Another day, another bathroom sex sting! North Carolina Coppers nabbed Boca Raton based Episcopal priest Michael Penland for soliciting an undercover officer at a rest stop and then following him in his car. Another cop pulled Penland over, issued a citation for "soliciting for a crime against nature” and sent on his way. Penland is but one of eight men arrested in a three-month sting police cleverly called "Operation Summer Heat".

As in the Larry Craig cruising case, the ACLU says the police overstepped their bounds and violated Penland's constitutional rights. Floridian ACLU lawyer Robert Rosenwald tells Express Gay News:

The charge is brazenly unconstitutional.
…
What [Penland] did was not a crime. It’s not wrong to proposition someone and then go home. In a case like this, what is unconstitutional is the investigation targeting gay people and arresting [them] for conduct that is lawful.

ACLU officials say Penland, who has been married for 17-years, could sue the police department, but most probably won't come out to do it.

When news of the arrest broke earlier this month, Penland has stepped down as a youth counselor at St. Gregory's in Boca Raton and later resigned from the church entirely. He'll appear in court for a hearing on November 7th.

Larry Craig better send openly gay activist Anthony Romero a "thank you" card.

Romero and his constitution loving friends at the American Civil Liberties Union issued a "friend of the court" brief in disgraced Idaho Senator Larry Craig's defense. In a related-statement, ACLU executive director Romero said,

The real motive behind secret sting operations like the one that resulted in Senator Craig’s arrest is not to stop people from inappropriate activity. It is to make as many arrests as possible – arrests that sometimes unconstitutionally trap innocent people. If the police really want to stop people from having sex in public bathrooms, they should put up a sign banning sex in the restroom and send in a uniformed officer to patrol periodically. That works.

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Ex-convicts Daniel Mangini and Steven Roberts are free to love again. The recently released jailbirds have been together for more than twenty happy years, but things took an ugly turn when they started doing meth.

Desperate to feed their collective habit, Mangini and Roberts started selling the illegal drug. And, as happens, landed in jail.

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• A reader suggested we post Dead Disco's "You're Out". We think it's fairly appropriate.

• Perez Hilton to be televised. Preemptive barf.

• Gay Australian judge Michael Kirby asked PM John Howard to change his backward stance on gay benefits: "Johan has put up with me for 38 years, and if I died he’d get nothing."

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St. Petersburg police kept their gay pride promise. As we reported last week, police chief Charles Harmon and Mayor Rick Baker teamed up to create so-called "free speech" zones in which gay activists and anti-gay activists could voice their respective, conflicting opinions.

The ACLU swore St. Petersburg authorities were violating both the gays' and anti-gays' freedom of speech. The police didn't seem to care, however, because they arrested five people during this weekend's pride - four of whom were anti-gay priders and "violated" the free speech zones…

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Hopefully no one will take this the wrong way, but we're so happy we're content with our gender. Being trans must be one of the hardest things in the world, especially for trans women behind bars: an underrepresented population represented in Cruel and Unusual: Transgender in Prison.

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Some Floridian politico and police are bending space - and the Constitution - for this weekend's St. Pete's Pride celebration. St. Petersburg mayor Rick Baker and Police Chief Charles Harmon are considering "free speech zones" within the gay parade. Within these predesignated zones, anti-gay activists are free to air their anti-gay grievances.

While this may sound like a perfectly fine idea, the ordinance will violate the Supreme Court's 1995 case, Hurley v. Irish American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group. It its ruling, the Court ruled that St. Patrick Parade organizers can ban gays because a parade constitutes an expression of free speech. Gays, then, cannot interfere with the organizers' vision.

Baker and Harmon, however, chose to ignore that ruling when they endorsed a new city ordinance allowing for unregulated "free speech zones". These zones will be determined on an event-to-event basis. In this particular case, not only would homophobes be allowed to bark their objections in the midst of the fag's festivities, gays can be arrested for expressing their opinion outside predetermined districts.

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• GLAAD may not be about gay defamation, but they're all about male objectification. The media watch dogs have joined forces with Mega Muscle to insure your next wank helps a good cause: them. 100% of preorders of Playgirl Men of the Year Derrick Davenport and Julian Fantechi go straight to GLAAD.

• Inside the steamy world of the LA's homo-hop club scene: Most clubs have kind of a clubby atmosphere. First Fridayz LA is more of a party, a gathering, social networking and dancing to hip-hop music. We do it at non-traditional gay clubs so someone who is not in the life or [someone who is] in the life can come and experience this without being intimidated. It’s not a traditional gay club.”

• ACLU's gay executive director Anthony D. Romero on torture.

• 20-year old former marine James Hardy pleaded guilty to strangling Raymond Catolico and then stuffing his body under a sink. Hardy's been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

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Speaking of discrimination: it seems that the License & Permits Unit of Atlanta's Police Department is none-too-fond of masseurs with HIV.

That's what James Dustin (pictured) found out the hard way. It seem that they consider the risk of blood-to-blood contact between masseur and client to be so high, that Dustin has qualified as a "direct threat" to HIV transmission. As such, he can't get official permission to practice his sensual craft.

The Southern Voice reports:

Individuals seeking a massage permit in Atlanta must complete a series of applications, pay $250 in fees and consent to a criminal background check. They must also submit proof of certification, reference letters, two photographs and a health certificate to the License & Permits Unit.

The health certificate requires a doctor’s signature indicating the applicant is “in sound mental and physical health, and free of all contagious or communicable diseases.” HIV/AIDS is considered a communicable disease, although it can only be transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids such as blood and semen.

Obviously this is direct discrimination and, as they're wont to do, the ACLU has joined the fight in over-turning the HIV qualification. ACLU Legal Director Beth Littrell says, "Any administrative action that categorically denies people to practice their trade, that has no foundation in public safety and public health, is blatantly prejudicial."

We have to ask: is the License and Permits Unit really concerned about blood-to-blood contact? We're more inclined to think they're worried about the semen. No one asks for a bloody ending, now do they?