1976 was a momentous year for gay rights in California. The legislature had finally passed the bill decriminalizing sexual acts between consenting adults and it went into effect on January 1. Criminal sodomy laws were one of the key legal underpinnings of the closet. The mere threat of prosecution drove most men who had been caught or entrapped to confess and enter a guilty plea, and these easy prosecutions were appealing to vice officers and prosecutors. In this post Lawrence v. Texas world, it might be hard to appreciate how important this change was, but in California it was the beginning of the modern era.
After the law went into effect, police were still able to harass gay men, but not for any underlying criminal sexual conduct. Rather, they used Penal Code section 647(a), which made it a crime to solicit or engage in "lewd and dissolute" conduct. Tom Coleman had been interested in the selective use of this section against gay men since 1972, and in 1976 he had the opportunity to challenge it. Tom was then known as one of the go-to lawyers in the barely existent gay legal community, and Don Pryor came into his office having been arrested for solicitation of oral sex with an undercover vice cop.
Again, some context is important. At the trial, Tom was told by the judge that he could not use the words "gay" or "homosexual" in the courtroom. The judge would only accept the common legal parlance at the time, "sexual pervert" or "sexual deviant." (As an experiment, try to find newspaper articles prior to the 1970s about lesbians or gay men. You will find very few that use those terms, and a couple that might use the term "homosexual." But search for "sexual pervert" or "deviant" and you will have the key to learning about our history, at least in the public record.)
Despite the vocabulary skirmish, the trial went forward. After the jury could not agree on a verdict (five jurors wanted to convict, seven to acquit), the judge ordered a mistrial. But Tom's primary theory of the case was the unconstitutionality of section 647(a) in such cases, in light of the fact that there was no underlying crime at issue any more. If oral sex is not a crime, how can asking someone to engage in it consensually be prosecuted? So rather than go through a retrial, he filed suit directly in the California Supreme Court. That case, Pryor v. Municipal Court, while not directly overturning 647(a), narrowed it in light of the new law so that it was effectively useless as a tool to harass gay men.
If this seems like an insubstantial victory in light of what is going on today, it was certainly not at the time. In tandem with the legislative decriminalization, there was very little left in California for police to use against homosexuals. As a consequence, lesbians and gay men could more confidently come out of the closet.
More important, it paved the way for more openness by lesbians and gay men in the legal field, both as lawyers and judges - which is exactly what happened in Los Angeles. Openly gay lawyers at the time were subject to being disbarred for criminal activity, and simply by being openly gay they were taking a big risk. Decriminalization was enormously important in opening the closet door, but it was 647(a) that enabled the existing prejudice of police officers, judges and even lawyers on the other side to have the upper hand over anyone even suspected of being homosexual. Making that statute a nullity was a critical step in creating a fully open and proud gay community.
That victory allowed Tom to move into working more directly in the political process, and specifically, with the office of the governor.
2 Comments for “Thomas F. Coleman: Defending the Deviants”
posted by tristram on
Many thanks for these interesting insights into important aspects of our collective history. I was around when these things were happening and was vaguely aware that the pervs were asserting themselves in places far from my safe, straight midwestern hometown. Only now, decades later, am I learning the stories of the courageous people who were changing the world while I was hiding from it.
posted by TS on
What a cool guy. Moderate and professional to boot. Thanks for teaching me his name.