Box Turtle Bulletin

Utah values

The Democratic candidate for Governor of the great state of Utah has clarified that he doesn’t support Democratic values. He supports Utah Values. Ya know, the ones that are passed down from the Prophet. (Salt Lake Tribune)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Peter Cooke launched a pre-emptive strike Monday, distancing himself from his party’s national platform, declaring his opposition to gay marriage, civil unions and abortion and vowing to represent “Utah values.”

Cooke said his opposition to gay marriage stems from his faith ­— he is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has actively opposed same-sex unions in California and elsewhere — but he supports a state law that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, which the church has also supported.

“To me gay marriage is part of my religious belief and I support that and I respect other religious beliefs and I support and love those who are in the gay community,” Cooke said. “I think what needs to be done in Utah is for us to all live together, be compassionate. That’s what the Democratic Party is showing.”

Well, okay, I guess that’s to be expected. It is Utah, after all.

But I’m not so sure that “I promise to vote how the church tells me” is that compelling of a position for politicians anymore. At some point people just get tired of being told that their church will do the thinking for them. And it seems to me that the Mormons may want to take a little glance at their buddies the Catholics and recognize that the more that church leaders insist on dictating politics, the more their flock feels comfortable with ignoring what they have to say.

And maybe, just maybe, Cooke could have grown a pair and used this to his advantage. He could have said that unlike Republican Governor Gary Herbert, he stands for gay families. He could have championed civil unions (or some other form of couple recognition) – as do 71% of Utah’s residents. And had he done so he, he might have stood out as the candidate more in line with “Utah values.”

The Party Platforms

This is a rather exciting year for firsts, when it comes to party platforms.

The most exciting and best known change comes in the Democratic Party platform which will, for the first time, endorse marriage equality. Although many party members and elected officials have been supportive, it was not until this election cycle that there is sufficient consolidation of position (about two thirds) to make this an agreed upon issue.

While this is a bit of a gamble (we could get blamed if the Democrats do less well than expected), it is, I think both the right thing to do and a smart political choice. The movement is towards equality and even those who do not support us won’t be surprised by the move.

But another smaller change also has happened this year, one that mostly flew under the radar. But this change is probably far more important than it might appear at first glance: Log Cabin, the organization for gay and lesbian Republicans, is for the first time sending a delegation to the Republican platform committee.

Now I don’t anticipate that there will be anything remotely resempling a positive plank come out of that committee. It will oppose equality and probably call for an anti-gay constitutional amendment. But it is possible that by simply being in the room, they will be able to influence the language adopted. It’s harder to be dispicably vile when your victim is sitting there looking at you.

But it is not the anticipated content of the platform that is worth note. As a symbolic move, allowing Log Cabin to participate is of tremendous importance. For decades the GOP has been openly hostile to its gay members – when it even bothered to notice their existence. For the first time, the party has – by this move – indicated that gay Republicans are “real” Republicans and have a legitimate place in the Party.

It will be some time before the Republican Party follows the lead of Europe’s conservatives and decides that “marriage is a conservative value”. And the voices of discrimination and animus will only get shriller before they are drowned out by the inevitable change in public position.

But these small steps are exciting to see. They demonstrate a change in the Nation that promises our eventual success. And they send a signal to the raging anti-gays that their days are numbered, that no matter how much chikin they binge in their battle for superiority, the end of the war is in sight.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, August 13

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Thirty-Five Arrested in Miami Beach Raid as Governor Threatens to Replace Sheriff: 1954. The wave of anti-gay hysteria in Miami continued apace (see Aug 3, Aug 11, Aug 12), with Florida’s acting governor, Charley E. Johns, getting in on the act. The Miami News reported that Johns was looking for an excuse to replace Dade County sheriff Thomas J. Kelly for allegedly permitting “wide open” gambling in the county and for  “failing to prevent the concentration of sex perverts in the county which had become emphasized recently.” The News reported: “Public indignation over two recent sex murders and police revelations that Miami is host to a colony of some 5,000 homosexuals might be used to accuse the sheriff of lax law enforcement.”

(Johns became acting governor when Gov. Dan McCarty died in 1953. He would later return to the State Senate where he would head up the infamous Johns Committee which revived a statewide Red Scare and Lavender scare with its investigations of alleged communists, homosexuals, and civil rights advocates among the students and faculty of Florida’s schools and university system.)

Meanwhile, The Miami News that same day also reported that Miami Beach Police conducted a raid on a section of the beach the day before:

Two of six suspected homosexuals arrested by Miami Beach police in a raid on the 22nd Street bathing area were convicted of disorderly conduct today and ordered to pay $10 fines.

Beach police arrested 35 men yesterday afternoon in a raid planned by Police Chief Shepard. All but six were released after questioning at headquarters. The six kept in custody were charged with disorderly conduct by reason of failure to give a good account of their actions.

City Judge Lawrence Hoffman dismissed cases against four of the six today but warned them to stay away from the 22nd Street bathing area.

“Chief Shepard intends to make good his plan to make Miami Beach undesirable to homosexuals,” Judge Hoffman told the suspects.

A Disease Worse than Alcohol: 1954. I bet you thought I was finished talking about Miami in 1954, didn’t you? Well, you’re wrong. On the same day that The Miami News printed the front-page article about acting Gov. Charley Johns’s threat to remove the Dade County sheriff because he let too many queers settle in Miami, and the same day that the same newspaper reported on the nineteen such queers who had been arrested in Miami Beach, The Miami News still wasn’t finished. Across the bottom of the front page was the third of a series of three articles purporting to inform the general public about the “condition” of homosexuality. Titled “Psychiatrist Looks At Deviates: A Disease ‘Worse Than Alcohol’,” the article featured Dr. Paul Kells, a “noted Miami psychiatrist, whom The Miami Daily News asked to supply answers to questions regarding sexual deviates.” The News introduces the subject this way:

In the past few days Miamians have learned that this community has become infected by a large colony of sexual deviates. The word “infected” is used advisedly, since homosexuality is a social disease. It can be worse than drug addiction or alcoholism. There is little hope for returning the established homosexual to a socially acceptable pattern.

Most of the article follows a Q&A format, with the first tquestion appearing to draw some sort of a line between homosexuals and “sexual psychopaths.” What line exactly is drawn however is anybody’s guess:

Q Are all homosexuals potential child molesters, sadists (those who enjoy causing others pain) and masochists (those who enjoy pain and humiliation for themselves?)

A. No. The sexual psychopath, of which homosexuality is only one form, is the extreme sex deviate classification from which emerges the child molester and sadist. The sexual psychopath has no feeling of social responsibility, much in the manner of the hardened criminal who has no understanding or regard for the law, the psychiatrist explained.

The sexual psychopath preys on both sexes. He or she might consort with homosexuals as a means of getting money or any other objective. The psychopathic personality frequently has a feeling of great superiority over others, disregarding at all times the need of conforming to social laws.

As for whether homosexuals were born that way:

No. …”It is usually a matter of experience which makes a person a homosexual,” the doctor stated. “It’s ‘possible’ for anyone to become a homosexual, but people are not born to be such.”

It is in this statement that Miamians can clearly see their problem. In a community where there are only a few homosexuals, the chance for exposure to such practices are negligible.

Not all homosexuals want to gain converts, but those who do can be extremely aggressive, the doctor explained. The most aggressive is the psychopathic personality, who also lacks understanding of social responsibility.

“The shy homosexual has a sense of social responsibility and will go to great extremes to conceal his plight,” said the psychiatrist. “This type lives in constant fear of being exposed and will marry and have families to conceal its sexual behavior.”

… Dr. Kells pointed out that “normal” homosexuals are acceptable to society when their sex behavior is not known. “The sexual psychopath is never acceptable,” he said. “And there is the important question involved in creating laws. The ‘normal’ homosexual should be separated from the sexual psychopath.”

Q. Do perverts tend to congregate in the same area or town?

A. Yes, but only certain types.

Good news for a change

“No Obits”: 1996. For the first time in more than seventeen years, the San Fransisco weekly Bay Area Reporter made the news because of a lack of news: there were no obituaries of AIDS victims in the August 13, 1996 edition. The rate of obituaries had been declining for the previous two years following the introduction of the so-called “AIDS cocktail,” which surprised scientists and AIDS advocates alike for its effectiveness in halting and even reversing the health declines of those on medications. According to an AP article at the time, “The few days leading up to Monday’s deadline for submitting obits were tense at the newspaper. In the previous two weeks, none had been delivered until the last minute. ‘It was like watching a no-hitter in baseball unfolding,’ (news editor Mike) Salinas said. “We didn’t really want to discuss it until it became obvious that it was going to happen. We held our breath waiting.'” But the obit never came by the time the deadline arrived, and the paper celebrated with a front-page headline proclaiming “No Obits.”

Australia Amends Marriage Law Banning Same-Sex Marriage: 2004. The opposition Labor party joined the governing right-of-center Liberal Party to pass an amendment to Australia’s marriage law to ban same-sex marriage. Critics of the law challenged the government’s priorities, asking why there was a such a rush to ban same-sex marriage when the proposed anti-terrorism law hadn’t been voted on yet. Government and Labor responded by switching the schedule for the two bills and passed the anti-terrorism law first. Then both parties joined to cut off debate in the Senate. Democrat leader Sen. Andrew Bartlett condemned the move: “This is just an absolute disgrace … (you are saying) we have to do it now, otherwise society will crumble and the world will end. You are saying, ‘It is urgent that we take away as many freedoms and rights from people as possible and do it really quickly before they notice and get a chance to be upset about it’.” But that is exactly what they did, and the measure passed the Senate by a vote of 38-6.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Gluck: 1895. The British painter was born Hannah Gluckstein, but she insisted on being known only as Gluck” — “No prefix, suffix, or quotes.” She resigned as vice president of an art society when her name appeared on the letterhead as “Miss Gluck.” And just as she kept her identification simple, her style of painting was also not part of any particular artistic school. Gluck established herself as a painter of floral arrangements which became popular among interior decorators, including floral designer Constance Spry, who would be Gluck’s lover from 1932 to 1936.

Gluck's Medallion, 1937

But it was Gluck’s portraits that would establish her reputation, beginning with her own 1925 self portrait, where she depicted herself smoking a cigarette while wearing a shirt, tie, suspenders and beret. Her best known painting, Medallion, is a dual portrait of Gluck and Nesta Obermer, who became Gluck’s partner after her relationship with Spry ended. She painted it in 1936 to commemorate what she called her marriage to Obermer on May 25. Gluck referred to it as the “YouWe” painting, and it was later used as the cover of the Virago Press edition of The Well of Loneliness.

In 1944, Obermer decided to end her relationship with Gluck, complaining that Gluck had become too demanding and possessive. Gluck then entered a tumultuous thirty-year relationship with Edith Shakelton Head, the first female reporter in Britain’s House of Lords. Gluck’s emotional health deteriorated as she descended into depression, and her painting suffered because of it. But she managed to reviver herself in the 1950s when she became alarmed at the declining quality of paints and canvases. With the backing of two important museums and the Arts Council of Great Britain, she embarked on a decade-long campaign to raise the quality of art supplies. She finally won when the British Standards Institution agreed to establish new standards for cold-pressed linseed oil, canvases, and the naming and defining of pigments.

With that success behind her, Gluck returned to the easel using special handmade paints supplied by a manufacturer who agreed to meet her exacting standards. She painted several more paintings, including one of a decomposing fish head on the beach titled, Rage, Rage against the Dying of Light. She mounted a successful solo show in 1973, her first since 1937. It would be her last; she died in 1978,

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The Daily Agenda for Sunday, August 12

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations Today: Antwerp, Belgium; Fargo ND/Moorhead MN; Indianapolis, IN (Black Pride); Moscow, ID; Reykjavik, Iceland; Toledo, OH; Wakefield, UK;  and Windsor, ON.

Other Events Today: Northalsted Market Days Street Fair, Chicago, IL; Provincetown Carnival, Provincetown, MA; Rendezvous LGBT Camping, Medicine Bow National Forest, WY; Toronto Leather Pride, Toronto, ON.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Captain Nichols Hanged for “Buggery”: 1833. Yes, that was the actual British legal term for homosexual activity, and it was a capital offense until 1861, when the laws were finally relaxed to allow for life imprisonment. But that change came almost thirty years too late for Captain Henry Nichols. In 1833, the London Courier printed the following account:

Captain Henry Nicholas Nicholls, who was one of the unnatural gang to which the late Captain Beauclerk belonged, (and which latter gentleman put an end to his existence), was convicted on the clearest evidence at Croydon, on Saturday last, of the capital offence of Sodomy; the prisoner was perfectly calm and unmoved throughout the trial, and even when sentence of death was passed upon him. In performing the duty of passing sentence of death upon the prisoner, Mr. Justice Park told him that it would be inconsistent with that duty if he held out the slightest hope that the law would not be allowed to take its severest course. At 9 o’clock in the morning the sentence was carried into effect. The culprit, who was fifty years of age, was a fine looking man, and had served in the Peninsular war. He was connected with a highly respectable family; but, since his apprehension not a single member of it visited him.

You can also read a different account from a popular broadsheet by clicking the above image.

[via ExecutedToday.com, which goes to show that there really is a blog for everything!]

Miami News Reports On Trial of Gay Informant: 1954. That summer, greater Miami was swept up by an unprecedented wave of anti-gay hysteria, triggered, in part, by the murder of a male Eastern Airlines flight attendant earlier in August (see Aug 3, Aug 11). Meanwhile, bars and beaches were being raided and gay men were  being convicted under Florida’s sodomy law. The Miami News on August 12 reported on one such case involving a gay man and a reputed police informant who was apparently himself gay. Because The News’s report leaves open far more questions than it answers, I will just repeat it in full.

Informant Escapes Jail Term in Pervert ‘Turnabout’ Trial.

By Larry Birger
Miami Daily News Staff Writer

A self-styled police informer escaped trial on sex charges today when a convicted homosexual refused to press a complaint which he had filed at the suggestion of City Judge Cecil C. Curry.

Odom’s photo from the Miami News

The case against truck driver Leonard M. Odom, 24, of 3523 SW 14th Ter., was dispatched so quickly that the name of the complainant’s attorney escaped reporters.

The convicted homosexual, Walter G. Quester, changed his mind and dropped charges against Odom of committing lewd and lascivious acts.

Judge Curry asked the unidentified attorney for Quester: “Why did you drop the charges?”

“I don’t know,” the lawyer replied. “I wasn’t here yesterday.”

The attorney was referring to the unusual court session at which the judge had turned on the chief witness against the defendant at Quester’s hearing on charges of lewd and lascivious acts.

On the basis of Odom’s testimony, concerning a “date” he claimed he’d had with Quester to get information for the police, Quester was convicted and sentenced to 60 days in jail.

Then Curry told Odom, “It looks to me as if you’re just as guilty as the defendant.” He suggested to Quester that he file counter-charges against Odom, which was done.

Before today’s hearing Odom’s lawyer, Morey A. Rayman, said he would move that Curry disqualify himself as presiding judge on grounds he had prejudged the defendant.

This report raises all sorts of questions. Was Odom really working as a police informant? Or did he decide to try to claim that’s what he was doing in order to try to get out of being charged himself? What — or who — led Quester to drop the charges against Odom?  And with Odom’s name, address, and photo published in the paper, what happened to him after the trial was over?

It really is quite possible that there were two victims in the sordid mess, each one trying to make the best of a very bad, no-win situation. These are the kinds of stories that appear briefly in newspapers across the country and then, just as quickly, disappear. These are also the kinds of stories I would love to be able to track down. In searching Ancestry.com, there was a Walter G. Quester who died in 1987 in Broward County, Florida, and a Leonard M. Odom who died in Madison, Florida in 1997. Were these the guys mentioned in this article?

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Radclyffe Hall: 1880. Influenced by the writings of Havelock Ellis, Radclyffe Hall described herself as a “congenital invert,” typically dressing in masculine clothing and living her lesbian on her sleeve. Her nickname “John” was bestowed on her by her first partner, the German singer Mabel Batten. When Batten died in 1916, Hall had already fallen in love with Batten’s cousin, the sculptor Una Troubridge, and the two of them would remain together for the rest of Hall’s life. Hall’s first novel, the long and dreary The Unlit Lamp, didn’t sell well. But her next books — a comedy titled The Forge, a more serious volume titled Unlit Lamp, and another comic novel A Saturday Life, established Hall as a novelist of serious talent.

But it would be her 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness, the only one of her eight novels with an overt lesbian theme, which she would become most famous for. (Other short stories also carried lesbian themes as well.) While the novel was not sexually explicit, it nevertheless became the subject of a sensational obscenity trial in Britain, which resulted in all copies of the novel being ordered destroyed. It’s publication in the U.S. came about only after a long court battle. After the fireworks were over, the New York Court of Special Sessions cleared the book for publication in 1929, and it has been continuously available ever since then.

Radclyffe Hall (right) with Una Troubridge

Hall and Troubridge were important figures in lesbian circles in London, Paris and elsewhere in Europe, where Hall would be easily recognized by her tailored jackets, ties, socks and close-cropped hair. Her appearance wasn’t particularly shocking in the 1920s, where androgynous appearance among women was considered tres chic. But as the decades wore on, it became her most consistent visual identity in keeping with her self-identification as a member of “the third sex.” Britain’s sensational press was only too happy to play up that image. During the height of the furor over the British obscenity trials, newspapers routinely published photos of her which depicted her in the most masculine way possible, often cropping the photo above her waist on the many occasions when she wore a skirt with a man’s jacket.

The Well of Loneliness would be the only source of information about lesbianism for many women right on through the 1960s. Hall herself said that she had received more than 10,000 letters about her novel, many of them thanking her from grateful lesbians. When she died in 1943 of colon cancer, The Well of Loneliness had been translated into fourteen languages and was selling more then 100,000 copies per year. Nineteen-fifties editions of The Ladder, the newsletter for the Daughters of Bilitis, often wrote of The Well of Loneliness in reverential tones, and many anonymous letters to the editor from across America citing the book as a lifeline for many women coming to terms with their own sexuality.

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Next President Ryan

Calling Dr. Freud. In this morning’s rollout of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney introduced Ryan as “the “next president of the United States” instead of as the next vice-president. After Ryan appeared on the stage erected in front of the U.S.S. Wisconsin — after all of the music, applause, and general fanfare died down — and just as Ryan was about to launch into his speech, Romney approached the microphone and said, “Every now and then, I’m known to make a mistake” to more laughter from the crowd.

Romney then said that he didn’t make a mistake in picking Ryan. Pundits will be debating that point over the next several months. As a caveat, I’ll remind you of my biases — I’m a Democrat and an Obama supporter (in case that somehow escaped your notice, although I have been critical of the President’s timidity at times) — and so I doubt that my saying that this is a mistake on Romney’s part will persuade many folks. But I do think that a look at the evidence is in order.

The Human Rights Campaign rates Rep. Ryan a “zero” on its scorecard, although I do think there’s room to argue  whether the HRC’s criteria are all that informative on the bigger issues. They certainly don’t help in drawing distinctions between Ryan and Romney — or Obama and Biden — since the HRC only rates representatives and senators. Romney, for his part, has a few silver linings on LGBT issues if you look hard enough, but sometimes you have to squint to see them. He says he doesn’t want to reimpose “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (although he says that repealing it was a mistake), he opposes marriage equality (and supports a federal marriage amendment banning same-sex marriage) but he had said that he supported civil unions (that was before he dumbed it down to, essentially, hospital visitation rights and couple of other bones). And, oh yeah, he kinda sorta thinks Boy Scouts should allow gay kids to sign up.

Ryan’s positions appear to be even more to the right on these issues than Romney. In 2006, he supported Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment which banned both same-sex marriage and civil unions. He voted against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. He voted for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act five years ago, but he’s withdrawn his support since then.

I don’t know Ryans position on gay Boy Scouts. But that looks like our last hope for a possible pro-gay position. I’m not optimistic.

And this, I think, is just one example which strengthens the argument that Romney’s choice for a running mate is a mistake. Romney is down by a significant number of percentage points in just about every poll out there, and the gap has only been widening in many of the swing states. Conventional wisdom holds that the election is going to come down to those who are still undecided — which means that it comes down to those who think Romney and Obama both are similarly good (or similarly bad) candidates. Ideologues and true believers have picked sides long ago, and now it’s down to those who find things about both candidates that they like. You know, moderates.

Which is why it was presumed that Romney was going to have to find some way to appeal to those moderates, either by moving toward the center or by filing down some of the sharp edges from those points that scare moderates off. It’s why Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rob Portman (R-OH) were seen as having the inside track. They both represented swing states, and they both represented constituencies that were not solidly in Romney’s camps.

But when you look at it, Ryan also represents a constituency that is not solidly in Romney’s camp as well: tea partiers, a group that is increasingly seen in a negative light among moderate voters. They’ve never trusted Romney, and they remain a rebellious, restive constituency.  Ryan is their darling, and they’ll pick Ryan over Romney any day. And that appears to be the calculation that Romney’s making. But if he was going to make a play for moderates, this is not the pick he should have made. Tea partiers are famous for their disdain of moderates.

But here’s the thing that I find even more interesting. Ryan’s claim to fame is his very detailed budget proposals, which are solidly aligned with the tea party line. Romney’s campaign has been built almost entirely on not being specific about much of anything. He’s worked hard at perfect opacity on as many  issues as he can get away with. Ryan’s budget proposals, on the other hand, are filled with some very frightening specifics. The debate will now shift to Ryan’s policy proposals and not Romney’s, largely because it’s often hard to figure out what Romney’s policy proposals really are. It’s not at all difficult to figure out Ryan’s.

Romney’s gaffe today in introducing Ryan as the next president will undoubtedly generate a lot of laughs. But I suspect that it will serve as a fitting metaphor for where the campaign is headed. It’s no longer the Romney campaign. It’s the Ryan-Romney campaign. And that’s what makes Romney’s selection a huge mistake.

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, August 11

TODAY’S AGENDA (Ours):
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Antwerp, Belgium; Eugene/Springfield, OR; Fargo ND/Moorhead MN; Indianapolis, IN (Black Pride); Mannheim, Germany; Moscow, ID; Orange Co, CA; Reykjavik, Iceland; Sligo, Ireland; Toledo, OH; Wakefield, UK;  and Windsor, ON.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Denver, CO.

Other Events This Weekend: Northalsted Market Days Street Fair, Chicago, IL; Provincetown Carnival, Provincetown, MA; Rendezvous LGBT Camping, Medicine Bow National Forest, WY; Toronto Leather Pride, Toronto, ON.

TODAY’S AGENDA (Theirs):
Family Leadership Summit: Des Moines, IA. Iowa’s anti-gay organization The Family Leader, in conjunction with the National Organization for Marriage, Citizens United, and ActRight, will hold a Family Leadership Summit today at a megachurch in the west Des Moines suburb of Waukee. The summit’s stated purpose is “to educate and mobilize the conservative base regarding specific issues that impact the family.” Scheduled speakers include Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry, Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), NOM’s Brian Brown, and The Family Leader’s Bob Vander Plaats. It all gets underway at 1:00 p.m. today, with pre-conference activities beginning at 11:30.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Miami Police Detective Calls On City to “Face Pervert Problem”: 1954. The murder earlier this month of William T. Simpson, a 27-year-old Eastern Airlines flight attendant (see Aug 3) blew wide open another round of frantic anti-gay hysteria in Miami, particularly after the Miami Daily News claimed to discover “a colony of some 500 male homosexuals, congregating mostly in the near-downtown northeast section and ruled by a ‘queen’.”

Not to be outdone, the Miami Herald jumped into the fray with a front-page article by Miami police detective Chester Eldridge titled, “Official urges society to face pervert problem.” He said that Miami had been luck, but only so far: “We are extremely fortunate that there have been no more violent crimes in Miami involving them. The sex pervert or deviate is an individual who has reached the age of reason, yet knowingly disregards the idea of reproduction. They compromise a group that ranges from relatively harmless homosexuals to the fierce sadist who horribly mutilates and tortures his victims.” He estimated that there were somewhere from five to eight thousand homosexuals in Miami, and urged the state to build more psychiatric hospitals “so they can be removed as a social blight and become useful citizens.”

[From Edward Alwood’s Straight News: Gays, Lesbians and the News Media, p 3.]

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?

David Rakoff (1964-2012)

If you are, like I am, a fan of PRI’s This American Life, then you will be saddened by the loss of the melancholy humorist David Rakoff to cancer yesterday. Born in Canada and raised in Toronto by Jewish Latvian/Lithuanian parents from South Africa, he moved to New York to study East Asian languages and dance. He worked briefly as a translator for a fine arts publisher in Japan, and returned to Toronto when he was diagnosed with Hodgkins disease. He overcame the disease after eighteen months’ treatment, calling the entire episode a fight against his “dilettante cancer.” (You can hear his essay in which he discusses that illness here.)

He became a full-time writer and a regular contributor to This American Life, where his deadpan, self-effacing humor became a signature part of the program. He contributed essays to Salon, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. His three books of essays include 2001’s Fraud, 2006’s Don’t Get Too Comfortable and 2010’s Half Empty, which he described as “a defense of pessimism, melancholy, sadness” and which won the 2011 Thurber Prize.  Here is a video of him reading from Don’t Get Too Comfortable. When you play it, I suggest you turn up the sound and look away from the computer screen to avoid being distracted by the silly visuals.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, August 10

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Antwerp, Belgium; Eugene/Springfield, OR; Fargo ND/Moorhead MN; Indianapolis, IN (Black Pride); Mannheim, Germany; Moscow, ID; Orange Co, CA; Reykjavik, Iceland; Sligo, Ireland; Toledo, OH; Wakefield, UK;  and Windsor, ON.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Denver, CO.

Other Events This Weekend: Northalsted Market Days Street Fair, Chicago, IL; Provincetown Carnival, Provincetown, MA; Rendezvous LGBT Camping, Medicine Bow National Forest, WY; Toronto Leather Pride, Toronto, ON.

He's 413 in dog years.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Mark Doty: 1953. “I’ve always been a poet who wrote about urban life because I love the layers and surprises and the jangly complexities of cities,” he once said. “I feel at home in cities, being a gay man. It’s a place of permission and possibility.” He is the author of several collections of poetry, notably his 1995 award-winning Atlantis, which was inspired by his partner’s death from AIDS the year before. 1997’s Heaven’s Coast: A Memoir also chronicles his partner’s diagnosis, illness and death, as well as Doty’s grief afterwards. Another memoir, Dog Years, is about two dogs that Doty had acquired as companions for his dying partner. The book is not only about the character of his dogs, and also about “everything we cannot talk about,” as one reviewer put it. In the end, the book was less about how Doty took care of his partner and the dogs, but of how the dogs took care of him. It is truly a dog-lover’s love song. His most recent collection of poetry, Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, won the 2008 National Book Award. In 2010, he published The Art of Description: World into Word, a reflection not just on the art of writing, but also on the art of seeing what one wishes to write about.

Andrew Sullivan: 1963. The British transplant to America is an author, political commentator and a seminal blogger, having begun blogging before blogging was … you thought I was going to say cool, didn’t you? Cool or not, his blog, The Dish, is one of the highest trafficked blogs on the net. Sullivan describes his views as politically conservative — he supports a flat tax, privatizing social security, and supports free markets in health care. If you read him with 1995 in mind, you’d pretty much agree: he’s conservative. And he has developed conservative arguments against the use of torture, his opposition to capital punishment, his concerns over the growing influence of “Christianism” (as he distinguishes it from Christianity) in American politics, and his support for same-sex marriage. Because conservatism has changed to such a radical extent in America, those positions have opened him up to accusations of being a raving liberal. He supported George W. Bush in 2000, but went with Kerry, reluctantly, in 2004 over disagreement with Bush’s conduct of the wars and his position on the Federal Marriage Amendment. In 2008, Sullivan enthusiastically supported Obama and developed a fixation on Sarah Palin. In 2009, he moved his blog to the Daily Beast behemoth, where he and his coterie of interns churn out about fifty posts per day.

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?

Restored Hope Ex-Gay Network Will Not Oppose Criminalization Of Homosexuality

Restored Hope Network is the new ex-gay outfit that has arisen to challenge Exodus International as a rival network of ex-gay ministries. Restored Hope came about as a result of two specific disagreements that several ex-gay ministries have with Exodus, mainly around theological issues (specifically, whether one-saved, always saved really means what it says it means) and around Exodus’s repudiation of Reparative Therapy.

Exodus has made other changes as well, changes which have not received much direct criticism from Restored Hope, but which appear to nevertheless further delineate a sharp difference between the two groups. For example, Exodus International has an official policy statement opposing criminalization of homosexuality, and it has backed that statement up with the resignation of a board member following a trip abroad which lent support to gruops which support Jamaica’s law which treats same-sex relations as a felony.

But in a Facebook posting earlier today, an unnamed spokesperson for Restored Hope Network has announced that they will not oppose the criminalization of homosexual acts:

Click to enlarge

I have a question for the group; Exodus International opposes criminalization of homosexual acts – does RHN oppose them, also? I have perused the doctrine. I thank you for your time.

Restored Hope Network I don’t believe we will have a stance on this topic. We are concerned for those involved in sexual sin to hear the good news of freedom from slavery to sin (Romans chapters 6-8), thus our goal is to help those who are interested in leaving such behind in obedience to the good news of Jesus Christ.

But for those who are not interested, we can rot in jail for all they care.

Publisher pulls David Barton’s book of lies about Jefferson

Former Texas Republican Party Co-Chair and evangelical “historian” David Barton is a darling of conservative Christians who believe that America is a Christian Nation and that God hand-selected very devout men to bring about it’s creation and that whole “separation of church and state” thing is just a fiction created to exclude Christians from their rightful role in government. He has for several years appeared on Christian television with stories that confirm their beliefs.

Earlier this year he set out to “debunk” the horrible lies that liberals and atheists were saying about revered Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. In his book, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, Barton bets his reputation on articulating just how and why history backs up his claim that Jefferson was a devout Christian (of Barton’s flavor) who opposed slavery, and that the Founding Fathers really set out to enshrine religious principles in the Constitution rather than protect the citizenry from religious coercion.

He just rolled snake eyes.

Evangelical Christian professor and blogger Warren Throckmorton was long been on a campaign of debunking Barton’s absurd assertions. In May, he and fellow Grove City College professor Michael Coulter authored Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President, in which they use documents (often more complete examples of Barton’s snippets) to disprove his revisionist history.

This encouraged others to take a closer look at Barton’s historical claims. For example, Greg Forster writing for First Things, a project of The Institute on Religion and Public Life, found his claims about John Locke to be, well, let him say it:

I should note for the record that I’m not only a conservative (both theologically, as an evangelical, and politically, as a Republican) but one with a track record of defending Locke against claims that he was a deist or that his philosophy is antithetical to Christianity. As providence would have it, just over a week ago I published an article on how Locke’s Reasonableness helped me come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Yet Barton’s attempt to fit Locke into his larger historical narrative forces him into numerous distortions. Moreover, the article contains a number of incidental facutal errors that don’t even advance his thesis, indicating that his inability to write reliable history stretches beyond ideological cheerleading and into outright incompetence.

Criticism mounted – much of it from fellow conservative Christians who were offended by the blatancy of the dishonesty. But the final straw was when a coalition of Cincinnati area pastors – including several African-American pastors – threatened to boycott the Christian book publisher that printed Barton’s book.

Bishop Dwight Wilkins, president of The Amos Project, said, “We have privately approached Thomas Nelson about our concerns, with no resolution.” The pastors/church leaders pointed to four major concerns the group has with The Jefferson Lies:

1. It glosses over Thomas Jefferson’s unorthodox and heretical beliefs about Jesus Christ;
2. It minimizes and justifies Thomas Jefferson’s racism;
3. It excuses Thomas Jefferson’s practice of enslaving African-Americans.
4. The Jefferson Lies is riddled with factual distortions and falsehoods.

Rev. Damon Lynch said, “David Barton falsely claims that Thomas Jefferson was unable to free his slaves.” In fact, Jefferson was allowed to free his slave under Virginia law, but failed to do it. The Jefferson Lies glosses over Jefferson’s real record on slaveholding, and minimizes Jefferson’s racist views.

So today David Barton’s publisher, Thomas Nelson, has announced that they will cease publication and distribution of The Jefferson Lies. Because, ironically, it is lies: (World)

Casey Francis Harrell, Thomas Nelson’s director of corporate communications, told me the publishing house “was contacted by a number of people expressing concerns about [The Jefferson Lies].” The company began to evaluate the criticisms, Harrell said, and “in the course of our review learned that there were some historical details included in the book that were not adequately supported. Because of these deficiencies we decided that it was in the best interest of our readers to stop the publication and distribution.”

Barton stands by his story, asserts that other publishers are ready to take up the book, claims Throckmorton is nuts, and blusters about a room full of PhD’s who endorse him but insist on remaining anonymous. But he has taken a serious blow. In the field of history, your credibility is your meal ticket. Once it has been proven that you’re a liar, you no longer have much to contribute.

Couple rights advance in Germany

On Wednesday, Germany’s high court found that a tax which targeted same-sex couples cannot be enforced. (CNN)

The court ruled that gay couples who have entered into a “registered partnership,” the German legal phrase for relationships similar to marriage, must be exempted from the country’s land transfer tax just like straight married couples, according to a court news release.

Interestingly, this is similar to (and illustrative of) a position taken recently by 13 members of Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union party. They find it unacceptable that the nation must repeatedly be told by courts to treat its gay citizens fairly and have called for tax parity. Kristina Schroder, Germany’s minister for family affairs, took a page from UK’s David Cameron and declared that by registering their partnerships and taking long-term responsibility for each other, gay couples “are living conservative values”.

With this respectable number of conservatives now joining the Liberal Democrats in calling for equal tax treatment, the issue breaks the partisan barrier. There is hope that Germany may soon move in the direction of greater equality.

Obama joins Romney in opposing Boy Scout gay ban

In 1994, Mitt Romney took a position in opposition to the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay scouts and said:

I feel that all people should be able to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.

On Saturday, the Romney Campaign confirmed that “this remains Romney’s position today.”

Yesterday, President Obama joined his opponent in expressing his disagreement with the policy: (CSMonitor)

“The president believes the Boy Scouts is a valuable organization that has helped educate and build character in American boys for more than a century,” the White House statement said. “He also opposes discrimination in all forms, and as such opposes this policy that discriminates on basis of sexual orientation.”

The Boy Scouts responded with a brief statement from their national headquarters in Irving, Texas.

“The Boy Scouts of America respects the opinions of President Obama and appreciates his recognition that Scouting is a valuable organization,” it said. “We believe that good people can personally disagree on this topic and still work together to accomplish the common good.”

I feel disappointed. President Obama’s position is weaker and more conciliatory than that of Mitt Romney. The President basically validated the “oh we can all disagree amiably” nonsense that the BSA has been throwing at the media. The existence of gay people, our validity as human, whether one’s innate attractions makes them inherently immoral, that’s all just a matter of opinion. Good people can disagree about that, you see.

No. They cannot.

This is not about a controversial issue, or even one for which counter arguments can be presented. This isn’t about whether civil unions provide adequate protection. It isn’t about military unit cohesion. It isn’t even about adoption policy.

This is about whether gay people can be let in the door. It’s just plain unvarnished discrimination: we won’t let you in because we don’t like you. That’s it. And I’m sorry, Mr. President, but both sides of that opinion are not equally moral. This is not an agree to disagree situation.

Either it is immoral and wrong to exclude gay youth for no reason other than their orientation, or it is not. And if it is immoral and wrong – so immoral and wrong that a growing number of people with deep devotion to the Scouts are breaking a tie that means the world to them – then a moral person cannot dismiss this so cavalierly.

I respect and appreciate the President. He has taken steps that have greatly advanced our equality. But it frustrates me to no end that every effort, every step has been long after others in his party have advanced and – in some instances – after Republicans have already gotten there. It should embarrass the President to lag behind Dick Cheney or Ted Olson; it should shame him to lag behind Mitt Romney.

President Obama, like all US Presidents over the past century, is the token president of the Boy Scouts. We know – there is absolutely zero question about it – that if the Boy Scouts banned members based on race that the President would refuse to hold that title. He would step away from the organization and explain that as President of all Americans in the political life of the country that he cannot be president of only some Americans in the life of scouting.

How is this different?

UPDATE: Mitt Romney’s full 1994 quote was:

“I believe that the Boy Scouts of America does a wonderful service for this country. I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue. I feel that all people should be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.”

I was unaware of the “wonderful service” component of that quote which makes the two statements much more similar, though 18 year apart.

Equality Illinois goes to the State Fair

There is nothing so quintessentially all-American than the State Fair. Moms and Pops with kiddies in tow are treated to award winning sheep and cantaloupes, midway carnival rides, and food booths full of kettle corn, Belgian waffles, and deep fried artery-clogging delight.

And this year, along with listening to the sweet sounds of the Steve Miller Band or Blue Oyster Cult, watching the Twilight Parade, and betting on your favorite pony in the horse races, you can also stop by the Equality Illinois/Lambda Legal booth and pick up an “I Do” sticker to show your support for marriage equality.

Which is, in my opinion, brilliant! We are as American as Junior Beef and Heifer Showmanship. As mainstream as 500 pounds of unsalted butter sculpted into the shape of a life size cow. As part of the social fabric as the Illinois Fire Museum and Services Tent.

It’s about time that we start recognizing that fact. Sure we belong on the stage on Broadway and in room-decorating competition reality shows. But we also belong in the Illinois State Fair proudly showing off our ribbon winning pumpkins. Or our tiara wearing, pig directing, prowess.

Dr Semugoma (a.k.a. GayUganda) on LGBT Invisibility in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS

Yesterday, I posted a video interview of Dr. Paul Semugoma (many of you know him as GayUganda) talking about the challenges of confronting HIV/AIDS in a country with such rampant homophobia that it is dangerous for LGBT people to disclose themselves to their doctors. Dr. Semugoma also spoke at a plenary session at the International AIDS Conference in Washington D.C. on July 27, discussing “The Dynamics of the Epidemic in Context,” the particular context being that in many governments around the world are unwilling to address the reality that gay men exist in their countries.

In addition to the video above, you can find an error-laden transcript of his talk here(PDF: 160KB/55 pages). While Dr. Semoguma had come out in Facebook and other social media, this was his coming-out moment, quite literally, on the world stage (at about the 3:15 mark):

Men who have sex exist with men, everywhere. You know, it’s kind of interesting to start like that. When we talk about men who have sex with men, actually I am also a man who has sex with men. [applause.] It’s a major and important point to point out that men who have sex with men exist everywhere. If we say that they don’t exist then we don’t know how to deal with them, we don’t know how to get to the challenges that we have in HIV prevention with them.

He then described a pivotal moment in his life which showed him that the epidemic would never be dealt with successfully unless gay and bisexual men are included in HIV-prevention messages (at about the 4:35 mark):

I want to tell you a story about the patient who changed my life. This was in 2004. I was by then a medical doctor. I had studied in two medical schools, that is at Muhimbili Medical Center in the University of Dar es Salaam and I had also studied at Makerere University. I had a bit of work up country, and then I’d gone back to Kampala, which is the capital city of Uganda, to start work in private practice.

As I said, I’m a gay man. I had been dealing with HIV amongst Ugandans and I knew it was a disease that is spread by sex, but I had not been confronted by then by the fact that HIV is also spread by gay sex. I didn’t have that link. So I was faced by this guy. He was gay. I knew him. He had bisexual practices meaning he used to sleep with men and at some point in time he had slept with women. And He had been recently diagnosed with HIV.

One of the things that he told me was, “One of my lovers must have slept with a woman.” I was like, “You didn’t sleep with a woman at this particular point, you must have got it from your lover.” But his point was since I’ve been seeing all these nice photos of men and women and the government telling us, “Be careful, love carefully.” These are the ones who spread HIV; it is the women who give it to us. But he also asked me a question: how do I protect my lovers? And that was the question that changed my life. I knew at that particular moment that I didn’t know how to protect him, how to give him the information, how to tell him to protect his lovers, and that was the changing point because I then discovered that because I didn’t know, I was ignorant. I was in sort of denial because I was a gay man and I am still a gay man. I just needed to know.

I had access to the internet and I quickly educated myself, something which we all have to do. It is important that we leave from being just friendly to MSM, to men who have sex with men, to being competent in care. [applause]

This ignorance and denial it didn’t happen just with me. It is also with everybody. Just a few months ago, about three months ago in Uganda the first LGBT clinic was opened by one of the groups, one of the LGBT groups. They were saying that, well, we do not have a clinic, the doctors don’t really know the problems that we have and we need a clinic. They got funding (very good) put the clinic in Kampala (very good) and then made sure that the government
didn’t know.

Then, what touched me was that three doctors were asked in Uganda. “What do you think about this?” They were saying, “We do not discriminate because we are doctors,” which is fantastic. Then, they said, “We do not discriminate because we do not ask about sexual orientation.” Now, if you do not ask about sexual orientation then that means that you are not aware that men who
have sex with men actually come and sit with you in the consultation room, and that men who have sex with men actually have a higher risk of HIV. [ applause]

This ignorance is part of what is there. We have to ask ourselves the question. Are we going to an AIDS-free generation without including MSM? Actually the answer from the science that we have is that no, we are not going to do that.

Dr. Semugoma then gave an overview of the populations most at risk, including not only gay men, but also within the gay community, black gay men. And he also discussed the general problems of reaching “pariah” communities in different countries, including here in the U.S., Canada, and Britain. He then returned his attention back to Africa and the structural barrier that those of us who have been following events in Uganda are all too aware of: criminalization (at about the 15:00 mark):

Criminalization. I have heard this over and over again. You are dealing with a criminal population and the criminal population somehow seems to not be citizens, somehow seem not to fit to have intervention, somehow they just don’t seem to deserve the attention that others get even in HIV prevention.

This is the relationship between criminalization and sex practices. Untargeted expenditure. This is for HIV programming. We saw that HIV burden is actually higher amongst MSM but what actually happens when the monies for HIV
prevention go to the countries there’s attenuation. Less and less gets to the MSM because of the stigma, because they are criminals.

…This case study is of Senegal. Senegal is a country in West Africa has an epidemic which is concentrated amongst MSM. They actually were one of the first African countries to do an MSM-targeted HIV prevention effort. They did a study, which I was very happy to come across in 2004. They saw that they have a concentrated epidemic with HIV 20 times higher amongst the MSM than in the general population. They did comprehensive outreach in place for MSM.

In 2008, we had this ICASA, ICASA is the equivalent of AIDS meeting for Africa. During that ICASA, they actually came to tell the rest of the country about what was happening that they are doing some HIV prevention amongst the highest risk population in Senegal. After ICASA, nine outreach workers were arrested and prosecuted. They were released April 2009. They had been convicted of spreading homosexuality most likely. The issue was that happening actually almost destroyed the HIV outreach amongst the highest risk population in Senegal.

Now, let’s talk about my country, Uganda. Uganda had a study done in 2008, a study done in Kampala. The HIV rate was almost 14 percent, but it’s 13.7 percent amongst MSM in Kampala, compared to a rate of 4.4-percent amongst other men in Kampala, which actually means that this was a high-risk population. During the time of the study the Director General of Uganda AIDS, the national program, said that for the first time he actually admitted that MSM exists in Uganda — which was a positive — but he said we are not going to deal with them.

Now, what happened is that some of us decided that no, this was a bit too much and we had the Implementers’ Meeting happening in Uganda, and we decided to come and storm the meeting and held a five minute protest. What happened after that was that some of us were arrested and they continued to be prosecuted for demanding for HIV prevention program amongst MSM in Uganda. For demanding for an HIV prevention program amongst a vulnerable population in Uganda. That’s why there were prosecuted.

Now, this had an effect on the study which was happening in Kampala at that time. Those people were studying the respondents, that MSM were not coming to the study, the respondents who are not coming. The recruitment dipped, it recovered sometime later, but then dipped again, because Uganda unfortunately is a very highly homophobic country. They got about 300 respondents, which in six months was very few homosexuals, compared to Kenya, compared to Tanzania, compared to Zanzibar. In two months they’ll get 500 people. In the first study in Kenya they actually had to stop the study, because in Nairobi they were getting more than 500 gay people.

Now, Uganda has definitely been one of the worst offenders in HIV prevention for MSM. They want to ban the agencies which work for gay rights. That was about last month I think. And the LGBT clinic, it needs to be shut. All this homophobia is actually happening when we have a study done with folks that we have a vulnerable population, which actually is responding to the homophobia in the country. Okay, HIV prevalence amongst the MSM was related to external homophobia.

Dr. Semugoma ended his talk with a stirring call to action, which hinged on increased visibility of gay men and the elimination of homophobia, anti-AIDS stigma, and ignorance about HIB/AIDS. He also remembered that the advocacy fights to achieve those aims are not without cost (at the 26:30 mark):

Now, I wanted to acknowledge the fact that a lot of people have helped me to prepare this speech, but I remembered that I can acknowledge also those people who have lost this fight, I mean who have been killed, the price of advocacy. Advocates are beaten, they are arrested, they are killed. I just wanted to remember these few, Alim Mongoche in Cameroon; Steve Harvey in Jamaica, David Kato in Uganda, Thapelo Makutle in South Africa [applause].

One of my most enduring memories of David Kato is of him when we went into the Implementers’ Meeting when he wanted to engage the speakers, and then running very fast on this big road with the police behind him. They wanted to arrest him because we had barnstormed the Implementers’ Meeting.

Many stories are untold and unreported. It is tough to achieve comprehensive HIV prevention and treatment in this context, but it has been done. It has been done before. It is being done now. It is going to be done again. We have tried and they continue to try.

At the end of his talk, he acknowledged his partner, whose name I did not catch. But it was very heartwarming to see him lean into the microphone and say, out loud, “I love you.”

Marriage loss in Hawaii

Recently we have become accustomed to hearing good news on the legal front. With the quite obviously unconstitutional federal Defense of Marriage Act (section 3) being litigated in several courts, there have been half a dozen back-to-back victories to report.

However, the constitutionality of state laws is less legally certain, and occasional setbacks, though disappointing, are not surprising. One such setback occurred yesterday. (AP)

U.S. District Court Judge Alan C. Kay’s ruling sides with Hawaii Health Director Loretta Fuddy and Hawaii Family Forum, a Christian group that was allowed to intervene in the case.
“Accordingly, Hawaii’s marriage laws are not unconstitutional,” the ruling states. “Nationwide, citizens are engaged in a robust debate over this divisive social issue. If the traditional institution of marriage is to be reconstructed, as sought by the plaintiffs, it should be done by a democratically elected legislature or the people through a constitutional amendment,” and not through the courts.

Hawaii’s laws are unique. It was in this state that the first “marriage protection” constitutional amendment was passed, and rather than prohibit marriage equality outright, it gives the state legislature the power to do so.

Until last year, when the legislature enacted a civil unions law, Hawaii had a meaningless and insulting reciprocal benefits program (which offered very few benefits and did not recognize relationships). Although the state has a virtual one-party government, the state’s vocal social conservatives have been effective in quashing equality. However, the current governor is an advocate for marriage and I predict that Hawaii will join the ranks of equality states in fairly short time.

Judge Kay was appointed to the federal bench in the 80’s by President Reagan.

The decision will be appealed to the Ninth Circuit. It will be interesting to see where that court falls in that its decision on California’s Proposition 8 was narrowed to address just the unique circumstances of that state and did not speak to the constitutionality of anti-gay bans in general.