suspect that both the hearing and the appeal boards of the ABC are inclined. to follow the basic dictum of the entire agency-that all homosexual bars must be closed. This arrangement is a prime example of the vicious circle in exercising unlimited power to try to convict. The ABC is the investigator through its undercover agents, the accuser through its list of secret and vague charges, the prosecutor through its published charges, the judge through its boards of hearing and appeal, and the punisher through its right to suspend a license pending appeal. Such policies and actions lead us to believe that a highly prejudiced concern with a moral function exists which does not properly fall within the purview of the ABC.

If they are disorderly, bars should be closed. But such treatment should be equitable, and should be based on investigations and charges which apply uniformly and which do not violate due process. Gay bars per se are not hotbeds of unspeakable acts, or the scenes of wild orgies. Just because homosexuals gather together there is no automatic offense to public morals and decency. We ministers have been in and out of these bars often enough to reach this conclusion.

This, then, is the tenth great injustice: Private acts of unsuspecting persons which result from the deceitful enticement of undercover agents are used to suspend or revoke the licenses of public places; even though neither the enticement nor the private acts have ever been reported to the licensee.

Our police department, ever alert in rooting out crime in our community, does its small part to intimidate the patrons of gay bars. Besides the use bars. Besides the use of entrapment and enticement inside the bars they also harass people as they enter or leave. Indeed, as we have discovered, in the last ten years arrests in and out of bars has increased sharply. We wonder if these statistics do not

suggest that in many cases arrests of homosexuals are like parking tickets, an effective and socially acceptable way of showing that the police are doing the job of enforcing "God's Law." Such indications provide little comfort when we read about murders and robbery on streets and in parks, or in one case, at the benefit ball, we observed over 35 policemen standing on the sidewalks.

As ministers, we are discouraged when we realize that some of these social problems stem in part from misconceptions about theology and the interpretation of the Bible. The churches cannot escape their own participation in the perpetuation of these injustices. Selection of scriptural references, for instance, contribute to the attitudes of parishioners. One may read the Ten Commandments, wherein homosexuality is not mentioned at all, or one may use the oft-quoted Sodom and Gomorrah passage to justify the extermination of all homosexual behavior.

We as churchmen cannot separate ourselves from our participation in the society which now perpetuates the injustices which we have described. At the same time we want to align ourselves with the causes which uphold the rights of persons, and against institutions which treat any person as less than a human and a child of God.

In drawing up this Brief of Injustices we feel we are helping to expose a pattern of social, legal and economic oppression of a minority group, based not on fact and scientific analysis but rather on taboo and fear. No amount of condemnation, intimidation or incarceration in penal or mental institutions can alter the fact that a large minority of American citizens has, according to existing laws, at least upon occasion been guilty of committing homosexual acts. Further, the unreasonable discrimination against homosexuals is demonstrated by the existence of a vast schism between the actual

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