-on-one web interview by the Sun-Sentinel! (Click the second video, innocuously titled, “Reaction to Mayor Naugle’s press conference.”)

Not surprisingly, the Sun-Sentinel appears to be trying to belittle Naugle’s claim that public sex and reckless, homosexual sex-club activity is a serious public health problem. However, our story, “Homosexual Male ‘Cruising’ Site Lists 13 Pages of Anonymous Sex ‘Hook-up’ Locations in Ft. Lauderdale Area Alone” — which lists two 24/7 “gay” bathhouses operating in the city — makes clear that there is a real network of organized promiscuity (WARNING: HIGHLY OFFENSIVE MATERIAL). 

The following are excerpts of the Sun-Sentinel story — which does not mention bathhouses at all:

Mayor Naugle, other speakers attack gay sex

By Brittany Wallman | Sun-Sentinel.com
7:46 PM EDT, August 21, 2007

FORT LAUDERDALE – Mayor Jim Naugle and several religious leaders held a news conference Tuesday to draw attention to what they described as the moral and health risks of gay sex.

Naugle is at the center of a political war between gays and religious conservatives that started earlier this summer when he said public bathrooms in Fort Lauderdale are plagued by gay men cruising for sex and said he uses the term “homosexual” because “most of them aren’t gay. They’re unhappy.”

At a news conference in front of City Hall on Tuesday, Naugle and other speakers called on gays to end promiscuous sex in order to stem Broward County’s HIV/AIDS crisis. Though the health department has no statistics concerning how many cases of HIV are contracted via sex in public bathrooms or parks, Naugle has tied the two issues together.