God Hates Adultery

     Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle has been spending a lot of time lately thinking about sex. Anonymous sex. Illegal sex. In public restrooms. Between men.

      And he's not just thinking about "t-room" (for toilet-room) sex. He's also talking about it — at public meetings, in interviews, and even in e-mails to residents — to let us know he thinks "homosexual activity" is a plague on public restrooms.

He's thought so much about t-room sex that he wanted the City Commission to approve $250,000 for a robo-john, a high-tech restroom that plays music and has automated systems that clean the toilet seat and open the door after a few minutes. This last feature, Naugle figures, won't allow enough time for the t-room sex he's been so pre-occupied with lately (city commissioners voted Tuesday to delete the toilet from the proposed budget).

As Naugle explained to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, "We're trying to provide a family environment where people can take their children who need to use the bathroom, without having to worry about a couple of men in there engaged in a sex act." And he claims the high-tech toilet's timed door will deter the anonymous sex he thinks will occur at the robo-john's planned location, "the rainbow parking lot." That's what Naugle called the parking lot directly across A1A from a section of beach at Sebastian Street favored primarily by gay men, residents and tourists alike.

But one problem Naugle had in trying to justify buying a robo-john due only to his belief that it will stop the rampant anonymous t-room sex he's been thinking about is that the rampant anonymous t-room sex he's been thinking about isn't a problem. According to Sgt. Frank Sousa, "There's no evidence, no reports or arrests made for any men having sex in any restrooms."

Another problem Naugle has is his propensity for stereotyping.

Who can forget Mayor Antoinette's recent pronouncement that the only folks in South Florida with an affordable housing problem are beer-guzzling "schlock" couch-potatoes "who won't work more than 40 hours a week." Or his haughty dismissal of a mayor's pact in favor of the Kyoto Agreement to reduce greenhouse gases — now signed by more than 520 mayors nationwide — as favoring "anti-American stuff" that was contrived by "a bunch of scientists meeting in Paris who've had too much wine," and embraced by "environmental wackos."

Now, to justify a costly expenditure, Naugle stereotyped gay men (a term he won't use because he believes we're unhappy) and inclusively demeans all those spending a great deal of time, money and effort to help revitalize sections of the city, those with enough concern and vision to become community leaders, and the gay tourists who leave millions of dollars in the city's coffers.

But research done in the 1960s, and later verified by police data, reveals the men involved in tearoom sex primarily are married family men, who've said they were in sexless marriages and were looking for something a little less lonely than self-gratification. Consider the recent arrest of Florida state representative Bob Allen (R-Merritt Island), a married father who was charged with soliciting for offering $20 to perform a sex act on a male undercover cop in a Titusville restroom. Yet anyone today looking for anonymous sex can go online and find alternatives more appealing than a spritzed outhouse blaring canned music.

"Marriage is the most fundamental social institution in human history," Sen. David Vitter says in the video clip above. This statement came as part of the debate last summer over amending the U.S. Constitution to prevent gay people from marrying each other. At the time, Vitter told CNN,"I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one." Over the years, of course, Vitter has degraded and defiled his own marriage by hiring prostitutes, including at least one call girl from the D.C. Madam. Prior to that, Wendy Cortez, a prostitute in New Orleans, claimed in 1999 that Vitter had an ongoing affair with her. Maybe he met her at this brothel: In New Orleans, meanwhile, the madam of a high-priced brothel that was shut down by federal authorities in 2002 told a local television station, WDSU, that Mr. Vitter was one of her clients in the 1990s. The woman, Jeanette Maier, called him "one of the nicest and most honorable men I've ever met." Mr. Vitter's office did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday night.