Reverend offers oral sex

2006-01-12 08:05

Tim Talley

Oklahoma City - A Baptist reverend who has spoken out against homosexuality was charged with offering to engage in oral sex with an undercover male police officer.

The Rev Lonnie Latham, 59, formerly senior pastor at South Tulsa Baptist Church, was charged on Wednesday with a single misdemeanor count of offering to engage in an act of lewdness.

Latham was released from jail on $500 bond on January 4, the day after his arrest by Oklahoma City police. As he was leaving jail he said: "I was set up. I was in the area pastoring to police."

After his arrest, Latham resigned from his church, the board of directors of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma and the executive committee of the Nashville, Tennesee-based Southern Baptist Convention.

Validity of charges questioned

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said Latham never should have been arrested and the United States Supreme Court has ruled that engaging in same-sex sexual relations is a constitutionally protected activity as long as it involves adults, consent, privacy and noncommercial activity.

"Rev Latham appears to have done nothing more than to invite someone to a hotel with him for consensual sex. That's not a crime," said Joann Bell, executive director of the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation.

Latham declined comment on the charge and referred inquiries to his attorney, Mack Martin of Oklahoma City. Martin said Latham will plead innocent.

"I have grave legal concerns relating to the validity of any charges based on the facts as I'm aware of them," Martin said.

Speaking out against homosexuality

Latham propositioned a male plainclothes police officer who was patrolling an area in northwest Oklahoma City that had been the focus of complaints about male prostitution, according to a probable cause affidavit that was filed with the formal charge.

Oklahoma county district attorney Wes Lane said Oklahoma law prohibits a person from offering to engage in a lewd act "regardless of whether money is sought for or engaged".

"In this case, that is exactly what Mr Latham is alleged to have done. To his misfortune, that individual was an Oklahoma City police officer," Lane said.

If convicted, Latham will face up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2 500.

Latham has spoken out against same-sex marriage and in support of a directive urging the group's 42 000 churches to befriend gays and lesbians and try to convince them they can become heterosexual "if they accept Jesus Christ as their saviour and reject their 'sinful, destructive lifestyle'".

- AP