Many of you will no doubt remember how some elected officials in Cobb County were so virulently anti-gay back in the 1990s that one of the events in the Atlanta Olympics was yanked from the county and held elsewhere. Well, it looks like gays are getting a little payback in Marietta.
There’s a very humorous account in Friday’s Marietta Daily Journal about the largely unsuccessful efforts to deal with acts of homosexuality that occur at two parks operated by the city.
Rather than try to paraphrase any of it, I’ll quote from the article written by Jon Gillooly (who I’ve always found to be a very competent reporter) –
It’s a well-known fact that men have sex with men at Burruss Nature Park by Highway 41 and South Cobb Parkway, as well as nearby Wildwood Park on Barclay Circle and South Cobb Parkway . . .
Councilman Grif Chalfant said he’s known about the sex at the two parks for the last 20 years.
“I don’t understand that group — a perverted bunch,” Chalfant said, referring to gay men having sex in the parks. “I don’t know anybody who goes there. I wouldn’t want to be there. It’s like lover’s lane for — whatever.”
Councilwoman Holly Walquist said everyone knows about the public sex — although it is usually kept quiet.
“We all know or are aware of what’s happening there. How much can you talk about that?” Walquist said. “It’s not like you want to air your dirty laundry.” . . .
According to Gillooly’s article, Marietta officials are proposing to use the proceeds from a future bond sale to try to deal with this particular issue. The bond funds would be spent “to improve the walking trails, build two playgrounds, a volleyball court, and a restroom.”
Uh, I hate to be a skunk at the garden party here, but I strongly suspect that adding more restrooms to a public park is not likely to reduce the number of sexual incidents that occur in said park. Not that I’d know anything about that, of course.
There’s a bit of cosmic karma in all this. The residents of Marietta and Cobb were among those who voted overwhelmingly in 2004 to declare gay marriage in all its forms to be unconstitutional. How fitting that they should now have to deal with the natural consequences of that vote.
I’ll leave the last word to my friend Jon Gillooly:
This week, Journal staff visited Burruss to investigate whether the activity is as prevalent as some say.
On Tuesday, a Journal reporter accompanied Parks and Recreation Director Rich Buss on a tour of the city’s parks, including Burruss. Pulling into the parking lot, which is hidden from South Cobb Parkway by trees, were six cars with middle-aged men sitting in them. When Buss pulled his car up to one of them to park, he advised the reporter to look the other way because the man in the driver’s seat was engaging in sexual activity with himself. Buss was not surprised. He said any man who walks alone through the park will likely be propositioned.
Buss said the men who congregate to have sex at the parks are often closeted gay, married men. For instance, pastors, he said, have been known to be arrested.
A Cobb law enforcement official said the parks are advertised in gay publications and Web sites as a spot to come for public sex among gay men.
On Thursday, Journal staff returned to Burruss around lunchtime. Nine cars were parked, sporting license plates from Fulton, Cobb and Gwinnett counties. Occupants of all the cars again tended to be middle-aged white men. When a Journal photographer brought out his camera in the parking lot, most of the cars scattered.
“I just came here to take a pee,” said one of three men the Journal tried to interview.
Leave a Reply