Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyOctober 13th, 2011
Frank Kameny with an original picket from 1965
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Rainbow History Project Commemoration of Frank Kameny: Washington, D.C. The Rainbow History Project had already planned a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Frank Kameny’s founding of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Mattachine Society. The plans were set, the rooms reserved, and Frank was to appear as featured guest. But with his passing on Tuesday, the planned anniversary celebration will now become a memorial in his honor. It will take place tonight beginning at 7:00 p.m. at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue NW . You can find more information here.
OutServe Summit 2011: Las Vegas, NV. The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy meant, of course, that gays in the military could not serve openly. It also meant that OutServe, a group set up by and for LGBT servicemembers, was forced to operate entirely in the shadows. Because of DADT, all of their activities geared toward mutual support and professional networking had to be done in secret. Even the organization’s co-founder, Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, had to work under the pseudonym “J.D. Smith.” But all of that changed with DADT’s repeal, and this weekend OutServe will host its first publicly announced event. Its first annual OutServe Armed Forces Leadership Summit takes place beginning today in Las Vegas’s New York-New York Hotel and Casino, and it will continue through Sunday.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Bakersfield, CA; Jacksonville, FL; Memphis, TN; Minsk, Belarus; Oklahoma, OK (Black Pride) and Tucson, AZ.
Also This Weekend: Floatilla, Hong Kong and Fort Lauderdale Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Protest at U.S. Supreme Court: 1987. Somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people had gathered for the second March on Washington that weekend, making it the largest gay-rights demonstration in U.S. history. That demonstration included the first public viewing of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which covered the equivalent of two city blocks on the National Mall. In the final act of the weekend’s demonstrations on Sunday, two thousand people protested in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to denounce the court’s discussion to uphold sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick. About six hundred were arrested as they tried to enter the Supreme Court building in waves, between 9:30 a.m. and about 2:00 p.m. Among those arrested was Michael Hardwick, whose arrest had led to the Supreme Court case. Ignoring advice from health experts, police wore surgical gloves as they made the arrests, which led to further outrage from the crowd. It would be the largest mass arrest in the post-Vietnam era.
France Approves Civil Partnerships: 1999. After spending two years debating one of the most bitterly-contested pieces of legislation in years, France’s National Assembly passed the Civil Solidarity Pact by a vote of 315-249. The bill allowed unmarried couples to register their union to access some of the tax, legal and social welfare benefits of marriage. The bill however explicitly excluded adoption rights, and it was broadened to include any pair of adults living in the same household — including brothers and sisters or an elderly parent and a child — in an attempt to placate the opposition. Today, the majority of couples taking advantage of the Solidarity Pact are heterosexual couples.
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