Box Turtle Bulletin

The Kim is dead…

The Kim is dead, long live the Kim

News from North Korea confirms that Kim Jong-Il, the Supreme Leader of North Korea has died. Kim succeeded to the throne supreme leadership of the Workers Party in 1994 upon the death of his father Kim Il-sung. Kim named his son, Kim Jong Eun, as his heir to the dictatorship but it remains to be seen if Jong Eun will achieve the king-god status of his father and grandfather.

Kim Jong Eun was appointed heir over his older half-brothers Kim Jong-nam, who caused an international scandal by trying to sneak into Japan to go to Tokyo Disneyland, and Kim Jong-chul, who was deemed to be too feminine.

Uganda’s President on Gays: “First Talk About Railroads”

(At 0:45) The crucial elements that we need in this region, apart from peace and democracy, is infrastructure development. … This is the policy you should concentrate on. Yes, I know homosexuals are important [laughter and scattered applause], but homosexuals also need electricity. [laughter] So before anybody gives me a lecture about homosexuals and their rights, please first talk about the railroads.

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni lashed out at international donors at the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region. (African Great Lakes refers generally to the areas of D.R . Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania.) His remarks, for whatever reason, don’t seem to have gotten much play in the major Uganda media online. The above report is from Kenya’s NTV, and here is the take from Kenya’ The Nation. Warren Throckmorton reacted:

Hard to use all of those modern conveniences if you are in jail, Yoweri. Although maybe Museveni is right. If the [Anti-Homosexuality Bill] passes, gays will need electricity in jails, and roads and railways to take them there.

Warren’s right to poke at the myopia with which African leaders are reacting to recent policy statements by the U.S. and U.K. which either implicitly or explicitly link foreign aid to how nations treat LGBT populations. But there is a legitimate concern, shared by LGBT advocates on the ground, over a backlash should the idea that human rights abuses against LGBT people are more important than human rights abuses generally take hold and become part of popular wisdom. Remember, Museveni has held power for 25 years — an achievement itself which is hardly the mark of a democratic leader — and he has done it by manipulating the constitution and media, by installing a compliant electoral commission, and clamping down hard on political opponents. The West’s failure to address those problems with similar vigor will only feed growing cynicism over western motives.

Again, I raise this point not to say that protection against LGBT abuses should not be a priority. After all, it is gay people who are being targeted for murder by the state, not members of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change. But if Ugandans are violently denied the right to peaceful assembly and redress of grievances in the political sphere, it should come as no surprise when authorities also see no need to guarantee the rights of LGBT people to those same things. Yes, gays need electricity and railroads, and so does everyone else. But everyone, gays included, also need the freedom to use them.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, December 19

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Michelangelo Signorile: 1960. After graduating with a degree in journalism, the Brooklyn native returned to New York where he got his first job at a public relations firm which specialized in placing stories about their entertainment clients in gossip columns. That naturally meant that he was collecting and trading in gossip, which is where he noticed the double standard in how the media glamorized the heterosexuality of celebrities while maintaining a veil of silence around anything that might be remotely gay. But it wasn’t until his friends began dying in the early years of the AIDS crisis that he began to draw a line from gay invisibility to the ease with which media and public officials could turn a blind eye on what was happening. He became an activist in 1988 when he joined ACT UP, which led to his arrest during a speech by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later to become Pope Benedict XVI) who was the Vatican’s point man on Catholic orthodoxy and the author of papers against homosexuality and against condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS. Signorile had gone simply to watch the protesters, but as he heard the Cardinal speak, he thought of the homophobia he had experienced growing up in the church, and he couldn’t contain himself. As he wrote later in Queer In America: Sex, The Media, and the Closets of Power:

Suddenly, I jumped up on one of the marble platforms, and looking down, I addressed the entire congregation in the loudest voice I could. My voice rang out as if it were amplified. I pointed at Ratzinger and shouted, “He is no man of God!” The shocked faces of the assembled Catholics turned to the back of the room to look at me as I continued: “He is no man of God—he is the devil!'”

So yeah, he was arrested, and another gay rights activist was born.

Signorile is considered the pioneer of the controversial act of outing public figures. He was the co-founding editor of OutWeek, where, in a weekly column called “Gossip Watch,” a watch column of the city’s gossip columns, he railed against the media’s double standard on how they treated gay and straight public figures, and he argued that this double standard drove the gay community to invisibility in the midst of an growing health catastrophe. He outed Hollywood producer David Geffen, who was promoting Guns ‘N’ Roses and comedian Andrew Dice Clay, two acts which were attacked for crude anti-gay lyrics and “jokes” about the AIDS crisis. He also outed gossup columnist Liz Smith and publishing tycoon Malcolm Forbes. It was actually Time magazine which coined the term “outing”, but Signorile always considered the term itself biased. He preferred to call what he did “reporting,” and insisted that it was no different from the same kind of reporting that media outlets routinely do with straight people.

Signorile later worked at the Advocate and Out magazines, and he also wrote columns for Gay.com. In 2000 he began working in internet radio, and that eventually led to the gig he has today, hosting The Michelangelo Signorile Show on SiriusXM OutQ from 2:00 to 6:00 EST. He has written three other books, including Life Outside: The Signorile Report on Gay Men and Hitting Hard, a collection of essays and columns. His 1996 book, Outing Yourself: How to Come Out as Lesbian or Gay to Your Family, Friends and Coworkers was an exceptionally valuable book to me as I was beginning my own journey of coming out.

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Paul describes Santorum in one sentence

Speaking to Jay Leno, republican presidential candidate Ron Paul tagged Rick Santorum in one accurate sentence. And no it didn’t include the phrase “frothy mix”.

CNN reports that when Paul was asked on Friday about former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, he said Santorum does not like “gay people and Muslims.”

Yep, that pretty much covers it.

Study confirms Maggie Gallagher’s claim

Maggie Gallagher, the nation’s chief opponent to marriage equality, loves to claim that marriage is good for society because those who are married live healthier lives. And a new study appears to confirm that claim.

From the NY Daily News

A report published in the American Journal of Public Health shows that in states where gay marriage is legal, homosexual men visit doctors less and their health costs go down considerably.

“Our results suggest that removing these barriers improves the health of gay and bisexual men,” Mark Hatzenbuehler, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said in a news release

Of course, Maggie only meant heterosexuals who are married. Alas.

I didn’t really need a study to know that those who are in committed relationships take fewer risks, enjoy greater contentment, and have someone there to nag them about their weight. But it’s nice to have confirmation… Of sorts.

To be honest, I don’t place much faith in this actual study. Comparing one year to another year in one clinic has about as much statistical value as guessing. But I guess it did at least show that enacting equality doesn’t lead to increased health costs – as The Peter absurdly likes to imply.

But Maggie and her NOM buddies just love statistically irrelevant studies and if she were consistent she’d see this as evidence in favor of marriage equality.

So does that mean Maggie will switch sides and support marriage? Nope. Even if this were irrefutable proof that marriage equality would improve the health of ever gay person with no negative consequences for anyone gay or straight, Maggie would still fight to keep inequality in place. Because your health is a far far lower priority than having her church get to dictate what law and culture should allow.

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, December 18

TODAY IN HISTORY:
New York Court of Appeals Strikes Down Sodomy Law: 1980. New York became the twenty-fourth state in the nation to legalize homosexuality when the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, struck down the New York’s consensual sodomy law. In a 5-2 decision, the court ruled that the law violated Constitutional rights to privacy and equal protection, noting that the law banned anal and oral sex only when those acts were performed by unmarried couples. Married couples were exempt under the law. Writing for the majority, Judge Hugh Jones wrote:

“We express no view as to any theological, moral or psychological evaluations of consensual sodomy. It is not the function of the Penal Law or our governmental policy to provide for the enforcement of moral or theological values. …the People have failed to demonstrate how government interference with the practice of personal choice in matters of intimate sexual behavior out of view of the public and with no commercial component will serve to advance the cause of public morality or do anything other than restrict individual conduct and impose a concept of private morality chosen by the State.”

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Jay Bakker: 1975. The son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker grew up in front of the cameras at their Christian theme park in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he was deeply affected when his father’s empire came crashing down. Jim Bakker was sent to prison for financial irregularities and mail fraud and his family was subsequently ostracized by fellow Evangelicals. For Jay, that led to a downward spiral of rebellion and drug abuse. But he eventually turned his life around and committed himself to a different vision of Christianity, one with God as a loving and accepting being rather than a God of judgment and wrath. In the process, he became a very different kind of minister, an “evangelical punk preacher,” as he describes himself. Jay’s experience of being outcast informed his own philosophy of inclusiveness which extends to LGBT people. In the 2006 documentary One Punk Under God, Jay is seen explaining why he supports same-sex marriage to a congregation that is not ready to accept that message:

In 2011, Jay Bakker released his book, Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society, in which he says that it’s grace, not religion, that he believes in. “Religion can be a very dangerous thing,” he told NPR. “It’s a constant reminder to me to be careful.” He co-founded Revolution Church in 1994, and preaches at the New York branch which meets every Sunday afternoon at a bar in Brooklyn.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. 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 Saturday, December 17

Paul Cadmus, photo by George Platt Lynes

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Paul Cadmus: 1904. When he died in 1999 at the ripe old age of 94, his New York Times obituary read:

Paul Cadmus, an American artist noted for a virtuosic figurative style that he applied to subjects ranging from biting social satire to moralizing allegories to sensual, sometimes sentimental male nudes, died on Sunday at his home in Weston, Conn. He was 94.

Mr. Cadmus found his inspiration in the art of Italian Renaissance painters like Mantegna and Luca Signorelli. His career was remarkable for its unruffled stylistic consistency over 70 years, from his days as a precocious student in New York in the 1920’s through his incendiary stint in the 30’s with the federal Public Works of Art Project, later folded into the Works Progress Administration, and up to the present. Although he stopped painting a few years ago, he continued to sketch.

"The Fleet's In!" 1934 (Click to enlarge)

It took the Times’s Holland Cotter four paragraphs before he could work his readers up to Cadmus’s favorite subject matter: the frank depiction of gay men as free and happy people. Public outcry over his portrayal of sailors on shore leave in New York picking up local “trade” in his 1934 painting The Fleet’s In!, a painting that was paid for by the WPA, resulted in what became known as “the Battle of the Corcoran” when the Navy seized the painting from the gallery. Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson condemned it as “a most disgraceful, sordid, disreputable, drunken brawl.” The painting remained out of public view until 1981, but the outcry cemented Cadmus’s career as a satirist. For the rest of his life, he maintained that he was grateful for the publicity.

What I Believe, 1947 (Click to enlarge)

His cartoonish style of painting became known as “magical realism,” and his themes nearly always touched on sexuality in some form, with homosexual themes specifically nearly always present as either a subtext (glances and signals of cruising in otherwise ordinary scenes) or as an overt subject. His 1947 painting What I Believe, inspired by an E.M. Forster essay by the same name, represents something of a visual manifesto. It depicts nude and contented gay couples in the center and left side of the painting in bright sunlight while reading, drawing, playing music, and conversing. That paradisal scene contrasted with the almost hellish right third of the painting, where heterosexual couples reclined in bare dirt and misery — not unlike traditional renderings of the final judgment. The painting, he said, celebrated  “the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human condition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos.”

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Judge in Golinski asks uncomfortable questions for those who favor discrimination

Today Justice Jeffrey White heard testimony as to whether the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was in violation of the US Constitution when it was applied to deny spousal benefits to Karen Golinski, a legally married federal employee. In advance, White, a George W. Bush appointee, provided a list of questions that he wanted addressed. It can’t have been a happy day for Paul Clement when he saw them.

The list of ten questions began with:

1. The passage of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) marks a unique departure from the recognition the federal government historically has afforded to State marital status determinations.

It quickly trotted on to such inquiries as “What is the authority for the position that only the right to opposite-sex marriage is fundamental as opposed to the right to marriage generally?” and “How does BLAG distinguish the line of authority treating classifications based on religious affiliation as a suspect class from classifications based on sexual orientation?” and “How does BLAG’s argument about the tradition of heterosexual marriage differ from the miscegenation context?”

And surely when he came to number 9 Clementi must have cringed:

9. To the extent the Court decides the issues presented on the motion for summary judgment…

This does not mean that White will rule in Golinski’s favor or that the ruling will apply broadly should he do so. But it does suggest that White has no concerns about the arguments made by Golinski’s counsel but is finding the arguments presented by DOMA’s defense to rely on assumptions that White was not willing to make.

Adding sway to Golincki’s case, the head of the civil division of the Department of Justice showed up to argue in her behalf. This is but the second time that Assistant Attorney General Tony West has personally appeared in court to represent the Government and his appearance signaled the significance with which the Obama Administration has begun to take the issue of marriage equality.

Of course one can never tell how a judge will make their determination. But, at this point, things look encouraging.

Rules for staying in the closet…

If you are the mayor of Southaven, Mississippi’s third largest city, and
If you are married with three children, and
If you ran for Congress in 2008 as a “consistent conservative who will always vote with the conservative party”, and
If city auditors allege that you own about $170,000 in improper charges to your city credit cards, and
If you are turning in credit card receipts to show that your expenditures were proper and to reduce your debt, and
If you don’t want anyone to find out that you are really secretly gay,

Then, it probably isn’t a really good idea to include the purchase you made at “Priape: Canada’s premiere gay lifestyle store and sex shop.”

Just saying.

Memphis Commercial Appeal:

As details emerged Thursday from the receipts, provided by state auditors to Southaven aldermen and subsequently obtained by The Commercial Appeal, Davis conceded publicly for the first time in an interview with The CA that he is gay and has struggled to keep the issue from affecting his public life as mayor of Mississippi’s third-largest city.

“At this point in my life and in my career, while I have tried to maintain separation between my personal and public life, it is obvious that this can no longer remain the case,” Davis said Thursday afternoon at his Southaven home. “While I have performed my job as mayor, in my opinion, as a very conservative, progressive individual — and still continue to be a very conservative individual — I think that it is important that I discuss the struggles I have had over the last few years when I came to the realization that I am gay.”

Here’s Greg Davis more or less promising to vote more conservative than the most conservative of Conservatives, conservatively.

Snark aside, I commend Davis for not trying to come up with some bogus excuse for the purchase. And I wish him well on his new path to self discovery.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, December 16

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Oral Arguments in DOMA Challenge In Federal Court: San Francisco. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California will hear oral arguments this morning in the case brought by Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster challenging the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The hearing in the case Golinski v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is on behalf of Karen Golinski, an employee of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, who is suing to receive the same spousal health coverage for her wife, Amy Cunninghis, as her married heterosexual co-workers receive. According to Lambda Legal:

Friday’s hearing concerns the amended complaint Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster filed in April on Golinski’s behalf that directly challenges the constitutionality of DOMA. The lawsuit argues that the government’s reliance on DOMA to bar equal spousal insurance coverage for Golinski, a 20-year employee of the Ninth Circuit, violates the equal protection and due process guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. Shortly before the filing of the amended complaint, President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that they believe DOMA to be unconstitutional and the administration would no longer defend DOMA in court, and the majority leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives hired outside counsel to defend the statute. Friday’s arguments involve an attempt by the defenders of DOMA to get the case dismissed, and Golinski’s request that the court issue a final judgment in her favor, declaring DOMA unconstitutional and ordering that Golinski be allowed to enroll her spouse in her family health care plan, as her married heterosexual co-workers are permitted to do.

The hearing begins this morning at 9:00 a.m. at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Noël Coward: 1899. He first appeared on the stage at the age of eleven, and his stage work as a teenager — along with his (possibly romantic) relationship with the painter Philip Streatfeild — opened the doors for the precocious son of a house maid to London’s high society. And it was his embrace of that society which cemented his image for the rest of his life. “I am determined to travel through life first class,” he often remarked. Coward went on to write fifty plays, over a hundred songs, and a dozen musical theater works. He never acknowledged his homosexuality, but given his body of work he hardly had to. His 1924 hit play, The Vortex, offered a daring portrayal of a nymphomaniac society woman and her drug-addicted son. The play shocked London sensibilities with its portrayal of drugs and hints of gay life in high society, but that shock leaned more toward titillation than outrage. Coward spent the rest of his life walking that balance.

Ever the fervent anti-Fascist, Coward enlisted with British Intelligence in 1938. For his first assignment in Paris he was given the cover story of working in the British Propaganda office, where he famously critiqued the quality of its work. “If the policy of His Majesty’s Government is to bore the Germans to death I don’t think we have time,” he said. His next assignment was to go to America and use his wit and celebrity status to sway popular opinion to support the British. He also used that tour to gauge public sentiment and political leaders’ opinions about the war and report those findings back to Bletchley Park. Coward’s next assignment was to travel the world to entertain the troops, another assignment which provided perfect cover:

“I was the perfect silly ass,” (Coward) said. “Nobody … considered I had a sensible thought in my head, and they would say all kinds of things that I’d pass along.”

It was a senior diplomat named Robert Vansittart, routinely dismissed in the Foreign Office as an anti-Nazi Cassandra, who in late 1937 or 1938 spotted how to use Coward’s flamboyance, intelligence and flawless memory to help tend an unofficial, off-the-books anti-Nazi intelligence network he had set up across Europe. Vansittart dispatched Coward on tour in such un-Cowardy places as Warsaw, Moscow and Helsinki, where he sang songs, gauged Nazi influence among star-struck V.I.P.’s and (very likely) contacted sources on the ground. If he fooled the V.I.P.’s, Coward failed to fool the Nazis. He was soon on the Gestapo’s list of people to be “liquidated” when Britain fell.

King George VI had recommended Coward for a knighthood during the war, but Prime Minister Winston Churchill vetoed it. Coward was too “flamboyant” for Churchill’s tastes. After the war, Coward continued to find success in Britain and America. He also fell in love with actor Graham Payn and they remained together for the next thirty years. The two became tax exiles and moved first to Bermuda, then Jamaica. He never did acknowledge his sexuality, believing that any direct discussion of sex was tasteless. Besides, he said, “There are still a few old ladies in Worthing who don’t know.” He was finally knighted in 1969. That year, Time wrote of him, “Coward’s greatest single gift has not been writing or composing, not acting or directing, but projecting a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise.” He died in 1973, in the company of his partner Graham. His diaries and letters were published posthumously.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. 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?

Pink Bibles and six degrees of absurdity

I hate the Culture War. It wastes time, harms my communities, and makes enemies out of people who would otherwise be friends. And sometimes the consequences of prioritizing this nonsensical War results in decisions that are truly deeply wrong.

Take the latest action by the Southern Baptist Convention. In order to make sure that “evil” is punished, they are denying funds to breast cancer screening. Let me explain:

Evangelicals have an emotional attachment to the King James Version of the Bible. But as that translation was conducted between 1604 and 1609, it isn’t easy to read or understand. Yet, many conservative evangelicals have been suspicious that newer translations include changes to the meaning of scripture. And though these changes are often the result of the discovery of additional text sources or intensive research, they been seen by some as a tool for those who seek to corrupt or twist the meaning of scripture.

So as to prepare a more readable Bible, but one which could be trusted to be scripturally inerrant, the Southern Baptist Convention funded a new translation, the Holman Christian Standard Bible. The goal of the inter-denomination team was “to convey a sense of the original text with as much clarity as possible”. The new Bible began rolling off the presses last year.

As part of a promotion, LifeWay Christian Resources (a seller of Bibles and other Christian books and paraphernalia) marketed a copy of the Holman Christian Standard Bible bound in pink. And for every pink Bible sold, Lifeway contributed a dollar to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to be used for breast cancer screening and awareness.

That’s kinda cool. If you’re going to buy a Bible, why not help fight breast cancer at the same time?

But then the Culture War stepped in and the surrealism began. Because:

* The Southern Baptist Convention owns Lifeway Christian Resources
* Lifeway gave a dollar of each pink Bible sold to the Susan G. Komen Foundation
* Komen used the funds to screen women for breast cancer
* The screening was facilitated through local chapters
* Some of the local chapters contribute funds to Planned Parenthood specifically to be used for breast screening
* Planned Parenthood also performs abortions

Well, there you have it. As Susan Tyrrell of the Bound4Life blog put it, “The sign might as well read, ‘Buy a Bible and support abortion!’ ”

Whatever one might think about abortion, surely Planned Parenthood and the Southern Baptists can agree that breast cancer is a bad thing? No. They can’t. Because the Southern Baptist Convention is in a Culture War and right now they hate Planned Parenthood more than they hate breast cancer.

So LifeWay is canceling the program and “recalling” the Bibles. (Tennessean)

“Though we have assurances that Komen’s funds are used only for breast cancer screening and awareness, it is not in keeping with LifeWay’s core values to have even an indirect relationship with Planned Parenthood,” Rainer said in a statement.

And although Komen’s funding of specific Planned Parenthood programs paid for 139,000 breast exams and about 5,000 mammograms, detecting 177 cases of cancer in the past five years, the lives of those 177 women are immaterial. They are just collateral damage in a Culture War.

Ugandan Pastors Face Gay Libel Charges

One of the more immediate fallouts of the infamous March 2009 conference put on by three American anti-gay activists in Kampala, besides the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill, was a long and fearsome anti-gay vigilante campaign waged by the tabloids and on television and radio. During the anti-gay hysteria that swept Uganda, several powerful pastors took the opportunity to launch wild accusations against rival pastors in a bid to increase their own power base and financial clout. Three preeminent Ugandan pastors, Martin Seempa, Solomon Male and Bob Kyazze, were charged with conspiracy to falsely defame a rival pastor by accusing him of sodomy.

Today, the African news blog Behind the Mask reports that a Ugandan magistrate has ruled that Ssempa, Male and Kyazze have “case to answer.” In other words, the magistrate ruled that there is ample evidence that a crime may have taken place and that it is now up to the defendants to put on a defense:

Magistrate John Patrick Wekesa ruled this morning in Kampala that the three Christian preachers, Martin Sempa, Solomon Male and Bob Kyazze should start defending themselves against charges of involvement in conspiracy to damage (Pastor Robert) Kayanja’s name by way of a homophobic smear campaign.

The court has set December 19, as the date for the pastors to defend themselves.

The accused pastors, their lawyers, Henry Ddungu and David Kaggwa, together with David Mukalazi and Deborah Kyomuhendo (agents of the accused) face charges of conspiring to injure Pastor Kayanja’s reputation. The two lawyers were included for allegedly commissioning false affidavits.

The defendants face up to five years imprisonment if convicted. Twenty-one prosecution witnesses have testified in court so far this year. The for earlier sodomy charges that had been filed against Kayanja by the three pastors and their lawyers have been closed for lack of evidence.

Martin Ssempa and Solomon Male have been outspoken supporters of the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a wide-ranging piece of legislation which would have imposed the death penalty against gay people under certain circumstances, lifetime imprisonment for the rest, and harsh criminal penalties for virtually anyone else who knew them or provided services to them. Ssempa had enjoyed support from several American Evangelical pastors, churches and organizations, including Saddleback pastor Rick Warren and Las Vegas-based Canyon Ridge Christian Church. Warren finally denounced Ssempa and the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in 2009 after weeks of pressure, and Canyon Ridge reluctantly cut ties with Ssempa after defending him for several months.

UPDATE: Daily Monitor is out with its article, naming four pastors being tried:

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, December 15

TODAY IN HISTORY:
US Senate Committee Issues Report on “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sexual Perverts”: 1950. The Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments issued an interim report which would prove to become a major document of the 1950s anti-gay witch-hunts. The following day, The New York Times carried a story on the report:

“A Senate investigating group labeled sexual perverts today as dangerous security risks and demanded strict and careful screening to keep them off the Government payroll. It said that many Federal agencies had not taken “adequate steps to get these people out of Government.” …

Stressing the risks that the Government takes in employing a sex deviate or keeping one on the payroll, the subcommittee said:

“The lack of emotional stability which is found in most sex perverts, and the weakness of their moral fiber, makes them susceptible to the blandishments of foreign espionage agents.”

The report also noted that perverts were “easy prey to the blackmailer.” It said that Communist and Nazi agents had sought to get secret Government data from Federal employees “by threatening to expose their abnormal sex activities.”

The subcommittee criticized the State Department particularly for “mishandling ninety-one cases of homosexualism among its employees.” It said that many of the employees were allowed to resign “for personal reasons,” and that no steps were taken to bar them from other Government jobs. …

The committee said that it was unable to determine accurately how many perverts now held Federal jobs. It added, however, that since Jan. 1 1947, a total of 4,954 cases had been processed, including 4,380 in the military services and 574 on Federal civilian payrolls. …

In addition to strict enforcement of Civil Service rules about firing perverts, the subcommittee recommended tightening of the District of Columbia laws on sexual perversion, closer liaison between the Federal agencies and the police and a thorough inquiry by all divisions of the Government into all reasonable complaints of perverted sexual activity.

APA “Cures” Nation’s Gay Population: 1973. After years of research demonstrating that gays and lesbians are not mentally ill simply because they are gay, the American Psychiatric Association’s board of trustees approved a resolution that said, in part, “by itself, homosexuality does not meet the criteria for being a psychiatric disorder. … We will no longer insist on a label of sickness for individuals who insist that they are well and demonstrate no generalized impairment in social effectiveness.”

In a compromise to those who fought the finding, the APA agreed to define “sexual orientation disturbance” to describe “individuals whose sexual interests are directed toward people of their own sex and who are either disturbed by, in conflict with or wish to change their sexual orientation.” That diagnosis would provide cover for therapists to continue to try to “cure” gay people, with some of those “therapies” still involving electric shock aversion therapy. In 1980, that diagnosis would be changed to “ego dystonic homosexuality” before it was finally removed in 1986. Today, virtually all major medical and mental health professional organizations agree that homosexuality is not an illness to be “cured” or treated with the goal of trying to change one’s sexual orientation.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
W. Dorr Legg: 1904. After moving to Los Angeles in 1949 with his partner, Merton Bird, the couple founded Knights of the Clock as a social and support group for interracial gay couples. That made Legg and Bird pioneers in the nascent gay rights movement in more than one way. After becoming involved with the Mattachine Society, Legg decided that something more than a mere social outlet was needed if gay people were to ever be treated as human beings. So in 1952, Legg helped to found ONE Magazine, the first American pro-gay magazine. When ONE debuted in January 1953, it sported a very sophisticated look, with bold graphics and professional typeset and design. ONE’s slick offering quickly caught the attention gays and lesbians across the country, and circulation jumped to nearly 2,000 within a few months — with most subscribers paying extra to have their magazine delivered in an unmarked wrapper.

ONE Magazine, October 1954.

ONE also caught the notice of federal officials. The FBI tried to shut the magazine down, but soon it the magazine wasn’t worth their efforts. But the Post Office was another matter. The Lost Angeles Postmaster ordered the August 1953, held for three weeks while deciding if it violated federal laws. (Ironically, the cover story for that issue was on “homosexual marriage,” an issue that is still contentious more than fifty years later.) Three weeks later, the Post Office decided no laws were violated and allowed its distribution. ONE, in its typically brash fashion, proclaimed “ONE is not grateful” on its October cover. A year later, its October 1954 issue was confiscated and this time the Post Office decided that the issue was illegal. Ironically, that issue’s cover proclaimed “You Can’t Print It!” As the magazine’s publisher Legg sued, and the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court. On January 13, 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its first ever pro-gay ruling in ONE Inc. v. Olesen, a landmark decision that allowed a magazine for gays and lesbians to be sent through the U.S. mail. (You can read more about that landmark case here.)

Legg considered ONE, Inc’s most important mission, aside from its magazine, to be educating the public to gain acceptance for gays and lesbians. ONE, Inc established the ONE Institute of Homophile Studies in 1956, which became the first institution to provide LGBT studies in the US. Legg also wrote Homosexuals Today: A Handbook of Organizations and Publications about the nascent gay rights movement. In 1981, the State of California granted ONE Institute a charter to grant master’s and doctoral degrees, with Legg as its dean. Meanwhile, ONE remained in publication until 1969, surviving a split with co-publisher Don Slater who, in the 1960s, briefly published a rival magazine also called ONE. After a lawsuit, Slater changed the name of his magazine to Tangents, the title of the column that he had written for the original ONE.

Legg’s first-hand experience with police raids and harassment, FBI surveilance and intimidation, and effots to censor him by Post Office led him into a deep and abiding distrust of government. That distrust informed his libertarian politics. In 1977, he became a founding member of the Log Cabin Club, a group of California gay Republicans who organized to oppose the Brigg’s Initiative which would have banned gays, lesbians, and their supporters from teaching in the public schools. The Log Cabin Club later changed its name to Log Cabin Republicans. Legg’s libertarian political beliefs however, contrary to stereotypes about gay conservatives, did not amount to an assent to assimilation. He forcefully opposed the idea that gay people should “desperately contort themselves into simulacra of heterosexuality.”

Legg died in 1994. Shortly after, ONE Institute decided to stop offering classes and merge with the International Gay and Lesbian Archives. The ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives today is housed at the University of Southern California, and the ONE Archives Gallery & Museum is located in West Hollywood.

[Updated to include Dorr Legg’s role as founding member of Log Cabin Republicans.]

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

GOProud becomes even less gay

GOProud is a rightwing political organization masquerading as a gay group. Yes, there are gay members – at least three – but their goals, intentions, and actions reveal them to be interested in gay issues only in the context of how they can be spun for partisan advantage.

Indeed, the irony of their existence can be seen in their self description: “GOProud represents gay conservatives and their allies.” Implicit in that definition is the understanding that by “conservatives”, GOProud means social conservatives generally and advocates of anti-gay policies specifically. While they claim to be “committed to a traditional conservative agenda that emphasizes limited government, individual liberty, free markets and a confident foreign policy” their alliances and admiration are restricted to those who oppose individual liberty and they have disdain for any whose beliefs in limited government cause them to see DOMA as a violation of freedom that strikes at the core of the US Constitution and who is dedicated to seeing it stricken down.

GOProud is an organization that sees itself primarily in terms of what it is not. And number one to its member is their identity as NOT being part of what they call “the Gay Left”, a moniker they apply to anyone regardless of their place on the political spectrum who believes that gay people are equal and that such a notion is worth fighting for. To GOProud, I am the Gay Left, the writers at the Independent Gay Forum are the Gay Left, all Europeans regardless of ideology (or sexuality) are the Gay Left, and if you read Box Turtle Bulletin, you too are the Gay Left. In fact, it would seem that the only gay people who are not the Gay Left would be the handful (I count three) of gay people involved with the loud but irrelevant group itself.

GOProud is also NOT the Log Cabin Republicans. In fact, GOProud is so much NOT Log Cabin that they split from Log Cabin over that organization’s priorities. You see, Log Cabin didn’t see much value to, say, lobbying Congress in favor of second amendment rights, though most members do hold those rights as valuable. Rather, they put their emphasis in explaining, clarifying, lobbying and seeking to influence those who they agree with on gun rights on issues about which they are better acquainted, i.e. gay rights.

So these fellows left to start GOProud, organization that is comprised mostly of gay men but which doesn’t want to talk about gay issues but instead wants to lobby on other issues like gun rights but doesn’t want to join a gun rights group choosing instead to be a gay group but not gay first but Republican first but not like that other gay group with is really pro-gay but instead we are the ones who don’t want to get along Democrats at all ever and if they support something we promise to criticize it and be really good and never ever criticize a conservative Republican no matter what he says or does and we promise to call any pro-gay Republicans “squishy” or RINO or anything else you want so please please love us please.

In case you haven’t caught on, I don’t have much respect for the group. As of today I have even less.

GOProud has imploded. It had to happen eventually. When an organization is created solely so it’s members can behave like 13 year old boys, it’s inevitable that they will. And this week leaders Jimmy LaSalvia and Chris Barron proved that true.

Rick Perry killed any vestige of hope of being President by running an amazingly homophobic ad. But the most interesting part of that story was about how Perry’s advisors were not of one mind on the ad. Specifically, Anthony Fabrizio went public with his opposition – something I can’t recall from an active part of a candidate’s team.

GOProud’s response was to out Fabrizio.

Now a part of me would like to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe DiSalvia and Barron were not trying to punish Fabrizio for rocking the boat. Maybe.

In response to a virulently homophobic ad by presidential candidate Rick Perry, Jimmy LaSalvia and Chris Barron outed Perry campaign consultant Anthony Fabrizio as being gay, saying it was “the height of hypocrisy for Tony Fabrizio to have been a part of that.” Follow up by the Washington Post found that Fabrizio was not “a part of that” and that the ad was created over his objections. To which LaSalvia and Barron responded that “he should have quit”.

In consequence, conservative prankster Andrew Brietbart quit as an advisor to GOProud. He, like myself, opposes outing (though I suspect for different reasons). And then the Board issued a statement opposing outing.

And finally, Chris Barron stepped down from his role as Chairman of the board. In his place, the board has appointed Lisa de Pasquale, a far right social conservative activist, to head the organization.

I don’t know de Pasquale’s orientation. The only references google gave for “Lisa de Pasquale” and “lesbian” were nasty comments she’d written which clearly suggest that she sees lesbians as inherently objectionable.

If de Pasquale is lesbian, she is of the closeted variety. The nasty vicious hateful closeted variety.

Which makes GOProud accomplish something I would have thought unlikely a week ago: become even less relevant.

Sure gay groups have straight members. Some are in leadership. And that is part of inclusiveness.

But when you choose a not-openly-gay person to head the board because you don’t actually have any other gay people, you don’t get to call yourself a gay group anymore.

At this point I think perhaps we should treat GOProud like PFOX: an irrelevant group claiming to represent people who don’t know or care that they exist.

Jimmy and Chris, your little stunt was fun while it lasted, but it’s time you just went home and did something productive with your lives.

[Revised to correct the timeline on the outing of Tony Fabrizio]

Lewd or immoral acts in Michigan

Laws are funny things. Generally created out of some panicky necessity (usually the necessity of a politician to appear to be statesmanlike), they linger on long after the need has passed and often to the point of absurdity.

But sometimes rather than amusing and fairly harmless laws that reflect a cultural reality that has long passed, they become tools for abuse by police or other authorities who seek to achieve their own personal goals based in their own prejudices or ill intent. And that appears to be happening in Kent County, Michigan. Sheriff Larry Stelma is using a law written to address prostitution to “clean up” county parks.

750.448 Soliciting, accosting, or inviting to commit prostitution or immoral act; crime.

Sec. 448.

A person 16 years of age or older who accosts, solicits, or invites another person in a public place or in or from a building or vehicle, by word, gesture, or any other means, to commit prostitution or to do any other lewd or immoral act, is guilty of a crime punishable as provided in section 451.

Sec. 451.

(1) Except as otherwise provided in this section, a person convicted of violating section 448, 449, 449a, 450, or 462 is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than 93 days or a fine of not more than $500.00, or both.

Stelma has decided that this is his justification for ridding the parks of gay men. And he’s taking a very broad interpretation of the code to do so.

He has decided that “accosts, solicits, or invites another person” includes responding to solicitation by an undercover police officer. And “commit prostitution or to do any other lewd or immoral act” includes flirting, holding hands, or inviting another person home or to another private location to pursue sexual activities. Or rather, it does if the target is a gay man.

And Stelma acknowledges that his officers are not interested in following the letter of the law, and especially not the spirit of the law, but in harassing targets that he knows full well are not committing a crime: (Mlive.com)

“There is a range of discernment there, but whatever that act or suggestion was has to be considered by a judge or jury as being lewd or immoral,” Stelma said. “Our community has invested heavily in the parks and they expect us to keep them safe, family-friendly places and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

So Sheriff Stelma will arrest those whom he deems not to be “family-friendly” and parade them in front of the community for public shaming and condemnation. Oh, and if it was unwarranted, well then a judge can let them off the $500 penalty.

At Box Turtle Bulletin we do not endorse or defend sex in public or suggest that such acts should not be discouraged or punished when they occur. Half of the arrests reviewed by the ACLU were for activities that were criminal and that is appropriate.

But we also do not accept the assumption that being gay is a crime or that there is anything “family-friendly” about targeting gay people. And if an officer or police force is arresting gay people for things for which one would never arrest a heterosexual, they are engaging in criminal behavior themselves and are violating the civil rights of citizens.

Such tactics are not uncommon and the reason is clear. There is very little disincentive for police to engage in this form of selective and creative enforcement. Seldom are police chiefs reprimanded, much less fired. And there is little social cost resulting from their abuse of power.

Those who are hateful or fearful are happy that “that element” is remove from a “family park” and those who object are smirked at as being soft on crime and a seedy element themselves. And, of course, there is the internal reward of harming people whom the officer or leader considers inferior or less human. Truly, bigots love a good “round up the homos” police sting.

But the cost to their victims can be huge.

Often those who resort to meeting in a park are men who are closeted and afraid to go to a bar or look online. They will do anything, say anything, to avoid having their secrets become public. And it is on just such a fear that corrupt officers and police forces rely; the sheriff can hold the threat of being listed as a sex offender over their head to keep them from any public objection.

I’m really sick of this.

It has reached the point now that when I hear of any dispute between an officer and a civilian, I assume that the officer is simply engaging in police brutality. And sadly, I’m very seldom wrong.

And even more frustrating is the mindset that is universally shared by the police community: protection of their own before protection of the community. Even in the most extreme of cases. (OC Register)

Earlier this month, six Fullerton cops surrounded and savagely attacked an unarmed, 37-year-old Kelly Thomas until he was dead. By the time the cops were done, Thomas’ face looked like it had been put through a meat grinder.

Multiple witness say the cops repeatedly beat the 135-pound homeless man with their weapons, fired multiple Taser shots into his body, kicked his face and head with their boots and then, long after the man was subdued and on the ground, slammed their knees into his throat, apparently crushing it.

Thomas had committed no crime and it appears that the murder was for sport. Not one officer in the police force objected. The six were not put on suspension or reprimanded or even frowned at as a consequence of their action. In fact, it was not until the man’s father went to the internet and got the support of local radio hosts John and Ken that anyone knew about it or the department took up an investigation. And when John and Ken began reporting, the families of other police officers actually called up and tried to make excuses.

This was a murder committed on police time, in uniform, with police recorders running, and people watching. The victim was threatened and taunted and then beaten to death. And they didn’t care that they would be turning in “reports” or that their department would have access to the recordings. They already knew that they were protected from any consequence to any action – even murder – because they were police officers.

And when the Fullerton community erupted in anger and a few officers were finally arrested, guess who bailed out the primary murderer? Yep, his fellow officers.

This infuriates me.

The thing is that my instinct runs to ‘law and order’. I like having a police force to protect me. I like knowing that if someone breaks into my home or threatens me on the street or otherwise harms or endangers me, that there is someone to look out for me. And when people like Kent County Sheriff Larry Stelma abuse their office and bring shame to the process, it hurts those honest officers who try to do their job and protect the citizens.

But honest officers seem to be in short supply. And their honesty seems to come secondary to their loyalty to power and corruption. The “thin blue line” appears to have become an impenetrable boundary that breaks the world into two classes: “good guys” who murder citizens, and “perps” like you and me and homeless schizophrenics and closeted men in Michigan.

And I know that I’ll be told that “there are a lot of good officers”. Bull. Being a good officer means not only avoiding abuse yourself, but stopping it when others do it. And that simply doesn’t occur.

But this only happens because we allow it. We are afraid that if we stop police abuse that it will empower criminals and crooks. Unfortunately, we now are seeing that our fear has already empowered criminals and crooks – the ones wearing the uniform.

It needs to stop. We need to make it stop.

Perhaps it is time to implement a tool that police bullies use against the citizens. Perhaps it’s time to create a Police Brutality Offenders Registry and when an officer has been accused of abusing his power he goes on the registry. If you are surly or arrogant or dismissive of a citizen, it goes into the Registry. If someone dies at your hands, it goes into the Registry. If you are on a police board that excuses an officer or finds “justifiable” something that would result in jail time for anyone else, then your name goes into the Registry.

And people seeking to move into a new city or precinct can look up the Police Brutality Offenders Registry, just like they can the Sex Offenders Registry, to see just how safe their new community might be. “Great schools and few sex offenders, but the police are corrupt so we’ll not buy here.”

And perhaps it is time for society to withhold the respect afforded police until they have proven themselves worthy. They need to decide if they are peace officers or a police force, if they answer to the community first or to their loyalty to the uniform first. It isn’t enough, any more, to be honest officers themselves, it’s now time for them to insist that others in their ranks be honest or get out. And if their sergeant doesn’t like it, go the newspapers.

Until officers and police forces identify themselves as protectors of the citizenry, we must assume that they are not good people. If they cannot condemn the horrific acts in Fullerton in clear and unequivocal terms, if they cannot demonstrate that your civil rights are more important than ‘rousting the objectionables’, if they think that they are an exception and exempt from laws that prohibit murder, then we must assume that they are the enemies of law and order no different from a street gang.

I hate to assume guilt and corruption… but it seems that few police are willing or able to show otherwise.