Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 29

TODAY’S AGENDA (Ours):
Lambda Legal To File Marriage Equality Lawsuit: Trenton, NJ. Lambda Legal and Garden State Equality will hold a press conference this morning to announce Lambda’s filing of a lawsuit n New Jersey Superior Court with the goal of showing that civil unions fail to meet the mandate of equal legal rights and financial benefits for same-sex couples set by the State Supreme Court in a 2006 ruling. Lambda Legal hopes that the case will lead to a ruling by New Jersey’s highest court demanding that full equality be granted to same-sex couples are originally required in its earlier ruling. The press conference will occur this morning at 10:00 a.m. EDT at the Trenton Marriott Downtown in Trenton, New Jersey.

Thirteen Senators Release “It Gets Better” Video: Washington, D.C. .S. Senators Chris Coons (D-DE.), Mark Udall (D-CO), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) will host a press conference to unveil a new “It Gets Better” video featuring thirteen Democratic senators. The video is an appeal to LGBT youth to not give up, reassuring them that the Senators are working hard to fulfill the promise of equality for all. I’m not sure what to think about this personally. I have to say that I’m a bit concerned that the IGB campaign may be about to jump the shark if this video looks more like a campaign video than an advocacy one. On the other hand, it might make the absence of a GOP video all the more noticeable. The grand unveiling takes place this morning at 10:30 a.m. in room S-115 of the U.S. Capital.

White House Pride Reception: Washington, D.C. It’s going to be a bit awkward at today’s White House Pride Reception, coming as it does just five short days after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo showed himself to be among the fiercest advocate yet for marriage quality. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is still taking his time “evolving” on the issue. Last week, on the eve of New York’s historic legislative achievement, Obama was in New York for a fundraiser, where he said, “traditionally marriage has been decided by the states” — an argument that critics note has been used historically to justify segregation. Those words and Obama’s timidity will likely cast a dark pall on this afternoon’s event. And just to drive the point home, GetEQUAL plans to “greet” invitees to the reception, which gets underway at 5:45 at the White House.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Cologne, Germany; Helsinki, Finland; London, UK; Los Angeles, CA (Black Pride); Marseilles, France; and Toronto, ON.

TODAY’S AGENDA (Theirs):
Future of the Family Conference: London, UK. The World Congress of Families, a project of the Illinois-based Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, will co-sponsor with Britain’s Christian Concern an all-day conference titled, “The Future of The Family In Coalition Britain Conference” at the Law Society in London. Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund will also be represented there in the person of Benjamin Bull. According to Christian Concern, “Our speakers will bring their experience and expertise to bear on the question of how a compelling case can be made, in the current cultural context, for the traditional family.” The conference goes from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the The Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL. They are charging £125 (US$200) for all that fun.

Moscow Demographic Summit: Moscow, Russia. The World Congress of Families is keeping busy. At the same time they are co-sponsoring a conference in London, they are also conducting a Moscow Demographic Summit at the Russian State Social University today and tomorrow. WCF sees declining birth rates and the rise of gay rights as contributing to that they call the “demographic winter.” Most of the Russian speakers at the conference will be clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as nationalist speakers. American speakers include Allan Carlson, Larry Jacobs and Don Feder (World Congress of Families), Patrick Fagan (Family “Research” Council), Steven Mosher (Population Research Institute), Philip Longman (New America Foundation), and Janice Crouse (Concerned Women for America).

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Henry Gerber: 1892. Pro-gay activism in the U.S goes back a very long way, far longer than most realize. Henry Gerber, a Bavarian immigrant to Chicago, served in the U.S. Army’s occupation of Germany following World War I, where he came in contact with the growing German gay rights movement. He read up on German homophile magazines and came in contact with Magnus Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, the first organization in the world working to advance gay rights. When Gerber returned to the U.S. he founded the Society for Human Rights (SHR) in 1924. With an African-American clergyman named John T. Graves as president, SHR is believed to be America’s first gay rights organization. Gerber also founded Friendship and Freedom, the first known American gay publication.

SHR didn’t last very long. The wife of the group’s vice president denounced Gerber and his associates to police, calling them “degenerates.” In July, 1925, police arrested Gerber, Graves and two others as newspaper headlines screamed “Strange Sex Cult Exposed.” Gerber was tried three times, but the charges were eventually dismissed. He was nevertheless ruined, jobless and drained of his life savings. He continued writing about gay rights, sometimes under his own name and sometimes under a pseudonym. He died on New Year’s Eve in 1972 at the age of 80, having lived long enough to see gay rights advocacy take on a new vibrancy in the 1950s and 1960s, culminating in an explosion of advocacy and pride after the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969.

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