Minneapolis to repeal ‘homophobic’ bathhouse ban

The Minneapolis City Council has approved repealing what the all-Democrat municipal body says is a decades-old “homophobic” ban on adult bathhouses, an ordinance that was originally passed with the help of the city’s first openly gay council member.

Nine members of the 13-person city council voted on Thursday in favor of the repeal, which will establish a licensing framework for operating commercial bathhouses, where consenting adults can legally engage in sexual activity.

The repeal will also revise current health codes, amending provisions pertaining to curbing the spread of contagious diseases, and add exemptions to existing indecent conduct laws.

Proponents of the repeal celebrated its passage as a win for the gay rights movement, saying that the citywide bathhouse ban was rooted in “homophobia.” But the ban, enacted during the AIDS epidemic in 1988, was supported by a contingent of gay men, including Councilman Brian Coyle, the first-known gay Minneapolis city councilor who later died of AIDS-related illnesses.

Historians say that Coyle, who had tested positive for HIV in 1986 but did not publicly disclose his diagnosis at the time, played an instrumental role in the bathhouse ban’s passage.

At first, Coyle was firmly opposed to the bathhouse ban, but he later voted to impose it after carefully considering their health risks. According to Coyle’s personal papers preserved at the Minnesota History Center, he weighed gay people’s “sexual freedom” against the threat of sexually transmitted diseases.

Bathhouses were identified as hot spots for HIV transmission. The city’s first positive HIV test came in 1982. By 1988, the year of the ban’s enactment, 447 cases of AIDS were reported to the Minnesota Department of Health, and 252 Minnesotans had died from AIDS-related complications.

“What Good Are Gay Rights If We Were All Dead?” Coyle titled one journal entry. In his notes, he said several “disturbing” discoveries had changed his mind, particularly that gay men who frequent these bathhouses told him that many patrons were having high-risk, anonymous sex there.

Coyle kept a letter from a coalition of concerned gay constituents, urging the city council to close the city’s bathhouses or at least regulate them to make the businesses “less hazardous and lethal.” In their letter, titled “A Moral Obligation,” they warned the council that 315 Health Club, the most popular bathhouse downtown, was “a high-risk environment for the spread of the deadly AIDS virus in our community.”

Days before he cast his vote, Coyle was quoted in the Minnesota Star Tribune, indicating that the gravity of the situation for gay men swayed him to support the ban, despite how unpopular his move would be among the ordinance’s opponents.

“For me, this is not easy,” Coyle said in the article dated March 30, 1988. “I have some people who won’t speak to me. This is one of those tougher issues because it’s so emotionally laden and passionate. It deals with the stuff of life and death. I’ve been taking the flak on it for months.”

On April 1 of that year, the Minneapolis City Council, joined by Coyle, voted 11-0 to ban all bathhouses within city limits.

Councilman Jason Chavez, the repeal ordinance’s co-author, claimed last week that Coyle would have backed his reversal efforts if he were still alive.

“I believe if Brian Coyle was here with us today, with everything we know about public health, he would be standing with us proudly and me on this council,” Chavez said in the city council chambers ahead of the vote.

Chavez, who describes himself as the only out LGBT member of the city council, argued that Coyle was “making decisions in the middle of a crisis” and did not have access to today’s medical advancements. HIV has far lower fatality rates than 38 years ago, thanks to preventive medication such as PrEP.

“I have deep respect for Brian Coyle, and I know when he did this vote it was because of an epidemic that was impacting my community,” Chavez said. “But at the same time, there were folks who supported the efforts to ban this because of homophobia, because they did not believe in the existence of LGBTQ+ people.”

Only two councilors objected to the repeal, citing safety concerns. One other member was absent at Thursday’s vote, while Councilman Jamal Osman, a practicing Muslim who has been previously outspoken against same-sex marriage, abstained.

The repeal measure, headed to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s desk for a final sign-off, remains under mayoral review as of Monday. Frey told MPR News he supports overturning the ban but that it is not a top priority.