C'mon, Get Happy

These are the same two guys who were at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport this spring when they heard someone reading a Bible verse from Leviticus over the intercom. If a man lies with a man, the voice said, he should be put to death.

The employee who'd done it was fired, but Hudson and Niedwiecki were disappointed that media reports characterized him as a prankster. They saw him as a hatemonger. Hudson says that after the incident, he was harassed and threatened. A woman at the grocery store recognized him from the news, he says, and spat in his face. "You deserve what that man said to you," Hudson recalls her saying. "Sinful faggot."

Their experience led Hudson and Niedwiecki to found an organization and a website, fightoutloud.com, that advises people on how to deal with hate crimes.

It also prepared them for what was to come. After Naugle's initial gay/sex/toilet comments, the couple helped launch Unite Fort Lauderdale, the group that quickly put together the anti-Naugle campaign.

Even after the rallies, the pair wouldn't back down. Niedwiecki, a law professor at Nova University, filed a public records request seeking e-mails the mayor had sent between June 25 and July 31. He also asked for correspondence between Naugle and various conservative leaders. Niedwiecki says he hand-delivered the request. Five days later, he got a call from the dean's office at his work.

"The secretary says, 'We got something from the City of Fort Lauderdale you might be interested in.' " There was a letter on city stationery marked "personal and confidential" — but strangely, it was addressed to Nova President Ray Ferrero Jr. instead of Niedwiecki. The letter said that it may take a while to respond to the request.

Niedwiecki believes that Naugle was running interference by trying to alert his bosses. It was a signal: "I better back off. He's interfering and harassing me for exercising my rights."

The language was much more subdued in Mayor Naugle's eighth-floor City Hall office, a spacious retreat painted blue and cluttered with model ships, framed photos, and city memorabilia. Stacks of paperwork cover a desk and table. Children's drawings hang on the door.

In person, the mayor uses his soothing voice to great effect, waxing on about the sister-cities project and his grandfather, who was a commissioner of Miami-Dade as well as a doctor. He answers the phone with that voice — "Jim speaking" — and is even polite to telemarketers: "No, I'm not buying any advertising today."

But he's not afraid to talk about his battles — or, for that matter, to inflame them. He himself switches the topic to the recent conflict with gays when he gets a call from a supporter in England. "He'd rather go to the bathroom in the ocean than go in those toilets," Naugle laughs.

The APTs, Naugle says, would "cut down on sexual activity that so many people complain about and that we've made arrests for. We made arrests Monday night." It's an issue he wanted to bring into the open, he says, in part to encourage people to make complaints against activity that "in past years, because of political correctness, people were not willing to report." It's that sort of thing that "resulted in, I'm assuming, [Monday's] arrest."

"During this controversy is when I found these websites that advertise places for activity. Where I first heard about it was the arrest of that state legislator." Naugle is referring to Bob Allen, who was arrested after allegedly offering to give an undercover officer a blowjob in a park bathroom. "I went to this site — Gay Guide to Florida Activities — and there: Holiday Park is listed. I said 'Aw, man! Again!' "

The sites Naugle mentions also list various private businesses as "cruisy places" or having "cruisy toilets." He says he's planning to write the managers of each of those companies, like the Home Depot on Andrews Avenue and the Barnes & Noble on U.S. 1. "But there are two locations that I'm responsible for as mayor — Holiday Park and Mills Pond Park. Out of political correctness, we're not going to look the other way. No. This is a criminal act, and it doesn't belong in a park. I'm being attacked because of my honesty."

But what about his "apology"? Was that a childish stunt? Naugle explains that he held a news conference because he was going to the Keys for minilobster season — an event he hasn't missed in 25 years, even though he'll work on Christmas if need be. He had to leave before the rally so as not to hit traffic, he says. As though it's some sort of proof, Naugle whips his diver's certification card out of his wallet.

Asked if he would agree that most gays are productive members of society, not sexual deviants, Naugle says, "Of course." So why not make a statement saying that?

"Why don't they join me and try to be responsible members of the community and support people who have families and stop being selfish?" he cries, his voice rising uncharacteristically. "A lot of people are just being selfish! They're thinking about themselves and being self-centered! They're not understanding the impact that some people in the homosexual community are putting on families in the community!"