Jury: Firefighters Were Harassed in Gay Parade

Firefighters in San Diego were ordered to subject themselves to a gay pride parade. No one should have to go through that experience, especially homosexuals.

Good news for common sense and California courts. In San Diego, a jury determined that four firefighters were sexually harassed at a gay pride parade and awarded them $34,300 in damages.

The firefighters' attorney, Charles LiMandri, said during his closing argument that his clients were targets of vulgar gestures and catcalls while being forced to watch barely clothed men and women simulate sex acts and touch themselves and one another.

What bothers me the most about this news story isn't the fact that these firefighters were forced to participate in the parade, it isn't that they were subject to a situation where they would be uncomfortable, it isn't even that their department supervisor is a lesbian. No, what bothers me most is that out of 150,000 spectators, no one seems to find anything wrong with the hedonism displayed in a public place. If we can accept the idea that what you do in your bedroom is no one's business but your own, we do not have to accept that what you do on the streets is acceptable behavior.

C'mon, think about it. When did we descend so low in our moral values to allow out on the streets "vulgar gestures and catcalls" and "barely clothed men and women simulate sex acts and touch themselves and one another."

Oh, that's right. The French invented it, calling it Mardi Gras. But it took good old American ingenuity to turn Fat Tuesday into "jour de l'hédonisme."