Recruiting Gays for Law Enforcement

The reason so few showed for the first gay recruiting seminar for law enforcement officers in Southern California (Times, June 15) is because not only did the event receive scant publicity, but also the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department blocked any positive outreach to gay men and women.

Despite my personally reminding Sheriff Sherman Block and West Hollywood City Manager Paul Brotzman that the timing and advertising of this historic event was crucial to its success, Sheriff Block just said no to any advertising aimed specifically at the gay community by forbidding paid publicity in the gay press and by purposefully scheduling his own Westside recruit seminar and exam well before 250,000 gay men and women annually gather in West Hollywood for the Gay and Lesbian Pride Celebration.

As I pointed out to Block and Brotzman, it would be most effective to hold the recruiting seminar and exam after advertising to 250,000 gay people gathered for the Christopher Street West parade and festival Saturday and Sunday.

After being reminded again as far back as April as to the impact of billboards and flyers during Gay Pride Weekend, the Sheriff’s Department squelched advertising and hurriedly scheduled its first Westside exam June 17, a week before Gay Pride.

Furthermore, it’s not enough for Block to say the department does not discriminate against any group and welcomes “any and all qualified candidates.” Truly representative community-based law enforcement in West Hollywood, where 35% of the 37,000 residents are gay, requires the Sheriff’s Department to reach out and forthrightly assure gays who have been traditionally shunned by the department that if they step forward their safety will be protected. It’s quite a lot to expect an openly gay person to put his or her life on the line and to rely upon other officers to back them up in life-threatening situations when the perception exits among gays that they are not really welcome in law enforcement.

And finally, as to the sexual orientation questions asked on the standard psychological exam given all applicants, the test has been changed as a result of longstanding protests by the gay community. The old Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) test used to screen for homosexuality as a pathology has been revised to exclude sexist and homophobic questions. Unfortunately the new test, renamed MMPI-2, will not be ready until Aug. 1. Again, another reason to delay holding a Westside recruiting seminar and exam until all the pieces of the puzzle are in their proper place.

Nevertheless, the city of West Hollywood has taken an important first step and in the words of Mayor Abbe Land: “If more (gays) don’t apply this time around, maybe they will in the future. This was at least a start.”

Next time maybe the Sheriff’s Department will cooperate with both the city and its gay community.

MARSHAL A. PHILLIPS

Co-Chair, Gay & Lesbian

Police Advisory Task Force