belief that homosexuals are sexual perverts, is incoherent reasoning. In fact, we are told by people knowledgeable in the field that even if this spurious contention were valid there is no way to determine with any certainty what persons or groups of persons in a bar are homosexual. Therefore, as written, justice and equity in applying this law are almost impossible.
There are more basic issues. Charges drawn up against gay bars are an itemization either of verbal solicitations or of acts tending to the public display or manifestation of aberrant sexual urges or desires, which are directed to, or seen by, specific ABC undercover agents whose entry into and departure from the bar are unknown to its owner. In such a sense, the act of a man placing his arm loosely around the waist of another man, in a gay bar, within the view of such an agent, indicates that the man is a homosexual publicly expressing sexual urges or desires, or the intent thereto, which are clearly against the present statutes. This sort of evidence is used to establish that the bar owner is keeping a disorderly house.
To establish that a disorderly house exists does not require that a person named in a charge must actually commit an illegal sex act, so any interpre-
tation of intent to commit such acts on the basis that a person is presumed to be a homosexual is unjustified and irrational. Most intelligent people would never sanction branding citizens as homosexuals solely on the basis that their thoughts, speech, mannerisms, conversations, attitudes, tendencies or psychological responses are in some manner or to some degree unconventional. Neither would they expect lay authorities such as the police, the ABC, or even the courts to be able to determine from simple aspects of non-sexual behavior whether persons were homosexual. Because there is a difference between the acts themselves and
the mere intent to perform them, there is no substantial connection between gestures or conversations and the specific sexual acts which are against the law. Therefore, justice itself would preclude confounding intent to perform with performance when the actual performance itself is substantially lacking.
Clearly, the manner of application and enforcement of these statutes depends upon the personal opinions and prejudices of the ABC and its agents, a type of enforcement which fosters oppression, blackmail and discrimination. We hardly think it prudent to invest the ABC with the exclusive, unlimited and unrestrained authority to suppress or regulate the behavior of bar patrons through its right to suspend or revoke licenses. Thus ABC becomes what it should not become, the keeper of morals for bar patrons in general and for homosexuals in partic-
ular.
This, then, is the eighth great injustice: Licensed public premises, such as bars, are subject to prosecution because they provide services to homosexuals or persons presumed to be homosexuals. Conversely, homosexuals and persons presumed to be homosexuals are deprived of access to such licensed public premises which are available to other people.
IX
The methods used by the ABC to gather evidence against bars are not unlike those used by the plainclothes agents of the police the police department. Through deceit and inducement, lure and suggestion, both police and ABC undercover agents encourage solicitations for sexual acts. Such solicitations are not reported to the licensee until months or years later when they are published in the charges used to suspend or revoke the license. In reading the charges filed against several of the
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