Feature: Jay Kaplan's 10-year journey fighting for LGBT rights

By Tara Cavanaugh and Ruchi Naresh, Pride Source

The American Civil Liberties Union has long been an advocate for LGBT equality. Michigan's ACLU chapter has a special tool in its belt for fighting for LGBT rights: the LGBT Project.

Since 2001, the project has defended gay men from police entrapment and unfair imprisonment, fought for same-sex couples' rights to benefits, lobbied for LGBT protections at the state capitol and plenty more.

The project is driven almost entirely by Jay Kaplan. He's won a few important battles, but there's still a war against LGBTs in our state - a war which Kaplan has learned a variety of ways to fight.

Taking the sting out of sting operations

Police raids, gay targeting and unfair imprisonment aren't just the black-and-white snapshots of LGBT history in the last century. Those problems are alive in this century, too.

In a 2001 Rouge River sting operation, undercover Detroit police officers posed as gay men, hoping to arrest and charge people for violating an "annoying person's ordinance." Roughly 1,000 men were arrested. Many had their vehicles impounded and were slapped with a $1,000 fine.

When Kaplan joined the project in 2001, this became his first case.

In attempt to appear gay, young cops in short shorts smiled and waved at park visitors, Kaplan explains. "They were trying to get people to do things that could be considered annoying so they could arrest them," Kaplan says.

"(The ordinance) would prohibit things that are protected speech under the constitution. It's not illegal to wave at somebody; it's not illegal to smile. Can you imagine people getting arrested for things like that? It's ridiculous."

Kaplan sued on the behalf of seven plaintiffs in federal court, challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance. It wasn't easy to find arrestees who were willing to come forward, but the Triangle Foundation (now Equality Michigan) helped find people.

What was the outcome of the suit? For starters, the seven plaintiffs settled out of court for a large cash sum. And the annoying person's ordinance "is off the books," Kaplan says.

More than a legal war...

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