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TEN YEARS AGO, I WAS ARRESTED AT MY HOME IN BEVERLY HILLS for pandering, which the dictionary defines as acting as "a go-between in sexual intrigue." In other words, I was a madam. After a jury convicted me of three counts of pandering, the verdicts were thrown out, but the government didn't give up. It made me the Al Capone of prostitution. I spent three years in a federal penitentiary in Dublin, Calif., for conspiracy, tax evasion, and money laundering. But it was the sex that got me in trouble. When I was a Hollywood madam, I had between 20...

Our either-or cultural template has come to an unattractive head during the recent Gay Moment, as these days are being dubbed. Of course we've already named it. We can't just let an epic or a decade or a moment slip by without a title. A label. A category. Labeling, in fact, is one of our favorite things in compulsive, either/or America. As in, you're either for us or against us. You're either from Mars or from Venus. You're either pro-gay marriage - or you're a right-wing, fascist, dogmatic homophobe. Well, no, not really. Sometimes you're not a homophobe, but you...

A new USA Today /CNN /Gallup Survey suggests there is a backlash of public opinion against homosexuality after the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Texas' sodomy law. It's not surprising. The decision was widely seen as a judicial push for the agenda of homosexual political activists eager to see their lifestyle not only accepted nationwide but promoted by government and major cultural institutions. Defenders of the Texas law had contended the ultimate goal of the case was not to end sodomy laws, but to advance the "ambitious agenda" of homosexual activists. Justice Antonin Scalia, in a scathing dissent, agreed. "The...

Is It A Fundamental Constitutional Right To Have Sex With Children, Too? By Lowell Phillips Tuesday July 8, 2003 Toogood Reports "This is a glorious and beautiful time to be queer." Don't start hammering out the hate mail just yet. Those aren't my words, but those of a bona fide "gay rights" activist. Amid the orgy of celebration (pun intended) following the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down sodomy laws, Molly McKay, spokeswoman for Marriage Equality California proclaimed, "This month has been filled with hope... This is a glorious and beautiful time to be queer." Few...

Spurred on by the Supreme Court's landmark ruling decriminalizing gay sexual conduct, both sides in the debate over gay rights are vowing an intense state-by-state fight over deeply polarizing questions, foremost among them whether gays should be allowed to marry. Even with most legislatures out of session until early next year, lively debates are already taking shape across the country, from Hawaii to Connecticut, Oregon to Alabama to Massachusetts. Potentially fierce battles over marriage and other rights loom in dozens of statehouses and state courts, as social conservatives — including the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee — try...

MONTREAL -- Swingers clubs will spring up across Canada because of a judge ruling their activities are not necessarily illegal, the head of a swingers group said yesterday. Municipal court Judge Denis Boisvert found five people guilty of swinging-related offences, but decided "contemporary Canadian society tolerates swinging and swingers clubs if the sexual acts take place in private." Jean Hamel, president of the 8,000-member Quebec Swingers Association, said Boisvert's ruling will have national significance. "I don't think more clubs will open in Quebec but I think it will open doors for other places in Canada, like Toronto." Judge Boisvert found...

You may not know how the town of Springfield, home to the Simpsons, was founded. In the late 1790s Jebediah Springfield and his partner Shelbyville Manhattan led a group of pioneers across the country to start a new community. They finally stopped at a beautiful spot atop a hill looking down on a lush valley: Jebediah: People, our search is over! On this site we shall build a new town where we can worship freely, govern justly, and grow vast fields of hemp for making rope and blankets. Shelbyville: Yes, and marry our cousins.Jebediah: I was — what are...

"Polygamy is the next civil-rights battle." That's the new battle cry of proponents of "Christian polygamy" who say their lifestyle is one step closer to being accepted after the Supreme Court's controversial decision last week invalidating state sodomy laws. A website set up for media to get information about the pro-polygamy movement enthusiastically hails the Lawrence v. Texas decision, quoting from the majority opinion that Americans now have "... the full right to engage in private conduct without government intervention." As WorldNetDaily reported, critics of the decision believe the court has usurped the role of lawmakers, establishing a far-reaching precedent...

Men whose sodomy case led to Supreme Court ruling keep low profile BY BRUCE NICHOLS The Dallas Morning News HOUSTON - (KRT) - The two men whose appeal led the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Texas' sodomy law have been invisible warriors, making brief appearances at the courthouse but otherwise working with their lawyers to keep their lives secret. Until Thursday's ruling, the public view of Tyron Garner, 35, who was unemployed when arrested in 1998, and John Geddes Lawrence, 59, a longtime medical technologist, consisted of a brief TV news clip in which they decried their arrest. Garner and...

I have a sneaking sympathy for Dick Gephardt. Hitherto the Democratic Party's most reliably unexciting presidential candidate, the former House minority leader went bananas the other day and said if the Supreme Court did something he didn't like he'd sign an executive order overturning it. Several conservatives did a bit of pro forma huffin' an' a-puffin' about why this makes Gephardt unfit to be president. But, speaking personally, I can't see why rule by Dick-tat would be worse in principle than the present system, whereby the nation's course for the decades ahead is effectively set by executive orders from Sandra...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican leader of the U.S. Senate said on Sunday he supported a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage. Reuters Photo Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist expressed concern about the Supreme Court's decision last week to strike down a Texas sodomy law. He said he supported an amendment that would reserve marriage for relationships between men and women. "I very much feel that marriage is a sacrament, and that sacrament should extend and can extend to that legal entity of a union between, what is traditionally in our Western values has been defined, as between a...

BLAME THE GOP FOR PRO-SODOMY COURT DECISION By: Reed R. Heustis, Jr. June 27, AD 2003 With one stroke of the pen, [homosexuality] has triumphed at the Supreme Court. And guess what? Republican-appointed Justices are to blame. With a convincing 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the United States Supreme Court on June 26 overturned a 1986 case, Bowers v. Hardwick, which had upheld the legitimacy of an anti-sodomy law. Sodomites and perverts all across America are hailing the Lawrence decision as the biggest gay rights victory in our nation's history. Mitchell Katine, the openly gay attorney representing John Lawrence...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO  — Days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws against sodomy, Gay Pride parades (search) around the country offered gays and lesbians a chance to celebrate an historic victory they hope marks a new era of equality and respect.</p>

By ROBERT CROWE Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle From exotic drag queens strutting their stuff to colorful floats sporting gay and lesbian activists, the Houston Pride Parade on Saturday night attracted a large, festive crowd. While just as flamboyant as it has been during its previous 24 years, the atmosphere was charged by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that overturned Texas' sodomy law. "This is overwhelming and still seems a little unreal after all these years -- more than three decades of struggle -- that we're finally free in Texas and free all over the country," said Lee Harrington. A...

When gays rose up against police during the Stonewall Riots in 1969, they were living in a country that considered them criminals. But when their descendants in the struggle for equal rights march down Fifth Ave. in today's Gay Pride Parade, they will do so in a nation whose Supreme Court has forcefully ruled that they are "entitled to respect for their private lives." In the matter of Lawrence vs. Texas, the justices ruled 6 to 3 Thursday that the sodomy law in Texas, which criminalized consensual sexual activity between homosexuals, was unconstitutional. But the court didn't leave it at...

Is Lawrence Worse Than Roe? CRISIS Magazine - e-Letter June 27, 2003 ********************************************** There has been a lot of lot of talk since yesterday's Supreme Court decision in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, a dispute over Texas' law making sodomy illegal. The Supreme Court overturned that law by a vote of 6 to 3, saying that such laws "demean the lives of homosexual persons" and infringe upon their right to privacy. Let me tell you right now: Lawrence is a devastating decision, worse than most people think -- and for reasons that haven't fully dawned on them yet. I...

<p>In a gesture of gratitude for the Supreme Court's decision Thursday striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law, gay-rights activists lowered the huge rainbow flag that always flies over the city's Castro District and hoisted the Stars and Stripes in its place.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) --The Supreme Court's ruling striking down bans on gay sex also strengthens the constitutional underpinnings for legal abortion and other socially divisive issues, some legal experts say.</p> <p>The decision in many respects deals with the same issues as the court's 30-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling that provided for legal abortions. Emory University law professor David Garrow said the ruling "strengthens and enshrines" the court's thinking in the abortion case.</p>

BLOOMINGTON - Sheriff's detectives investigating the circumstances behind a stillborn fetus found in an alley arrested a 17-year-old boy on suspicion of committing incest with his sister, the baby's mother.

This is what the AP reports Justice Scalia as writing in dissent in the Texas sodomy case: "The court has taken sides in the culture war," Scalia said, adding that he has "nothing against homosexuals." Here is what he actually wrote: "Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means."