So Ye All Shall Be Free: (registration required)

OKLAHOMA CITY — The lawyer for a former Baptist church leader who had spoken out against homosexuality said Thursday the minister has a constitutional right to solicit sex from an undercover policeman.

The Rev. Lonnie W. Latham had supported a resolution calling on gays and lesbians to reject their “sinful, destructive lifestyle” before his Jan. 3, 2006, arrest outside the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City.

Authorities say he asked the undercover policeman to come up to his hotel for oral sex.

His attorney, Mack Martin, filed a motion to have the misdemeanor lewdness charge thrown out, saying the Supreme Court ruled in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas that it was not illegal for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual acts.

“Now, my client’s being prosecuted basically for having offered to engage in such an act, which basically makes it a crime to ask someone to do something that’s legal,” Martin said.

Both sides agree there was no offer of money, but prosecutor Scott Rowland said there is a “legitimate governmental interest” in regulating offers of acts of lewdness.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma has filed a brief claiming that Latham’s arrest also violated his right to free speech.

Before his arrest, Latham had spoken against same-sex marriage and in support of a Southern Baptist resolution that called upon gays and lesbians to reject their lifestyle.

He has since resigned as pastor of the South Tulsa Baptist Church and stepped down from the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, where he was one of four members from Oklahoma.

On Thursday Latham declined to talk to reporters at the non-jury trial.

Judge Roma M. McElwee said she would rule on the motion and issue a verdict in about two weeks. If convicted of the misdemeanor, Latham faces up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Actually, I take this as a good thing. I don’t believe that the state needs to be regulating “lewdness” and it’s rather an obvious way around Lawerence v Texas, which makes it clear that Adam and Steve have the same right to “Hide the Sausage” as everyone else. But in the vein of ’only Nixon could go to China,” I think that we’ll see real progress on the gay marriage issue, and civil rights for queers in general, as more and more of these Republican closet cases get hoisted by their own…erm, well, you know.

I was thinking about a long, serious essay about why gay rights are about so much more than just the rights of gays to waste thousands on matching designer dresses and have ugly custody battles; I may get to that later. In the meantime, relish in this deliciously ironic story about a Baptist from OK who needs the ACLU to get him off the hook for lusting after some leatherdaddy policeman cock.