Magazine Article	Articles Archive

On June 24, police in Baltimore approached a truck near the East Baltimore harbor. One cop peered through the window-- watching quite a while. He reported he saw two men, one with his pants down, while the other bobbed his head in the naked lap of his companion. That man pulled up his head and wiped his mouth with a napkin, according to the cop. The police report indicated that a sex act seemed to have been committed-- it was evidently difficult to see exactly! (Both accused men denied these allegations.) Police shouted that the two were under arrest. A crowd of cops came to watch, according to one of the arrested men. They laughed and made bawdy comments-- though one said, "Oh just tell them to get the hell out of here."

View our poll archive

That was not to be. Louis A. D'Camara, a 41-year-old, closeted volunteer fireman from a small town, and Charles, age 18, from a nearby neighborhood, were arrested and held overnight at Baltimore's notorious and over-crowded Central Booking Center. That's where more than 100,000 citizens are taken after arrest each year. Most are taken in for misdemeanors such as sitting on a doorstep or walking with an open beer can, or are charged with prostitution, drug use, and various sex crimes. They are held amidst many suspected of violent crimes, in a city with about 300 murders each year out of a population of just over 650,000. Baltimore resembles Baghdad on hot summer nights, with gunfire heard in many areas, and police helicopters swooping low over rooftops and shining searchlights into streets and onto decks. One conservative black Baltimore Sun columnist recently called the situation for poor people in Baltimore "a police state."

Central Booking has been the scene of a couple of recent murders, including a fatal beating by guards. Those awaiting booking sometimes spend up to four days there, even for petty offenses. Courts recently ruled that anyone waiting more than 48 hours before being charged should be released. Charles called his experience in lock-up "brutal," with all kinds of characters packed into inadequate space. This was his first arrest and first time in a jail. A friend said the young man was "terrified," though Charles insists he wasn't cowed. Louis was charged with indecent exposure, a crime which could cost up to two years in prison, but usually brings only probation and a hefty fine. But Charles's act was considered much more serious: "perverted practice" it's called. For that he could get as much as ten years in prison. "Perverted practice" under Maryland law means oral or anal sex between any partners, though most such arrests are of gay men. "It comes up from time to time," said Charles's attorney, David Lutz. "The wording of the law is neutral with regard to sexual orientation, so it's difficult to challenge the law-- certainly in a case where public sex is alleged."

The truck was parked on a graveled space amid abandoned buildings and debris. No functioning business or private home is near the site. Police claim the area is used by drug dealers and prostitutes-- and locals say it has been a lovers' lane for both gay and straight for at least 40 years. The police charge indicated the alleged sex took place at an intersection of a deserted stretch of Boston Street, a major thoroughfare, about a tenth of a mile from where those involved insist the truck was parked. The intersection is brightly lit and well-traveled, making it a highly unlikely spot to park for sex. Police obviously wanted to make the activity seem more "public." Even that location, however, is not adjacent to businesses or residences.

Sleeping sheep?

Arrests for homosexual sex among consenting adults happen every day in Baltimore, and in almost every American city. The trend seems to be growing, with only occasionally a notice in the gay media and nary a peep from GLBT rights groups. The arrests include massive sweeps of hustlers, johns, and others in traditional cruising areas. Targeted as well is sex in parks, peep shows, and cinemas. The numbers of openly gay men held in urban US lock-ups is so high that several cities are considering special wings for homosexual prisoners. In May, Los Angeles opened a special unit for the 300 or so gay men officials they say are held on any given day.

In Baltimore, cops have virtually stopped gay cruising, with constant arrests and harassment in once-thriving venues. Other police targets have been the downtown Baltimore "block" with its strip of peep shows and sex shops, and cinemas long associated with gay cruising, such as the Ehrl and the Adult Cinema on Broadway. Business has been so bad on Broadway that the movie house is trying to change to a straight strip club. That has been stymied by neighborhood groups in the rapidly gentrifying area. It is expected to close soon, after nearly a half century. "The Ehrl is like a ghost now," says a patron who was arrested at the theater and pled guilty. "They used to line up there in the old days-- now one or two guys cruising is a good night." A clerk in one of the shops on the block commented last April, "Since about two years, with all the busts, our gay customers just stopped coming. Business is really low." Baltimore city fathers want to follow the Times Square model in New York and convert the area into a Disney-esque "family" amusement center.

Solar storm

So as bad as it was, the arrest of two consenting gay men for sex in a truck-- behavior associated with automobiles since their invention-- was not surprising. Nor was the silence of Baltimore's gay leaders. What happened next, though, was a bit of a shock.

The Baltimore Sun, a major US daily, ran an article about the arrest, on July 13, three weeks afterward. The article covered nearly a quarter page-- far more than the space given to several murders in the paper that day. It named both D'Camara and Charles, identifying the streets and block number where they live. (At his request, we are using only Charles's first name, though the Sun and other media named him in full.)

The article described D'Camara's fire-fighting career, including two current positions-- member and president of the Odenton (Maryland) Volunteer Fire Company and quartermaster of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department (a paid position). The Sun called D'Camara, who referred questions to his attorney, Peter S. O'Neill. O'Neill told the Sun, "[my client] will plead not guilty because he isn't guilty." The attorney said "we have a very strong case, and we hope the prosecution will not proceed." D'Camera requested a leave of absence from the volunteer company, according to spokesman Robert L. Rose: "His service to the fire company has been outstanding," Rose said. County fire department chief Frank R. Stamm said fire officials were made aware of the charges shortly after they were brought. Stamm said that D'Camara would remain in his post because it "requires little contact with the public."

Things only got worse. On July 26, Louis D'Camara sat in his truck, with the windows taped and the motor running, and shot himself in the head. D'Camara committed suicide despite an outpouring of support from fellow fire officials, if not from the gay establishment. Charles and a friend reassured D'Camara only days before his death that they would all stand together with him. When D'Camara asked if the unemployed Charles needed help with legal fees, Charles told him no.

Why would the Sun run a major piece on such an everyday arrest-- and so long afterwards? Scores, perhaps hundreds, of such arrests for sex likely took place in the intervening three weeks. The acts alleged did not include prostitution, and were clearly between consenting adults. Sun ombudsman Paul Moore told Attorney Jim Becker that D'Camara was a "public official," and crimes by public officials had to be publicized. When asked to give examples, Moore cited a local politician's recent arrest for drunk-driving case. Becker pointed out that a volunteer fireman is hardly a public figure in the first place, and that sex between consenting adults-- even in a truck-- is no threat to public order, and in no way could interfere with his duties. Moore has continued to insist to several callers (but never publicly) that the Sun stayed within its guidelines for covering the transgressions of public officials.

So far, the Sun has not responded to complaints about its coverage. Not a single letter-to-the-editor has been printed on the issue. Several Sun articles-- including one by media reporter Nick Madigan on July 29, and one by syndicated columnist Leon Pitts on July 31-- have discussed cases where coverage of alleged sex and other transgressions by public figures led to suicide (as in the recent Miami case of politician Arthur Teele-- see sidebar). Neither of these articles, following so closely on D'Camara's suicide, mentioned it, and both reveled in the media's penchant to expose and shame. "The very nature of journalism requires that the worst of these offenses be splashed across front pages," Madigan wrote. "There is usually no way of knowing how the subject of such scrutiny will react," and in any case, suicides in such cases are quite rare.

Price of sex-scandal-mongering

Actually, suicide in such cases-- especially among gay adolescents and adults-- is not rare. According to several recent studies, suicide rates among gay men-- and even more among gay teens-- are at least 30 percent higher than among heterosexual-identified men and teens. Risk factors include being closeted to family and at work, living in conservative rural environments, and exposure by media or police for sexual activity. All of these factors were present in this case-- as Sun reporters and editors must surely have realized. They might have recalled the recent nearby case of the Minersville, Pennsylvania, teenager who killed himself after a similar arrest for sex in a car with another teen (see sidebar).

Fortunately, Charles is stronger emotionally than the Pennsylvania football player who killed himself, or than his alleged sex partner of June 24. Charles told The Guide that his family and friends haven't given him grief-- that the arrest and the article haven't really hurt him, just made him mad. "The Baltimore Sun can kiss my ass. I just feel bad about him [D'Camara]-- why did he have to do that?"

What could possibly lead to such a tragic chain of events? As Charles's attorney, David Lutz, said, "These cases happen every day in Baltimore. In a civilized society, what would police do? Tell the people to leave." Jim Becker is outraged by the charge-- clearly a victimless one-- but more angered by the Sun. He asks, "What would a decent newspaper do? They'd ignore it. The Baltimore Sun in this case is nothing better than a scandal sheet."

Who benefits?

The questions remain, why the recent spate of arrests for consensual sex among gay men? Why did the Sun stoop to such a tawdry and potentially deadly smear? Why would a very minor case, among many similar ones, become a big deal?

Some say simply, "It's an election year." Several of those close to the case believe someone must have been out to get D'Camara-- a personal vendetta by someone who could get the ear of the Sun weeks after such a petty case. Others, including a local activist who chooses not to be named, lays blame on a turnover in the East Baltimore police district. He insists that a new commander for the S.E. Baltimore district began harassing gay men and gay bars earlier this year. He says that an openly gay, young (and good-looking) Baltimore city policeman-- who marched in last year's gay pride parade-- was sighted on East Baltimore's former (now dead) cruising street trying to entrap johns. The local observer also said that under-cover cops and the new commander have made frequent visits to the neighborhood's two gay bars-- one frequented mostly by lesbians. These bars are working-class hangouts shunned by many in the affluent downtown and Charles Village gay communities.

Writing in the Baltimore Guide Southeast on July 13 (the same day as the Sun article), the president of the S.E. District Police-Community Relations Council, Melissa Techentin, said residents welcomed vigilance by police against sexual and other transgressions on the streets and in the bars. Under the headline, "Keep Vice Cops in South East," she wrote, "At one time our main corridors"-- she named six-- "were inundated with prostitution... [which] may be thought of as a victimless crime... but our neighborhood is in a renaissance.... Families and individuals are investing heavily here... and [prostitution] sends a message that the neighborhood is unstable." Techentin said she understood that police had recently withdrawn some police from her area to go to neighborhoods considered under-siege with a spate of murders and other violent crimes. She insisted, however, "We need the support of our vice squad," against such evils as "underage drinking, loud music," drugs, and prostitution.

Until informed by The Guide, Techentin had not heard of the arrests, had not seen the Sun article and was "shocked by a fireman's suicide. That's tragic and regrettable." She insisted, however, that even consenting adults should be arrested if they have sex in parked cars-- no matter where they are parked. "Damn it, get a room," she said. She explained that East Baltimore has long had a problem with "chicken-hawks," and both male and female prostitution. "Of course it's part of the huge problem of 77,000 heroin and crack addicts in this city. But the bottom line for us is that our neighborhood is going through a renaissance, and these things are keeping us back."

Techentin disputed the idea that this was an issue of real estate over human values. "There may be some-- I won't call them yuppies-- who come in from New Jersey or somewhere to buy up properties who just say 'get rid of them,' with no concern for the people. But those of us who live here do care. They must arrest these people to go on record against it-- and to make the johns change their behavior, since nothing else does." Techentin asserted that all so-called nuisance-crimes should result in arrests. She regretted the "terrible conditions at the jail," but she said, "The arrests must continue for our neighborhoods to develop."

Les/gay leaders yawn

Gentrification and pressure from neighborhood groups partly explain the arrests and the prominent coverage by the Sun. It's no accident that the busiest spot over decades for gay cruising, the corner of Eastern and Patterson, is utterly dead, except for a stray crack addict over 30 (who remembers the good ol' days) and a police decoy now and then. The corner now hosts rebuilt row houses-- with fancy door-knockers, balconies, and decks-- that sell for ten times their value of a few years ago.

This does not, however, entirely explain the silence of the so-called GLBT community in Baltimore. What about challenging the outmoded and clearly biased statue, "perverted practice"? The US Supreme Court in the Hardwick decision just last year overturned all sodomy laws. What about others like "un-natural acts," "crimes against nature," and "perverted practice"? Attorney Lutz insists there is little support for challenging these laws-- and that the Charles-D'Camara case is not ideal for such a challenge. "The men arrested rarely want to challenge the laws," says Attorney Becker. "A plea agreement is often the least painful way to dispose of these cases."

Maryland gay groups and leaders did not take note of the arrests (or the other arrests in peep shows and movie houses or on the streets for hustling), and some would actually applaud police vigilance in such cases. The gay community also did not jump to protest the lurid Sun coverage-- and has been slow to respond even to the suicide.

Outloud, a Baltimore gay paper, editorialized against the Sun coverage and ran a news story in the form of an obituary for D'Camara-- six weeks after the arrest. The Outloud editorial called police actions homophobic and Sun coverage outrageous, but did not challenge the "perverted practice" statute, referring to the arrests as "routine." Outloud publisher, Mike Chase, told The Guide, "Let's face it, gay organizations mostly have not wanted to deal with sex or sexuality, limiting themselves to civil rights issues. They've missed an essential part of our struggle-- the right to have sex as we want to." Baltimore's older gay paper, Gay Life has so far printed nothing about the case.

Baltimore Gay Community Center director Craig Wiley said on August 4, that he had not heard of the arrests or the suicide and had not seen the Sun coverage. He had also not heard of the statute, "perverted practices," and did not know if it should be challenged. "We would not be the group to protest that-- we are a service organization." The one group in Maryland devoted to protecting LGBT rights, Equality Maryland, lists gay marriage and domestic partnership as well as job discrimination among its priorities, but not overturning laws that are used against gay men for sex acts. Equality president Dan Furmansky did not return calls seeking comment on this case.

Sid Ford, a founder of Baltimore's Yana Place, works with "women and children in prostitution." She said "perverted practice" is sometimes used against female prostitutes for anal sex. "I am against the whole legal approach-- we favor a health-care approach, a compassionate approach," she told The Guide, but added that she did not favor challenging the statute. "In practice," says Attorney Lutz, the "perverted practice" statute is applied primarily to queers, though he insisted no purely private sex between adult men has been prosecuted in Baltimore in several years. "I don't think police will cross that line," Lutz said.

New tripwires

Perhaps, but the Sun case-- like the Teele case in Miami as well as the outing of Spokane mayor Jim West (see sidebar)-- raises one more largely unspoken issue: "inappropriate age" gay sex. For years now, the gay community has been silent or worse in the face of widespread arrests of gay men over 18 with those under 18. These were most often cases of consenting relations between older men and adolescents. Sentences in such cases have grown ever longer. Thousands of gay men are now warehoused, some with little chance of release before death. The GLBT leaders and media said nothing, or they said "bravo."

By the time the Spokane Spokesman-Review entrapped the Republican mayor of Spokane with a fictional 18-year old on-line (see sidebar), the gay leadership was fully engaged not in defending gay men, but in upping the limit for "age-inappropriate" sex. A press release from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force demanded that Mayor West "step down for predatory and appalling behavior. Based on what we know about pedophiles, it's almost certain there are more 'victims.'" The only proven interests of Mayor West were young men 18 and over-- yet NGLTF implied he was a pedophile. The age bar rises higher and higher. A Spokane School Committee member was quoted in the Spokesman-Review as saying adolescence extends to about 25. The paper's publisher, Stephen A. Smith, says the "mom test" should decide at what age sex is appropriate for their kids. One anonymous man quoted approvingly by Spokesman-Review said "18-year-olds are not even ready for sex with women."

Sid Ford of Yana Place says women in prostitution are almost always victims of child sex abuse. When told about the Baltimore case, she says she has "trouble with sex between an 18- and a 41-year-old-- any difference in age means a power imbalance." Ford says she is "horrified" by the suicide, favors citations or tickets instead of arrests in prostitution and adult sex cases, and opposes publication of names and addresses of the participants. But many-- including many gay men-- would agree with Ford that sex between an 18-year-old and a 41-year-old just can't be right. In fact, had Charles been six months' younger, he would have been treated as a "victim," and the Sun-- full of self-righteousness about protecting "children"-- would never have published his name.

The Spokesman-Review and the Baltimore Sun clearly "crossed the line" to smear men who engage in private, consensual sex with young men above the age-of-consent. Given how well sex-scandals sell, there's no reason for newspapers to stop there. So long as there is not a peep of protest-- and even some applause-- from gay leaders and media-- both media and police will continue to ratchet-up the repression and the sensationalism.

Who's expendable?

There are several slippery slopes here. Police and prosecutors are ever more eager to prove to the public that they are out to enforce the law, even in "nuisance cases," and to "save the children"-- and presumably the easily frightened horses-- from seeing nudity or sex. The mainstream media is ever more ready to mimic the scandal sheets of yore to save their declining fortunes. And the GLBT community slides further and further into silence and accommodation. A safe and secure GLBT elite buys and sells real estate and protects its investments by selling out all but those who practice whitebread sex. Anyone of the wrong race, class, age, or sexual interest-- those not acceptable to mainstream straight power structures-- is dispensable. Finally, we arrive back in the 1950s, with witch hunts and rampant scandals, media blitzes against homosex, and the inevitable suicides and murders of gay men.

Recently in Montreal-- admittedly a far freer place than Baltimore-- one of the two men who became Quebec's first gay married couple, Michael Hendricks, told the Montreal Gazette, "We always said we'd stop making trouble once gays and lesbians had full equality. Well, now we have it."

Even in Montreal, some queers will be surprised. The defendants in the infamous Taboo strip bar raid (see The Guide, July & September 2003) in Montreal who are still fighting their arrest in a massive raid two years ago, will clearly not agree. (Police chose precisely the bar where the nude dancers, all of legal age, were the youngest-looking.) But in Baltimore and the rest of the US, Hendricks's statement is indefensible. And not only because gay marriage is not yet legal as it now is in Canada. It is untrue far more because statutes like "perverted practice" are not protested or challenged, and gay men continue to be locked up for consensual sex, and harassed to the point of suicide.

Rev. E. Skip Koritzer, senior chaplain for the Maryland Fire Network, said, "I was happy to see the outpouring of support from the firemen's community. Hundreds turned out for Louis D'Camara's funeral to pay him tribute as a firefighting hero. Yet many gay people I've talked to react in the opposite way." A man who wishes to remain anonymous went the night after the suicide to the gay bar in East Baltimore where older working men still occasionally meet younger men. "I couldn't believe it. Two lesbians were talking in there, and one said loudly-- 'He [D'Camara] deserved what he got. Half the men in here are guilty of sex with young boys. Lesbians don't do that-- just gay men." She said this despite the fact that the typical age of the assumed hustlers in the place (and the few left on the streets) was at least 28.

There have always been those among us who side with straights and the police and condemn all who are different from themselves in sexual desire or activity. Yet in the 1960s, 70s, or even the 80s, there were also brave lesbians and gay men who would defend the rights of everyone in the community-- who would organize, agitate, protest whenever a gay man or lesbian was arrested or harassed or abused by officials or the media.

Amongst the right-wing Christian radicals running much of the US, there's no such thing as a "nice" cocksucker. The right's goal-- were they politically able to say it out loud-- would be to train the huge repressive machinery they've built onto the task of getting rid of all homosex.

But in extensive, bay-windowed reaches of America's middle-class gay communities, matters often seem otherwise. The problem today is there's a right-wing in the gay world, but not a left wing. There are the anti-sex leaders and wealthy real-estate queens, on the one hand, who are silent or even applaud the arrests and the media bashes, and there are the frightened, unorganized gay masses on the other. Until that changes, the police and media will draw the noose tighter and tighter, until none of us is safe. We will all fall down those slippery slopes of repression, scandal, and accommodation.