MB: Did you get any support from gay legal groups?
None. We asked a lot of them, and they would not touch this case. And you know, it’s this topic that they want to ignore — and I don’t know of any groups — blacks, gays, Spanish, whites — who’ve ever gotten over anything by not touching a topic. As long as the gay community does those types of things, they’ll still be divided, and it weakens the gay community. It’s sad to me. My theory on that is, I believe because gay men, in particular, men and women, have been beat down. They know that hatred. So, they’re scared of it. So a topic that they think might bring that bigotry and hatred that they experienced growing up — and there’s not a gay person in this world who won’t tell you that they’ve dealt with that — they won’t touch it. And I think a lot of that is their own inner fears of having to deal with that all over again or letting other people see it and bringing up that topic for the heterosexual community, and go, “Oh, look, yep, see, these people … ” So it’s better to avoid than not. And when the church scandal was going on, I don’t think that situation helped. You know, saying that it was gay priests. It wasn’t gay priests, it was pedophiles. That’s a simple, hard fact. A lot of people just, unfortunately, believe what they read. So, I’ve been a little disappointed in the gay community. And when I think about their strides, I think that all of them, to me, are a little less because the hard topics are what they need to concentrate on. Some of their own people are suffering.
Golden reserves
MB: When you were in prison did you — I’m just leaping, thinking about people hating America on 9/11 — did you ever feel that you hated the American legal system? It certainly didn’t do very well by you, obviously.
It does upset you. What makes me feel the worst is thinking about how long, how much money, how much support, you know, how much it took to get something done right that was done wrong. And I think that a lot of people don’t understand that convictions sometimes happen quickly — mine, for example, you know, nine days — and to turn this whole thing around took 21 years. And it took a lot of people. Same with Dennis. We both sat in there thinking at times, you know, we might never leave. There were days that you have those thoughts. So, you know, I think a better system should be in place to look at cases like mine.
You’re not going to move forward in the system that’s set in place where men who’ve committed crimes — you know, who rape women, who’ve hurt children — move through. They get out. And that’s, you know, heart-wrenching. I’m not saying that they don’t deserve a second chance if they’ve done their time. But to sit there as an innocent man and know a guy next to you has raped a woman or a child and see him go through in a short amount of time while you’re sitting there innocent for years and years. And then to see a small (but some) percentage of those guys come back. And you’re still there! And they might leave again!
...
