IGF CultureWatch

I've realized that my references to Thomas F. Coleman may need some background. Because I've known Tom since the 1980s, in my mind he's part of the context of the gay rights movement. But few people know the long list of his accomplishments. So I'll be doing a few posts that I hope will capture at least some of the key roles Tom has played in getting us to where we are today. It is easy to forget - or for younger people, not to even know - that charges of "judicial activism" and bigotry by gays against Christians are fairly new political tactics. Not that long ago, judges and the police were really part of the problem, and the dominant prejudice against homosexuals was so complete that many lesbians and gay men accepted it themselves. Tom is one of the people who helped us turn that around.

Tom moved to Los Angeles from Detroit at about the same time the Stonewall Riots were taking place in New York - which is to say, about two years after the Black Cat riots took place in a similar bar in Los Angeles, which helped prompt the creation of The Advocate.

He attended L.A.'s Loyola Law School and helped form one of the first gay law student groups in 1972 - with both formal recognition by the school and student group funding. To give you some sense of the era, Tom attended the Ninth Circuit's ABA meeting that summer, and, after much soul searching and anxiety, asked a fellow male student to dance at a social event - to turned heads and considerable gawking.

Gay men were, at the time, still being arrested by the police in L.A. at gay bars even after the Black Cat Tavern riots, and Tom focused on asserting that the solicitation law the police relied on was unconstitutional. He helped organize 22 individual defendants who had been arrested at the Black Pipe bar into a group who challenged the solicitation law - a legal first. In those days, police could depend on the shame of the defendants to win their convictions. By organizing the defendants Tom helped to turn the tables, to show the court that these men did not necessarily accept the prevailing notion that what they'd done was wrong.

A bit of context is in order. At the time, the L.A. police unit assigned to gay bars was referred to as the "fruit detail." A police representative provided written testimony to the legislature that gay men were prone to the seduction and molestation of adolescents and children. L.A.'s inordinately powerful police chief, Ed Davis, was publicly comparing gays to lepers spreading disease.

Tom worked with several other people to issue a report that showed gay men were being selectively prosecuted. Despite very strong political opposition, he stuck to his guns in public forums, challenging Davis - at one point having to adopt his middle initial because there was another Tom Coleman practicing law in L.A. who was concerned about being misidentified from the increasing number of press reports about Thomas F. Coleman's crusade.

Some more context. In one of Tom's cases, his client accepted a plea bargain. When the judge issued the probation terms, he included these: (1) the client could not "publicly associate with known homosexuals," and (2) he had to stay out of places where homosexuals would congregate. Tom, of course, objected since this meant his client could not, in fact, associate with his own lawyer, a "known" homosexual. The judge blithely noted Tom's objection, and Tom took his client by the arm, asking him in a loud voice to violate the terms of his probation. They went to the chambers of the supervising judge, and after some negotiation got an order from the court that such probation terms were improper.

This is the legal and social structure that existed - and needed to be changed - before anyone could even think about what rights same-sex couples were entitled to.

[Note: The non-public information here is taken from Tom's as-yet unpublished memoir, The Domino Effect.]