NYPD still going after gay 'cruising'

The rationale the NYPD has been using to arrest gay men cruising in adult book shops? It's unconstitutional. So how come the police continue to intimidate these men, and courts continue to hear cases and issue punishments for a crime that is, in fact, not a crime at all?

It's a great question, and Slate's Daniel Redman tries answering it. "In 1983," he reminds us, "New York's high court struck down as unconstitutional a 1960s-era provision that made it illegal to cruise—that is, to hit on someone in a public place. And yet in the 26 years since, on thousands of occasions, the New York Police Department has continued to enforce the defunct law, historically used to target gay people."

Like here. And here. (And, unrelated by completely prescient, is this example of the police choosing not to involve itself with the gays when it means helping them.

The NYPD's luck may have finally run out: One man arrested on prostitution charges isn't letting the cops railroad him. He's filed a civil liberties lawsuit. (Yes, there's a difference between cruising and prostitution, but in this example, both are trumped up charges.)

But still, that doesn't answer the question about how the NYPD continues going after gay men for something that isn't illegal. "How did this miscarriage of justice, involving thousands, evade notice all this time?," asks Redman. "One possible answer lies in the combination of intimidation and minimum deprivation of rights, at least in the short-run, which enforcement has entailed.