Crime and No Punishment?

Long story short: the local cops set up a sex sting at a known gay motel/park area. The cops pretend to be gay and arrest 19 offenders committing sex acts in public. However, the police chief, who was in on the sting, evidently made an inappropriate comment, so the incident has now become an example of this community's intolerance of gays and their rights.

New DA in office; in the spirit of whatever, he offers a plea deal. If the 19 plead guilty, they will not have to register as sex offenders. Here's today's headline:

Deal rejected in Warm Sands case
Defense attorneys for 15 of 19 men arrested in connection with a 2009 Warm Sands public sex sting rejected a plea agreement offered by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office on Thursday.

The media coverage has centered on the alleged slur made by the police chief, with the fact that 19 men were actively engaging in sexual acts in public and/or indecently exposing themselves in public over-looked. If this group of sexual offenders walk away from their criminal conduct because our community is known for its significant population of GLTBs and wants their money to keep the city afloat, won't everyone else who is ever arrested for any kind of public sexual conduct and/or exposure also be able to walk away from their crimes?

I'm thinking the old sauce for the goose and the gander: gay or straight, the rules need to be the same for anyone committing a sexual act in public.

I don't understand why what the 19 gay men were doing has been lost in the alleged slur made by the police chief. He apologized, but finally resigned recently, which set off another fire storm: he should have been fired, not given a retirement package and benefits, according to the GLTB community. The protest from the GLTBs is that the slur made by the police chief is more egregious than their public sexual activity, and that position seems to be supported by the letters to the editor that basically posit that "everyone knows" this specific neighborhood is predominantly gay, so if they aren't hurting anyone, why target them?

Believe me, this makes no sense to me on any level, but it sure supports the theory that we don't have to worry about the enemy without as much as the enemy within our own communities!! We don't focus on a public official in Tucson ranting and raving about what conservative rhetoric has done to this country, including leading a deranged young man to commit murder, even if that accusation is NOT supported by the facts of the incident, but feel free to Palinize anyone who uses any word/phrase that could possibly be construed to mean involving a weapon, such as hitting the target with monthly sales, dodging a bullet by making a quota, punching up an ad campaign, or discussing the target demographic for political campaigns??

If we don't stand together for what is right and decent, we'll fall for anything that takes the focus off what's really important.