A Courageous Editorial

A Courageous Editorial

At least in San Francisco. In most of America, this wouldn't even be an issue. From the December 2, 2009 San Francisco Chronicle:

Public sex tents? Now there's an idea that should have been shot down the second it was announced from the mouth of a member of the "leather community" in response to complaints about public sex at Folsom Street Fair and its smaller sibling fair, Up Your Alley.

Instead, it appears that at least one of our local leaders (Supervisor Bevan Dufty) has agreed to take the matter "under advisement." Since our local leaders are having trouble speaking the obvious, we will: Public sex is not appropriate at Folsom Street Fair or anywhere else. Even in San Francisco.
Public sex isn't just lewd, it's illegal under state law. San Francisco officials and police have historically given the fairs broad leeway to self-police bawdy behavior, but that should have been revoked the moment that citizens complained. Instead, people are giving serious thought to ways to make the streets safe for public sex and unsafe for public decency.
Enough. This is a quality-of-life issue that should have been tackled years ago. Local leaders need to stop clowning around and insist that everyone obey the law.

San Francisco is such a sick and disgusting place. Let me emphasize: there's a reason that San Francisco city government tolerates this behavior in public places. They aren't doing this because 1% of 1% of the population is sick and depraved. It's a lot bigger fraction of the population that finds this acceptable.

The comments are pretty indicative of the state of San Francisco culture:

Why doesn't the author of this editorial just find a nice safe mall to go to on Folsom Day? If sex tents are not your thing, you can choose to not go into one. I think moral outrage and the impulse to send the police in to facilitate one's control-freaky intolerance for that which one can simply and easily opt-out of is FAR MORE DESTRUCTIVE to society than public sex.. or sex in a tent. STAY AT HOME AND FAINT ON YOUR OWN DAMN COUCH, YOU VICTORIAN CONTROL FREAK PRUDE!

and:

How is this a "quality of life" issue? Those who object to witnessing sexual behavior in public certainly don't have to go. Who are the complainers? I'll give some latitude to the people who live there and are impacted, though SOMETHING is gonna impact you in every neighborhood. It is a city, after all. But most of the complainers don't live in the neighborhood -- many don't even live in the City. Why is it a bad idea to use tents to hide the behavior from people who don't wanna watch?

and:

Really?? This is folsom street. Of course guys and girls str8 and gay are going to be having sex in public. It is an erotic leather festival. And for the people who live on the street and complain.. dude.. what were you thinking moving to Folsom street?! This is what folsom street is all about and has always been about. You don't really have the right to complain. If you wanted to live in suburbia you should have moved there. Let folsom street be folsom street.

and:

Grow up. If you don't like it, DON'T GO. Now one "runs" into the Folsom Street Fair by mistake. We all know what it is, what it does, and what a wonderful freedom it is. I'm a married man who has not caught "the gay" yet thank God (though I wash my hands a lot), but this is about personal freedoms. If you can't handle either avoiding the Fair, ignoring the Fair or going to and enjoying the Fair, then pack up your stuff, leave SF and move east, they are more like you there. You can all be stuffy together. Or maybe you would like to move to a country where they kill people with "the gay"?

All I can look forward to is when I'm 60, I'm the "old conservative" one, and everyone younger than me doesn't even remember Prop 8, Civil Rights movement, JFK, Bobby, King, Milk and why on earth we ever kept down other humans when there are all these aliens and robots around to abuse.

and:

Why are Americans so hung up on sex? It is just sex. What if we all went to small booths and ate alone only to go later to large fecaltoriums to sit on toilets with friends and love ones to share share our bowel movements. More openness. If you don't like it don't look.

My favorite sensible comment was:

It's very difficult to take people seriously when they claim to want homosexuality to be an officially approved and socially sanctioned form of relationship equal to heterosexual relationships while at the same time supporting disgusting and disease-spreading public sex events either explicitly or by silence and lack of condemnation.

Gay advocacy groups need to do more to promote traditional values among the gay community if they want acceptance into traditional values! Condemning public promiscuous AIDS/STD-spreading sex would be a big step forward, but I suspect that they'll never do it because the real reason for trying to legalize gay marriage in their eyes is to offend and get some sort of "revenge" on anyone who doesn't approve of homosexuality.