Supreme Court Sex Decision

The implications of the Supreme Court ruling on Black Monday, June 30, 1986, are staggering.

Remember the McCarthy witch hunts of the ‘50s? This is worse. If “gay conduct” is criminal, this gives the police rights to break into homes where they have reasonable cause to believe this “conduct” is taking place. Maybe the “reasonable cause” is a subscription list to a magazine, getting license numbers from cars parked near gay bars, (a routine practice in Utah), positive test results to a HTVL-III test--or just a neighbor’s “eyewitness” reports of “gay conduct.” Maybe it’s a single guy who doesn’t bring dates home. Are two guys who are seen together a lot guilty of “gay conduct”? Any such “suspect” can have his home broken into and torn apart. To be gay is to be a felon--if that is the state law. Among other things, felons can’t vote or hold office. They also tend to spend time in jail.

If someone had told you two years ago that all the bathhouses in San Francisco would be shut down, as well as many bars, you wouldn’t have believed it. If someone had told you two weeks ago that the Supreme Court would state, unequivocally, that the Constitution doesn’t apply to anyone having illegal sex, you would have said, “It can’t happen here.”

Hitler didn’t just come to power and immediately round up gays, Jews and Gypsies. That also came in steps. The writing on the wall couldn’t be any plainer. “It can’t happen here” is solace for fools.

It is happening here. It is happening right now.

And it is very frightening.

KIP GORDY

Santa Monica