Community | August 12, 2010 | 80 comments

Gay Cop's Porn Past Complicates Job, Revives Sexual Policing | Gay Rights | Change.org

source: http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/gay_cops_porn_past_complicates_job_revives_sexual_poli...

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Homophobia has many faces, many forms and many nameless companions.

What looks like purely anti-gay activity may in fact be something far more insidious and complex, a fact made crystal clear by the murky case of openly gay police officer Michael Verdugo, who's currently fighting to keep his police certification after being booted for appearing in a gay porn.

Verdugo maintains that his peers at the Hollywood, Florida Police Department were motivated by gay hate. Hollywood officials insist they felt misled by Verdugo's secrecy. Either way you cut it, however, we're seeing how sexual policing remains alive and well in the United States, and often arises on its own accord.

Thirty-six year old Verdugo's woes began in 2008, when his stint on a reality show, HDTV's Design Star, led to the revelation that he had made a brief appearance in a skin flick called Rope Rituals, which came out five years before Verdugo became a cop. His superiors were not impressed.

Though Verdugo had served on the force for seven years, and that scene -- him tied up, naked and alone -- was relatively vanilla when compared to the rest of the video, his higher-ups still put Verdugo on administrative leave. They claimed he had misled them by neglecting to tell them about Rope Rituals. Because, you know, you would include a porn made five years prior on a resume to become a cop.

The suspended officer sees the situation very differently. "A one day job is not a job," 36-year old Verdugo said of his involvement in the movie, which he filmed when he was 22-years old. "The film was just their way of dismissing me and getting rid of their gay officer." He also contends that Hollywood police are working behind the scenes to keep him benched for good.

Verdugo's allegations of homophobia seem plausible, especially since another out officer, Christina Rodriguez, has also come forward with charges of anti-gay attitudes on the Hollywood force. "It's difficult sometimes to keep [strong] when you don't have that strength behind you from within your safe haven of your own police department walls," she said of how discrimination hindered her job performance.

Even if Floridian officials do reinstate Vergudo's certification, and he can go on to fight crime in another part of the pan handle, they're still recommending that he attend "ethics training." Journalist Tiffani Helberg reports, "The [Florida Department of Law Enforcement] said staff members recommended a 30-day suspension of Verdugo's certification and a probationary period of a year, plus ethics training." No matter what happens with Verdugo's career, he's still being maligned as unethical.

But let's pretend that this situation wasn't born from straight-up homophobia. Verdugo's private gay life has nothing to do with the firing; it was motivated simply by the sudden revelation that he had kept his cinematic history a secret. That doesn't mean, however, that his sex life hasn't influenced, however subconsciously, his colleagues' actions.

There's no separating gay rights from gay sex. It's just impossible. Conservatives and other opponents too often cite the "ick factor" when lambasting same-sex love. "Don't hate the sinner, hate the sin," they say. Verdugo's sexuality, and what he does with it, becomes even more "offensive" when coupled with another "sinful" commodity, pornography.

Police and the public have historically and consistently clumped pornography and homosexuality, among other things, into one convenient category: "vice." Such sexual outbursts offended the "normal" morals of a heterosexist society and were therefore worthy of repression. After many hard-fought battles, the restrictions on these activities have been relaxed somewhat; society, of course, doesn't shift so easily, and remnants of these straight-laced ways run deep in contemporary America.

"The Rule of Law" has long gotten off on policing private sex lives, and it did a number on Verdugo. Supposing that Verdugo's colleagues were alright with his gay ways, the sudden realization of his sexuality, in video form, may have been too much to handle. Even if he had been straight and also in a "bondage" movie, such "deviant" behavior may still have rubbed Hollywood police the wrong way.

If the Hollywood Police Department wants to prove they're not only LGBT inclusive, but that they're beyond 50s era sexual policing and moral judgments, they should grant Verdugo his wish: "I still want to be a cop. My goal -- not a practical one -- is to go back to Hollywood."
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