"We all lost, because a voice that spoke the truth was silenced by mean and little men."

Decades ago chanced to meet a gentleman at the Melbourne Times weekly paper who treated me with kindness. Only years later did I learn he should have received a Pulitzer rather than disgrace in a criminal case.

The homophophobic Johns Committee, formally known as The Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, sought to investigate the usual subjects in the early 60's: communists, homosexuals, and nigra agitators.

An Orlando Sentinel reporter, Robert M Delaney--Tallahassee correspondent and criticc of the committee- suffered arrest, lost his job, and his marriage after a criminal conviction yet remained, to my knowledge, a kind gentleman.

Echoes of this time still ring in misguided FL ban on adoption by homosexuals: "Similar claims that unrestrained homosexuals would prey on children were later repeated and widely publicized by Anita Bryant in her successful Save Our Children campaign to repeal Dade County's gay rights ordinance in 1977. Partly due to her victory there, in 1978 the Florida Legislature, still dominated by a small group of North Florida senators, passed a bill prohibiting homosexuals from adopting children; the statute has survived several court challenges, and was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in 2004.[10]"

Ironically or perhaps suitably, the committee only disbanded after publishing the Purple Pamphlet detailing homosexual activity with pictures later deemed pornograhic and sold in NY City.

NEW YORK CITY!!!

Can't you just imagine those FL senators of yore poring over pictures with hands firmly on their crotches, harumphing at the depravity pictured, "Can you pass me that last one again, the one with the "young man" bound in ropes," says a sweaty Senator, feeling a tingle in his groin yet unknowing where the urge comes  from, denying their latent homosexuality, and projecting their libido onto hapless homosexuals.

Sure. I knew you could.

"{9} ...[T]here is nothing new under the sun... {11} There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow."

Jury Finds Reporter Guilty in Morals Case:
A newspaper reporter who says he is being persecuted for his opposition to the so-called Johns Committee was convicted yesterday of "attempting" to commit an unnatural act with an e-convict female informer.
A six-man jury convicted Robert Delaney, Orlando Sentinel capital correspondent, after deliberating one hour and 10 minutes. Conviction carries a possible 10 year sentence. Delaney indicated there would be an appeal.

A previous trial ended in a hung jury.

Delaney was convicted mainly on the testimony of a woman who admitted she was "borrowed" by the Tallahassee Police Department from the controversial Legislative Investigations Committee, commonly known as the Johns Committee, for this one outing.

She is Mrs. Janice Chambers Sheffield Godwin Wilkes, alias Jann Lee or Jan Lea, a black-haired bartender from Pensacola with a felony conviction for writing bad checks.

She says she is, or has been, "a professional entertainer."

It was on her word that state attorney Williams Hopkins built his case against Delaney, who was one of the most outspoken critics of the John's Ccommittee--a state investigating committee that gained notoriety for hunting Comminusts and homosexuals on FL college campuses.

Delaney's defense, handled by Julius Parker Sr. and Julius Jarker Jr., was aimed at showing that R. J. Strickland, then chief investigator for the Johns Committee and an enemy of Delaney, teamed up with the Tallahassee Police Department to entice Delaney into a motel room with Jan Lee ande take a picture off him with her in a compromising position.]


Link to abstract of story, full story below

[Reporter a victim of Johns panel

St. Petersburg Times - St. Petersburg, Fla.
Date: Jul 12, 1993
Start Page: 4.B
Section: TAMPA BAY AND STATE

A highly regarded capital reporter for the Orlando Sentinel became one victim of the Legislature's investigative Johns Committee in the early 1960s, his marriage shattered, his job gone and his name smeared.

Robert Delaney's trouble started when he began writing columns attacking the panel directed by Sen. Charlie Johns and its witch hunt against homosexuals.

"My father was never the same after that," Kay Sloan, his daughter, told the Times Union & Journal in Jacksonville.

Julius Parker, the Tallahassee lawyer who represented Delaney, said Delaney, who died three years ago, was a recovering alcoholic. He was approached by a woman who told him she was fighting an alcohol problem and needed help.

She called him at 1 a.m. to say she had a bottle of vodka in her motel room and was desperate.

When he arrived, Parker said, the woman was wearing only a bathrobe, which fell open.

Police rushed in and charged Delaney with a felony sex crime. The law later was declared unconstitutional.

After refusing to plead guilty to a lesser charge and after one hung jury, the 45-year-old Delaney was convicted of attempting to commit the crime and placed on five years' probation.

He immediately was fired by his newspaper, which had kept him on pending the verdict.

Delaney moved his family to Miami and tried to put his life back together, but his career was essentially over.

Ms. Sloan, now a Clearwater lawyer, said her mother stuck by her father, but the marriage was never the same. They were divorced five years later.

"My father went on to do wonderful things," Ms. Sloan said. "He was a consultant for alcoholism rehabilitation for the state of Florida. He became a columnist in his later years for the Florida Today newspaper. But there was a long hiatus in his career.

"We all lost, because a voice that spoke the truth was silenced by mean and little men." (emphasis added)

Credit: Associated Press]

Reproduced without permission of the copyright owner under the Fair Use Doctrine as some FL politicians have learned nothing in 37 years. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.