Mike Alvear's Urge & Merge

Update on the police raid of The Eagle: Civil rights attorney Daniel Grossman convinced Lambda Legal, the gay civil rights organization that focuses on impact litigation, to help represent patrons who were victimized in the police raid of the The Eagle, a gay bar in Atlanta. Grossman’s quote says it all:

“Imagine if the police walked into a Wal-Mart and see someone shoplifting, and because they see what they think is a crime taking place in Wal-Mart, they take everyone at Wal-Mart, throw them on the floor, spread their legs, put their hands in their pockets, take their IDs, put their name in the computer, simply because they’re out of place or someone else may or may not be doing something wrong.”

For more on the story: CNN.

For the legal implications of the case–and more importantly, to donate money or support to the legal defense– visit Grossman’s site at Atlantaeagleraid.com.

About a hundred people showed up in the middle of an unrelenting downpour to hear community leaders voice everyone’s outrage over the police raid of The Eagle, a peaceful gay bar in Atlanta.

The best speaker by far, was Patti Ellis, the mother of two boys–one straight; one gay. Patti is one of the co-founders of the emotionally wrenching Family Acceptance, a site that helps conservative southern parents accept their gay children. At the end of her speech people were shouting, “We’re your kids too!”

I’d rather publish the text of her speech, but she did it off the top of her head, angering the rest of us who spent time preparing and still couldn’t hold a candle to her. Instead, you’ll have to settle for mine:

First, let me say what everybody’s thinking and nobody’s saying: forcing anybody to lay face down on the grubby floors of that bar constitutes a human rights violation under the terms of the Geneva Convention!

I mean, I’d rather be water boarded.

It’s a good thing the raid didn’t happen somewhere like Blake’s, where the crowd is younger, meaner and drunker. Imagine the police bursting into Blake’s in the middle of one of their drag shows when one of those queens was trying to hit the high note on her finale.

Oh. My. God.

There would have been a riot. The cops could’ve been killed! We can’t let this happen because there aren’t enough cops in the street as it is.

My point, and I do have one, is that this protest has nothing to do with The Eagle. It’s not about defending this bar, it’s about protecting the next one. Because if we don’t draw a line in the sand, these raids are going to happen again and again.

It’s my personal belief that the raid on The Eagle was motivated in part by a deep hatred and fear of gay people. You heard of the Gay Panic Defense? This was the Gay Panic Offense.

How else can you explain the police’s judgment that the possibility of two men making out in the corner of a bar poses a greater threat to this city than rape, robbery or murder?

How else can you explain a mentality that says the possibility of a handjob is more dangerous than the reality of a home invasion?

Over 50 crimes a day occur in the city of Atlanta and the police diverted up to 30 cops into a gay bar to arrest 8 people dancing in their underwear?

Why?

Gay panic. The belief that gay people pose a greater risk to the city than crooks, criminals and convicts.

I want to say this as plainly and bluntly as I can:

We got mugged by the police.

They stuck a gun in our ribs and said, “Give it up or else.”

They stole our dignity the way crooks steal our wallets.

The standard advice when you get mugged is Don’t Resist. We didn’t. But as any cop will tell you, the key to avoiding future muggings is not to make yourself vulnerable. Because muggers are always looking for an easy target.

Is that what we want to be? An easy target? Or do we want to take defensive maneuvers and make sure we never get mugged by the police again?

DON’T BE A VICTIM.

Atlanta’s gay community woke up with a shock last week when they learned that dozens of cops stormed into a tranquil gay bar, forced 62 patrons to lay on the grubby floors face down for an hour, ransacked through their pockets, rounded up their ID’s, threatened jail time to anybody who asked why they were being held against their will, and then threw them out–without letting them have access to their cell phones, wallets and other personal belongings.

All so they could arrest eight men for dancing in their underwear.

That’s the only charge police could come up with. They traumatized 62 men, violated their constitutional rights against illegal search and seizure, threatened them with arrest if they didn’t comply, trashed an iconic neighborhood bar so they could do what?  Arrest a few guys doing the Macarena in their Calvin Klein underwear?

Of course, that’s not what the police were looking for. They were looking for something that posed an intolerable danger to the city; something that menaced the public safety; something worse than home invasions or armed robbery:  Sex.

Or rather, the possibility of it.

The police had raided the bar because anonymous tips–and their own undercover work–showed that in a few instances, a few men were kinda, sorta, MAYBE doing the deed at the back of the bar.

The operative word being maybe.

This of course, sent law enforcement officers into an orgy of panic. If there was ever a reason to divert police resources from armed assaults plaguing the city, this was it!

Welcome to a southern-style sex panic. The only thing missing from the police action was the captain waving goodbye to the tyrannized and saying, “Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?”

Here’s how a sex panic works in the south:  First, you convince yourself that two guys looking at each other like Elvis looked at a pork chop poses more of a threat to public safety than two guys who look at your property as if it were their own.

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