Albert Gordon

Background

Gordon was born on May 29, 1915, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Education

He moved to Los Angeles as a child and later attended Los Angeles City College. Gordon attended the San Fernando Valley College of Law (now University of West Los Angeles) and passed the bar in 1962.

Career

As the years passed, Gordon became acquainted with his son"s gay friends who had come to him with legal issues. He and Morris Kight obtained affidavits from three couples—one each heterosexual, gay and lesbian—in an effort to challenge a 1915 law in California that made oral sex a felony based on inconsistent enforcement of a law that was often used to harass homosexuals. He called for the Los Angeles Police Department to arrest the three couples at a publicity event held at the Los Angeles Press Club, but no police came to make the planned staged arrests.

Nor would the police arrest the couples after Gordon made citizen"s arrests and brought them down to an LAPD station and the Los Angeles County District Attorney"s office stated that no charges would be filed as it was against the office"s policy to charge consenting adults for sexual acts done in private.

On the basis of his advocacy together with Kight, the California Legislature repealed the statute in 1975. Police conducted a raid on a gay bathhouse in Los Angeles in 1975, arresting individuals who had been participating in a mock slave auction fundraising event.

Police charged those arrested with felonies under laws that prohibited slave trafficking. A West Hollywood establishment called Barney"s Beanery had long had anti-homosexual wording on signs and matchbooks at the restaurant, reading "Fagots Stay Out".

The restaurant"s owner stated that he didn"t believe that the signs were offensive, that they were just part of the "tradition and decor" at Barney"s and "obviously intended to be humorous".

Through Gordon"s efforts, the signs were removed in the mid-1980s. Gordon died in Los Angeles at age 94 on August 10, 2009, of natural causes.

Achievements

• After Gordon won the release of the 40 people arrested, he was one of the mock slaves who were put up for sale in a second fundraising event organized by Review Troy Perry to raise money for their defense, and was sold for $369 to his own wife.