NEWS FLASH

Registration relief for Gays Arrested in

Sting Operations

News: Renowned gay rights lawyer, Bruce W. Nickerson, of San Carlos, CA, has now made new law in this type of case for the sixth time in his thirty-year career.

The Appellate Division of the Orange County Superior Court, in a rare published opinion, has reversed the sex registration sentence of his client on the grounds that a statute which made registration mandatory for a violation of Penal Code section 314.1, indecent exposure, but discretionary if the person violated Penal Code section 647(a), engaging in lewd conduct in public, could not be justified by any rational analysis.

Since the two statutes are very similar, treating them differently as to registration is a violation of equal protection.

This is huge.

For years, District Attorneys throughout the state would charge a violation of Penal Code section 647(a), lewd conduct, when gay persons succumbed to the blandishments of a decoy cop. If the person went to trial, they would add a charge of indecent exposure making him risk registration if he proceeded to trial.  Alternatively, they would charge both initially and offer to drop the PC 314.1 if the person pled to the lewd act charge.

It was brutal coercion.

Now they can't do it. Both charges now carry the same penalty.

This court, at his request, certified it for publication. Thus it will have precedential effect over the entire state.

Mr. Nickerson's goal is to stop this "waste of precious judicial resources"

News: (from the California Court of Appeals)

Mr. Nickerson has also obtained reversal of a registration order based on consensual sex with a minor. The Court of Appeal has reversed the registration of a gay man who, 30 years ago, engaged in consensual oral sex with a minor. Although unpublished, this case, nevertheless, offers hope to gay persons who have been forced to register as sex offenders for conduct which, if they were "straight", would not have been required to register.

News: Bruce's Reflections of the death of Oral Roberts

"Reflections on the Death of Oral Roberts and his Gay Son, Ron"

"The death today of Oral Roberts reminds me of an encounter I had with the famed televangelist in 1962.  I was a senior at Stanford and attending the Christian Center Church, an Evangelical establishment, in Palo Alto. The minister was William Pickthorn, a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford.

Rev. Pickthorn had become (and remains) one of the most important influences ever in my life.  He was the first "rational Christian" I had ever encountered.  He also was the first person I ever told that I had "gay tendencies," which was how I expressed it at that time.  He welcomed me into his church, and I helped organize a college class which he taught comprised chiefly of other Stanford students.  His oldest daughter, Judith, was in her first year at Stanford and actively participated in the class.

Back to Oral Roberts.

Roberts was recruiting a faculty for his proposed university. He desired to have Rev. Pickthorn head the Psychology department at his new university.  He proposed to finance the remainder of Pickthorn's doctoral program at Stanford on the condition that he move to Oklahoma.

His recruiting trip to Palo Alto involved attending our college class.  I was selected as chief interrogator and believe you me, I had sharpened all my intellectual knives.  We all had at him in a completely unrestrained session lasting over an hour.  We asked him all the tough questions and to our surprise, Roberts acquitted himself very well. He was not on our level intellectually nor did he pretend to be so. What surprised us was his lack of defensiveness.  He admitted to uncertainties in his faith; he acknowledged that he didn't have all the answers.  He admitted that he too struggled with many of the issues we raised.

Yet he stuck to his beliefs without being dogmatic.  Every one of us left with a better opinion of Oral Roberts than what we started with.

Later he preached the morning sermon at Christian Center and prayed for those parishioners who requested it.

Pickthorn did not accept Roberts' offer, choosing to remain in Palo Alto and to latter spearhead the "charismatic movement in the historical churches" of the 1960's.

I later met Roberts' oldest son, Ron, who was also a student at Stanford.  Ron was gay--a fact that his father could not accept.  However Ron told me his father loved him and had never withdrawn support, either financially or emotionally.  He just couldn't get beyond Leviticus.

It is strange how memory works.  Minutes after writing the above, I have remembered another incident occurring around the same time.

I was returning to my car parked in a university parking lot, when I noticed on the front windshield, beneath the wiper, a small, wallet sized photo of a young man my age. I retrieved the photo and turned it over.  On the back were two messages: One said: "I love you;" the other said: "Do love me."

I showed the photo to Pastor Pickthorn.  We both remarked at the second message, the fact that it was different from the usual: "Do you love me?"

I remember being terrified that someone other than Pickthorn apparently knew I was gay. Both he and I decided it was better to destroy the photo rather than pursue finding out who it was.

Now, 45 years later, I wonder if it was Ron Roberts reaching out to a fellow Pentecostal youth, trying desperately to find the love that forever eluded him.

Like me, Ron fought against his orientation and married in an effort to "cure" him, fathering two children. Living this lie eventually became more than he could bear and in 1982 he committed suicide at the age of 38.     He left an estranged wife and two children and was on probation for abusing prescription drugs.

His family has denied that sexual orientation was a factor. Remembering his anguish at Stanford, I am certain it was the cause, and that drugs were a futile attempt to mask the pain he must have suffered every day. When I met him he was a terribly troubled youth, struggling with who he was. 

I remember his father with respect if not warmth.

Bruce"