Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, June 28

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Fairness Campaign’s History Panel: Louisville, KY. Co-founders of the Fairness Campaign will join Louisville Metro Councilwoman Chery Bryant Hamilton and early Fairness leader Mattie Jones for the first in a series of three history panels commemorating the Fairness Campaign’s 20th anniversary. “Fairness Campaign: 20 Years of Making It Better” will address the June 29, 1991 formation of the Fairness Campaign and its first decade of work leading to the 1999 passage of Louisville and Jefferson County’s original Fairness ordinances, which marked the city as one of the first in the South (and also beating New York City) to offer comprehensive anti-discrimination protections in employment, housing, and public accommodations based on perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. The forum will be held this evening at 6:30 p.m. at the Center for African American Heritage, 1701 West Muhammad Ali Blvd. The event is free with refreshments provided.

Stonewall, 1969

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Stonewall: 1969. What can I possibly tell you about Stonewall that you don’t already know? It has become our Gettysburg, the iconic battle that represents a significant turning point. As the Civil War has been divided to two eras before Gettysburg and after, so, too, has our history been identified as pre-Stonewall and post-Stonewall. As with the civil war, there were gay rights confrontations before Stonewall, and there have been police raids after, but Stonewall remains the fulcrum on which the weight of gay history shifts from unmitigated fear and oppression to a confident and unrelenting push for dignity and full citizenship.

Stonewall, 2011

Americans made little note of small village of Gettysburg before 1863, and today the minutia of that great battle is mostly left to Civil War buffs. For the rest of us, Gettysburg is our collective shorthand for the ideal of human sacrifice and valor, and of freedom. And so it is also with Stonewall. It used to be a little-known place, and then it was an event. But more so today Stonewall is an idea, one that was partially fulfilled in New York with the enactment of marriage equality. But that is only one part of the idea. The higher idea of dignity and the full rights and privileges of citizenship remains elusive for too many people. The promise of Stonewall has not been fulfilled for them — or even for us who live and work where discrimination in its many forms remains perfectly legal. But because of Stonewall and what it has come to mean, we know that there is no turning back. There is only movement forward. Stonewall demands nothing less.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
John Inman: 1935.The quintessential British poofter known for his role as Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served? He was also a pantomime dame, a distinctly British form of drag performance (Dame Edna is actually Australian, but think of her and you get the idea.) “I’m a tits and feathers man,” he once said in explaining his love for show business. His character’s high camp and trademark high-pitched “I’m free!” in Are You Being Served? became a catchphrase in Britain. Not everyone was amused. He was picketed by the Campaign for Homosexual Equality because they charged that his character posed a bad image for gay men.  Inman said, “they thought I was over exaggerating the gay character. But I don’t think I do. In fact there are people far more camp than Mr. Humphries walking around this country. Anyway, I know for a fact that an enormous number of viewers like Mr. Humphries and don’t really care whether he’s camp or not. So far from doing harm to the homosexual image, I feel I might be doing some good.” In December 2005 he and his partner of 35 years, Ron Lynch, took part in a civil partnership ceremony at London’s Westminster Register Office. Inman died in 2007.

Jim Kolbe: 1942.He is the former Republican Congressman for Arizona’s 8th congressional district — the district currently held by seriously injured Gabrielle Giffords. He was outed in 1996 after voting for the Defense of Marriage Act. He was reelected to his seat in 1998, and in 2000, he became the first openly gay person to address the Republican National Convention, although his speech did not address gay rights. He also continued to defend his vote for DOMA. “My vote on the Defense of Marriage Act was cast because of my view that states should be allowed to make that decision, about whether or not they would recognize gay marriages,” he said. “Certainly, I belive that states should have the right, as Vermont did, to provide for protections for such unions.” He voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 and 2006.  By the time he was wrapping up his congressional service in 2006, Kolbe was a supporter of same-sex marriage, telling local audiences in Tucson that “in a few years,” same-sex marriage would be normal and uncontroversial. In 2008, his good friend Tim Bee, who was the state Senate Majority Leader, announced that he would run against Giffords for Congress, Kolbe agreed to serve in Bee’s election campaign. Kolbe withdrew his support however when Bee voted for the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

David Kopay: 1942. A former American football running back in the National Football League before retiring in 1972, Davud Kopay became one of the first professional male athletes to come out as gay in 1975. His 1977 biography, David Kopay Story, dished about the sexual adventures of his fellow heterosexual football teammates and revealed their widespread homophobia. In 1986, Kopay revealed his brief affair with Jerry Smith, who played for the Washington Redskins from 1965–1977 and who died of AIDS in 1986 without ever having publicly come out of the closet. He is a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation, and he has been active in the  Federation of Gay Games. Since Kopay came out, only two other former NFL Players have come out as gay: Roy Simmons (1992), and Esera Tuaolo (2002). But to this day there have been no active NFL players who have come out while still playing.

In 2007, Kopay announced he would leave an endowment of $1 million to the his alma mater University of Washington’s Q Center, a resource and support center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and faculty. He has said that it is one of the most important efforts he will ever undertake.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).