In the 1950s, the Mattachine
Society devoted many pages to complaints about lewd-vag arrests at gay
watering holes. Bars, beaches, and other gay gathering places were not
in themselves illegal, so police, especially in California, turned to
statutes against public lewdness and vagrancy to harass
"perverts." A hand on the knee of the man sitting next to
you in a bar was sufficient cause for a lewdness conviction, and the
definition of vagrancy was so imprecise that police could arrest anyone they
didn't like for standing on the sidewalk.
Even though lewdness and
vagrancy were minor misdemeanors, the consequences of an arrest could be
severe. Newspapers printed the names, and often the addresses of
arrested men in columns devoted to police blotter reports. Many gay
men lost their jobs and had their reputations ruined even if they
escaped conviction in court.
