Gays Praise Kolts Report as Accurate Portrayal of Bias

Gay and lesbian community leaders Tuesday applauded the Kolts report’s frank depiction of longstanding anti-gay bias in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as an accurate portrayal of institutionalized prejudice.

“There’s nothing in there we haven’t been saying for years,” said attorney John Duran, who represented Bruce C. Boland, a sheriff’s deputy who was rehired this year after he settled a lawsuit claiming he had been fired from the department because he is gay.

“On the whole we’re very satisfied,” said Roger Coggan, director of legal services at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center. “I think this document was a very powerful statement. . . . In many ways I think this is a stronger condemnation of Sheriff’s Department practices than the Christopher Commission was of the Los Angeles Police Department.”

In its report released Monday, the Kolts panel described the department’s progress in eliminating bias against gays as “glacial.” Among the panel’s other findings:

* Closeted gay and lesbian deputies were so fearful of reprisal that Kolts investigators had difficulty finding any willing to speak to them.

* Deputies nonchalantly referred to “fags” and “dykes” on ride-alongs with members of the Kolts team.

* In a recent training session monitored at the sheriff’s academy, the cultural sensitivity exercise dealing with stereotypes of gay men was the last item on the curriculum and was lumped with “drug users” and “people to be afraid of.”

* When the Kolts panel asked department officials why they did not actively recruit gays and lesbians by advertising in gay publications, the response was that the department did not want to advertise in sexually explicit magazines. The answer “puzzled” the Kolts team, which noted that “the department does not have to advertise in ‘Hustler’ or ‘Penthouse’ to reach heterosexuals. . . . The excuse was weak.”

Community leaders found it particularly telling that so few gay deputies were willing to talk to panel members. Attorney Mary Newcombe of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. said she was repeatedly rebuffed when she tried to get closeted deputies to speak to the panel. When a few agreed to talk to her, they remained extremely cautious and would not identify themselves.

“The people I spoke with felt very strongly that the attitudes were being generated from the top down,” said Newcombe, who had high praise for the report’s chapter on gays. “I think it’s wonderful.”

The Kolts findings were not entirely negative, noting among other things that Sheriff Sherman Block said he would not intentionally tolerate discrimination against gays.

Indeed, Glen Swanson--who with Boland is the only other openly gay deputy on the force--said Tuesday that since coming out more than a year ago, “I’ve had a very positive experience. I’ve had a lot of support from co-workers and supervisors. I truly believe the Sheriff’s Department is trying to improve the relationship (with) the gay and lesbian community.”