Subject: Frank Kameny wants to be sodomized in Virginia!!
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 12:23:55 EST

[The author of this email is a longtime wonderfully cranky and effective gay
activist in Washington, DC, who led the effort to erase DC's sodomy law from
the books.
 --mp]

Comments from Frank Kameny

	About 25 years ago, in an action which has achieved a certain notoriety,
in order to confront a pattern of persistent police misconduct in their
soliciting solicitations for sodomy upon which arrests were then made, and
also, in the hope of creating a test case with which to challenge the
anti-sodomy law itself, I sent letters to our three top Washington,
DC law enforcement officials, the US Attorney, the Corporation Counsel, and
the Chief of Police, soliciting them to engage with me in acts of sodomy
criminalized by our then-existent DC anti-sodomy law.  While this did not
have the immediate effect of ridding us of the sodomy law itself (that
came, but much later), it did substantially end the arrests for
solicitation here in Washington, then and ever since.  Suitably modified
for the particular situation, and aggressively implemented, it is a tactic
which I have recommended frrequently over the years, although all-too-few
have followed up on it.

	The purpose of this posting is to inform you that on Wednesday afternoon,
December 23, 1998, during a gay radio program on an Alexandria, Virginia
radio station, I solicited to engage in sodomy with me the entire adult
population of the state of Virginia, with particular
emphasis upon all prosecutors, police chiefs and police officers, and
judges in the state.  The precise wording of my solicitation and the
challenge which accompanied it are as follows [It was preceded by a brief
statement identifying me by name, and explaining the meaning and coverage
of the Virginia sodomy law, and the fact that given the near-universality
of oral sodomy, that law makes habitual, recidivist, repetitive felons of
virtually the entire adult population of Virginia, gay and non-gay alike]: 
                       -------------
	"I hereby solicit, urge, entreat, and invite every person in the state of
Virginia of the age of 18 years or above, to engage with me in an act of
sodomy of his or her choice and as defined by Section 18.2-361 of the
Virginia Code, in some indisputably private place in the state of Virginia
at a time of our mutual convenience.  This solicitation includes, but
certainly is not limited to all police chiefs and police officers, other
law enforcement officials, prosecutors under whatever formal title, and
judges in the state of Virginia, with particular
emphasis on police and other officials in the cities of Charlottesville and
Roanoke, where there have been eplsodes of numbers of arrests for
solicitaton for sodomy in recent months.
	"If I am proseuted for this solicitation, I will fight it with intent to
achieve the striking down of the Virginia sodomy law.  If I am not
prosecuted, then a precedent will have been set, since if I can solicit
everyone in Virginia for sodomy, including all of its law enforcement
officials, with impunity and without arrest and prosecution, then anyone in
virginia can solicit anyone for sodomy without fear of arrest and
prosecution, and that precedent will be publicized and utilized. 
		"And so I say to Virginia law enforcement officials and judges: What're
you going to do about it, boys and girls?"

                       ---------------
	I strongly urge the adoption of similar tactics in jurisdictions where
there are problems with relevnt police abuses or, simply, where there are
still anti-sodomy laws on the books, with the two complementary goals of
(1) creating test cases, and (2) bringing into ridicule and contempt the
sodomy and solicitation laws and embarrassing those named, identified
individuals enforcing them, and making public laughing stocks of them.
Solicit everyone!  If there is a particular police officer who is making
arrests, send him signed solicitations and arrange encounters so that he
can jeeringly be solicited directly, in public, and by groups

of people en masse.  Solicit police chiefs, mayors, governors, and other
public officials, all to the accompaniment of as much publicity as can be
mustered.  If someone can get onto national radio or televison, solicit the
entire adult ppulation of the United States -- or at least,
of those states still retaining anti-sodomy laws.  Groups of activists
should march into police stations with the television cameras in tow (if
that can be arranged) and solicit every police officer in sight for sodomy.
Tweak the judicial system by soliciting judges and prosecutors
in open court; in propriety, judges and prosecutors so solicited must
recuse the disqualify themselves (upon conflict of interest and other
grounds, as the"victims" of the defendants before them), leaving no one to
try the cases if the thing is done right by also sending written, signed
solicitations to every judge and prosecutor in the jurisdiction.
With a little determination, planning, organization, and ingenuity, the
entire legal structure supporting sodomy and solicitation laws, and
prosecutions under them, can be wrecked to the accompaniment of much fun
and games.  Go to it!!  Drop the hang-dog, bowed-head, ashamed reaction to
soliciting for sodomy and accusations thereof and arrests therefor,
and make a vast joke of it.
	Solicit, solicit, solicit!!!  Publicize.  Put these states, their
homophobic officials, and their archaic laws "on trial via the media".
	Post Script:  There have been no takers of my invitation to date, and no
official responses.  It's still a bit early, so we shall see.  This was
done over a small radio station, during an off time, with a limited
audience.  Perhaps I and/or others will have to do it again over a
station or channel with a larger audience, at a better time, if all that
can be arranged.

Frank Kameny