Moral Ambiguity Finds a Place to Stay With Rev. Drake

One day in the hallway outside the courtroom, someone asked Greg Palmer, “Is your conscience getting to you yet?” Someone else wrote to Buena Park City Hall and asked how it could employ “such a mean-spirited man as Mr. Palmer.”

If nothing else, the questions about what kind of man this Mr. Palmer is made a prophet out of Wiley Drake, the Buena Park pastor who years ago began converting his church parking lot into a homeless refuge. When the city told Drake last year it would take him to court if he persisted, the pastor told them he’d bring the wrath of the media down upon them.

And so it came to pass.

As promised, Assistant City Prosecutor Palmer took Drake to court.

As promised, Drake followed up on his prediction that “there will be a satellite from every major television network in your parking lot.”

And now that it’s over--with Palmer winning misdemeanor convictions this week against Drake for violating city ordinances--what was it all about?

To Palmer, a former police detective and now a private attorney employed by the city of Buena Park, the only culprit is Wiley Drake.

“The only reason we had that trial was because Pastor Drake wanted it,” Palmer said Thursday. “He wanted it because it fit within his agenda of getting you folks [in the media] riled up.”

I asked Palmer what he said to the person who asked if his conscience was getting to him. “I didn’t respond, because it wasn’t,” he said. “It was never a question of, ‘My God, if I do this, it’s going to be me throwing those people out.’ Because I didn’t create the problem there. Pastor Drake created it.”

Palmer’s position is that the county has legally operated shelters to which homeless people can go. Homeless advocates, on the other hand, say the county doesn’t come close to handling the numbers of homeless people, generally estimated in excess of 10,000.

The jury agreed with Palmer’s legal position but several expressed sympathy for Drake. That separates them from Palmer, who cuts the pastor little slack. “As soon as I met Pastor Drake,” Palmer said, “I knew we were in for the long haul.”

Palmer, who in the past has investigated fraud cases and shut down massage parlors, said he was bolstered philosophically in this case by other Christians. “A lot of good people called and said, ‘We know you’re doing the right thing here, keep a stiff upper lip.’ ”

Some of those people, according to Palmer, implied that Drake’s support came mainly from the media. The extension of that argument, I guess, is that if there were no media attention, Drake would go away.

The flaw with that is that Drake was housing the homeless long before the media ever heard of him. And though Palmer noted that Drake wears pancake makeup in anticipation of his TV appearances, Drake has openly acknowledged he enjoys the limelight.

For me, however, that doesn’t end the debate.

Wiley Drake bothers me too, but not for the same reasons he bugs Palmer and others. He bothers me because, underneath his makeup, he raises a perplexing moral issue. I don’t disqualify Drake as a town crier just because he likes microphones for breakfast.

Relax, I shall not pontificate. I’m as hypocritical as the next guy. I could ask, ‘What would Jesus do?’ and then respond that he’d probably side with Pastor Drake over a city ordinance, but that doesn’t mean I’d vote that way. After all, we have room in my townhouse complex for some homeless beds--we could take out the pool and hot tub--but I’m not petitioning for it.

So, I concede Pastor Drake his moral position and Greg Palmer his legal one. I asked Palmer to put aside his feelings about Drake’s motivation. “If we take him out of the equation and just look at the homeless situation,” Palmer said, “can we get to the conclusion that that means people can violate the law in order to house the homeless? I just can’t get there.”

He recognizes the biblical imperatives, he said, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and feed the poor. But it also says obey civil law, he said. “Even the Bible realizes there can be peaceful coexistence,” Palmer said.

Perhaps the proof of that will come the day the city evicts the homeless from Drake’s church parking lot. Maybe a camera crew should follow them and see where they drift. See if they simply head off to another shelter and have a place to stay for the night. My guess is none of us will follow that story. We won’t worry about where they go.

I asked Palmer if he’d lost sleep over the case. “I have lost sleep over this because I’ve had to work so hard to put it on,” he said, “but not a minute of sleep because I thought I was doing anything wrong.”

I wish I could be that certain. I wish I were convinced this case was only about Wiley Drake and not homeless people.

Like I said, that’s why he bothers me.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.