Box Turtle Bulletin

Today Is The Last Day of the Last Active Legal Penalty Against Gay People

Today is the last day in which the military ban on gays serving openly, known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in its latest incarnation, remains the law of the land. Which means that today marks the very last day in which the U.S. Government can legally initiate an active investigation into the private lives of gay citizens solely to determine whether they should be formally sanctioned. Tomorrow’s formal elimination of DADT marks a very important legal milestone in U.S. history, when the the federal government’s last legal active pursuit against gay people comes to an end.

Regular BTB readers who have been following our historical items in the Daily Agenda will remember that sixty years ago, there were active campaigns to root out homosexuals from all branches of the federal government solely because of their homosexuality. In 1953, that campaign culminated in President Dwight D. Eisenhower signing Executive Order 10450 which formalized the federal employment ban. By then, the U.S. military had long searched out homosexuals from among their ranks, and when they were found, they were often sent to mental hospitals or the brig. Either way, virtually all of them would wind up with a dishonorable discharge which, in the days when military service was universal, made finding a job afterward extremely difficult. Beginning in 1952, gay people were formally prohibited from entering the country under a legal provision barring “aliens afflicted with psychopathic personality, epilepsy, or a mental defect.” That languages was interpreted to include gay people, an interpretation which remained in effect until 1990 even though the American Psychiatric Association declared that homosexuality was not a mental defect in 1973. Altogether, these legal requirements mandated thousands of active investigations into the private lives of thousands of citizens in order to impose legal sanctions.

And all of this was against a backdrop in which homosexuality was a criminal offense in every state in the until 1961, when Illinois overhauled its statutes and dropped its anti-sodomy law. Illinois would remain alone in that regard until 1970, when other states slowly began to drop their anti-gay statutes. After a series of lawsuits and demonstrations, the U.S. civil service began hiring gay people in 1975. By the 1990s, most federal investigative services charged with the granting of security clearances no longer considered sexual orientation a barrier to holding clearances, and President Clinton’s 1995 executive order brought the rest of the security investigative services in line. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down those anti-sodomy laws which still remained on the books. With those cumulative acts, U.S. civilians were finally free from legally mandated investigations to determine their eligibility for legal sanction. No U.S., state, or local law enforcement agency could launch an investigation into the private romantic life of a U.S. citizen solely to determine whether that citizen should be legally penalized because of it.

Sure, the law didn’t (and still doesn’t) provide for full equality for gays and lesbians: we can’t marry in most states, it is still legal for employers to fire someone solely because of his or her sexuality, and LGBT couples face various other enormous tax and other financial inequalities under the law. But these are consequences of legal indifference, not the products of active and hostile pursuit. Where law enforcement investigations designed solely to determine one’s sexual orientation were legally mandated and often played out in the front pages of newspapers and the evening news, today we have a whole generation for whom such a scenario is unthinkable — with one glaring exception. Gays and lesbians serving in the military still operate under a McCarthyite prohibition based solely on their private lives. But today is the last day of that official, legal federal obsession with the love lives of Americans. Tomorrow we enter a new era. For the first time in our nation’s history, no gay American will be found guilty for loving someone. We’re still far from equal in the eyes of the law, but beginning tomorrow we are, at long last, fully free.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, September 19

Totally straight.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
An Ex-Gay Leader Walked Into A Bar: 2000. In 1998, the supposedly “ex-gay” John Paulk and his “ex-lesbian” wife Anne were the centerpieces of a massive publicity push by Focus On the Family to promote the pray-away-the-gay therapy offered by Exodus International. They appeared on 60 Minutes and Oprah, as well as in full-page newspaper ads and on a 1998 cover of Newsweek. Their 1999 book, Love Won Out, became the title for a series of promotional ex-gay conferences put on jointly by Focus and Exodus International. Paulk was an employee at Focus, serving as manager of the organization’s Homosexuality and Gender division, and he had also served as Board Chairman of Exodus International since 1995.

On September 19, 2000, Paulk traveled to Washington, D.C. on Focus business when he walked into a dark and seedy gay bar known as Mr. P’s in the heart of D.C.’s Dupont Circle gayborhood. A few of the patrons there, employees at the Human Rights Campaign, recognized him immediately and watched as Paulk ordered a drink and struck up conversations with other bar patrons. One of the HRC staffers called Wayne Besen, who was also working at the HRC at the time and who had already written about the ex-gay movement. When Besen finally arrived at the bar 20 minutes later, he found Paulk on a barstool chatting with patrons. Besen confronted Paulk and tried to photograph him, but the bar’s bouncer, citing house rules prohibiting photography, stepped in and asked Besen to leave. Besen waited outside the bar and when Paulk finally came out the front door, Besen snapped another photo as Paulk was leaving.

Fleeing Mr. P's.

Besen immediately called several reporters. The first to express an interest was Southern Voice’s Joel Lawson, who broke the story two days later. In Paulk’s first public statement, he claimed that he only went into the dark and seedy bar to use the restroom, despite the presence of brightly lit coffee shops and hotels with public restrooms on the very same block. Besen countered, “I didn’t know that using the bathroom involved 40 minutes of socializing in a bar and offering drinks to strangers.” Paulk was called back to Focus headquarters in Colorado Springs where he was placed on probation and removed as Board Chair at Exodus International (although he remained a member of the board on probationary status). But he somehow managed to weather the controversy. Paulk remained in his position at Focus, and he continued to be the principle organizer and featured speaker at Love Won Out conferences until 2003, when he finally decided to step down from Focus. The John and Anne Paulk are still married today. While Anne Paulk continues to write and advocate for ex-gay ministries, John no longer works in the ex-gay industry. He is instead a catering chef in Portland, Oregon.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Brian Epstein: 1934. He was already well on the way to becoming a successful businessman while managing the record departments at his father’s chain of radio and hi-fi stores in Liverpool when he began to hear the buzz surrounding a local band known as the Beatles. He decided to attend a lunchtime concert at the Cavern Club and was taken in by what he heard. “I was immediately struck by their music, their beat, and their sense of humor on stage — and, even afterwards, when I met them, I was struck again by their personal charm. And it was there that, really, it all started.” Epstein signed on as the Beatles’ manager, and within five months he had paid Decca records out of his own pocket to record a studio demo. He shopped it around, but none of the major labels were interested until George Martin at EMI’s tiny Parlophone label heard them. He liked what he heard and signed the Beatles. The rest, as they say, is history.

Epstein’s sexuality wasn’t generally known until several years after his death in 1967. The band, of course, figured it out right away, probably owing to Epstein’s interest in the band’s appearance on stage. Epstein is credited for creating the early Beatles’ look — the collarless suites and ties, the mod haircuts, the synchronized bow at the end of their performances. John Lennon was known to make a few sarcastic comments about Epstein’s sexuality, but the band mostly accepted him as one of their own. Rumors later swirled that Lennon and Epstein had an affair while vacationing in Barcelona in 1963, but Lennon denied it in a Playboy interview in 1980. “It was never consummated, but we had a pretty intense relationship,” he said. Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia, (Eptstein had been John’s best man when they married in 1962) have always maintained that the relationship was platonic.

When Epstein died in 1967 from an overdose of the barbiturate Carbitral, the band began its downward spiral. Much of that downfall was attributed to tensions between McCartney and Lennon, who argued over who should take over the band’s management. They were never able to come to an agreement on that point, and the relationship between the two men continued to deteriorate.

Eighteen years after the Beatles broke up, they were were among the earliest entrants into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But to this day, Epstein is still not included in the Hall’s Non-Performer’s Section. Paul McCartney credits Epstein for making the Beatles one of the most successful bands in the world. “If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian,” he told a BBC documentary in 1997.

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).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, September 18

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Visibility at the Exodus Regional Ex-Gay Conference: Auburn, NH. As Exodus International continues their regional ex-gay conference at the First Assembly of God of Auburn, just outside of Manchester, New Hampshire today (see yesterday’s Daily Agenda for details), a group of LGBT advocates will be there this morning to greet arrivals. The visibility action begins at 8:00 a.m. and continues until 11:00.

AIDS Walks Today: Birmingham, AL; Cranbrook, BC; Detroit, MI; Edmunton, AB; Hazelton, BC; Kamloops, BC; Rochester, NY; Saskatoon, SK and Vancouver, BC.

Pride Celebrations Today: Dallas, TX; Roanoke, VA; Sapporo, Japan and Stratford, ON.

Also This Weekend: North Louisiana Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Shreveport, LA.

An early advertisement for Donald Webster Cory's "The Homosexual In America." (Click to enlarge.)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Donald Webster Cory/Edward Sagarin: 1913. Writing under the pseudonym Donald Webster Cory, Sagarin published his groundbreaking book, The Homosexual In America: A Subjective Approach, in 1951 which would go on to become one of the most influential books in the early history of the gay rights movement. In that seminal book, he wrote of the struggles that gay people faced and argued forcefully for the elimination of anti-sodomy laws which were then on the books in every state of the nation. The book was the first major publication to provide an exhaustive overview of gay life which was largely underground and out of sight of ordinary Americans. He discussed gay bars, drag queens, relationships, marriages as convenience and as cover, and even provided a lexicon of gay slang.

But what really pushed the boundaries of publishing is his unequivocal call for the full integration of gay people in public life. He argued that this integration would be mutually beneficial specifically because of the harassment gay people experienced from society. “I am convinced,” he wrote, “and will presently attempt to demonstrate, that there is a permanent place in the scheme of things for he homosexual — a place that transcends the reaction to hostility and that will continue to contribute to social betterment after social acceptance.” He was also an early proponent of what we today would call multiculturalism, saying that the diversity of minorities — ethnic, religious, racial and sexual minorities — strengthens and enriches a democratic society. “[H]omosexuality — fortunately but unwittingly — must inevitably place a progressive role in the scheme of things,” he argued. “It will broaden the base for freedom of thought and communication, will be a banner-bearer in the struggle for liberalization of our sexual conventions, and will be  a pillar of strength in the defense of our threatened democracy.”

Sagarin would continue writing as Donald Webster Cory for the pioneering homophile magazine ONE, and he established the Cory Book Service, a sort of a book-of-the-month club specializing in what was them very difficult to find gay-themed books.

Having firmly established himself as a forceful proponent of what would later be called gay liberation, it is startling to see how conservative Sagarin would end up becoming as time went on. Early hints of that conservatism can be found in The Homosexual In America, where he accepted without question the consensus in the psychological world that homosexuality came about as a result of a disturbed home life. But as the decade wore on and a few psychologists began to question the assumption that gay people were emotionally disturbed, Sagarin rejected those arguments. He wasn’t alone in the gay community for doing this; ONE, as radical and strident as it was, nevertheless often published a number of articles which accepted the prevailing assumptions. But by 1963, when he co-authored The Homosexual and His Society with John LeRoy, that assumption was beginning to look dated. He still argued forcefully for the full acceptance of gay people in society — including among psychologist, saying that the first duty of psychologists was not to “cure” gay people but to “eliminate the personal distress and anxieties that arise as a result of social hostility.” But he also argued against those in the homophile movement who rejected the idea that gay people were emotionally disturbed, and went so far as to argue that there was no such thing as a “well-adjusted homosexual.”

Unsurprisingly, he lost when, as Donald Webster Cory, he ran for president of the Mattachine Society in 1965. That moment proved to be a decisive break for Sagarin who, along with the rest of the conservative guard, felt the stinging rejection by younger, less apologetic gay activists. From that point on, Sagarin retreated from the homophile movement and when he graduated from New York University’s sociology program in 1966 (as Edward Sagarin), his dissertation was titled “Structure and Ideology in an Association of Deviants” — that association being the Mattachine Society. From that point on, Sagarin remained disengaged from the homophile movement, while his identity as Donald Webster Cory remained a closely guarded secret. But his identity became known in 1974, when Sagarin attended the American Sociological Society convention and spoke on a panel titled, “Theoretical Perspectives on Homosexuality” and criticized the direction of the gay rights movement. In response, Laud Humphreys, who founded the Sociologists’ Gay Caucus later that same year, outed Sagarin by calling him “Mr. Cory” several times as feigned “slips” of the tongue. Sagarin reportedly left the panel quietly in tears, and from that point on he withdrew from discussing homosexuality. He died of a heart attack on June 10, 1986.

Many have described Sagarin as a modern-day Jekyle and Hyde figure. As Donald Webster Cory, he remains a pioneer in the early gay rights movement.. The year in which The Homosexual In America appeared, American was in the grip of both the Red Scare and the Pink Scare, both stoked by Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy, and Cory’s treatise rang out as both a radical declaration for equality and a prescient observation of gay society. The Homosexual In America remains today one of the most important books in the gay rights canon. But as Edward Sagarin, he would become an intractable foe of the very movement he helped to inspire.

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).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Bachmann: Anti-Gay Bullying “Not A Federal Issue” — What About Her Own Congressional District

Bachmann in Costa Mesa: "Don't bother me. I'm running for President."

CBS News reports that while on the campaign trail in Costa Mesa, California, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann quickly dismissed anti-gay bullying as an important issue yesterday:

Alex Limon says he came to a Michele Bachmann rally here for one reason: To ask the Republican presidential candidate what she intends to do about school bullying in her district that reportedly targets gays.

He got to ask his question, but he didn’t get a lengthy answer.

“That’s not a federal issue,” Bachmann said, before moving on to the shake the hand of the next person waiting to speak to her.

Tammy Aaberg, mother of the Justin Aaberg who hanged himself after the Anoka-Hennepin, Minnesota school district failed to intervene against persistent anti-gay bullying, met for an hour Thursday with Bachmann’s congressional staffer to talk about problems with anti-gay bullying in Bachmann’s district. The staffer promised to take Aaberg’s concerns to the congresswoman, and Aaberg expressed hope that Bachmann would “come up with a positive response for the country.” I think we now have an answer for her.

Jay Leno Grills Michele Bachmann

I guess when GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann agreed to appear on Jey Leno’s program last night, she thought she was in for lighthearted chit-chat that is usually reserved for Hollywood starlets. But since she’s not a starlet but a serious candidate for President of the United States, Leno treated her like one. Bachmann didn’t fare too well under the “hard” questioning.

Richard Adams at The Guardian says the things didn’t look good for her from the start:

The omens weren’t good as Leno announced his line-up of guests, the audience giving big cheers for Jason Statham and Lady Antebellum – but not a single whoop could be heard for Bachmann when her name was mentioned.

Focus On the Family Continues to Downsize

A much more empty nest.

Focus On the Family announced yet another round of layoffs yesterday, eliminating 49 jobs and bringing its workforce down to 650. Focus has announced a steady stream of layoffs over the past several years, cutting its employment level by more than half from a 2002 peak of 1,400 people.

NARTH Cofounder Exports Ex-Gay Pseudoscience to Poland

But will it play in Poznan?

Even before NARTH founder Joseph Nicolosi’s arrival in Poznan to speak at an ex-gay conference organized by the Medical University of Poznan and the Foundation of Health, Education and Psycychotherapy, the planned event had already stoked controversy throughout Poland. Gay activists, alarmed that a major medical university was sponsoring the confab, protested that the American Psychological Association had found no basis (PDF: 816KB/138 pages) for the claims that ex-gay therapy an “cure” homosexuality, which in any case is not an illness. The ensuing negative publicity prompted the embarrassed university to withdraw its support and refuse to allow the conference to proceed on campus. But as of Thursday, when Nicolosi spoke at a news conference in a pub, the conference was still on for Friday and had been moved to a secret location.

Nicolosi used the press conference as an opportunity to spread his pseudoscience to the Polish public:

We don’t use medications, no medications involved. It’s just talking therapy. It’s usually about once a week, and it’s on the average about two years. Some more, some less. It depends on the individual. Much of this therapy is educational. But also we believe that the male homosexual should have a male therapist, and the lesbian should have a female therapist because it brings up issues of the parent that they felt rejected by.

Rzeczpospolitica also summarized Nicolosi’s theories on homoseuality in bullet form (via Google Translate):

– Homosexual behavior bring them temporary relief, in the long run, however, is not enough – to convince the psychologist. – The most common source of their family relationships are prone: over-controlling mother and distant father – explained. Stressing that the so-called. reparative therapy allows only those persons who have a deep inner conviction about the need for change. – A desire that can not be motivated by religion – he added.

According to the American number of patients who were homosexual eradicated by this therapy, reaches one-third.

Gazeta Wyborcza had more details (via Google Translate):

Our customers want to understand the source of his homosexuality. According to studies, the most common cause of homosexuality in men is incomplete family with a dominant mother, no father. Such a man, by seeking male erotic love, trying to find love and acceptance of a lost father. What we do is encourage customers, alluded to heterosexual relationships with men and avoid homosexual desires “- said Nicolosi.

The effectiveness of reparative therapy conducted by Nicolosiego is about 30 percent.

“1 / 3 people do not change, 1 / 3 notes the improvement in their well-being, while others change completely, which does not mean that the latter do not have a homosexual temptations, but I can deal with them” – Nicolosi reserved.

We discussed the “one-third/one-third/one-third” urban legend here. Conference organizers moved the conference to a secret location, claiming they were threatened by gay advocates. LGBT advocate Katarzyna Gajewska denied the charge, saying “I think it’s unfounded. We do not use violent argument.”

Metropolitan Archbishop of Poznan Stanislaw Gadecki wrote a letter to the conference organizers with words of support. “This important project has resulted in the possibility of more effective support for people who want to overcome homosexual tendencies,” he wrote. The Foundation of Health, Education and Psycychotherapy, which organized the conference, is headed by Bogna Bialecka, a psychologist and Catholic publicist

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, September 17

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Visibility at the Exodus Regional Ex-Gay Conference: Auburn, NH. As Exodus International continues their regional ex-gay conference at the First Assembly of God of Auburn, just outside of Manchester, New Hampshire today (see yesterday’s Daily Agenda for details), a group of LGBT advocates will be there this morning to greet arrivals. The visibility action begins at 8:00 a.m. and continues until 11:00.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Birmingham, AL; Cranbrook, BC; Detroit, MI; Edmunton, AB; Hamilton, ON; Hazelton, BC; Kamloops, BC; Kingston, ON; London, ON; Nelson, BC; Niagara, ON; North Bay, ON; Prince George, BC; Rochester, NY; Sacramento, CA; Saskatoon, SK; Sydney, NS; and Vancouver, BC.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Dallas, TX; eKurhuleni, South Africa; Hartford, CT; Honolulu, HI; Las Vegas, NV; Modesto, CA; Rehoboth Beach, DE; Roanoke, VA; Sapporo, Japan; Stratford, ON; and Valdosta, GA.

Also This Weekend: North Louisiana Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Shreveport, LA.

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).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Autopsy Shows DC Man Died of Natural Causes

Earlier this week, D.C. police held a news conference to discuss an alarming trend of shootings and other attacks against transgender people in the district, where there have been at least four reported shootings since July and more than a dozen attacks in the past year. During the press conference, police discussed the case of another individual who had been found dead on September 10 who they believed to be a transwoman, but who transgender advocates thought might have been a gay man in drag.

The individual has since been identified as Gaurav Gopalan, a Nepal native who worked as an aerospace engineer. He also worked in the theater community and lived with his partner, Bob Shaeffer. Today, it has been reported that Shaeffer has received an autopsy report which concluded that Gopalan suffered a massive hemorrhaging in the brain, probably the result of an embolism. Shaeffer says that police are keeping the file open and the investigation is continuing.

Shaeffer recalled when he first met Gopalan:

The two met at a theatre, during intermission, five years ago. “We were having a smoke break.  It was love at first sight.” The first time he came to my house for dinner, I served fifteen kinds of cheese,” Shaeffer recalled. “As he tried each one, he said ‘I love this one – it’s my favorite.’ He had the heart of a little boy.” They moved in together a few months later.

Mother of Suicide Victim Urges Bachmann To Stand Aganst Anti-Gay Bullying

Tammy Aaberg, mother of the Justin Aaberg who hanged himself after the Anoka-Hennepin, Minnesota school district failed to intervene against persistent anti-gay bullying, met for an hour yesterday with a staffer for GOP Presidential candidate and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. Aaberg and five other students and parents met with staffer Deb Steiskal, who reportedly took notes and asked questions and promised to relay their concerns to the congresswoman, along with more than 130,000 petition signatures calling on Bachman to condemn harassment of gay students in her district.

Bachmann was out of state on the presidential campaign trail. Steiskal promised to bring the groups concerns to the congresswoman, but Aaberg said she doubted Bachmann would take a stand. Aaberg emerged from the meeting saying she was “hopeful that Bachmann will either reach out or come up with a positive response for the country.”  The congresswoman’s press secretary later said that Bachmann would respond after reviewing Aaberg’s request and the petitions.

In the past two years, eight students in the Anoka-Hennepin school district have killed themselves. The school district is currently being sued over the school board’s failure to address anti-gay bullying. Bachmann represents the Anoka-Hennepin School District area in Congress.

NY Clerk May Be Sued for Imposing Religious Test for Marriage Licenses

As Rob Tisinai argued, that should be the headline over every article describing the decision of Rose Marie Belforti, the town clerk in Ledyard, New York, to impose her personal religious test on every person who wants to get married in her town. Last month, she sent a letter to the town board announcing her decision not to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples. On August 30, a lesbian couple applied for a license, but were turned away because a deputy who had been assigned the task of doing Belfori’s job for her wasn’t available.

People for the American Way sent a letter to Belforti and town supervisor Mark Jordan demanding that the board direct Belforti to do her job or resign. If they refuse to do that, the town and clerk could face a lawsuit compelling the town and clerk follow New York law:

“Elected officials don’t get to pick and choose what laws they follow,” said PFAW spokesman Drew Courtney. “A county clerk that doesn’t like hunting doesn’t get to not issue hunting licenses. People for the American Way will be the first ones to defend her freedom of conscience, but she signed up to do a job. If she doesn’t want to do that job, she should resign.”

Belforti is an elected official, and it appears the board does not has the authority to force her to resign. Clerks in two other New York counties have already stepped down.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, September 16

TODAY’S AGENDA (OURS):
AIDS Walks This Weekend: Cranbrook, BC; Detroit, MI; Edmunton, AB; Hamilton, ON; Hazelton, BC; Kamloops, BC; Kingston, ON; London, ON; Nelson, BC; Niagara, ON; North Bay, ON; Prince George, BC; Rochester, NY; Sacramento, CA; Saskatoon, SK; Sydney, NS; and Vancouver, BC.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Dallas, TX; eKurhuleni, South Africa; Hartford, CT; Honolulu, HI; Las Vegas, NV; Modesto, CA; Rehoboth Beach, DE; Roanoke, VA; Sapporo, Japan; Stratford, ON; and Valdosta, GA.

Also This Weekend: North Louisiana Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Shreveport, LA.

TODAY’S AGENDA (THEIRS):
Exodus International North Atlantic Regional Conference: Auburn, NH. Exodus International will conduct a major three-day conference beginning today and continuing through Sunday. Guest speaker will be Andrew Comiskey of Desert Stream Ministries. Last year, Comiskey posted an admission on his blog that a staffer at DSM had sexually abused at least one teenager under their care. But instead of publicly apologizing for the appalling transgression or expressing anguish over the teen’s abuse, he talked about his own anguish over having been interrogated by police and liability insurers, and he thanked his god that “God spared us” from the humiliation of their story appearing in the newspapers. In 2005, DSM moved to Kansas City where Comiskey announced he was partnering with Dominionist theologian Mike Bickle (organizer of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s crusade in Houston last month) and the International House of Prayer. DSM  reportedly uses “extreme methods that involve forms of exorcism (deliverance/healing prayer) and rely on teachings that believe that people become gay through demonic influences and the sins of ancestors.” Comiskey’s Desert Stream Ministries is one of the leading ex-gay ministries affiliated with Exodus International.The fun in New Hampshire begins this evening at 7:00 p.m. at the First Assembly of God in the Manchester suburb of Auburn. A group of LGBT advocates will be there Saturday morning to greet arrivals.

Eagle Forum Council: Arlington, VA. Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum will gather for their 40th annual Eagle Council beginning this today with citizen lobbying training and a round of visits with congressional staff. The serious conference begins on Saturday at 9:00, with a full day of speakers, including Phyllis’s gay son, John Schlafly, who will give a talk titled, “We Really Need Laws About Marriage?”, which is intended to teach “how to answer the libertarian and gay arguments about marriage.” What a sad spectacle that will be.

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).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Uganda LGBT Advocate Receives Human Rights Award

Frank Mugisha

Frank Mugisha, Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), has been chosen to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. From the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights:

“Frank Mugisha’s unbending advocacy for gay rights in Uganda in the face of deep-rooted homophobia is a testament to the indomitability of the human spirit,” said RFK Human Rights Award Judge Dean Makau Mutua, Professor of Law and Dean of the University at Buffalo Law School (SUNY).

…”Frank Mugisha has fought courageously in support of the rights of sexual minorities in Uganda, despite death threats and even exile,” said Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. “He has become a leading advocate for sexual minorities in a country where they are persecuted, jailed, and their lives destroyed. We are proud at the RFK Center to begin our partnership with Mr. Mugisha to advance his invaluable work within this movement.”

…”For me, it is about standing out and speaking in an environment where you are not sure if you will survive the next day; it is this fear that makes me strong, to work hard and fight on to see a better life for LGBTI persons in Uganda,” said Mr. Mugisha. “The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award gives me courage and hope that my work, which may not be accepted and recognized in my own country, is making a change with this international visibility.”

Mugisha has been an LGBT advocate since 2004, when he began advocating for LGBT and HIV/AIDS awareness as a college student. He started a support group, Icebreakers, to help LGBT people who were struggling through the issues of coming out. He had to flee the country when police targeted him for arrest, but he has since returned to continue his advocacy work in the face of death threats and governmental efforts to impose the death penalty on gay people.

The irony of opposing HPV vaccination

As we discussed earlier today, some conservative Christians find Rick Perry, a Southern Baptist politician, an unacceptable choice for president because he supported the vaccination of young Texas women to prevent their possible future infection with the human papillomavirus. Firmly believing that the wages of sin is death – and should damn well stay that way – they oppose any efforts to inoculate for a virus that is spread primarily through sexual behavior.

I believe that much of this opposition is based in a fear that their literalist faith might be losing relevancy. Should a moral code no longer provide an observable service – such as protection from disease and unhappiness – then it becomes an arbitrary set of rules imposed by a capricious deity at his whim. So it is important to them that HPV – and it’s correlation with cancer – remain associated with sinners.

You can sense the desperation in this comment on the American Family Association’s website from Sally in Pennsylvania:

Sorry… Christian or not, I cannot support any candidate who signed an executive order to mandate a series of painful vaccinations for 12 year old girls – FOR AN STD that’s preventable by BEHAVIOR! On top of that, there was no provision to allow parents to opt their child out until enough pressure was put on him and he gave in. That’s a pretty clear indication as to where he stands on the issue of parental authority versus state control on the raising of children. No thanks.

But what Sally hasn’t realized is that she may her way; HPV may well remain associated with a group.

Should sufficient numbers of people refuse vaccination, the virus will continue to have a distinct pool in which to replicate and a strong correlation will become detectable. Soon, should Sally’s thinking prevail, HPV and the correlating cervical cancer rates will come to be associated with conservative Christianity.

The HPV Vaccine Debate Today and Why Preventing Syphilis Was “Immoral” Then

On Monday’s Tea Party/CNN debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was blasted for signing an executive order requiring girls in Texas schools to be vaccinated for HPV, a virus which is the leading cause of cervical cancer in women (and, incidentally, the leading cause of anal cancer in men). The order included a parental op-out, but that did not mollify fellow conservatives who blasted him for trying to wipe out a sometimes sexually-transmitted cause of a horrible, painful death.

The argument is as old as the hills. Syphilis once played a similar role in public discourse at the turn of the last century. Untreated, syphilis leads to a slow breakdown of the body and nervous system that ultimately resulted in a premature dementia and death for its victims. And at the turn of the last century, it was not very curable — early cures were about as painful, time-consuming and deadly as the disease itself. In 1907, Dr. Elie Metchnikoff, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, published what was later titled in English, The Prolongation of Life, in which he discussed a wide range of medical and moral issues facing society, including the debate about the morality of curing syphilis:

A large number of people, amongst them even men of science, regard as immoral any attempt to prevent to spread of venereal diseases. Recently, in connection with the investigations in the action mercurial ointment as a means of preventing syphilis, members of the Faculty of Medicine in France made a public protest, declaring that it would be “immoral to let people think that they could indulge in sexual vice without danger,” and that it was “wrong to give the public a means of protection in debauch.” None the less, other men of science, equally serious, were convinced that they were performing an absolutely moral work in attempting to find a prophylactic against syphilis which would preserve many people, including children and other innocent persons who, if no preventive measures existed, would suffer from the terrible disease.

…In the question of the prevention of syphilis, the moral problem is still more easy to settle. … The certainty of safety from this disease might render extra-conjugal relations more frequent, but if we compare the evil which might come from that with the immense benefit gained in preventing so many innocent persons from becoming diseased, it is easy to see which side the scale dips. The indignation of those who protest against the discovery of preventive measures can never either arrest the zeal of the investigators or hinder the use of the measures. This example again shows that reasoning is necessary in the solution of most moral questions. (Pages 302 and 304, American 1910 edition.)

Notice the debate taking place here, that it is a moral stand to withhold preventative treatment for a sexually transmitted disease, regardless of the consequences to those who do not undertake sexual activity of their own volition or who can acquire the disease non-sexually. HPV — and AIDS for that matter — also fit all of those characteristics. Little girls and women can acquire HPV through rape or molestation, and later develop cervical cancer. HPV, like syphilis and HIV, can also be transmitted prenatally from the mother. There are many routes of transmission, including casual skin contact, in addition to sexual transmission for HPV. But it’s that last aspect — remember how everyone on the debate panel, starting with moderator Wolf Blitzer, repeatedly called HPV a sexually transmitted disease? — which drove the debate on the morality of Rick Perry’s decision. There are similar mandates for vaccinations against measles, whooping cough and polio, but nobody was concerned about those mandates.

More than a hundred years ago, Dr. Metchnikoff found that “reasoning is necessary in the solution of most moral questions,” and that when one applies reasoning, the solution becomes obvious. But reasoning is non-existent among today’s GOP frontrunners. Dan Savage, like the good Dr. Metchnikoff more than 100 years before him, connects the dots:

Religious conservatives loved the HPV virus because it killed women. Here was a potentially fatal STI that condoms couldn’t protect you from. Abstinence educators pointed to HPV and jumped up and down—they loved to overstate HPV’s seriousness and its deadliness—in their efforts to scare kids into saving themselves for marriage. And they fought the introduction of the HPV vaccine tooth-and-nail because vaccinating women against HPV would “undermine” the abstinence message. Given a choice between your wife, daughter, sister, or mom dying of cervical cancer or no longer being to scream “HPV IS GOING TO KILL YOU!” at classrooms full of terrified teenagers, socially conservative abstinence “educators” preferred the former.

The state of scientific knowledge advances, but things never change for those of the earth-is-flat-and-God-is-on-his-throne mentality. If the day should ever come that the medical establishment is ready to role out a safe and effective vaccine against HIV, what you see today hints at the massive convulsion that will take place. If history is any guide (and why shouldn’t it be?) the apoplectic tantrums and scaremongering on the right will be epic, and you can guarantee that they will throw every roadblock imaginable to prevent its wide scale deployment.