My name is Kevin Brown. At the age of fifteen, the State of Indiana tortured me for two years because of my sexual orientation, which is that I am a pedophile. I was sexually assaulted by State authorities in the presence of my child protective services caseworker, whom oversaw my wardship to the Marion County Juvenile Court. Now, twenty years later, this same agency seeks to make me unequal to my peers through the coercion of their power to harm my son. They are people who lack a conscience, have no empathy for those they harm, and carry no remorse for the injuries they inflict. They project onto me the very faults in themselves which restrain them from communion with whatever higher power exists in this world, or even their fellow men. They blame me for their immorality and evil deed.

A friend reminded me of a quote recently by a learned man:

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

I pray for my oppressors. I have felt so angry at them. I know, intellectually, that they are a symptom of a disease much larger than their role in my life. It is the baser instinct of man to hate others for many purposes. They are fallen; I am fallen. I live in a glass house, as everyone does; I cannot throw the first stone, nor the last. Our nature is not violent. I peer on the world with eyes as close to those of a child as I think men may possess; it is my nature. It is an inherently altruistic drive, and it colours all of my contact with men in this time, and in this place.

Earlier in this week I faced a choice; to conduct my regular affairs, and pull into a regular appointment where a prisoner transport van and uniformed officers were waiting in the parking lot for me, or to drive on. I felt a paralyzing fear of them. I had no idea why they were there for me; I have done nothing wrong, and much right. The courage to face them came not from within me. I have become a coward, fearful of everyone and everything. I have been assaulted twice in the past year by others. I have been spit on in public and had my life threatened.

After questioning, there was no warrant; no reason for what happened. The State has distributed a flyer with my picture on it, and information I am not privy to. It felt like an attempt to intimidate me. The officers were courteous and appeared to be responding to a dispatch.

I filed a motion for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) in my federal civil rights case against the state, seeking an order enjoining the State from prosecuting me for speaking to law enforcement. I could not fully answer the officer’s questions under my understanding of the order to compel my conduct that I am under. This action has significant repercussion, and I have no idea if I have made the right decision. I am a nervous wreck over it.

I filed the case last October, and it has reached the conclusions of the “pleadings”, or first, stage of the lawsuit. It’s current status was that it was awaiting the Judge’s order on the Defendant’s “affirmative” defenses, such as “qualified immunity”, and whether the federal court would proceed to trial or abstain and dismiss the case as a matter of Federal-State comity. This order is immediately appealable by the losing party to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. I believe the questions of law involved in the decision are complex and time-consuming for the Court to sort out. It may very well fall within a “grey area” of law where the decision is completely at the discretion of the Judge, and finding either way would not be an abuse of that discretion (which is the standard of review for appealing the decision).

Sargent Shriver’s National Center on Poverty Law publishes a “Federal Practice Manual for Legal Aid Attorneys”, many of whom litigate civil rights actions. With respect to the motion I filed yesterday, the manual states:

“The federal rules do not favor ex parte TROs, and you should avoid them whenever possible. Courts do not appreciate being rushed into decisions…”

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are specific as to what must happen. The motion for the TRO will be heard as an emergency motion, and must expire within ten days of issuance. The Judge must hold a hearing on extending the TRO into a preliminary injunction within that time-frame. It is a severe inconvenience and immensely disruptive to his schedule. It probably means that he works nights. These are the factors I weighed against filing for the TRO; on the other side is that my opponents are now using law enforcement to harass me and forbidding me from answering law enforcement’s questions, or defending myself to them. My interpretation of the “gag order” is that I could be imprisoned for showing it to a law enforcement officer.

So I don’t know. I pray to God I made the right choice, but I don’t know. I am as wracked with fear and anxiety as ever, and am on a liquid diet because my stomach stays too upset to hold food.

The TRO might be denied on the following grounds: (1) that my interpretation of the gag order is incorrect; (2) that I have no chance to prevail in the case; or (3) that the injury doesn’t rise to the severity of injury required for granting of a TRO (“irreparable”).

Nuvo Newsweekly (the local publication that ran my ad for a theatrical director a year ago, agreeing to mention that the play was “pedophilia themed”) ran a good recent article on the functioning of the Southern District of Indiana Court by way of an interview with one of the Judges.

Judge Hugh S. Dillon passed last week, and his funeral was yesterday. He was a Senior member of the Southern District of Indiana Court and had held the bench for forty years, appointed by President Kennedy in 1962. Judge Dillon told me in 2002 that I had the same fundamental civil rights as anyone else; to live my life freely and not in fear of CPS. I took the man at his word, and I have only good things to say about him. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that CPS would do what they did. It did not even cross my mind as a possibility that February morning a year ago.

Sincerely,

Kevin Brown