"Outing" homosexuals is still wrong

I made these comments (or something close to them) tonight at the San Leandro City Council meeting.

My name is Margarita Lacabe. I’m a San Leandro resident and an international human rights activist.

Today I’ve come to talk to you about a human rights issue.

About two weeks ago, the San Leandro Police Department arrested two men during a “sting operation” at Marina Park. According to the press release the Police issued, the men were arrested for “loitering in or about a public restroom for the purpose of engaging or soliciting lewd or lascivious acts.”

The Police Department has refused to release the police reports on the arrests so we don’t really know what the men in this case actually are accused of doing. We do know that California law does not prohibit either solicitation or sex in a public place, unless those involved could reasonably believe someone could observe the sexual conduct and would be offended by it.

The Supreme Court ruled on the “loitering” section of the Penal Code back in 1988, but this has not stopped Police Departments statewide from carrying on raids like the one in San Leandro. The purpose of those raids - invariably carried out against men looking for homosexual sex, never heterosexual - is not to enforce the law but to use it as a tool of harassment against one of the most marginalized and oppressed populations still around: closeted gay men.

“Bathroom sex” is a creature of the closet. It arose because until recently gay men could not be public about their sexual orientations or preferences. Men who came out risked being ostracized, lose jobs and careers, be beaten up, even imprisoned. Things have improved but too many men carry the scars of all those years and are still in the closet. Even here, in the gay-friendly Bay Area. According to the research I’ve read, many of the men who still visit “tea rooms” as the bathrooms are known, are men who are still in the closet.

Now, I don’t know if this is true of the two men who were arrested, but I will note that they were both older men and one was 76!

The San Leandro Police did not just arrest these men, it also issued a press release with their names and photographs. Mayor Cassidy indicated over e-mail that he believes outing octogerians is justified by the greater goal of stopping whatever “illegal behavior” supposedly took place. I don’t agree.

The legal issues surrounding this arrest will be played out in court. I’m confident the men have access to a competent attorney and that justice will prevail.

But the ethical issues remain: people have a right to privacy, even beyond that protected by law. And that includes men and women in the closet, whether they hang out public bathrooms, the Police Station or City Hall.

I don’t have a formal request at this time, but I hope that this is an issue that you will keep in mind.  This is 2012, we should not be outing people in San Leandro!