'Dorm Dudes' May Be Right in Miami's Gay Porn Fight
The city of Miami is fighting an uphill battle in its effort to close down a house in which “dorm dudes” are paid by a gay porn website to live there and have sex on schedule.
Although the city contends that the so-called porn dorm is in violation of residential zoning restrictions, experts say a court may well find otherwise. U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Cooke recently rejected the city’s effort to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Cocodorm over a city shutdown order last year, reports the Miami Herald. The lawsuit contends that the order violates the website’s First Amendment rights.
Relying on a 2001 federal appellate ruling in a similar case involving a Tampa porn dorm for women, “Cocodorm argues its Edgewater home can’t be called an adult business because, unlike a run-of-the-mill strip club, the public is not invited in. Those who want to see Cocodorm’s ‘hottest and horniest’ do so via the Internet, with a credit card,” the newspaper writes.
New Jersey attorney Evans Anyanwu, who has followed the Voyeurdorm case in Tampa, sees it as virtually identical to the situation in Miami, even though officials have said the municipal codes in the two cities are different. “The city of Miami,” he says, “has an uphill fight.”
A trial is scheduled in December, but Cocodorm hopes to settle the suit.
Earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Tale of 2 Cities: Tampa Porn Dorm Legal, But Miami’s Isn’t”
