In the wake of the scandal that threatened to dismantle this year’s San Diego Pride celebration, many people are left with questions about Megan’s Law, a national registry listing the names, photos, crimes and, in some cases, physical addresses of convicted sex offenders.

Could gay men charged with consensual, adult sex in a park or at the beach be added to the Megan’s Law Web site? How much screening is necessary to assure that organizations and community events are safe for children, and which ones need be concerned?

The controversy erupted after anti-gay activist James Hartline alerted Pride officials that two of its volunteers were registered on the Megan’s Law Web site for acts of child molestation. It was later discovered that an additional volunteer and one paid staff member were also listed on the site for child sexual abuse.

After choosing to stick by its workers for what Pride cited as the men’s commitment to “rehabilitation,” District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, state Senator Christine Kehoe, law enforcement officials and other community groups threatened to pull out of this year’s parade. The Pride volunteers eventually left their positions, though logistics coordinator Jerry Garrett continued to work in his position up until an hour after the festival began.

Many prominent community members criticized the Pride board and executive director Suanne Pauley for failing to dismiss the registered sex offenders when the information was first brought to their attention, nearly a month prior to the event. Others expressed support for Pride’s decision to stand by its personnel and its refusal to kowtow to Hartline’s anti-gay hysteria, in which he sought to shine a light on the stereotype that equates gay men and pedophilia.

As a result of the fiasco, Pauley and several board members resigned, and the remaining board and a newly formed advisory council are now in the process of developing a screening process for its employees and volunteers.

Though a fix to Pride’s problem appears to be in the works, questions remain about the specifics of Megan’s Law and how it may or may not apply to our community and its events, an increasing number of which include the children of gay and lesbian parents and our straight allies.

Megan’s Law was named after 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and killed by a known child molester who moved in across the street from her home without her family’s knowledge. Signed into law by President Clinton in May of 1996, it required uniform sex registration in all 50 states.

Each person registered under the Megan’s Law is assigned a risk level – low, moderate or high – which determines the extent of information that can be made available to the public, as well as how long the offender is required to be registered. For those with moderate to high offenses in California, photos and information may be posted on the Megan’s Law Web site. The registrant’s specific address is made available for high-level offenders, while moderate offenders are listed by zip code.

In her remarks at a recent community luncheon, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis referred to the offenses committed by the Pride recruits as “very, very serious.”

Two of them, Jerry Garrett and Daniel Joshua Rieger, were listed as moderate offenders, while supervisor Ric Derichsweiler and safety manager Shawn Renken had been convicted of more severe offenses.

Renken was convicted of “lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years,” while Derichsweiler was found guilty of “lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years with force.”

Speaking with the Gay & Lesbian Times, Renken noted what he perceives as a problem with the Megan’s Law Web site. It does not list when the crime occurred.

Renken said his offense took place in the early ’90s.

“This happened 14 years ago when I was 20 years old,” said Renken, now 34. “I am not the same person I was 14 years ago….

“I’m not trying to justify it,” he said. “Yes, I did the crime. However, I’m not that person anymore. I don’t want my friends looking at me like, ‘Oh my god, you just molested a kid last week…. When I’m 60 years old I will have to go and register for mistakes that I made when I was 20. It’s a lifetime thing.”

Deputy District Attorney Phyllis Shess, who is in charge of sex-crimes prosecutions, said the date of someone’s conviction is something people should take into account.

“If you’ve got a guy whose got charges from 25 years ago, and he has no criminal history since that time, that’s something that you can weigh into your decision,” Shess said. “Our philosophy is people need to know what the risks are. What they do once they determine what those risks are is up to them.”

Renken is required to re-register each year, within five working days of his birthday (some offenders must register every 60 days).

Renken disclosed his registration to Pauley shortly after Hartline named the other volunteers, and resigned of his own volition.

“I was wondering how they missed me, and so I went in the very next day and I told Suanne,” Renken said. “She said that they would stand behind me, that it was a long time ago, and they weren’t going to be pushed around by these Christians.

“I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be better for Pride if I left?’ and she said, ‘Yes it would.’ I said, ‘I know it’s going to be better for me.’”

Renken said his appearance on the Web site began to adversely affect his life shortly before the Pride fiasco, when he was added to the Megan’s Law site.

“I had a guy that I was dating for a week and a half, and he decided to look me up on Megan’s Law for some reason,” Renken said. “He just went off on me and said, ‘I don’t ever want to talk to you again.’”

After his conviction, Renken was required to serve 62 days in jail, in a work-release program. Like most offenders, he was required to go through treatment. When his probation ended, he relocated to San Diego.

“I went through three years of sex offender treatment programs, group therapy and private therapy,” Renken said. “It’s taken me a long time to forgive myself and move on. This is a stigma that will stick with me the rest of my life.”

As a part of their treatment, those whose offenses involve children are advised not to put themselves in situations where they will have direct, unsupervised contact with youth. None of Renken’s volunteer service with Pride involved interaction with minors, he said.

“They were calling for volunteers for Youth Pride, but I know better,” Renken said. “That would be a huge scandal if I did that, and, with my background, you just don’t do things like that.”

Renken said an older cousin molested him when he was 5 years old, something he believes led to his criminal actions. He said he first sought treatment at age 16.

“When you start having sex when you’re 5 years old, it just really fucks someone up,” Renken said. “I lost some boundaries and just became sexualized as a child.

“I don’t want to make it sound like I’m making excuses,” he said. “I accept full consequences for that. I honestly couldn’t live with myself if something else happened like that.”

Shess said San Diego County’s treatment and management program for sex offenders is viewed as a national model. According to the San Diego Sex Offender Management Council’s Web site, adult treatment standards in the county are currently being revised.

“If a person is given probation here in San Diego County for a sex-related offense, he or she is going to be required to go into sex offender treatment,” Shess said. “That’s going to be a fundamental part of their probation grant.”

The type of treatment depends on the offense, Shess said.

“It’s going to involve recognition of behaviors, risk factors and general therapeutic intervention. A lot of people have impulses. It’s the guys that act out on them that are the problem.”

For those attracted to children, Shess said controlling the behavior is the only solution.

“The fact of the matter is that for child molesters there is no cure,” she said. “I liken it to something as simple as what your food preferences are. Let’s say you’ve grown up you’re entire life and absolutely hated liver, but you love chicken. Somebody says to you, ‘You can never have chicken again. You have to eat liver because that’s what everybody else is eating.’ If you’re hardwired for a child and someone says, but you can only have adults, that doesn’t work…. It’s a fundamental part of their character.

“If you are one of those individuals, you darn well better make sure you spend a life where you have little or no contact with 12-year-olds [and] aren’t volunteering to do the childcare for the community’s parade,” Shess said.

Renken agrees that those who are physically attracted to children cannot change their attractions.

“What you can control is what you do about that,” he said. “You don’t become Boy Scout leaders, you don’t put yourself in vulnerable positions. That’s one thing they taught us in the treatment program. You just limit what you do.”

Statistics have shown that the recidivism rate for sex offenders is as high as between 80 and 90 percent, though Shess said she could not provide a local statistic.

“I work with law enforcement in monitoring sex offenders, so I see a lot of repeat offenders,” Shess said. “We’re working on developing some of those numbers.”

Renken said he feels there is no threat of him re-offending, though his his attractions veer toward younger men.

“I’m not attracted to big, hairy men,” Renken said. “I’m attracted to twinks – smooth, skinny guys, whether they be 26 or 18. A 16-year-old would turn my head; however, my good judgment, my common sense, says, ‘He’s attractive but he’s jailbait and he’s way too young….’ I don’t cross that line. I’ll go to coffee shops and stuff where young people hang out, but it’s just learning boundaries and learning to stick by those boundaries.”

The Pride board and some community members see the issue as one of civil liberties, in which the Megan’s Law registrants’ rights were violated by Hartline’s disclosure.

Pride board member emeritus Jeri Dilno said that, according to her reading of Megan’s Law as it was written prior to the addition of the online registry, the only people that should be able to release information about offenders are law enforcement officials.

“The Internet access only came about in ’04, so it’s not been that long in use,” Dilno said. “I don’t know if anybody has used it the way that Harline has used it, but I think that that’s a real test of the law itself.”

A disclaimer on the Megan’s Law Web site warns against the misuse of information contained on the site, advising a person to “consult with an attorney” before passing along any information.

Santa Clara attorney Bruce Nickerson, one of the state’s foremost authorities on lewd conduct law, said the courts have not yet determined what constitutes misuse of information on the Megan’s Law site.

“That hasn’t been decided by the courts yet,” Nickerson said. Obviously, from my standpoint, misuse would be sending it to [a person’s] employer. As to whether the courts might determine that, it’s hard to say.”

Others say that Megan’s Law expands free speech by making public, albeit difficult to access, information readily available.

As to the question of whether someone who is acquitted of child molestation has a right to privacy in the charges brought against them, in other situations society does not think so. Following an acquittal, trial transcripts of witness testimony are available to the public, and courtrooms are typically open to the public, regardless of the outcome of a trial.

Because the law gives all 50 states the power to disclose information about registered sex offenders at their discretion, its application varies from state to state, and sometimes from county to county. Many states still do not have online databases.

Some say the Megan’s Law Web site actually keeps sex offenders from registering. While in most cases it is a felony for a convicted sex offender not to register under Megan’s Law, at least 20 percent do not comply with the requirement. By comparison, Britain showed a 97-percent compliance rate with sex offender registration laws in 2001, where there is no equivalent of Megan’s Law.

Studies also have shown that children are at a greater risk of sexual abuse from relatives and family friends than from strangers. A loophole in the law actually makes most parents who molest their children exempt from inclusion on the Megan’s Law Web site. All they have to do is file paperwork to be excluded, Shess said.

“If you had interfamilial sexual activity with a child, and you were sentenced under a specific section of the penal code, you can apply for an exclusion,” Shess said. “All of us on the prosecution side of the fence do not understand why that particular exclusion was ever put in place. This law is being examined and polished all the time, and I think that that’s going to be changed.”

Under current legislation being championed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, paroled sex offenders would be required to wear tracking devices for life, making California the toughest state in the nation when it comes to sex crimes. Though the Megan’s Law Web site currently includes only the most serious offenders, some have called for the inclusion of those with misdemeanor offenses, as well as people whose cases were dropped or who were acquitted of the charges against them. Some question how far the law will go in the pursuit of protecting our children.

Nickerson noted the case of a 27-year-old man who received 25-years-to-life for consensual sex with a 13-year-old boy. It was the man’s second offense. His bail was set at $4 million.

“In Canada this would be a misdemeanor,” said Nickerson, noting age of consent laws in Canada that make it legal for a person over the age of 14 to engage in consensual sex with an adult. “France would make it a misdemeanor.

“I’m not approving of this conduct,” Nickerson said. “It’s the sentence that I have a problem with. If he’d murdered the kid’s mother in a blinding passion, it would be seven years, because it would be voluntary manslaughter.”

Pride board co-chair Philip Princetta said the Pride board ultimately made its decision to stick by its volunteers and staff member after meeting with eight different law enforcement representatives, all of which told Pauley that their service wasn’t violating the terms of Megan’s Law. Pauley then relayed that information to the board.

“The law is quite extensive,” Princetta said. “We really didn’t study it from the beginning because we felt comfortable with what we were told by Suanne…. We didn’t quite have the understanding that we needed to have.”

Ernie Herbert of the San Diego Police Department’s sex crimes unit said he was called to the meeting to provide Pauley with a copy of California penal code section 290, which covers sexual offenders.

He said he was surprised that Pauley had no questions for him.

Days after Pride weekend, a representative of Los Angeles’ Christopher Street West Pride parade brought to San Diego Pride’s attention that a clown hired to perform in the Children’s Garden was also registered with Megan’s Law site for child molestation. Martin Ramirez, a.k.a. Marty the Clown, had worked in the children’s garden since the mid-’90s, ridden in the parade as a “goodwill ambassador,” and worked at events held by Family Matters, a local gay and lesbian parenting organization.

Family Matters’ past president Marci Bair said her organization only provided volunteers and oversight for the Children’s Garden after it was handed over to Pride.

“The Children’s Garden was founded by an independent group of parents 12 or 13 years ago,” Bair said. “They came to Family Matters, as well as Pride and said, ‘We’ve been doing this thing for 10 years and we’re tired.’”

Bair said Ramirez was hired by All About Entertainment, a company owned by two of the founders of the Children’s Garden. Repeated calls to the company, which has an address on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, went unanswered.

“According to the entertainment company that hired him, they did as much screening as could be done back then,” Bair said. “We didn’t have Megan’s Law…. Martin slipped through because this entertainment company had said that they do the screening for all of their people. He had been involved with the Garden for at least a good seven years or so, so Suanne did not think to screen him.

“The major concern that the [Children’s Garden founders] had in taking the event to Pride,” said Bair, “is that they would lose control over who was in the Garden, whereas in the past, all of the volunteers were mostly parents, because they all came from Family Matters. Pride started soliciting people from the community, just like you could sign up for the beer garden, check-in or Children’s Garden. We weren’t exactly comfortable with that.”

However, Princetta said the Children’s Garden has always been secure.

“You can’t get in without a parent, that’s always been the rules,” he said. “Nobody can come in with a friend, or a kid come in by himself. No parent, no entry.”

Bair said Marty the Clown, who has appeared at Pride events throughout the state, identifies as a gay man. Bair said she has spoken to Ramirez since Pride, as to why he did not disclose his sex offender status.

“According to Martin, the judge told him he was still allowed to work [as a clown], but he always had to be with an another adult,” Bair said. “That’s what he told me and that he never worked alone…. He insisted that he never touched a kid. It was his roommate that did. He swears that he would never harm a kid, but yet he’s on this list.”

Representatives from the District Attorney’s Office, including Shess, are among those who are helping Pride establish a screening process.

“I would be finding out, not only what name they’re using, I’d be asking for identification, a driver’s license,” Shess said. “We’ve got thousands of people who come to San Diego from other states. Just because they’re not listed on the California Megan’s Law Web site does not mean they don’t have a criminal history. There is currently a national Web site which connects the various states who are now online.”

Shess said it is important not to take people at their word about prior sex offenses.

“I was in a group last week and the perpetrator who was the subject of what got everybody together came to the meeting,” Shess said. “At the end of the meeting he made some comments about the case. His position was factually incorrect, based on the court files. He said, ‘You know, this was a 16-year-old kid that I was involved with.’ Well, it wasn’t a 16-year-old kid; it was a 14-year-old kid. But in his mind, he’s now kind of changed history to make it more comfortable for him to live with.”

Shess suggested looking up further information on the specifics of the case in court documents, which are part of the public record.

“Nobody wants to turn away someone who appears to be an enthusiastic, willing, capable, energetic volunteer, but you really have to think of the greater good of the community and the organization,” Shess said.

Bair said Family Matters is also among the organizations helping Pride establish a screening process.

“As parents, we realize that our kids are now going to events that people hadn’t previously thought about,” she said. “More and more people are having kids and taking them to these different events that before were ‘over 21’ events. It makes a difference now.

“At some point we have to get our arms around how far do we screen,” Bair said. “When [a community organization] hires a company, are they expected to then still re-screen everybody that they bring? Even going forward now, with anybody’s parade or festival, do we have to screen everybody, and how do you even logistically go about doing that?”

Delores Jacobs, chief executive officer of The Center, said her organization would also give their input if asked. Jacobs said she has already forwarded the organization information about The Center’s screening process for board members and volunteers, which includes a background check and computerized fingerprinting.

“They’re very specific to the fact that we’re a youth service provider,” Jacobs said. “As such, we’re subject to a bunch of things that other organizations may or may not be.”

Jacobs said The Center began scanning the Megan’s Law list shortly after the Pride controversy came to light. Though no staff, board members or volunteers appeared on the site, she said about once a month a prospective volunteer will disclose their sex offender registration status when applying.

Jacobs said no screening process is infallible.

“We’ve had a couple of cases where people were fingerprinted and slipped through,” Jacobs said. “A couple of the AIDS Walk volunteers came from Pride to The Center and one of them was fingerprinted for AIDS Walk. It was one of the individuals in question, which was stunning to us. Of course, then we had to pursue not letting them move forward.”

Jacobs said part of the difficulty for people grappling with the issue is to realize that, just as there are victims of childhood sexual abuse among the gay community, there are also perpetrators.

“Part of what’s hard for us to consider is that there are individuals among us, regardless of their sexual orientation, that do target our youth for sex crimes,” Jacobs said. “That’s just icky and unpleasant to talk about, just like it is unpleasant and frightening for non-LGBT communities to talk about…. Nobody wants to overreact or pretend that they have a degree of control that they don’t have, and at the same time, what is reasonable protection?”

As an increasingly family-oriented event, Jacobs said AIDS Walk would also be screening its volunteers against the Megan’s Law site.

Princetta said screening would be no easy task for Pride.

“Do we have to screen all 1,000 volunteers?” Princetta said. “These are the things that we’ll have to find out. We’ll create a screening process that the community will be proud of, but they have to give us a chance to do that. It’s really got to be within the parameters of the way the law was written. The law gives the people on Megan’s list rights as U.S. citizens. I guess that’s what has to be changed. The law itself has to be changed to say that they are no longer humans.”

Assistant District Attorney David Rubin served as a liaison to the Golden State Peace Officer’s contingent in the parade, which includes openly gay law enforcement officials from around the county.

Rubin said he conveyed to Pauley and immediate past co-chair Joe Mayer that, due to the potential damage in public perception that might ensue, the gay peace officers would be forced to withdraw from the parade if the registrants remained.

“I was trying to point out that our currency in the public eye is our accountability and trust, and that we can’t support having these people that we round up and prosecute and enforce the rules against also in the parade,” Rubin said. “They were kind of appalled with our lack of confidence in these guys in some sort of abstract sense. I kept trying to share with them that I’ve worked with this population for a long time and that they’re volatile. You just don’t know when they’ll slip. You cannot guarantee safety in that situation, in my opinion….

“We were trying to get that across and that was not really being heard,” Rubin continued. “They were like, ‘But it’s not illegal’ and I’m like, ‘Of course not. We get that part…. It’s going to send the wrong message.”

Rubin said it is not Pride’s mission to stand by its volunteers when convicted of a crime.

“At one point they said, ‘We really stand by this whole rehabilitation thing.’ I’m like, Pride’s mission is to showcase the gay community in the most positive light that it can in this very festive parade atmosphere. It is not Pride’s role to talk about integrating ex-convicts and sex offenders back into the community. There are organizations that do that – and these people should be helping out and volunteering there.

“In defense of Suanne, I think she kind of got it,” Rubin said. “I think she was doing a brave front for the board.”

Many community members recall a time in the not-too-distant past when gay men could be arrested for consensual sex in their homes or arrested for consensual sex during sting operations in Balboa Park, and be promptly added to the state’s sex offender registry.

Shess said it’s not likely that gay men would appear on the Megan’s Law Web site for consensual sex that occurred 30 years ago, when sodomy statutes were in place.

“There is a specific exclusion for decriminalized behavior,” Shess said. “That kind of thing is not going to be included.”

Shess said an 18- or 19-year-old high school senior convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old could potentially be required to register.

“That may or may not be someone who’s going to be listed on the Web site,” Shess said. “It’s going to depend on whether there are other criminal charges that this person had. For instance, you may have a case where it was an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old. You may have another case where that same 18-year-old is hanging around with a 14-year-old. Well, now you’ve [got] two kids, one perpetrator. It’s potential that that person could end up on the Web site.”

However, people falsely accused of a crime could potentially be included on the Megan’s Law Web site.

“California has the oldest sex offender registration law in the nation, established in 1947,” Shess said. “Have I seen any that old? No. I have seen some from the late ’70s and ’80s, certainly.”

Local criminal defense attorney Oliver Cleary said Megan’s Law could be used to coerce gay men into pleading to a charge for which they are not guilty, for fear of having their photo and personal information listed on the Web site.

For instance, gay men picked up for consensual public sex in park sweeps, a violation of penal code section 647(a), or lewd conduct, are often dually charged with 314, or indecent exposure. A person is not required to register with the state for lewd conduct, though they are for cases of indecent exposure.

“It generally never is a registerable offense when it involves two adults and it’s consensual,” Cleary said. “However, when they pick up guys in the park and they charge them with both lewd conduct and indecent exposure, they go to court and they plead out to the lewd conduct offense, because the fear is that if they go to trial and get convicted of indecent exposure, they’ll end up a registered sex offender on the Megan’s Law Web site for life. That’s just too great a risk for most people – even though the facts are never usually able to sustain a conviction for indecent exposure…. They’ve got you between a rock and a hard place.”

Cleary also said gay men charged 20 years ago under nebulous penal code section 288 might be forced to register. According to Cleary, 20 years ago the charge included consensual public sex.

“Today 288 is child molestation – mandatory registration, and you can’t do anything about it,” Cleary said. “The problem is these guys have these convictions for 288 from 20 years ago when they were in Balboa Park and got picked up in a sweep. Now they’re popping up on lists and you have to go to court and amend your record with the California Department of Justice and have them correct your rap sheet. I’ve actually had clients picked up and arrested for failing to register, when they were never required to register in the first place, because 20 years ago 288 was not registerable.”

Cleary said the person can have it expunged from their record by applying for an exemption with the department of justice and proving the 288 was not child molestation, though that can be difficult to do.

“The statutes often didn’t state what the conduct was,” Cleary said. “Lewd conduct in South Carolina used to be called ‘the crime unmentionable among Christians.’ … It was so offensive to their societal norms back then that they wouldn’t even describe it. Back in the ’40s and ’50s they would consider oral copulation a heinous act.

“You’ve got a lot of work to do just to get it straightened out,” Cleary said. “That’s an example of how people are getting swept up in this fury of Megan’s Law who would never have been required to register as a lifetime sex offender today.”