New York district attorney Robert Morgenthau told gay activists Monday he would investigate the 2008 prostitution arrests of at least 30 gay and bisexual men targeted at Manhattan porn shops. He also said he may dismiss the cases against five of the men who are contesting the charges.

“The first thing Morgenthau said was, ‘We are going to investigate all these cases,’” said Joey Nelson, coordinator for the Queer Justice League and a member of the Coalition to Stop the Arrests. “That was the first thing out of his mouth.”

 See New York DA Says He’ll Investigate Prostitute Arrests Advocate.com

 

By Michael Shermer

I just watched the HBO documentary film, “The Trials of Ted Haggard,” produced by Alexandra Pelosi (which the media seem curiously intent on identifying not as a filmmaker but as the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House). The film is a follow-up to her 2007 film “Friends of God,” in which Haggard was prominently featured just before his downfall from revelations that he had homosexual relations with a male prostitute, with whom he also did methamphetamine. And all this happened right in the middle of the political debate about gay marriage, in which Haggard condemned homosexuality as an abomination and gay marriage as a sin that should never be legalized.

Now, I enjoy roasting a hypocrite as much as the next person, and I sat down to watch Pelosi’s film sharpening my typing fingers in preparation for slicing this evangelical hypocrite to pieces, especially after just watching him on Larry King Live, in which he failed to apologize to gays for condemning the very “lifestyle choice” he also presumably made. (In his Christian worldview homosexuality is a choice–a bad choice, a sinful choice, but a choice nonetheless). But I came away feeling some compassion for Ted Haggard, sympathy for the devil as it were. I don’t know if Pelosi intended her film to have this effect–I suspect not from her off-camera comments in the film as she follows the fallen preacher around Phoenix selling insurance door-to-door and bumming rooms off friends at which his family can live. But given what we know about the power of belief, and the fact that this man devoted his entire life and essence to being an Evangelical Christian and all that stands for–which is a lot when you are the titular head of the 30 million-strong National Association of Evangelicals–what a striking conflict his life has been (and by all accounts still is).

By now, most of us know that homosexuality is not a “choice,” any more than heterosexuality is a choice. Asking a gay person “When did you choose to become gay?” makes about as much sense as asking a straight person “When did you choose to become straight?” The answer is the same: “Uh? I didn’t choose. I’ve always felt this way.” Right, and all the evidence from biology, psychology, and behavior genetics (twin studies) points to the fact that most people are born straight, some people are born gay, and some are even born bisexual, and that’s just the way it is. In a large population (and six billion members of a large mammalian species certainly counts) with considerable variation in most characteristics, it is inevitable that even something as seemingly straightforward (if you’ll pardon the pun) as sexuality will likely show variations on that central theme.

 See sympathy for the Devil, Compassion for Ted Haggard
Huffington Post, NY -

These are truly terrible times. You may have been laid-off. You may have been on the receiving end of a lay-off rumor. You may have been arrested for cooking meth in the home you share with the future son-in-law of the future of the Republican Party.

Cheer up, little clown. At least you aren’t Gayle Haggard.

Remember this lady? Her husband, former Evangelical pastor Ted Haggard, admitted to having sex and meth with a male prostitute. Ted was removed from his position at the influential New Life Church, then kicked out of a de-gaying program and is now trying to sell insurance in Arizona. The couple, who have five children, are still married. Explains Gayle:

Yes, it’s easy to snicker. Ted is participating in a documentary in which he says he never claimed to be straight. Gayle’s snotty statement above implies that gay people are without honor. We normally love to luxuriate in the hypocrisy of Christian homophobes like Gayle, but today, our feelings about her are a strange mix of schadenfreund and empathy.

Schadenfrempathy, if you will.

 

See Look On The Bright Side, You Aren’t Mrs. Ted Haggard

 

It took a bloody jailhouse beating by police to bring Duanna Johnson out of the shadows.

With a video of the beating making the rounds on the Internet, people who would never have known she existed — and likely paid her little mind if they did — were suddenly talking about her.

Angry residents sent letters to the local newspaper and a federal grand jury launched an investigation. The mayor and police chief voiced outrage at her treatment.

But it wasn’t long before Johnson, a 43-year-old, 6-foot-5 transgender prostitute, slipped out of the spotlight and back to working the dark streets of a tough inner-city neighborhood, little noticed once again by mainstream Memphis.

And there she died with a bullet in her brain.  See more of Transgender prostitute slain in Memphis shadows
The Associated Press