Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Monday, May 9

I received an email on Friday:

I like the history bits you’ve beet putting on the blog. In order to be equitable to the trans community, here’s a little timeline I’ve developed over the years.

That was from Marlene Bomer, guest lecturer on gender and sexuality at Bowling Green State University and host of TransTalk. Attached was a “little timeline” — 64-pages! — of transgender and gender-bending history going back to 500 BCE. Two of today’s moments in history (Dana International and Harvey Fierstein) came straight from her timelime. I’m deeply grateful to Marlene for her important contribution to The Daily Agenda.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Uganda’s Parliament Fiddles While The Country Burns: Uganda is in a massive upheaval right now. Middle class Ugandans are joining the poor and opposition leaders in protesting by launching a “walk to work” campaign. Incredibly, government forces have responded as though peacefully walking to work were illegal, violently breaking up groups walking together and imprisoning opposition leaders. Kizza Besigye, President Yoweri Museveni’s main opponent in last February’s election, had to flee to Kenya for medical treatment after police attacked his vehicle and threw a live teargas canister inside through a smashed window. With that, what started as a peaceful campaign turned to full-blown rioting across the country. Thousands of ordinary Ugandans have been injured since mid-April, and several killed. Uganda’s deteriorating economy has been traced to rising fuel prices exacerbate by to a falling Shilling brought on by massive government spending and corruption to curry favor in February’s elections, and the unbudgeted purchasing of six Russian SU-30 MK2 fighter jets for US$600 million. Uganda’s foreign reserves are dangerously low and the country is facing IMF deadlines in June to get its financial house in order. That’s just a month away.

L-R: Unidentified, American holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, International Healing Foundation's Caleb Brundidge, Exodus International boardmember Don Schmierer, Family Life Network's Stephen Langa, during the March 2009 anti-gay conference in Uganda.

So what is Parliament doing about all of this? According to reports last Friday, the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee is set to resume hearings today on the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill. According to this web site, Pastors Martin Ssempa and Stephen Langa testified before the committee last Friday. Langa is head of the Family Life Network, and was responsible for organizing the infamous three-day conference in March 2009 featuring three American anti-gay activists, which kicked off the campaign that led to the bill’s introduction. Ssempa hired George Oundo to pose as an “ex-gay” in support of the bill in mid-April. It’s unclear whether Ssempa will hire more “witnesses” for today’s hearing.  Also expected to testify are representatives from the Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law. If the bill makes it out of committee, it will almost assuredly pass if it is brought up for a vote in Parliament before the session ends on Wednesday.

Edie Windsor (Photo: Michael Key/Washington Blade)

Windsor v. US: Parties in the case of Windsor v United States will meet today in conference before New York Federal District Judge Magistrate James Francis to discuss proposals for a schedule for briefing and discovery for the case. The judge may decide on a schedule based on those proposals. The ACLU is representing Edie Windsor, who had to pay $350,000 in estate taxes because of DOMA when her spouse, Thea Spyer, died in 2009. The two had been together for 44 years and married in Canada in 2007.

After the Justice Department said that they would not be able to defend DOMA under heightened scrutiny, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) hired former U.S. solicitor general Paul Clement to defend DOMA. Windsor, the ACLU, Clement, and Justice Department officials are all expected to appear for today’s conference at the Southern District of New York Courthouse.

New York Lobbying Day: LGBT advocates will gather in Albany to lobby state senators who are undecided or who have not yet announced a position on marriage equality. Representatives from Empire State Pride Agenda, HRC, Marriage Equality New York, Log Cabin Republicans, Freedom to Marry and Queer Rising will participate in the lobbying efforts. A vote count by Gay City News shows that 26 Senators out of 62 support marriage equality, six short of the 32 needed.

Rally at Albany: Part of Monday’s lobbying efforst include a massive lunchtime rally at West Capitol Park beginning at 1:00 p.m. Speakers include Miss New York Claire Buffie, Rev. Stacey Latimer, Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward and Dru Levasseur, a Lambda Legal Transgender Rights Attorney.

"The Tyburn Tree" west of London. It was located near the present-day Marble Arch at Hyde Park

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Hanged for Sodomy: 1726. In July of 1725, Gabriel Lawrence, 43 and “a Papist” — that alone was also a crime in 18th century England — was indicted “for committing, with Thomas Newton, aged 30 years, the heinous and detestable sin of Sodomy, not to be named among Christians.” They were arrested at the famous “molly house” of Margaret Clap, a “place of rendezvous for Sodomites.” Newton described the place: “For the more convenient establishment of her customers, she had provided beds in every room of the house.” Newton testified against Lawrence, taking upon himself the role of innocent “victim” even though he, too, was at the molly house and arrested.

Newton claimed that he didn’t know that Claps’s establishment was a molly house. He must have been pretty dumb, because he apparently spent a lot of time there. He not only testified against Lawrence, but also against two others at the house: William Griffin, 43, and Thomas Wright, 32, who “often fetched me to oblige company that way.” All three defendants were found guilty and sentenced to death. On May 9, 1726, Lawrence, Griffin, and Wright were hanged at the infamous gallows known as “the Tyburn Tree.” In exchange for his testimony, Lawrence was granted immunity from prosecution.

[From Ian McCormick’s Secret Sexualities: A Sourcebook of 17th and 18th Century Writings]

Ignorance Is Bliss: 1871. Dressed as Lady Stella Clinton and Miss Fanny Winifred Park, Ernest Boulton, 22, and Frederick William Park, 23 attended a performance at the Strand Theatre in London and were arrested by police. A search of their homes turned up more than a dozen dresses, petticoats, bodices and bonnets. Their landlady described their dresses as very extreme. They were charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy.

The two defendants appeared in court in drag. The whole thing was baffling to the Attorney General, who, testified on May 9, 1871, that the lack of detailed British knowledge on the topic as one of the country’s virtues. He thought it “fortunate [that] there is little learning or knowledge upon this subject in this country; there are other countries in which I am told learned treatises are written as to the appearance to be expected in such cases. Fortunately Doctors in England know very little about these matters.” Ignorance reigned, and it was to Boulton and Park’s benefit. Sure, they dressed funny, engaged in “disgraceful behaviour,” and wrote piles of letters describing their exploits — an entire day was spent reading them into the record — but none of that counted as evidence of a conspiracy to commit sodomy. And since wearing dresses itself wasn’t against the law, the jury found them not guilty.

Harvey Fierstein’s Debut: 1971. Pork, Andy Warhol’s only play, debuted on a New York off-Broadway stage. One of the cast members was a sixteen-year-old (or eighteen-year-old, his birth year seems to vary) drag queen by the name of Harvey Fierstein.

Dana Goes International: 1998. The music world is shocked when judges at that year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Birmingham, England choose openly MtF Dana International (born Yaron Cohen in Tel Aviv, Israel) as their champion. Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli conservatives were shocked and demanded that next year’s telecast not be held in the winning country, as tradition holds, due to the “shame” of her being transsexual. Dana countered, “My victory proves God is on my side. I want to send my critics a message of forgiveness and say to them: try to accept me and the kind of life I lead. I am what I am and this does not mean I don’t believe in God, and I am part of the Jewish Nation.”

Lightning may strike again. Dana International won the Israeli national Eurovision competition again, this time with her song “Ding Dong.” So thirteen years later, she will once again represent Israel at the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest in Düsseldorf, Germany this week.

BIRTHDAYS:
Alan Bennett: 1934. The English performer and playwright is best known for The Madness of George III and the film adaptation, The Madness of King George. He received an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay. In August 1960, he achieved instant fame as a comedy actor at the Edinburgh Festival by appearing in a satirical review with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook. His first play, Forty Years On, debuted in 1968. His critically acclaimed The History Boys won three Lawrence Olivier Awards in 2005 and Six Tony Awards on Broadway in 2006. His memoir, Untold Stories, appeared in 2005. He thought it would be published posthumously because he was undergoing treatment for cancer when he wrote it. The cancer went into remission, but the book went ahead anyway. In the biographical sketches, Bennett wrote openly for the first time about his homosexuality, although he said that he was “reluctant to be enrolled in the ranks of gay martyrdom, reluctant, if the truth be told, to be enrolled in any ranks whatsoever.”

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here.