San Diego Firemen 'Forced' Into Pride Parade Claim Victim Status

Four firemen who say they were forced to take part in a gay Pride parade and that they were subjected to cat-calls and the sight of semi-nude men carrying out "simulated sex acts" say that what they went through constitutes sexual harassment.

The case has been an ongoing saga that has already ended in one mistrial.

As previously reported at EDGE, the firemen were required to fill in for colleagues who had initially agreed to ride in a fire engine in a 2007 Pride parade, but then backed out.

The men expressed their reluctance, but were ordered to ride in the parade. Subsequently, the firemen said that the attentions of some men in the crowd, whom they assumed to be gay, caused them anger and anxiety. The men claimed that being forced to participate in the parade constituted a form of sexual harassment.

According to a Feb. 8 article at the San Diego Union-Times, the second trial in the case is now winding down.

The jury will decide whether the case has merit when they answer a series of ten questions put to them by the judge, the most pressing of which is whether the men were subjected to "severe or pervasive" sexual harassment by gays in the crowd.

The union Tribune story reported that attorneys for the city claim that that the plaintiffs are "money-hungry opportunists," as the article put it, whereas the men say that they were victims of a crowd that included gay men who whistled, gestured, and pantomimed sexual contact.

A central part of the men's argument is that they were forced to participate against their will. The article quoted Capt. Jason Heweitt, who told the court, "Nobody listened to us."

In the first trial, which ended as a mistrial, Charles LiMandri, lawyer for the firemen, had sought an award of one million dollars for each of the men: Capt. Hewitt, Capt. John Ghiotto, Alex Kane, and Chad Allison.

No specified amount was mentioned in this latest trial, the article said.

But the question of monetary damages depends on what the jury decides.

The article quoted University of San Diego School of Law professor Shaun Martin, who said, "The city's best defense is, 'Even if you were harassed, it was not severe or pervasive.'

"The law is unclear, and the fact that this is a hot-button issue makes this an even harder case," added Martin.

"It's going to be difficult to keep the jurors' prejudices out of the decision-making."

The article noted that the firefighters testified that they did not feel they were at risk, nor did the majority of the people in the crowd act in a sexually provocative manner, which calls into question how severe and how pervasive the purported "harassment" might have been.

Moreover, the article noted that the firemen seemed not to know themselves whether the crowd's allegedly harassing behavior was pervasive: the Union-Tribune said that Kane characterized the conduct he found offensive as both isolated to "pockets" and pervasive, while Allison said that it was "intermittent" as well as "pretty much throughout" the event.

The article said that it has been the contention of the defense that the firemen are homophobic.

The article reported that a lawyer for the city, in questioning Allison, had the firefighter read aloud from his written claim. The sentence that the lawyer asked to hear read to the court stated, "I believe that a person who does not support homosexuality should not be forced to participate."

LiMandri, in his turn, asked Allison to read further: "However, my complaint is that I was ordered into a nonemergency environment against my will and was subjected to sexual harassment as a result," the claim continued.

Though no specific amount was cited by the firemen's lawyer in this second trial, the claim makes it plain that the men seek monetary compensation as well as a policy to prevent firemen who object from being ordered to participate in such events.

Such a policy was implanted within a year of the complaint, the article said. Tracy Jarman, the Fire Chief, also apologized to the men in a meeting that took place a week and half after the men rode in the engine as part of the parade.

In 2008, Jarman was awarded Fire Chief of the Year, an honor bestowed upon her by the California Fire Chiefs Association.