Are Gays the Downfall of Society?

Homophobic Religious Right nut cases are quick to point out that gays are bad for society or are the downfall of society and etcetera.

Let's talk about some statistics. At the Raiders Chargers game (Oct. 2007) in San Diego, a Channel 10 news report listed a total of 53 arrests, mostly for alcohol-related offenses. The news article stated this was a "relatively well-behaved" crowd of fans. And let's face it, the number of arrests don't seem bad, it seems about right, for a Raiders Chargers football game with a rowdy football crowd drinking alcohol. Some more numbers: Qualcomm stadium in San Diego can hold between 50,000 to 70,000 people.

Let's talk about Gay Pride (an annual event) held in San Diego. This two day event typically attracts approximately 200,000 people. Several years ago, I was talking to a San Diego police officer who, year after year, has specifically worked during Gay Pride in San Diego and he wanted to tell me about Gay Pride, from a police officer's point of view.

He told me the police always have planning meetings on how to handle large crowds at public events and how they will plan for arrests and so on and so forth. They know arrests will be made when large groups of people are gathered, especially when there is alcohol involved. You might not know this, but there is always a large beer garden in a fenced off area at San Diego's Gay Pride.

During one of the Gay Pride planning meetings, several years ago, an officer who never work on a gay pride event before, asked the question of where will they locate the temporary prison? There was immediate snickering in the room.

Aside: When you have a large crowd of people at an event, the officer told me, the police typically have a temporary prison—a holding place—for those arrested and then when appropriate, the police will move people in mass to the local jail, it's more efficient that way.

The new officer said, okay, why are all of you snickering? What is going on at Gay Pride that I don't know about? Another officer spoke up and said, we don't need a temporary prison at Gay Pride. Year after year, there has never been an arrest.

And gays are the scourge of society?