Hello,
Since we need content I'm going to start posting the entries from my weekly LGBT History blog here.

The year was 1919, WWI had just ended and there were 25,000 U.S.A. service members stationed in Newport Rhode Island were the Navy had a training station. A sailor named Ervin Arnold complained about other sailors using cocaine and engaging in homosexual activities.

 

Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels started by convening of a Court of Inquiry which refused to act on hearsay evidence. So the assistant to Mr. Daniels named Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the Justice Department to investigate but they were just too busy. So it was turned over to the local Board of Inquiry which in conjunction with the Base Commander and the sailor Arnold designed their own investigation.

 

So they recruited young good looking sailors to act as investigative 'operators'. The techniques was to seduce sailors into having sex with the 'operators' who kept written reports about the sex acts that the sailors performed. These reports were later used as evidence to prosecute 17 sailors who were held on a prison ship, court-martialed with several landing in jail.

 

Then they went after a local minister who beat the charges in two trials. But the high profile targeting of the minister made it to the papers across the nation along with the details of the Naval investigation methods. There was public outrage. The resulting turmoil saw Roosevelt lose his bid to become Vice President and he claimed that he had no idea how the Navy was investigating the charges even if he was an Assistant Secretary of the Navy and the one who initiated the investigation. He also filed suit against a Providence newspaper editor for reporting on the issue and insulting him but the suit never went to trial.

 

The Senate investigated and in 1921 released a report roasting the Navy for using sailors as bait and sending these poor men into situations where things like this could occur.

 

The long term effects of this is that it became easier and easier for police to charge people with crimes that had not actually happened and people can be charged for looking like they want to solicit sex. Until the point where people have been prosecuted for being in a public restroom and acting in the manner of a person who is seeking sex. Like Senator Larry Craig, who said nothing, offered no money, and was arrested after having made no requests, statements or offers. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy but shouldn't happen to anyone.