The next time a gay man is found guilty of indecent exposure for sunbathing at Black’s Beach, don’t be surprised if the city of San Diego bans him from entering public parks and beaches. He could also be required to register as a sex offender. A judge could also order him to wear a sandwich board sign that reads, “I had public sex at Black’s Beach.”

While these measures might seem as “cruel and unusual punishment,” several recent decisions make this a possibility.

A few weeks ago, the California Supreme Court overruled a previous decision that said it was “cruel and unusual punishment” to make a gay man register as a sex offender after he was convicted of lewd conduct when he propositioned a police officer in a public restroom.

The court, then led in the ’70s by Chief Justice Rose Bird, was quite cognizant that police unfairly targeted gay men for sting operations – and entrapment was a popular means of getting quick arrests.

But today’s court concluded that in 2004 it is not cruel and unusual punishment to make a person suffer the scorn and stigma with being a registered sex offender, even if the crime committed is a misdemeanor sex offense, such as is the case with an 18-year-old male having consensual sex with a 17-year-old female or male.

Previously, the court’s reasoning was that the registration requirement was unduly harsh given the offense. But today’s court, ignoring the distinction between violent offenses and petty crimes (e.g., woman showing a nipple in public), found that the registration requirement is not punishment, but is merely a way for police to keep track of people who may pose a threat to the community.

By making this ruling, it clears the way for the legislature to allow local prosecutors to require any “sex”-related offender to register for life as a sex offender.

This is absurd. California’s laws relating to sex are so archaic that during the Pride parade, if a woman’s pasty falls off, she can get charged with indecent exposure, and if children are present, with felony child abuse.

For a court to allow including relatively minor offenses in with the violent rapists is ridiculous. It dilutes the effectiveness of the system by including people who pose no threat to anyone. The woman cited for nude sunbathing is listed the same as the man who raped 10 women.

Folks who sunbathe in the nude at Black’s Beach should not have to lead a life of scorn because their names appear on a sex offender site. That is certainly cruel.

Okay, registering as a sex offender is one thing, but being told you can’t use city parks, beaches or recreation areas?

Well, this case may soon head to the U.S. Supreme Court, but a federal appellate court ruled that a city could, in fact, ban a man with 25 years of sex-related offenses from its parks. In Doe v. City of Lafayette, a man had convictions for child molesting, voyeurism, exhibitionism and peeping. The city of Lafayette, Ind., banned him from all public parks under the city’s jurisdiction. He admitted that the sight of kids in a park tempted him to commit a crime. He claimed that he was being banned for his thoughts.

The court ruled that a person doesn’t have a fundamental right to enter a public park for innocent purposes. And here the court found that the city’s action was not just because of Doe’s thoughts, but because he indicated he might not be able to control his actions.

If having one’s name appear as a sex offender or being prohibited from using a park isn’t enough, how about a judge requiring someone to wear a sign?

While you may have heard about “unconventional” sentences, now the cases challenging these unusual orders are making their way through the courts.

The latest case involved a man convicted of stealing mail. As part of his sentence, a judge ordered him to stand outside the courthouse with a sandwich sign reading, “I stole mail.”

The role of the criminal justice system, at least as I’ve taught it for the last two decades, is to punish, deter and rehabilitate. Now we can add “humiliate” to the list.

It is ironic that the Bush administration tells the world that America does not condone the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military and civilian staff. Meanwhile, our state courts uphold sentencing practices where, in all likelihood, a homophobic judge will make a nude sunbather carry a sign saying, “I exposed myself at Black’s Beach.”