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Thursday, September 13, 2007
The charge against a Boca Raton Episcopal priest who was arrested in a sex sting operation in a Waynesville, N.C. park restroom may violate his constitutional rights, according to lawyers for the ACLU and Lambda Legal.
Fr. Michael Penland was charged on June 28 with “soliciting for a crime against nature” in Waynesville Recreation Park after he allegedly asked an undercover officer to go home with him and have sex. On Sept. 5, Episcopal Bishop Leo Frade suspended Fr. Penland from his priestly duties at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton.
“The charge is brazenly unconstitutional,” said Robert Rosenwald, an ACLU lawyer with the Florida chapter’s LGBT project, who examined the police report.
Penland was issued a citation after he allegedly followed an undercover detective home in his car after soliciting him for sex in a public bathroom. He was among seven men arrested by the Waynesville Police Department in a summer-long sting operation dubbed Operation Summer Heat. Police did not release information about the arrests until Sept. 5 in order to avoid tipping off people about the sting, according to media reports.
According to the arrest report, Penland followed Det. Tyler Trantham into a public restroom around 11:30 a.m. and asked Trantham to go home with him to have sex.
Penland allegedly got into his car and followed the officer to another location. He was pulled over by a second officer, Crystal Shuler, who issued a citation, took his picture and released him. Penland did not go to jail.
He was charged with “solicitation for a crime against nature,” a misdemeanor, and “banned from town property,” according to the police report.
The report does not depict any sexual behavior taking place in the bathroom, public park or in Penland’s vehicle. It only states that Penland propositioned the undercover detective to engage in anal sex at a private location.
The 2003 Supreme Court ruling Lawrence vs. Texas overturned sodomy laws. According Lawrence, sexual behaviors such as anal sex between men could not be considered illegal.
“What [Penland] did was not a crime,” the ACLU’s Rosenwald said. “It’s not wrong to proposition someone and then go home.”
Like many of the men who are arrested in bathroom stings, Penland does not identify as gay. He has been married for 17 years. He did not return calls from the Express to discuss if he would challenge the charge.
“In a case like this, what is unconstitutional is the investigation targeting gay people and arresting [them] for conduct that is lawful,” Rosenwald said.
News of Penland’s arrest comes as bathroom sex stings gain prominence in local and national headlines. Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is seeking to withdraw his guilty plea resulting from a sting at a Minneapolis airport bathroom. In July, Florida State Rep. Bob Allen (R-Sarasota) was arrested for offering an undercover police officer $20 to have sex in a private location.
Locally, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle has incensed the gay community recently with statements deriding gay sex in city park restrooms.
Jon Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, says cases such as Penland’s are troubling. They are typical, he said, of public agencies implementing “selective enforcement” of laws in order to ensnare gay men.
“Unfortunately these cases are not uncommon,” he said. “A lot of people who get arrested don’t know the law, make a plea and hope that it will go away.”
His main concern, Davidson said, was that the misdemeanor arrests from public sex stings cause irreparable damage to the men’s lives, including job losses, ruined relationships and sometimes even suicide.
Davidson said Penland could sue the Waynesville Police Department for false arrest or for violating his constitutional rights. Chances are, however, that Penland and others who are caught in similar stings frequently choose not to challenge the charges because of the stigma associated with such an arrest.
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