Box Turtle Bulletin

Police Say Stuart Walker “Was Victim of Sex Attack”

More details are emerging of last weekend’s murder of a gay Scottish man who was found beaten and burned outside of Cumnock in Ayrshire last weekend. Initial reports said that Stuart Walker’s body was found tied to a lamp post, but police say that those reports were incorrect. They do however say that the 28-year-old was the victim of a “violent and sustained” attack and that he may have been sexually assaulted. There are now reports that his charred body was partially undressed when it was found. According to the Daily Mail:

At a press conference at Kilmarnock police office, (Divisional Commander John Thomson) confirmed Mr Walker – a former assistant manager at the Royal Hotel in Cumnock – had almost certainly known those who killed him at Caponacre industrial estate.

Mr Thomson said: ‘I don’t think it was a random attack by someone who will strike again. I suspect Stuart may have known this individual or met this individual shortly before his death.’

Mr Thomson, who described the murder as a ‘vicious attack’, said there was a  ‘possibility of a sexual assault’.

The Telegraph says that Walker suffered “horrific” injuries and may have been burned alive. Police have told the local Cumnock Chronicle that they are following a “‘significant’ line of inquiry” and believe that Walker may have known his killers. The Daily Record says that “names of suspects already understood to have been flagged up to detectives.” Police are not yet ruling in or out the possibility that the murder was a hate crime.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, October 25

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Claude Cahun: 1894. She was born Lucy Schwob in Nantes, France, but in 1919 she chose the gender-ambiguous name (in French) of Claude Cahun in keeping with her photographic self-portraits that she began making at the age of sixteen. Her self-portraits in different guises expressed a range of sexual self-expression, from the close-cropped hair and stubbled chin in her masculine appearance to the exaggerated femininity in china-doll perfection, to a range of androgyny inbetween. When surrealism became fashionable, she fit right in, declaring that she had “always been a surrealiste.”

In 1937, she and her stepsister/partner, Suzanne Malherbe moved to the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel, which would see Nazi occupation during the war. Cahun became active in the resistance by writing and distributing anti-German leaflets. She and Malherbe would sometimes dress up and attend German military events in Jersey, and sneak leaflets into soldiers’ pockets. They were arrested in 1944 and sentenced to death, but the sentences were never carried out. Much of Cahun’s photographic work, including plates and negatives, were destroyed with the army raided her home. While Cahun and Malherbe both survived the war, Cahun’s health had deteriorated due to her detention and she died in 1954.

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Gay Senior Center To Open in New York City

Several studies have shown that LGBT seniors typically look to their final years with tremendous dread. Not only do they have to contend with declining health and loss of independence, but those who require nursing home care and special services find that, after perhaps decades of being out and proud LGBT people, they feel they have to go back into the closet on entering a long term care facility. Last week, the city of New York announced the opening of eight special senior centers catering to specific needs of seniors, including one dedicated to the needs of LGBT seniors. The new center, to open in Chelsea and serve all five boroughs, is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.

Update: Silly New Yorkers, as commenter Ron points out, “The Golden Rainbow Center in Palm Springs has been around for years.” First in the nation, first in New York. What’s the difference, right?

Cain Flips, Now Supports Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

Only six days separate two opposite positions staked by Godfather Pizza magnate and GOP presidential aspirant Herman Cain on same-sex marriage. On Sunday, October 16, Cain appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press and said that he “wouldn’t seek” (his emphasis) a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. But six days later, while appearing on Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network’s The Brody File, Cain flipped his stance before the evangelical audience and said that he now supports a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage:

(On October 16, Meet The Press)

David Gregory: A couple more. Same-sex marriage: would you seek a Constitutional band on same-sex marriage?

Herman Cain: I wouldn’t seek a constitutional ban for same-sex marriage, but I am pro-traditional marriage.”

Gregory: But you would let the states make up their own mind as they do now?

Cain: They would make up their own minds, yes.

— — —

(On October 22, The Brody File)

David Brody: Just so I understand, you’re for a constitutional marriage amendment as well?

Cain: Marriage should be protected level also. I used to believe that it could be just handled by the states, but there’s a movement going on to basically take the teeth out of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and that could cause an unraveling. So we do need some protection at the federal level because of that. And so, yes, I would support legislation that would say that it’s between a man and a woman.”

Brody: Because there is a concern that the defense of marriage act could be overturned?

Cain: It could be overturned because there are already attempts by some states and some groups to weaken the Defense of Marriage Act.

Denmark To Debate Same-Sex Marriage

Denmark, which became the first country in the world to recognize same-sex unions when it instituted Registered Partnerships in 1989, will consider a bill to allow couples to hold same-sex weddings in the Church of Denmark and to be fully married under Danish law. The bill is expected to be introduced in the Folketing, Denmark’s parliament, after the New Year. The Copenhagen Post reports that some parish priests in the tax-supported state church are opposed to the measure:

Some local priests, like Henrik Højlund, who is the parish priest for Løsning and Korning and chairman for the Evangelical Lutheran Network (ELN), however, disagreed with the minister.

“Lots of people are mistaken in thinking that homosexual weddings are just the next step after female priests. But it is much more consequential and beyond the boundaries for normal Christianity,” Højlund told Jyllands-Posten.

“The Church of Denmark is being secularised right up to the alter in a desperate and mistaken attempt to meet modern people halfway,” he said, adding that same-sex marriage would be “fatal for the church”.

Polls show that approximately 69% of Danes support same-sex marriage in the church. The Church of Denmark receives about 5.9 billion kroner (US$1.1 billion) in tax support from registered members, plus an additional 130 kroner (US$24) from every citizen regardless of religious affiliation or other beliefs. Approximately 60% of Danes are registered members of the church.

Gay Man’s Body Found Beaten, Tied To Lamppost And Burned in Scotland

Friends and family grieve at the scene of the crime.

A small town in Scotland is mourning the brutal murder of a “popular and well-known” man, whose burned body was found on the side of a road at an industrial park outside of Cumnock in Syrshire. Stuart Walker, 28, was found beaten, burned, and tied to a light pole early on Saturday morning after he failed to show up for his grandmother’s 80th birthday.

Detectives say that they have not ruled out Walker’s sexuality as a factor in his murder. The Scottish Sun quotes “a police insider” as saying, “Stuart was a gay man and this will be one of the things that is looked at, but by no means the only thing.” The Guardian says that police are refusing to speculate on motive or possible suspects:

Detective Inspector John Hog said Walker was last seen alive about two hours before he was killed.

He said: “Stuart had been out with friends in the Cumnock area earlier during the night and was last seen alive by a family friend near to the fire station in Glaisnock Street around 2.30am on Saturday morning – nearly two-and-a-half hours before he was found.

“It is imperative that we find out where he was between 2.30am and 4.50am, who he was with and why this happened to him.

“From our inquiries so far, we understand that there may have been a number of house parties in the nearby Netherthird housing estate in the early hours of the morning.

“At this time we do not know if these parties are linked to our investigation or not, so, again, any information on that is important.”

Police are reviewing closed circuit security video tapes and are carrying out door-to-door investigations in the area to try to piece together Walker’s last hours. A Facebook page has been set up in Walker’s memory.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, October 24

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Rally for Homeless LGBT Youth: New York, NY. As LGBT youth come out at younger ages, thousands face homophobia from their families. Many are rejected by their families and driven from their homes. In New York City, an LGBT teen is eight times more likely to experience homelessness than is a straight teen. LGBT youths suffering homelessness on the streets face terrible risk of HIV infection, physical and sexual assault, and suicide. As many as 4,000 youth are homeless every night, but New York only provides funding for 200 beds. The state of New York has slashed finding for homeless youth shelters in half, and NYC’s Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest homeless shelter for LGBT youth, has had a wait list of over 100 per night. The center will hold a rally at New York’s Union Square, beginning at 6:00 p.m., to call for increased funding for LGBT homeless youth. The rally is planned by representatives from the Ali Forney Center, the Bronx Community Pride Center, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, Green Chimneys NYC, the Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn, and Queer Rising.

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The Daily Agenda for Sunday, October 23

TODAY’S AGENDA:

Pride Celebrations Today: Benidorm Spain and Minsk,  Belarus (Banned!).

Also Today: Out In Africa Film Festival, Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa and Glasgay!, Glasgow, UK.

Le Journal de Montreal's front page coverage of the Truxx and Le Mystique raids (click to enlarge)

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Demonstrations Against Montreal Police Raids: 1977. About two thousand of Montreal’s gay community took to the streets and jammed downtown Ste. Catherine Street very early on Sunday morning shouting “fascist dogs” and “gestapo” at motorcycle police who were called to clear the area. The focus of the anger was the brutal “morality squad” raids early Saturday morning at Truxx and Le Mystique, two gay bars. Police barged in wielding machine guns and bullet-proof vests as they arrested 144 men for being in a “bawdy house” or for “gross indecency” — common charges for anyone who was thought to be gay. Those raids capped two years of nearly constant police harassment and raids which had begun as a campaign to “clean up” the city in preparation for the 1976 Olympics. But with this latest raid, the gay community fought back in what was later dubbed, “Quebec’s Stonewall.” Also different this time, gays and lesbians had the news media’s support. By the end of the year, the Parti Québéois adopted Bill 88 which ensured that sexual orientation would be covered under the province’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms which prohibited all forms of discrimination. However, the change failed to have much of an appreciable affect, and  police raids would continue until Montreal’s “other” Stonewall rebellion in 1990 following a riotous raid of a loft party.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Jean Acker: 1893. She appeared in several silent films in the 1910s and 1920s, thanks, in part, to a relationship she struck up with another silent film actress, Alla Nazimova, who introduced Acker to a group of lesbian and bisexual actresses known as the “sewing circle.” Acker’s greatest claim to fame, however, is in her real-life role as Mrs. Rudolph Valentino. They married in 1919 after a two month courtship, but the marriage was reportedly never consummated (it’s said that she locked him out of the hotel bedroom on their wedding night). They filed for divorce a few years later. In 1923, Acker met former Ziegfeld Follies girl Chloe Carter, and they remained together for the rest of their lives. Acker died in 1978 of natural causes and was buried next to Carter.

Lilyan Tashman: 1896. The actress got her start in vaudeville and Broadway before moving to Hollywood to become a well-known film star. Most of her roles were that of a “bitchy” other woman or as a sharp, clever villainess. She married a vaudevillian performer  in 1914, but they divorced in 1921. In 1925, she married openly gay actor Edmund Lowe, and they had what Hollywood reporters described, perhaps with a bit of snark, as an “ideal marriage.” The couple entertained lavishly at their home, where their weekly parties reportedly becoming “full-blown orgies.” One reporter described her as “the most gleaming, glittering, moderne, hard-surfaced, and distingué woman in all of Hollywood.” She died young, at the age of 37, of cancer shortly after filming her final film in New York in 1934.

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The Daily Agenda for Saturday, October 22

TODAY’S AGENDA:

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Benidorm Spain and Minsk,  Belarus (Banned!).

Also This Weekend: Out In Africa Film Festival, Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa and Glasgay!, Glasgow, UK.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Surgeon General Urges Frank Sex Ed to Combat AIDS: 1986. While the Reagan White House would become widely remembered for its reticence to discuss the AIDS epidemic, the administration’s point man on health matters, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had no qualms about addressing the topic head on. On October 22, 1986, Dr. Koop issued what The New York Times called “an unusually explicit report to the nation” calling on schools and parents to have “frank, open discussions” with very young children and teens about AIDS.

Koop wrote in the report, “Many people, especially our youth, are not receiving information that is vital to their future health and well-being because of our reticence in dealing with the subjects of sex, sexual practices and homosexuality. ‘This silence must end. We can no longer afford to sidestep frank, open discussions about sexual practices — homosexual and heterosexual. Education about AIDS should start at an early age so that children can grow up knowing the behaviors to avoid to protect themselves from exposure to the AIDS virus.” His report also addressed several myths that were floating around about AIDS, stressing that HIV was not spread by common everyday contact like shaking hands, hugging, kissing, coughing or sneezing, nor is it spread from contact with toilet seats, food prepared by people with AIDS, or eating utensils.

This report marked the end of a long and puzzling period of silence about the AIDS epidemic, both from the administration and from Koop himself. He later wrote in Koop: The Memoirs of America’s Family Doctor that in 1983, Assistant Secretary of Health Ed Brandt had excluded him from the Executive Task Force on AIDS, an act which was the start of a long series of battles he had with others in the administration who effectively muzzled him from speaking on the topic. He was even forbidden from talking to Congressional representatives about it. That exclusion finally ended in the summer of 1985, after Brandt had left and Koop was able to join the task force and become the administration’s public spokesperson on AIDS. In February 1986, Reagan asked him to write a report on AIDS, and Koop worked feverishly not only to complete the report, but to get it past some in the administration who opposed any discussion on AIDS.  After Koop’s press conference on October 22, some in the White House made a last ditch attempt to modify or “bottle up the report,” as  he put it, but “eventually the presses rolled, the mail trucks ran, and the report went out.”

Update: Here is The New York Times’s obituary for Dr. Brandt, which may provide a different perspective into his work.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Lord Alfred Douglas: 1870. Nicknamed “Bosie,” Douglas was best known as the lover of Oscar Wilde. Their affair began at around 1891 even though Wilde was already married and had two sons. Friends described Douglas as spoiled, reckless and extravagant, perhaps in a bid to emulate Wilde’s own flamboyance.  Douglas’s father, The Marquess of Queensberry, soon became suspicious of the relationship between his son and Wilde, and tried to disown him. Douglas refused, and tensions escalated. When Queensberry publicly insulted Wilde by leaving a visiting card at a club on which he had written, “For Oscar Wilde posing as a sodomite,” Wilde responded by suing Queensberry for libel. When Queensberry was declared not guilty, attention then turned to Wilde himself, who was arrested and tried for sodomy and “gross indecency” based on evidence presented at Queensberry’s trial. Wiled was convicted in 895 and sentenced to two years of hard labor. Douglas was forced into exile in Europe.

While Wilde was in prison, he wrote his famous letter, De Profundis, to Douglas, describing in detail what he felt about him, and making clear in no uncertain terms that the two men were lovers. He was never allowed to send it while in prison, although he may have sent a copy after his release. After Wilde’s death, portions of De Profundis was published in 1912, which led Douglas to denounce Wilde as “the greatest force for evil that has appeared in Europe during the last three hundred and fifty years.” He also began a “litigious and libelous career,” suing and being sued for criminal libel over the next decade. In 1923, he was convicted of libeling Winston Churchill, saying Churchill was part of a Jewish conspiracy to kill the British Secretary of State for War, for which Douglas spent six months in prison. Apparently that experience made him more sympathetic to Wilde’s experience, and his attitude softened. He died in 1945 at the age of 74.

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Why is Amtrak Blocking LGBT News Sites?

Click to enlarge.

And why is Seattle Gay News considered a porn site?

LaBarbera calls (possible) vandalism a “hate crime”

Peter LaBarbera (who calls himself “Americans for Truth About Homosexuality”) is delighted about the instance of (possible) vandalism experienced by Christian Liberty Academy. He hasn’t had this much attention in years.

Again today the American Family Association’s newsletter gave him an opportunity to get his picture in front of potential donors. And, Pete never loses an opportunity to play a victim of the insidious homosexual agenda (send money). He has been a victim of a hate crime, you see.

Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) founder Peter LaBarbera tells OneNewsNow police are investigating the incident on the basis of vandalism, even though he sees it as a hate crime. Though he is no fan of hate crime laws, LaBarbera wonders if some victims of hate are more important than others.

“It seems that if this were a crime against homosexuals, there would be immediate calls, that this would be prosecuted as a hate crime,” he suggests. “But when Christians are the victims of hate, there’s not much talk about that.”

A hate crime is one that identifies its victims not based on anything that they have personally done, but rather solely because of their identity within a group. It is a crime against a group, intended to intimidate that group, and only incidentally about the individual.

This appears to be the opposite. This is a crime (if it is indeed a crime) directed specifically towards individuals, Scott Lively and Peter LaBarbera. One could even say that the manifesto is devoted to Lively with a few mentions of LaBarbera and is extremely personal in its focus.

So unless Scott Lively is his own social demographic, no hate crime was committed.

Tyler Clementi’s Makeout Partner To Be Involuntarily Outed

Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman has ruled that counsel for Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers student accused of invading the privacy of Tyler Clementi by broadcasting a tryst between Clementi and an unnamed male student, has a right to know the name of that male student. The student, known only as M.B., was seen kissing Clementi in Clementi’s dorm room when Ravi broadcast the private moment over the internet via a web cam. The invasion of that privacy precipitated Clementi’s suicide. Now “M.B.,” who is described as living in “continuous and overwhelming” fear that his identity will become public, will also see his privacy further invaded:

Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman had delayed a September order to release the name of Clementi’s companion, known only as M.B. in court papers, in order to give M.B. a chance to make a last-minute plea for anonymity. But M.B.’s personal, written request to keep his identity secret and his attorney’s legal arguments didn’t convince Berman to reverse his earlier ruling.

He ordered prosecutors to turn over M.B.’s identity to Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers student facing up to 10 years in prison for allegedly using a webcam to spy on the unnamed man and Clementi in his dorm room.

“I have to balance M.B.’s right to privacy and Mr. Ravi’s right to a defense,” Berman said. “I thought I did that on Sept. 9 and I feel I did the right thing … The order continues and stands.”

Neither Clementi nor “M.B.” put themselves into an illegal situation. They both engaged in a private moment, and they both had the right to expect that moment to remain private. What’s more, it appears that there may be repurcussions that go far beyond discovering who kissed Clementi:

Before he died, Clementi told friends his companion, M.B., was in his 20s and not comfortable with others knowing he is gay. [Emphasis mine]

The concern now is that an innocent man who is not openly gay may find his name leaked to the press or, worse, called by the defense team to the stand to testify.

Marriage Opponents Lose Pursuit Of Special Rights

It’s been a bad week for the National Organization for Marriage. Two separate courts this week ruled against NOM’s attempt to enshrine a special right to flout laws intended to lend transparency to the electoral process. The first loss came on Monday when Federal Judge Benjamin Settle ruled in Doe v Reed (PDF: 112KB/34 pages) that the state of Washington must disclose the names of citizens who signed the petition putting Referendum 71 on the ballot. Protect Marriage Washington, a NOM affiliate, sued to block the release in a bid to stake a special exemption to Washington’s campaign disclosure laws, claiming that signatories would be subject to threats and harassments. Judge Settle rejected that claim:

While Plaintiffs have not shown serious and widespread threats, harassment, or reprisals against the signers of R-71, or even that such activity would be reasonably likely to occur upon the publication of their names and contact information, they have developed substantial evidence that the public advocacy of traditional marriage as the exclusive definition of marriage, or the expansion of rights for same sex partners, has engendered hostility in this state, and risen to violence elsewhere, against some who have engaged in that advocacy. This should concern every citizen and deserves the full attention of law enforcement when the line gets crossed and an advocate becomes the victim of a crime or is subject to a genuine threat of violence. The right of individuals to speak openly and associate with others who share common views without justified fear of harm is at the very foundation of preserving a free and open society.

The facts before the Court in this case, however, do not rise to the level of demonstrating that a reasonable probability of threats, harassment, or reprisals exists as to the signers of R-71, now nearly two years after R-71 was submitted to the voters in Washington State.

That was on Monday. To bookend the week perfectly, Federal Judge Morrison England, Jr., today issued a bench ruling denying ProtectMarriage.com and NOM’s quest for a special right to withhold the release of campaign finance records related to the passage of Propositon 8 three years ago. Judge England said that the groups failed to prove that they should be exempt from campaign finance laws which are designed to protect the public during expensive initiative campaigns.

Judge England is expected to issue a written ruling later.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, October 21

Frank Kameny with an original picket from 1965

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Smithsonian Opens Special Memorial Display for Frank Kameny: Washington, D.C. In honor of Frank Kameny’s lifelong work toward securing equal rights for LGBT Americans, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History will open a special memorial display today in his honor. The display at the Artifact Walls, Second Floor Center, Mall Entrance, will include a selection of the protest signs that Kameny donated to the Smithsonian in 2006. Three of the signs are now on display in Flag Hall, just off the entrance from the National Mall. Another picket sign is currently on view in “The American Presidency” exhibition. The special display at the Artifacts Walls will remain through January 16, 2012.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Benidorm Spain and Minsk,  Belarus (Banned!).

Also This Weekend: Out In Africa Film Festival, Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa and Glasgay!, Glasgow, UK.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
The Bishop of Clogher Defrocked for “Sodomitical Practices”: 1822. On July 19, 1822, Bishop Percy Jocelyn, the Anglican Bishop of Clogher in the Church of Ireland was caught in, shall we say, a most compromising position with a Grenadier Guardsman, John Moverly, at the White House Pub’s back room (apparently, they had ’em even then) in Westminster. They were caught by the pub’s proprietor, and dragged through the streets by a mob, mostly naked as they were found, to a nearby jail. Bishop Clogher was granted bail a few days later, but the soldier remained in jail:

Lord Sefton when to see the soldier in prison. He says he is a fine soldierlike man and has no the air which these wretches usually have. The Bishop took no precautions, and it was next to impossible he should not have been caught. He made a desperate resistance when taken away, and if his breeches had not been down they think he would have got away. It seems that the soldier will be proceeded against with the greatest vigour, and the Magistrate is much blamed for having taken such small bail as that which he required. The Duke will not spare the Soldier. Lord Lauderdale said the other day that the greatest dissatisfaction would pervade the public mind at the escape of the Bishop and the punishment of the Soldier, and the people, who cannot discriminate, or enter into nice points of the law, will only see in such apparent injustice a disposition to shield the offender in the higher classes of society from the consequences of his crime, while the law is allowed to take its course with the more humble culprit.

Eventually, the soldier was released on bail as well. Both fled the city and were never seen again (although the Bishop was reportedly later seen in Paris as though nothing had happened). The Bishop’s ecclesiastical trial was set for October 21, and it went on despite his absence. According to the court record:

…It [the evidence] also proved the fatal and depraved purposes for which he associated himself with a private soldier, wholly beneath him in rank and station, as the unworthy and vicious partner of his depravity and guilt. The place chosen by him for that base purpose was also unfitted to him as a prelate of the church, the man of high rank and station; it was a common alehouse, situate in St. Alban’s-place in the city of Westminster. In his career of vice, he was very fortunately stopped, before he had perpetrated the last foul act, or crime, which he himself designed; and by which, if committed, his life would have been forfeited to the offended law of the country. Being found by the watchman and others, in a situation disgraceful and degrading to him, he was made a prisoner, in order to be removed to the watch-house of the district.

The bishop wasn’t actually convicted of the capital offense of sodomy itself because English law required that the act be, err, fully consummated, a standard of proof that was difficult to reach. Hence the observation that he was caught before perpetrating “the last foul act, or crime” of the, um, emission of seed. But the evidence was strong enough to strip the bishop of his office for “the crimes of immorality, incontinence, Sodomitical practices, habits, and propensities, and neglect of his spiritual, judicial, and ministerial duties.”

It’s almost impossible for a scandal to unravel worse than this one. First, the fact that a Bishop was caught in flagrante delicto was itself quite shocking. That was compounded by the perception that he had been given preferential treatment with his early release with very low bail. And if all that wasn’t enough, the Bishop was a well-known member of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. All of this hypocrisy was too much for Londoners to bear, and for many weeks afterward it was unsafe for members of the clergy to be seen on the streets. But it all made great material for satirists:

The Devil to prove the Church was a farce
Went out to fish for a Bugger.
He baited his hook with a Frenchman’s arse,^*
And pulled up the Bishop of Clogher.

^*Moverly was from a French family.

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Donations Sought For Frank Kameny’s Funeral

Frank Kameny, 1925-2011.

Pioneering LGBT rights advocate Frank Kameny, who died last week, spent the last decade of his life living a hand-to-mouth existence financially. His firing from the Army Map Service in 1957 was the start of a long career dedicated to fighting for equality for LGBT Americans, but being a self-supporting gay rights advocate does not come with a retirement plan. If he hadn’t been fired in 1957, of course, he would have had a decent goverment pension. Instead, like many LGBT seniors, he relied on a number of Washington, D.C. social services, principally HOBS (Healping our Brothers and Sisters). HOBS has established a funeral fund to cover expesnes for Frank’s cremation and memorial. Tax deductible contributions can be made at helpingourbrothersandsisters.com or by mail to HOBS, P.O. Box 53477, Washington, D.C. 20009.