By Denise Penn

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dunmanis

The controversy over how the San Diego LGBT Pride Festival and the community handled the discovery that registered Megan's Law sex offenders were working on the event continues to be a hot button issue among activists in the city.

At a recent town hall meeting, the Pride organization announced that it is actively recruiting new board members and, with the assistance of local law enforcement, is developing a screening process for staff and volunteers involved with Pride's activities. But some in the community apparently believe the rights of the sex offenders were violated, due in large part to harassment from "ex-gay" James Hartline, who first brought the issue to the attention of the City Council before the parade.

"The salient fact of [the town hall] meeting," Michael Hampson wrote in a letter to the gay San Diego paper Update, "was that the Pride Board consulted eight government agencies including the local police and the FBI upon learning of Megan's list members among the volunteers. The FBI told the Pride Board that these people were not a threat because their jobs did not bring them into direct contact with the public. The FBI's advice was to do nothing. The Pride Board's only fault was not immediately disclosing the advice and the decision to follow it. It's obvious the Pride Board was erring on the side of the civil rights of its volunteers."

Hampson did not note in his letter that "Marty the Clown," who worked in the designated children's area, was also revealed at the meeting to be a registered sex offender on Megan's list.

But the issue has opened a debate about whether those who sexually molest children (legally categorized as anyone under the age of 18) can be rehabilitated and should not be monitored after paying time for their crime.

Openly gay San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, a Republican who worked on over 2,000 child abuse cases as a deputy D.A., is working on legislation that would require all registered sex offenders to permanently wear a GPS locating device.

"People, male or female, who have sex with people under the age of 18 -- that's not normal behavior. It's illegal behavior and it makes them a danger to other children. That's why they're required to register under [Penal code] 290 and why they're required not to be around children," she told IN.

Although saddened about the Pride controversy, she remains firm in her view that it is inappropriate for registered sex offenders to work at the Pride Festival, which has become a family-oriented event. She also dismissed the notion that, perhaps the individuals in question had simply dated someone under age; though those identified on Megan's list were older men convicted of sexual acts with youths aged 14 or 15. Dumanis personally followed up and confirmed that the charges were very serious.

Dumanis explained that while she understood that the Pride Board wanted to support the civil rights of the individuals, as well as their "commitment to rehabilitation," the safety of children comes first and that there is no way to cure pedophiles.

"As we have just seen in the recent news the people who have molested children, when they are arrested, tell about the hundreds of other children they have indeed molested and haven't gotten caught," she said. "I don't believe that sex offenders, particularly pedophiles, ever stop. As far as I know, there is no rehabilitation in the sense that you cure this"

Dr. Kent McGuire, an openly gay psychotherapist in private practice who works with addiction issues, concurred and clarified that while there is treatment for pedophiles, it involves managing impulses, not extinguishing them.

"It isn't appropriate to dismiss an entire diagnostic class of people as 'untreatable.' However, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the course of pedophilia is usually chronic, and especially among those attracted to males. The recidivism rate is high; roughly twice as high as for those who prefer females, and some heterosexual men will cross over and molest boys," McGuire told IN.

"Pat Cairnes, in his book, Out of the Shadows, talks about levels of addiction for the sex addict," McGuire said. "Pedophilia is 'Level 3' -- the most severe. This necessitates intense treatment, and you might compare this to the alcoholic -- there is no cure. But for some it can become a manageable addiction or disorder."

Longtime lesbian activist Robin Tyler thinks the LGBT community needs to address the issue of pedophilia. Active with PROTECT, a national association formed to protect children, she has been fighting to reform California law through a bill entitled "Circle of Trust." The bill, killed twice before in the state Senate, is now SB 33. It would eliminate the "incest exception," thereby closing a loophole used by pedophiles that allows family members who commit the same crimes against a child to avoid facing the same penalties.

The bill has the strong backing of former child star Alison Arngrim, known for her role as Nellie on the television series, Little House on the Prairie. Arngrim recently disclosed that a family member molested her from the age of 6 to 9-years-old.

"If you are a child and you are molested by a stranger, it is generally a one-time incident. But when it is a family member, it goes on and on. Why should a family member go unpunished? If anything, it is worse," Arngrim said.

She echoes the belief that there is truly no "cure" for the pedophile. "The Catholic Church spent millions to treat pedophile priests and it didn't work," she said. "And when they send the offender back into the home, he will molest the child again or move on to another child -- sometimes both. The incest exception laws have been overturned in other states and we need to change it here."

But Tyler said that she found resistance when lobbying the LGBT Caucus on SB 33, authored by Republican Sen. Jim Battin. The bill passed the Senate floor unanimously, with the exception of Sen. Carole Migden as a "no" vote (Senators Sheila Kuehl and Chris Kehoe voted "yes"). The bill passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee, but with a "no" vote from Assemblymember Mark Leno and an abstention from Jackie Goldberg. It will go to the full Assembly before the legislative session ends.

"I think the gay community is conflicted about this," Tyler told IN. "In San Diego, they saw this as a civil rights issue because we have had to fight for our civil rights for so long. There is fear about dealing with this because the religious right has tried to paint all gay men as potential pedophiles. Instead of being defensive, we should examine this and find a process to take care of it."

"People do not want to think that one of their own could be committing such a heinous act," Marshall explained. "The pedophile's capacity to rationalize their behavior is profound: They will look you in the eye and say, 'I did not hurt that child.' They believe that they 'love' the child."

Ironically, Arngrim said that some of the resistance to the incest bill, SB 33, was done in the name of "family values," with reunification of the family as the goal. "There are people who feel that it's important to keep the wage earner in the family even if he is sexually molesting or abusing the children," she said. "There are people who are convinced that child molestation is some sort of curable condition and that if they just send them home they won't do it anymore. In fact, almost every argument that I read in the analysis that they put forth for keeping someone who has sexually abused a child in the house was identical to the 40-year-old arguments for keeping a battering husband." -- Denise Penn