A Southern Californian has said that he and his partner were taunted, humiliated and subjected to inhumane treatment when they were arrested and jailed after being escorted off a gay cruise in the Caribbean

Dennis Jay Mayer, 53, said that he has no doubt they were arrested in Dominica because they were gay. Police said that it was because they were seen having sex in public on the balcony of their ship cabin. He said that they were not having sex, but were partially clothed. Mayer, a retired deputy sheriff, and his partner of 17 years, John Robert Hart, were released following their guilty plea to indecent exposure. "The total experience was horrendous," he said. "They told us that they did not like us, that they did not like gay people." Dominica is among several Caribbean islands that have laws prohibiting sex between men.