On the last two consecutive weekends, gay men on Fire Island have been arrested and charged with lewd conduct. These are the first known arrests for public sex on the federal land.

Few details are known—the National Park Service has not yet confirmed the arrests or said why they have now begun patrolling the land. On the weekend of Friday, June 13, at least one gay man was detained in the small wooded area popularly called The Meat Rack, which is both a cruising ground and also a thoroughfare between the two gay towns of Fire Island, Cherry Grove and The Pines. The following weekend, at least two were arrested.

In the first event, an eyewitness said he saw five or six rangers with a gay man (described as somewhat overweight and clad in khakis and a polo shirt) on his knees and in handcuffs. The men were searched after their arrests. In the other event, a man was stopped and "panicked and tried to get rid of the drugs," according to a second-hand report by one Cherry Grove resident; that man was either charged with possession or detained further and charged. The man arrested with him was given a citation for $125 for engaging in lewdness, that resident said.

This coming Saturday, June 28, one Cherry Grove resident is proposing—via posters around the towns—a day of action, what he is calling "a circle jerk for freedom" around the park service's (abandoned) building in the Meat Rack at the edge of the Pines.

The National Park Service has dealt with gay cruising on its land in other locations—particularly at the Cape Cod National Seashore. And in the '90s, in Valley Forge National Historical Park in Pennsylvania, two men engaged in sex were arrested for and convicted of "open lewdness and disorderly conduct." In 1995, in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania, their conviction for open lewdness was overturned (the men were, after all, hiding in the woods) but the disorderly conduct charge was maintained.

That court found that "every square inch of the Park's grounds is public, and thus Park grounds cannot supply a venue for sex akin to the privacy of a room."

It is unclear whether the Fire Island arrests are even being performed by the National Park Service, or by another agency of the Department of the Interior. They were not performed by the Long Island police, who patrol in the towns. Arrests performed by Suffolk County Police Department are not unusual—last year, for instance, a number of drug dealers were arrested at an annual circuit party, and in the towns, "open container" citations are issued frequently.

There are no federal or state cases on record involving arrests of gay men for indecent exposure or lewdness on Fire Island.

The National Park Service's new Fire Island Superintendent, Sean McGuinness, was not available yesterday; neither was his supervisor (and former Fire Island Superintendent), Northeast Region Director Mike Reynolds. "We're still looking into the details," said a spokesperson yesterday.

Anyone with more information is encouraged to write in.