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At 8:30 am on Thursday April 30, agents from the FBI, postal inspectors, US Customs, and local police raided The Rage, Portland, Oregon's all-ages gay club. At the same time, across town, other cops used a battering ram to smash down the door of the club's owner, Lanny Swerdlow. Swerdlow was home in a bathrobe when police knocked on his door, but they didn't wait for him to open it. More than six hours later, cops left the club and Swerdlow's houseboat with $70,000 of video cameras, computers, and other equipment that local youth used to produce a weekly gay cable show, "Out Rage Us," effectively shutting the program down. Despite the raids, The Rage opened for business that night.

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Police said they were looking for pornography depicting minors, but that the focus of their probe was not Swerdlow-- rather, people he knew. As of two weeks after the raids, no one has been arrested or charged with any crime. The search warrants are sealed under court order, and the feds aren't saying what prompted the seizures or who is their target.

But to Swerdlow, there's no mystery. He says that the raids are politically motivated, an attempt to shut down his cable TV programs and his club. In addition to "Out Rage Us," taped weekly by gay youth who frequent The Rage, Swerdlow produces "Bunk Busters," a weekly atheist talk show, and "Cannabis Matters," which supports marijuana legalization. The shows are shown locally in Portland, and "Out Rage Us" is streamed onto the Worldwide Web (at www.2waytv.com/nightscene). If he wasn't the target, Swerdlow asks, then why his home was raided?

"The shows are controversial. because they deal with subjects important to gay and lesbian youth, and some of those things are not nice," Swerdlow says. "They act out some of their fears and fantasies, they deal very honest and openly, and the audience reacts- it's something to see." Swerdlow says he is not directly involved in the shows, which are produced, taped, acted out by the youth who go to his club. His partner, Victor Michel, regularly performs in the shows.

"Some of the videos contain teen-agers acting out violence, drug use or simulated sex," Portland's daily paper, The Oregonian, claimed in its account of the raids. "Some videos, for example, show 16-year-old boys kissing men or teen-agers in lewd positions."

Under the expansion of "child pornography" laws under the Clinton administration, an image need not depict minors, nudity, or sexual activity to be prosecuted. Simulated sex involving persons who appear like they might be under 18 is sufficient. Sentences range up to 15 years for production or possession. If these cable shows are prosecuted, it would mark the first time the statute was used against a film made by the very youngsters deemed its victims.

Swerdlow has run all-ages gay clubs in Portland for more than 20 years and is a controversial figure in town. The Rage maintains an all-ages policy, Swerdlow says, because his patrons prefer it to having a youth-only space, favored by adult-sponsored gay youth groups. Until two years ago, the club he ran was called The City, but he shut it down after harassment from city cops, who sent undercover police into the club and allegedly recorded drug use. Portland officials sued the building's owner, but allowed the club to remain open if it installed security cameras. But after years of harassment, Swerdlow shut down The City and opened Evolution a few blocks away. Evolution later changed its name to The Rage.

The irony of the raids didn't escape the notice of The Oregonian. "His strongest defenders," the paper wrote, "have been young club patrons, straight and gay, who praised the former City Nightclub as an enjoyable nightspot and one of the few places Oregon's gay teens felt comfortable."