The 55-foot Club

NEW
YORK (AP) – Two gay lovers – a man in a black dress and a boy in only
a pair of shorts – protested their families’ lack of understanding for
their relationship by climbing a Central Park tree on Thursday, stripping,
performing lewd acts in front of onlookers and refusing to come down
for hours.

The lovers, ages 32 and 17, scaled the 55-foot larch tree next to the Chess and
Checkers House around 4 p.m., said Detective John Sweeney, a police department
spokesman.

The couple had told the boy’s parents about their relationship and been
rebuked, police said.

The man played on branches near the top of the tree and waved at onlookers while
the boy sat quietly a few feet below him. Police said the man later performed
oral sex on the boy and stripped down to a thong to taunt them.

Police were alerted
to the mischief when an onlooker flagged down a bicycle officer. When Emergency
Services Unit officers responded, "the two individuals began to shout obscenities
to the approaching officers, threatening to push the officers down and throw
branches at them in an effort to ward the officers off," police Inspector
William Callahan said.

from AP