PD Editorial: About Harold and Clay

<p>It's a heartbreaking story: Clay Greene and Harold Scull, life partners for a quarter-century before they were separated by a fall.</p><p>Scull was hospitalized with a head injury and died four months later at age 88. Greene, 11 years his junior, says he wasn't allowed to visit, that Sonoma County officials ignored wills, medical declarations and other documents identifying the men as spouses. He was placed in a nursing home, and possessions from the Sebastopol home the men shared were auctioned off to cover the cost.</p><p>“They stole my furniture, put me in a retirement home and told me to shut up,” said Greene, whose lawsuit against Sonoma County has gone viral, drawing condemnation from across the country, including calls for a boycott of local businesses, products and tourism.</p><p>County officials, for their part, insist this isn't a case of discrimination against a gay couple or a case of cruel treatment of an older couple. They say it's a grievous story of another kind: a case of domestic violence.</p><p>“When the facts come out,” said Greg Spaulding, an attorney representing the county, “the story that's being thrown out will be found inaccurate in a number of respects.”</p><p>The county's domestic violence claim wasn't helped when prosecutors said they reviewed the case and declined to pursue criminal charges against Greene. “We rejected it two years ago,” Assistant District Attorney Diana Gomez said last week.</p><p>Still, the county, like Greene, is entitled to its day in court and, perhaps recognizing that it's currently losing in the court of public opinion, it has started to offer its side of the story.</p><p>On Wednesday, the county released a redacted Sheriff's Department report that says an 88-year-old man with a black eye and bruises said he was assaulted and threatened by Greene on April 27, 2008, the day Scull was hospitalized. Spaulding is seeking to depose Scull's attorney. The county says Scull didn't want to pursue charges, that the men were no longer romantically involved and that they were given a chance to remove belongings from their home before anything was sold.</p><p>The contrast between the claims in Greene's lawsuit and the county's counterclaims is stark, and the dispute ought to be resolved in a public court as expeditiously as possible. A trial is scheduled for July 16.</p>