I was inspired to ask this question by this event that happened in the metro area where I live. As you can see, the man accused at least, thinks he got a pretty raw deal.
A couple of important side notes: The age of consent in Michigan is 16. Mike Duggan is the Democratic prosecutor from Wayne County, and has pretty good relations with gays as far as I know (in fact, he recently put an end to the police practice of targeting gays in public park just for being a nuisance). In any event, I neither support nor deny the validity of anything stated or implied in this article. My question, as I’ve said, is whether gay scandals are treated the same as hetero ones.
I’d say, taking my issue from a wholly different case, that yes, non-straight people generally are treated differently as scandals, because whatever non-accepted sexuality they have almost always becomes more of an issue than seems relevant. For instance, there was a recent case here in NY involving some transgendered teens from the Harvey Milk school who posed as female police officers who were in turn posing as prostitutes for a sting. They would get the men to solicit sex, then “arrest” them with handcuffs, then run off with their wallets.
The story, as presented on the media, focused an inexplicable amount of time on talking about how they came from the Milk school, when as far as I can tell, this wasn’t particularly relevant. The clear implication of this focus was that the school in some way condoned impersonating police officers and mugging people, given that it condoned transgendered teens being, uh transgendered. You know, because all that “alternative” stuff just lumps together, right?
Imagine if they did the same in Harlem? Some gang of kids mugs people late at night, and half the news piece about them focuses on how they come from a NAACP sponsored Magnet school full of black people who listen to rap music, hint hint, yuk yuk?
Of course, when DON’T the local news/tabloids piss me off and offend me?
I wonder how the press would be expected to cover a scandal where the chief of police shot a teen-age girl who hit him with a baseball bat, after trying to set up a quickie.
Sex sells. And this chief of police is a dolt to expect the press to tone down the coverage just because he likes teen-age boys.
I don’t see the case referenced in the OP as a “gay” scandal. It’s a teen sex scandal. Jesus, a POLICE OFFICIAL was trolling on the goddamn Internet for sex! And, by the looks of it, with kids! Yeah, the guy’s 19, but he’s 45, that’s still wrong even if it’s not illegal.
I don’t think it would have been any significantly better for him if he’d gone after teen pussy instead of teen cock. We have higher expectations of our government officials, especially those in law enforcement. (Reminds me of the school principal in Indianapolis who was arrested for shoplifting a ham while carrying over $1000 in cash. He was fired, too. I don’t think he ever said why he was stealing the ham.)
Apparently there’s a “gay card” now, too, just like there’s a “race card”. I suppose this could be seen as signs of progress, but I don’t think I want to.
You know, that’s the first thing I thought after reading the thread title. Just yesterday I was having dinner with my parents and they had the news (I think it was FOX, but maybe not). Anyway, this story came on and I was immediately struck by how frequently the Harvey Milk School was brought up, since it was really a side issue. My mom suddenly got this amused grin on her face. She saw this as yet another example of how evil this “gay school” is and what an affront homosexuality is in general to her. I, on the other hand, found it funny that it was such a big deal. I just couldn’t understand what the big deal was–it was just teenage crime.
Uh, no. It was definitely tainted with homophobia.
“Walters also criticized Wayne County Prosecutor Mike Duggan’s comments, comparing Walters to priests charged with pedophilia. Walters called Duggan’s comparison outrageous, Local 4 reported.”
The usual bullshit. He associated pedophilia with homosexuality, and this is obvious since this was not at all an example of pedophilia.* And I don’t see what’s wrong with 45-year-old person meeting someone who’s 19.
I do have one question though. If Walters arranged to “arranged to meet in person to exchange money and sexual favors,” isn’t that prostitution? I personally don’t have a problem with the morality of it, but it certainly sounds illegal. Or is it included in the misconduct charge?
*Just to add my thoughts on this issue: I’m fucking sick of people accusing others of being pedophiles, especially when:
-they don’t know what pedophilia is–they think an attraction to teenagers qualifies
-pedophilia itself is neither immoral nor a crime. Acting on that sexual desire is a crime.
-people purposely do it just so they can feel better about themselves. They know that it’s the most reviled crime in our society and they accuse others of it without giving it a second thought and…I’ll stop for now…probably start a Pit thread when I have the time.
sleeping, the taint was added by the accused himself. In other words, he played the “gay card”. That doesn’t make his treatement an instance of homophobia any more than a black defendant playing the “race card” makes his prosecution an instance of racism.
I have a problem with a 45-year-old chief of police meeting teenagers through the Internet for the purpose of tawdry sexual favors, whether or not those actions are actually legal.
I didn’t see any of the tainted news reports to which Apos refers, so I can only go by the linked article, and I don’t see any bias. It says:
If he was meeting a woman prostitute, I would think it would be just as newsworthy. It wasn’t just an affair, it was prostitution. (Well, actually it was robbery, but he didn’t know that ahead of time.)
As for the prosecutor’s comments, it’s hard to tell since they didn’t bother to quote what the prosecutor said. Who the hell writes these news articles, anyway? I see lousy journalism, but not bias.
Looking at the first 2 paragraphs, you might be right about Walters being upset with the media. But then he criticizes Duggan for “comparing Walters to priests charged with pedophilia.” So Duggan did make such a comment. Had he not, the newspaper would surely have added that Walters is lying about Duggan having made a statement to this effect. I fail to see any possible cause for bias on the part of the Detroit paper in Walters’ direction. Therefore, Duggan did make the comparison.
I thought this was going to be about the two girls who caused a ruckus by kissing in the highschool cafeteria today in Howard County, MD. I can’t find it anywhere online yet, but just watched the story on the news.
They got suspended, just like a guy & girl would have been if they had been caught kissing.
Well…technically according to our school rules “public displays of affection” are not permitted. Of course, so is “revealing or lewd clothing” and that’s been properly enforced…
