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Anti-Gay Activist Adds Homophobia to Airport Frisking Controversy

As if travelers don鈥檛 have enough to worry about when they go through airport security, the leader of a prominent anti-gay hate group has added a dollop of his personal agenda to the mix. With the controversy growing over whether the new full-body scanners and more-aggressive pat-down searches are excessive , Peter LaBarbera, long-time anti-gay activist and director of is worried that gay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees will 鈥済et turned on鈥 while patting down travelers of the same sex.

尝补叠补谤产别谤补鈥檚 , published on AFTAH's Web site Nov. 16, came in response to a statement from U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assuring that members of the same gender would perform checkpoint pat-downs. 鈥淚sn鈥檛 it just as inappropriate for a 鈥榞ay鈥 male TSA agent to pat down male travelers as it is for a normal, heterosexual male TSA agent to pat down female travelers?鈥 he wrote. 鈥淭he reality is, most traveling men would not want Barney Frank to pat them down at the airport security checkpoint. 鈥 Neither would it be fair to assign Ellen DeGeneres to pat down female travelers.鈥

LaBarbera 鈥 who has a reputation for as he conducts 鈥渞esearch鈥 into the 鈥渉omosexual agenda鈥 鈥 is using the concerns of mainstream groups over the new security procedures to stoke his own long-burning anti-gay fires.

U.S. airports increasingly are turning to sophisticated full-body scanners using (AIT). An AIT machine produces a detailed three-dimensional image of a person beneath his or her clothing. The calls AIT machines the equivalent of a 鈥減hysically invasive strip search.鈥 EPIC has filed a lawsuit against DHS to suspend the deployment of AIT machines pending an independent review. The ACLU also has registered complaints about the technology.

Travelers can opt out of going through the AIT scanners 鈥 but then they must submit to the TSA鈥檚 recently enhanced hand-search standards. Rather than using the backs of the hands to check a person, TSA security personnel now use open hands and fingers on travelers' bodies, including on breast and genital areas. In one recent incident, all over again by the procedure.

A public outcry has also accompanied the new standards. Today is 鈥淣ational Opt-Out Day,鈥 organized by , which bills itself as a grassroots consumer advocate group. The protest calls on travelers to refuse the electronic scan and choose a pat-down instead, hoping that slowing down airport security lines will amount to a 鈥渃reative protest.鈥

But to the mind of LaBarbera 鈥 who seems to have no greater calling in life than fretting about gay pleasure 鈥 that would just mean more salacious opportunities for homosexual TSA agents to titillate themselves at the expense of travelers. He demands 鈥渢he TSA should put conditions on employment for self-acknowledged homosexuals.鈥 They should be barred from patting down travelers, 鈥渟o as to avoid being put in sexually compromising situations.鈥 And if the TSA doesn't know which of its employees are gay, LaBarbera continues, 鈥淚s it fair to travelers who may end up getting 鈥榞roped鈥 by homosexual TSA agents who are secretly getting turned on through the process?鈥

Requests for comment from TSA have not been returned.

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