(November 23, Vancouver) The vicious murder of Aaron Webster has put a spotlight on park sex that has made some in Vancouver's gay community uneasy.

Mainstream media has been filled with reports about gay men cruising in Stanley park, where Webster's naked body was found on the weekend.  The Vancouver Sun even sent a reporter to check out the after dark sex scene in the park.  

But, while the gay community has been drawn together to grieve for Webster, it is deeply divided on casual sex in the bushes.

Chat rooms in the Vancouver section of Gay.com have been abuzz with heated debates about the issue.  On two occasions this week chat monitors were required to quiet the arguments.

Lesbians also feel alienated by the issue.  Gay park sex is mainly a male experience, and many women believe it takes the focus off other issues such as marriage.  The British Columbia government is under pressure to bring in a domestic partners registry and a Constitutional challenge over marriage will likely land in the Supreme Court's lap next year.

Michael Smith, a 30-year-old clerk at the University of British Columbia, says he goes to Stanley Park often for park sex. He prefers it to the club scene because there is a "levelling effect" here.

"In the clubs, muscle boys only talk to muscle boys. Blue-collar people don't go home with white-collar people," Smith says.

Bill Coleman, a psychologist who works for the gay community with the Vancouver police department, estimates that 70 per cent of gay men have had sex in a park, on a beach or some other public place at least once. He estimates 30 per cent have had it within the last year. 

Gay activist Brent Parks, disagrees.  He says he would never consider venturing into a park for sex.

Toronto's George Hislop, the founder of Canada's first gay rights group in the '60s says, "there's nothing new about park sex.  Straights have been doing it forever."

Hislop says for gays meeting in parks was a necessity.  "In the '40s and '50s there were no gay bars.  No baths.  No clubs. Almost no one was 'out'. There was no other way of meeting other gays."

Hislop says the issue is not the sex, but the violence.  "If this had not happened in a park it would have happened in a home, or on the street.  When hate is the issue a bigot is going to carry out his venom no matter where."

"Does the fact this occurred in a park make it less of a crime," he asks, then answers his question: "That is saying he deserved what he got. And, that means a gay life is worth less than a heterosexual one.  No one brings up public sex when a young.

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