The above photo surfaced Friday of a Palm Springs couple having sex on the balcony of their cabin aboard the Celebrity Summit cruise ship while it was docked in Dominica recently. As you’ve undoubtedly heard, the couple was arrested and charged with sodomy.
However, a gay Dallas couple who were on the same cruise provided their own photos to Instant Tea which suggest the image of the couple having sex had to be captured with a telephoto lens — possibly by Dominican officials looking for trouble. The Dallas couple asked to not be identified. Check out their photos after the jump.
As you can see above and below, the Dallas couple’s photos appear to confirm that the ship was docked at the end of a long pier, not along the shore.
“You would have needed binoculars to see the gritty details and determine the exact room,” one of the Dallas men said.
One of the photos, taken from the Dallas couple’s cabin, also shows there weren’t crowds on shore who would have noticed the Palm Springs couple on their balcony, but rather just some vehicles driving by or parked to pick up tour groups.
One of the gay Dallas men said that when Dominica authorities boarded the ship, “Celebrity and Atlantis handed them [the couple] over.”
The anti-gay sentiment went beyond police arresting the couple who made “stupid decisions,” according to the Dallas couple. Before learning about the incident, people on the ship who had taken shore excursions were taunted by islanders.
“There were Atlantis guests that had gone ashore for excursions that were insulted and threatened by angry groups of locals, without knowing what was happening,” one of the men said.
Despite that, Atlantis Events President Rich Campbell claimed the arrest had nothing to do with the sexual orientationof the couple.
“Atlantis put a lot of people in a very dangerous situation without many of them realizing it,” one of the Dallas men said.
Campbell claimed the cruise company offered to leave someone behind until the situation was resolved, but the two arrested men declined assistance. The Dallas couple said that other passengers on the ship were told only that the couple had been arrested and were being left behind.
After the ship left the island, he said there was a lot of anger among passengers about leaving the couple behind, despite the fact they had made some stupid choices.
“When Rich Campbell stepped on stage the last night, half the guests walked out on him,” he said.
Atlantis officials said that they will continue to stop in Dominica.
“I’m embarrassed my money went to these ports,” the Dallas man said. “The Dominican authorities were looking for trouble, and these two idiots gave it to them.”
The editor of the South Florida Gay News is so annoyed about the incident, he’s calling for a boycott of Atlantis Events.
The Dallas couple said that they wished Campbell wasn’t so dismissive of their customers, many of whom would prefer to dock in friendly ports.
In an exchange on the Atlantis Events alumni boards before the trip, the Dallas man asked the company, “Why are we going to so many Caribbean countries with anti-gay laws on their books and homophobic populations? I understand that personal contacts help to break down barriers but after our Atlantis excursion group ran into a hostile crowd in the Bahamas a few years back, I don’t intend to set foot or spend a dime in one of these countries. This is a vacation and a chance to relax, and we should not have to be concerned about our safety.”
Campbell answered, “We clearly differ on what is responsible tourism. The itinerary we created is a customized one that I designed to take you to beautiful places on vacation. Almost every country, including the USA, has some type of discriminatory laws on their books. If that was our criteria, we wouldn’t go anywhere, including the Caribbean, Asia, Mexico, or even several European countries. In practice, these laws are outdated relics that pose no relevance to either us as tourists or to the country’s population in general.”
However, Campbell doesn’t seem to understand the difference between laws in Mexico, with marriage equality in Mexico City that is recognized throughout the country; and laws in Dominica, with a possible jail sentence of 10 years for homosexuality; and Barbados, where homosexuality carries a possible life sentence.
Meanwhile, Atlantis Events has a cruise scheduled for July 24-31 that is scheduled to dock in St. Petersburg, Russia where a severe anti-gay law was recently enacted.
“Stupid choices.” (Quoted directly from the article.) And from Palm Springs, where more gay porn is produced than probably any other place on the planet. If they wanted to be watched (which they apparently did), they could have done it on camera, gotten paid for it, saved themselves a lot of money AND saved their reputations.
You act trashy, you get to pay the piper.
Gay issue or not, having sex where people can see can land you into trouble. I would not go to a strict Muslim country and have sodomize a girl in public as that too would be a poor choice.
To me the issue is the stupidity or arrogance of a gay tour company taking 2,000 gay guys to a place where the penalty for being whom you are is 10 years in prison — especially when neighboring islands are gay-friendly. Why reward their bigotry with money? The issue is the horrible way others on the ship were treated throughout the island when they paid for shore excursions. This issue is that Dominican officials were looking for trouble and these guys handed it to them and that the Dominican officials lied and are being rewarded with a return cruise as Rich Campbell promised.
Thank you David, this was one of the most informative articles I’ve seen written about this incident.
Campbell should be ashamed, and I for one am done being held hostage by any cruise ship.
As someone who has enjoyed multiple Atlantis cruises, I have made the decision to take personal responsibility not to go on any more trips that include stops in anti-gay ports. I hope Atlantis rethinks its responsibilities so we are not forced to choose between going on an all-gay vacation and providing money to countries that persecute gay people.
I certainly agree that an all-gay cruise has no business going back to Dominica any time soon after what happened, but the situation apparently wouldn’t be what it is now if two men hadn’t acted recklessly on their balcony. In these days of high technology and heightened awareness of security threats that has led to intense monitoring of ports of all kinds, everyone should assume they are being watched by someone in public places. The biggest shame is the price LGBT people living on Dominica are now going to pay as a result of this controversy. It gives their enemies ammunition with which to continue and even further oppress them. When the Cayman Islands government refused to let a gay ship dock a decade ago it led to an outcry by merchants who made sure it never happened again because they wanted the gay tourists. At the time sodomy was crime on the Cayman Islands. Later, the British government pressured the Cayman Islands to decriminalize sodomy. Many islanders opposed the action. Progress was made there for the many LGBT people who lived very closeted lives. On Dominica the exact opposite has occurred, especially in light of the attitude of a lot of LGBT Americans whose comments might be interpreted as a demand to do whatever they want, wherever they are in the world, regardless of how offensive the citizens of another country where Americans are visiting may find it.
This article is completely bogus and the photos are missleading. I can’t understand why there are still so many in the gay community who are trying to twist the facts. I recently stayed in the Fort Young Hotel which faces the Cruise ship dock and we would wave at the cruise passengers (and they would wave back) when the ships were arriving and leaving. We could see their faces clearly and they could see ours.
The second and third photo above have been taken with some sort of wide angle lens, which gives the impression that the shore is further away than it actually is. People are making up ever more complex stories to try to defend the undefendable……..I simply don’t understand why. Speaking as a Straight person, some of the lenghts that some gay people are going to defend these two…..are not putting the Gay community in a very good light.
@Richy: “Speaking as a straight person” says it all. The point of the article is that gay cruises shouldn’t be handing over tens of thousands of dollars to places where homosexuality is illegal. No one is excusing the actions of the couple. And no one is on the shore being offended as claimed by the Dominican authorities. As the Dallas couple said, the Dominicans were looking for trouble and this couple gave it to them. And why, in your straight opinion, does the stupid action of the couple give the Dominicans the right to harass the others on the ship?
i was on the cruise…
no one walked out on cambell when he
spoke.
everyone that i talked to thought the two
were jerks and deserved to be left behind
the jerks could be seen from shore and were
makikng noise to attract attention
i am sorry that the two are not still in jail
Having sex in public is to be frowned upon, gay or straight.
But, the more important question: Why is Atlantis, a gay travel company, stopping in homophobic countries. Why are our gay dollars going to support homophobes.
And, Campbell refuses to even consider changing their future itineraries in the Caribbean, or even stop going to officially homophobic St Petersburg, Russia.
Maybe it’s time to let Campbell know how we feel.
There are always going to be countries that cruise lines visit where we don’t agree with their politics. If this couple wasn’t trashy and disrespectful, this would have never happened. That is the real issue, and that’s why this happened. Acting like it’s somehow that country’s fault that this happened is just skirting the issue and not taking accountability.
As far as what happened on shore with other guests, that is not okay, but we don’t need to act like that’s the main issue. They may have been treated poorly for any number of reasons. Last time I was in Grand Cayman, none of the shopkeepers were friendly to us and that was a straight cruise.
Thank you for some responsible reporting that actually sheds some light on this incident. Campbell’s argument would be a lot more worthy of consideration if he weren’t raking in cash from taking gay folks to these homophobic backwaters. As for the notion that exposure to large herds of gay tourists will breed mutual dialog and understanding: BS. I grew up in a town frequented by tour ships. To say many townspeople had little respect for them (while dependent on their business) would be an understatement.
This is a joke right? These guys were acting like total trash! The gay community should be ASHAMED of the 2 uncouth disgraces (GLBT or other) who had no composure or respect for anyone else. Atlantis isn’t to blame for these skanky hos, the two turning their balcony into a poop-deck are!!!
Been there done that with cruises with atlantis. the customer is always wrong, they charge outrageous rates ,and truly do not care about anything but MONEY. wake up and see the parade has passed you by. there are other more responsible cruises ,gay oriented to go on , I SAY F>>> YOU Rich Campbell