Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, August 9

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.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Provincetown Moves To Get Rid Of Gays: 1952. The following brief AP article appeared in papers nationwide:

Mass. Tourist Resort Acts to Halt Sex Perversion
Provincetown, Mass. — Selectmen of this Cape Cod mecca for summer tourists asked townspeople to support them in an attempt to rid the town of “a large homosexual element.”

The Selectmen’s action came after receipt of a letter from a summer visitor who said her two sons have become victims of a group whose meeting places, she said, are on the sand dunes in the daytime and at bars at night. She said she was leaving after 10 summers’ residence here.

There’s no mention of how the visitor’s sons became “victims” (or what they were doing in the bars at night). Fast forward sixty years, and Provincetown Carnival begins this Sunday.

Congress Continues Hearings on Mattachine Society: 1963. In yesterday’s episode, Rep. John Dowdy (D-TX) had introduced legislation that singled out the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. to strip it of its financial solicitation permit which had been granted by city officials the year before under the Charitable Solicitations Act. Mattachine had qualified for the permit as an educational organization advocate for the end of laws against homosexuality and to advocate for laws to protect gay people from discrimination. The House Subcommittee for the District of Columbia had convened to hear testimony for Dowdy’s proposed legislation, but adjourned due to a quorum call on the House floor just as Mattachine president Frank Kameny was about to speak.

When the subcommittee resumed, Dowdy declared that opposition to the bill that had been expressed the day before left him “shocked and speechless.” He then was joined by other committee members in demanding that Kameny turn over the Mattachine’s list of members, which Kameny refused to do. Dowdy then charged that the Mattachine Society, like the Communist Party, was a secret organization “dedicated to changing laws that were designed for the public good.” Kameny responded the Mattachine Society’s goal was, in fact, to legalize private acts between consenting adults. He also protested that the issue before the subcommittee was not the morality of homosexuality, but the right of the Society to advocate for gay people through “the legal exercise of its freedom of expression.” Dowdy exploded: “What kind of expression are you talking about? Are you taking about sexual expression?” He later added, “Down in my country if you call a man a queer or a fairy, the least you can expect is a black eye.” Kameny replied that even Texas had gay people. Dowdy retorted, “Maybe, but I never heard anyone brag about it.”

Kameny was joined by Monroe Freedman, a lawyer with the Washington, D.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU’s national policy, adopted six years earlier, placed the organization on record as supporting the constitutionality of sodomy laws, a position that it would maintain until 1967. Freedman emphasized that he didn’t necessarily support the Mattachine Society’s goals. “The issue,” he told the committee, “is not whether we agree with the aims of the Mattachine Society, but whether we are going to interfere with their right of free speech. The National Capital Area Civil Liberties Union is not concerned with the success of failure of the Society in presenting its views. It is concerned solely with its freedom of expression.” The committee then pressed Freedman for details of his own personal life and whether he was acting as the group’s lawyer. Seven times during the hearing he denied being a member or acting on behalf of the Society. Dowdy then asked Freedman whether his superiors at George Washington University knew he was defending the Society’s rights before the committee. “No,” Freedman replied after a long pause, “but I’m sure they will be before very much longer.”

Dowdy’s bill never did become law, and Kameny never turned over the Society’s membership list to Congress or anyone else. As for Dowdy, he retired from Congress in 1973 following convictions on conspiracy, bribery and perjury charges.

Eileen Gray, with the Bibendum chair and the E1027 table.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Eileen Gray: 1878. She was born the youngest of five children to an aristocratic family near Enniscorthy in southeastern Ireland. Her father was a painter who encouraged his children’s artistry and independence. Eileen studied painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, and in 1900 she went to the Exposition Universelle in Paris, where she became enthralled with the works of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. She then moved to Paris to continue her studies and became immersed in lacquer design in particular, and in designing furnishings in general.

One of the many projects she collaborated on was the design of a modern home called E-1027. That 1924 project is where her most famous design, the E1027 table, emerged. It was also during this period when she mixed in lesbian company in Paris, while she herself was bisexual. But her life and her work was interrupted by World War II, and when she returned to Paris at war’s end, she led a mostly reclusive life. Much of her work was forgotten until 1968, when a magazine article revived interest in her work. The E1027 table, along with the Bibendum Chair and several other of her designs, went into production once again and became modern furniture classics. She died in Paris in 1976. In 2009, an armchair she designed between 1917 and 1919 was sold at auction for over $28 million, setting an auction record for 20th century decorative art.

Amanda Bearse: 1958.The director and comedienne is best known for her role as the highly annoying Marcy D’Arcy on Married… with Children, which ran on Fox between 1987 and 1997. She also appeared in a few films, including 1985’s Fright Night and 1995’s Here Come the Munsters. But it was during her time on Married… With Children that she was able to indulge her interest in TV and film directing. She wound up directing more than 30 episodes from 1991 to 1997. She also directed episodes of more than a dozen other television sit-coms.

When she came out publicly in 1993 in an interview for The Advocate for National Coming Out Day, she became the first prime time actress to do so. She described it as a liberating experience. “I know that sounds sort of clichéd, but it really was very liberating. That one thing, that one big secret is out. For a lot of people, it was just a confirmation of what they thought about me. I mean, I look like the girl next door, but I was always kind of off-center.”

Michael Kors: 1959. The American designer of women’s sportswear launched his line at the precocious age of 22 for Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, and other top line department stores. In 1997, he became the creative director for the French fashion house Celine, but left two years later to focus on his own line. He began designing menswear in 2002. He has been a judge for the Bravo reality television series Project Runway, which has just begun to air its tenth season. My partner has finely honed Kors’s trademark expression of disapproval — “That’s so sad!” — to utter perfection. It’s one of the main reasons we watch Project Runway. Kors married his partner, Lance LePere, in August 2011 in New York.

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?

Uganda’s Dr Semugoma: Optimistic and Living With Hope

Longtime BTB readers will recall our good friend, the anonymous blogger GayUganda. To get you caught up to date, he’s no longer blogging and he’s no longer anonymous. Meet Dr. Paul Semugoma:

Dr. Semugoma was in Washington D.C. for the International AIDS Conference last month. In this video he talks about the barriers to AIDS prevention caused by homophobia and discrimination — a situation that he says is exacerbated by the influence of American anti-gay evangelicals in Uganda. He points out that Uganda’s anti-gay laws currently are virtually identical to those of Kenya and Tanzania, both of which border Uganda and are also, like Uganda, former British colonies. Yet Kenyan and Tanzanian HIV/AIDS prevention efforts include special programs for those nations’ LGBT communities, while Ugandan authorities claim, falsely, that similar efforts in Uganda are prohibited by law. Dr. Semugoma makes the case that this stance works against the interests of the entire country, not just LGBT people.

At about the 7:00 mark, Dr. Semugoma talks about his own process of coming out recently and the difficulties that poses in his country and in his practice. Before coming out, he had been using his standing as a medical doctor to provide medical-based arguements for a more inclusive approach to HIV prevention and treatment. But even doing that generated questions about his sexuality, questions that he has only recently been answering. He is also preparing to move to South Africa where he can live without the kinds of fears and stresses that he experiences in Uganda.

Toward the end of the video, he describes further the obstacles that UGanda’s government places on prevention efforts. He describes the case of an HIV/AIDS clinic that recently opened in Kampala with the mission of providing care for LGBT citizens. The government moved to close the clinic because it “promoted homosexuality.” Doctors in the country joined the government in saying that the clinic was not needed because they don’t discriminate against LGBT people if they don’t ask about sexual orientation:

At the same time, doctors were asked, Ugandan doctors, that, “Do you think this clinic is necessary?” And to them it was not necessary, and their reason was, “We do not discriminate because we do not ask patients about their sexuality.” In actual fact that shows their ignorance because for a doctor to sit with their patient and to be able to counsel you about your HIV prevention needs, I need to know your sexual practices. So if you’re going to talk to a gay person like you’re going to talk to a heterosexual person, then you are missing the point. You’re going to advise him to use condoms, while he actually needs condoms and a water-based lubricant. You’re going to advise him to get married and stick to his partner when in actual fact he cannot get married in the country. You are going to advise him to be faithful and abstain, and he will think in his mind, “I abstain until when?” because he cannot get married. That is the kind of problems, structural issues, that are there.

He says that we have the medical knowhow and the tools to end the epidemic. The problem is not medical, but structural. He nevertheless closed on a note of optimism. Five years ago, the LGBT community was invisible. Now people know that it’s there. “I am optimistic. I mean, I am a human being and I think we live with hope.”

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, August 8

TODAY’S AGENDA:
California House Committee to Hold Hearings On Ex-Gay Therapy Ban: Sacramento, CA. S.B. 1172, the bill which would ban therapy intended to change sexual orientation for minors, is expected to be heard in the California Assembly Appropriations Committee today. It’s expected that the bill will sail through the committee since it has no impact on state expenditures or revenues. This is the last step before the bill hits the House floor for a final vote.

The bill has undergone extensive changes since it was first introduced in the Senate earlier this year. The bill originally mandated that adult patients undergoing SOCE (Sexual Orientation Change Efforts) sign an informed consent statement, and provided civil penalties for those who felt they were harmed by SOCE. The bill also banned licensed therapists from providing SOCE to minors under the age of eighteen. Because the bill applied to licensed therapists only, it did not affect ex-gay ministries operating in the state.

The original bill garnered opposition not only from NARTH, but also from several professional groups such as the California Psychiatric Association, the California Psychological Association, the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. During negotiations with the professional organizations, all of the bill’s provisions were dropped except for the ban on SOCE for minors. The bill also now stipulates that the violations of that ban will subject the therapist to penalties as determined “by the licensing entity for that mental health provider.” As a result of those changes, the professional organizations have dropped their opposition to the bill, and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists have switched to supporting the measure.

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 IN HISTORY:
Congress Holds Hearings on Mattachine Society: 1963. “If these people are a charitable organization promoting homosexuality, I’ve grown up in a wrong age,” Rep. John Dowdy (D-TX) said as the House Subcommittee for the District of Columbia opened hearings on a bill to strip the Mattachine Society of Washington of its fundraising permit. The permit had been award to the group by D.C. officials in August 1962 when the group demonstrated that it qualified for the permit under the Charitable Solicitations Act. Mattachine president Frank Kameny then sent a statement to members of Congress along with excerpts from the Society’s constitution. Noting that gays were barred from federal employment, military service and security-sensitive positions in the private sector, Kameny blasted federal laws as “archaic, unrealistic, and inconsistent with basic American principles. … Policies of repression, persecution, and exclusion will not prove to be workable ones in the case of this minority, any more than they have, throughout history, in the case of other minorities.”

Kameny’s letter ended with an offer to meet with members of Congress. Dowdy, instead, introduced a bill in July which specifically singled out the Mattachine Society for the revocation of its permit. A second section of the bill would provide that no solicitation permits could be issued unless the District’s Commissioners determined that the “solicitation which would be authorized by such certificate would benefit or assist in promoting the health, welfare and morals of the District of Columbia.”

During the subcommittee’s hearing on August 8, city officials opposed the measure on constitutional grounds, with the District Republican Committee joining the city in opposing the measure. Dowdy was indignant at the opposition. “You contrast that with permitting the solicitation of funds for perversion and morality. Which is more important to the community?” Noting that Congress had passed laws designed to curb the Communist Party, he continued, “As far as I know, all the security risks that have deserted the United States have been homosexuals. Do you place them on a higher plane than communists?” Rep. Basil Whitener (D-NC) joined the fray, asking if the Commissioners “want to repeal the section of the Criminal Code dealing with sodomy.” Mattachine president Frank Kameny was also at the hearing. He was just beginning to read a prepared statement when the hearing was suddenly adjourned until the next day due to a quorum call on the House floor.

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?

Miller-Jenkins kidnapping conspirator faces trial

From the Chronicle:

Eleven women and three men were impaneled to hear the case against Mennonite Pastor Kenneth Miller, accused of helping a woman flee the United States with her daughter rather than share custody of the child with her former lesbian partner.

Miller, 46, of Stuarts Draft, Va., is charged with aiding in international kidnapping. A conviction carries a maximum prison term of three years. The jury was selected Tuesday and court will resume with opening statements Wednesday.

The case, which we have covered comprehensively, involves a couple who got a civil union in Vermont, planned a family through artificial insemination, raised a child for years, and then broke up. Lisa Miller, the birth mother, fled to Virginia, hooked up with Thomas Road Baptist Church (Jerry Falwell’s church), renounced her orientation and claimed a new heterosexual Christian status, and refused to let the other mother visit. After numerous attempts to get her to comply with the courts, including trips to the Vermont and Virginia Supreme Courts, the frustrated family law judge awarded custody of Isabella Miller-Jenkins to Janet Jenkins. Rather than follow the law, Miller – with the help of various people named “Miller” – kidnapped her daughter and fled the country.

Miller’s team is expected to argue that the order changing custody was not yet filed when he conspired to whisk Lisa Miller and Isabella Miller-Jenkins out of the country.

Which makes me wonder… is it Mennonite theology to try and wiggle out of responsibility based on a filing date? I would think that either a man of God would either stand for the morality of his position or would recognize his behavior as immoral and seek forgiveness and face punishment. I wouldn’t think that “standing up for Christ” was mostly about arguing about filing dates.

But, then again, I’m not Mennonite so I guess I wouldn’t know.

$325K gift to Minnesota’s marriage efforts

From Pioneer Press:

A Michigan philanthropist has donated $325,000 to a group opposing a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage in Minnesota.

Jon Stryker of Kalamazoo, Mich., gave the money to Freedom to Marry Minnesota’s political action committee on Tuesday, Aug. 7. according to state campaign finance records.

The numbers are starting to get big. I think that reflects an awareness that this time, we have a good chance at success.

Tanzanian LGBT Advocate’s Death Ruled A Homicide

Identity Kenya has obtained a copy of an autopsy report on the death of Tanzanian LGBT advocate Maurice Mjomba, who was found dead in his home on Dar es Saalam last week. The autopsy gives the cause of death as “Asphyxia due to homicide.” Initial eyewitness accounts indicated that it looked like he had been strangled, after having been bound, gagged and beaten. Police are investigating, but no suspects have been identified or detained.

Email of the Day

You-know-who is crowing over his big win in Tennessee.

Tennessee Kingmaker

The Democratic Party establishment from Tennessee to Washington is in political collapse today because of Public Advocate supporter and volunteer Mark Clayton. You see, Mark has won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in TN to face establishment Senator Bob Corker in November.

This is a major blow for the Homosexual Lobby and their allies entrenched in the Democratic Party’s leadership. In the run up to the primary, Mark openly stood up for true marriage and the Family. It was not a secret or a trick. When given the opportunity to listen without the heavy-handed tactics of the party leadership, even most Democrats believe in true marriage and the Family.

Public Advocate is barred from endorsing candidates and campaigns. And if it wasn’t for recent events, I wouldn’t mention this race to you. But the Democratic leadership has now disavowed Mark and attacked him over his affiliation with your Public Advocate. As expected, they refer to your Public Advocate as a “hate group”. And they are branding anyone who stands with us as “bigots” and “hate-mongers.”

Eugene Delgaudio’s Public Advocate is, in fact, an SPLC-designated anti-gay hate group. Clayton is the organization’s vice president. He is also the Democratic nominee for Tennessee’s U.S. Senate race. The Tennessee state Democratic Party has issued a statement:

Mark Clayton is associated with a known hate group in Washington, D.C., and the Tennessee Democratic Party disavows his candidacy, will not do anything to promote or support him in any way, and urges Democrats to write-in a candidate of their choice in November.

Meanwhile, Delgaudio, naturally, closes his email with:

P.S. Please prayerfully consider chipping in with a donation of $10 or more to help Public Advocate fight for traditional values.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, August 7

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Philadelphia’s Homophile Action League Founded: 1968. Five months had passed since Philadelphia police raided Rusty’s, a bar that was popular with local Lesbians. The Daughters of Bilites had organized a chapter in the City of Brotherly Love the year before, and chapter members were furious at their treatment during the raid and were eager to directly confront the city’s political establishment. But the national organization’s rules dictated that the national organization had to approve of all political activities. Ada Bello recalled, “It was difficult to get authorization from the administration of DOB. We couldn’t find the president — remember, it was before cell phones and email — and we felt that it was hampering our ability to react… Ad so we thought, ‘Why not start another organization — one whose middle name is Action!'” On August 7, 1968, the Homophile Action League, or HAL was born when the Philadelphia DOB voted to dissolve itself and re-form into the new organization. Bello and Carole Friedman announced the organization’s purpose in the first HAL newsletter:

This newly formed group, open to both men and women, has adopted the name “Homophile Action League,” and has as its main purpose “to strive to change society’s legal, social and scientific attitudes toward the homosexual in order to achieve justified recognition of the homosexual as a first class citizen and a first class human being. … “We are not a social group. We do not intend to concentrate our energies on “uplifting” the homosexual community, for such efforts would be sadly misplaced. It is our firm conviction that it is the heterosexual community which is badly in need of uplifting.

Pioneering gay rights advocate Barbara Gittings, who later joined HAL, recalled that “there hadn’t been any really concerted effort on the political scene until HAL was organized and began to attract some men.” HAL would become the main representative of the gay community to the city’s power brokers until the early 1970s, when it would, in turn, be displaced by the more aggressive Gay LiberationFront.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Christian Chávez: 1983. Fans of Mexican telenovelas will recognize him as Giovanni Méndez López in the 2004-2006 series Rebelde. The plot centered around a group of high school students at a private boarding school in Mexico City who formed a pop band. Several cast members including Chávez went on to form a real two-time Latin Grammy nominated band known as RBD. In March 2007, a magazine published photos of Chávez getting married to his Canadian boyfriend. He promptly acknowledged his homosexuality, asking his fans for their understanding and acceptance. But in true pop music fashion, Chávez and his husband divorced in 2009 after an apparently stormy two years.

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?

Uganda’s Gay Pride

I have such admiration for Uganda’s gay activists. They knew that if they held a gay pride event that the police would hear about it. They held it anyway. They knew that if they showed up for the event, so would the police. They showed up anyway. They knew that if they dared be themselves, some would be arrested. They dared anyway.

The New Yorker has an article on Kampala’s first gay pride weekend.

“Can you imagine that the worst place in the world to be gay is having Gay Pride?” Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera asked a crowd of cheering gay men, lesbians, transgendered men and women, and queers somewhere in between. It was Saturday afternoon, and we were on the shores of the giant, cloudy Lake Victoria in the Ugandan city of Entebbe, where L.G.B.T. activists had decided to stage the country’s first Pride Parade. Nabagesera, a lesbian activist covered, for the occasion, in glitter and neon spray paint, with homemade angel wings, was being half-sarcastic. A barrage of media coverage has painted the country as a hell for gays—a place where they are suffering and being attacked constantly—and, despite the need to combat such threats, L.G.B.T. Ugandans were tired of hearing a story that ignored their nuanced experiences of both joy and hardship. But Nabagesera was also sincerely pleased: a crowd of nearly a hundred people had come out, fears of arrest notwithstanding, to celebrate their existence. The air was thick with confetti, paint fumes, and anticipation.

Papa Ratzi’s extreme homophobia still surprises me

Pope Benedict the Evil has demonstrated that he is obsessed with homosexuality. He has made the Church’s opposition to civil rights, freedoms and equality for gay people the hallmark of his term as the Supreme Pontiff.

Traipsing about seeking sedition in modern European nations over marriage equality and imposing harsh autocrats upon liberal bishoprics seem heavy handed in an increasingly secular world. But I am, frankly, surprised at the blatancy of Papa Ratzi’s latest insult.

Bulgaria is an eastern European nation about the size and population of Tennessee. Most of the country is (at least nominally) Bulgarian Orthodox, with about 60,000 Roman Catholics (less than 1% of the population). But the Pope is certainly not going to let the minimal nature of his influence in Bulgaria influence his civility towards Bulgarians, Catholic or otherwise.

Kiril Maritchkov, Jr., son of a popular Bulgarian rock musician and the grandson of the ambassador to the Vatican during the 90’s, would seem like an ideal candidate for serving that nation in it’s diplomatic relations with the Holy City. But oh no, not when you’re dealing with Benedict. Because some things are just more important than good relations with a nation in which you have but a token presence. Such as the mere mention of “a homosexual act” in a fictional novel. (adnkronos.com)

Kiril Maritchov’ Jr.s rejection in May is ”punishment” for the scene written by the married father of two work in his 2005 book “The Fugitive’s Road” which topped the best-selling lists in his home country, the daily said, without revealing where it got the information.
…
The Fugitive’s Road deals with immigration from Eastern Europe to Italy and includes a scene dealing with a male character paying another man for sex.

Maritchov wasn’t tossing out gay porn. In fact, his character confesses all his sins to God and pleads for his eternal compassion at the end of the book. But that is irrelevant. He mentioned a “homosexual act” and that will get you banned from Benedict’s court.

UPDATE: The Irish Times gives better information about the novel:

In his book, Clandestination, he tells the story of Ivan, a young east-European graduate in architecture, who comes to Italy, enticed by false work promises.

In a manner that accurately reflects the experience of many clandestini (clandestine immigrants, hence the book’s title), it all falls apart for Ivan in Italy.

At one point, he is so short of money that he prostitutes himself for €50 to a man he encounters casually at Valle Giulia, central Rome.

Far right Republican Bob Corker is your best Tennessee Senate choice

Republican Senator Bob Corker is opposed to marriage equality. He supports a constitutional amendment to make sure that gay people cannot have equality in any state. He opposed lifting the ban on open service in the military. He is not by any means a friend to the gay community.

About the only remotely pro-gay position that Corker has ever taken was saying that he would be “open to looking at” civil unions provided that they were limited to certain rights (e.g. hospital visitation) and resembled marriage in no way at all.

In other words, just about the only way that Corker could possibly be the best choice for gay voters would be if the Democrats selected a challenger who was an anti-gay activist affiliated with an actual anti-gay hate group.

Which they just did.

Send funds to elect my very own personal Senator.

Mark Clayton, the Democratic Party nominee for Corker’s senate seat, is the Vice President of Public Advocate of the United States. Public Advocate (better known as Eugene Delgaudio’s alter-ego) has been determined by the Southern Poverty Law Center to be an anti-gay hate group. (Who knew Delgaudio had a Vice President?)

It seems that Clayton used that title to lobby for Tennessee’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill last year. (Who knew that Public Advocate actually advocated for anything?)

Of course Tennessee Democrats didn’t intend to select an anti-gay activist to represent their party. They really didn’t set out to elect anyone in particular to that nominal task. Clayton was just listed first on the ballot.

And now they are trying to figure out how to get rid of him. So far, there doesn’t seem to be any way to do so and it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that Corker will win reelection regardless of who the Democrats nominated.

But until such time as there is some other option at the ballot box (I don’t know if Tennessee allows write in votes) gay voters are best served by voting for Bob Corker. The fewer votes for Eugene Delgaudio’s side-kick, the better.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, August 6

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Plymouth Colony Convicts Two Men Of “Lewd Behavior and Unclean Carriage”: 1637. The crime wasn’t sodomy — that required proof of penetration — but it was shocking nevertheless. From the official record:

John Allexander & Thomas Roberts were both examined and found guilty of lewd behavior and unclean carriage one with another, by often spending their seed one upon another, which was proved both by witness & their own confession; the said Allexander [was] found to have been formerly notoriously guilty that way, and seeking to allure others thereunto. The said John Allexander was therefore censured [sentenced] by the Court to be severely whipped, and burnt in the shoulder with a hot iron, and to be perpetually banished [from] the government [territory] of New Plymouth, and if he be at any time found within the same, to be whipped out again by the appointment [order] of the next justice, etc., and so as oft as he shall be found within this government. Which penalty was accordingly inflicted.

Thomas Roberts was censured to be severley whipped, and to return to his master, Mr. Atwood, and serve out his time with him, but to be disabled hereby to enjoy any lands within this government, except he manifest better desert.

A Reported Case of “Adhesiveness”: 1836.The word “homosexuality” wasn’t coined until 1868, and it wouldn’t enter the English language until 1895. Without it, medical professionals struggled to find a scientific-sounding word to describe gay people that wasn’t among the usual pejoratives. One British doctor, known only as “Dr. Macnish,” wrote this very brief account in the August 6, 1836 issue of The Lancet:

ADHESIVENESS. — I knew two gentlemen whose attachment to each other was so excessive, as to amount to a disease. When the one visited the other, they slept in the same bed, sat constantly alongside of each other at table, spoke in affectionate whispers, and were, in short, miserable when separated. The strength of their attachment was shown, by the uneasiness, amounting to jealousy, with which the one surveyed any thing approaching to tenderness and kindness, which the other might show to a third party. This violent excitement of adhesiveness continued for some years, but gradually exhausted itself, or at least abated to something like a natural or healthy feeling. Such attachments are, however, much more common among females than among the other sex. — Dr. Macnish.

Not gay: Michael Johnston and his mother in a 1998 television commercial.

Ex-Gay Leader Experiences “Moral Fall”: 2003. Michael Johnston was literally the poster boy of the ex-gay movement. Five years earlier, he was the star of a high profile national print and television ad campaign claiming that gays could change their sexual orientation. Johnston, who is HIV-positive, appeared with his mother in a controversial print ad under the headline “From innocence to AIDS.” He and his mother also appeared in a television commercial, in which she said, “My son Michael found out the truth — he could walk away from homosexuality. But he found out too late — he has AIDS.” Johnston founded Kerusso Ministries in Newport News, Virginia, he began a program called the National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day, and he was featured in the widely-distributed ex-gay propaganda video, “It’s Not Gay.”

But all that ended when it was revealed that while Johnston was the public face of the ex-gay movement, privately he was engaging in anonymous sex with men without disclosing his HIV status. One man said that he had met Johnston, who called himself Sean, in a gay chat room in 2001 and had a six month relationship with him. “What we did was unsafe,” the man said, “I brought it up all the time, but [Johnston] didn’t seem to think it mattered. He would have these parties, get a hotel room, get online and invite tons of people — he just wouldn’t care.” Johnston quickly shuttered his ministry and fled to Pure Life Ministries, an ex-gay residential program in rural Kentucky. He is now Director of Donor and Media Relations at that very same ministry today where he is also a member of the “speaking team.” And his propaganda video is still for sale at the American Family Association web site.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Andy Warhol: 1928.He didn’t invent pop art, but it is more his brand than anyone else’s. He was born to working class Ukrainian immigrants in Pittsburgh, and attended an Eastern Rite Byzantine Catholic Church. Maybe it was the religious icons that filled the church which inspired him to make icons of ordinary things and extraordinary people. Brillo pads and soup cans were more than their mere packages after his treatment, electric chairs became sculptures of transcendent mystery, and Marylin Monroe and Jacqui Onassis became the Madonnas and St. Catherines of the modern era. Even the white-haired wig he wore later in life became an icon of his personality. “I love Los Angeles,” he once said. “I love Hollywood. They’re so beautiful. Everything’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.”

Warhol’s personal life was as scandalous as his films and artwork. In 1968, he was shot by Valerie Solanas, a minor artist working off and on at Wahol’s studio The Factory, and very nearly died. But he would go on to live two more decades, and he remained a devout Catholic, attending Mass nearly daily. When he died after complications from gallbladder surgery, he was buried in Pittsburgh following a traditional Eastern Rite funeral with Yoko Ono making an appearance. His will left virtually his entire estate for the establishment of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which is one of the the largest grant-making foundations for visual arts in the U.S.

Angie Zapata: 1989.She died too young at only eighteen when she was savagely beaten to death by Allen Andrade, first with his fists and then with a fire extinguisher to the head. They had met through a social networking site and spent three days together, including one sexual encounter, before Andrade found out that Angie was transgender. In his murder trial, Andrade’s lawyer posed the trans-panic defense, saying that Andrade beat Angie after she smiled at him and said, “I’m all woman”. That, according to Andrade’s lawyer, was a “highly provoking act.” The jury didn’t buy it fortunately, and Andrade was found guilty of first degree murder with hate crime enhancements, and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

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?

Congratulations Jim

On Friday evening BTB’s Jim Burroway was awarded with the 2012 Excellence in Online Journalism Award by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association for his coverage of the life of Kirk Murphy, the ex-gay ministry’s chief exhibit in their claims of preventative therapy success.

Congratulations Jim. Very well deserved.

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, August 5

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Amsterdam, Netherlands; Cork, Ireland; Hamburg, Germany; Hanoi, Vietnam; Leeds, UK; Salem, OR; and Vancouver, BC.

Other Events This Weekend: Divers/Cité Montréal, QC; Summer Diversity Weekend, Eureka Springs, AK; Zia Regional Rodeo, Santa Fe, NM.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Clinton Forbids Denying Security Clearances To Gays: 1995. President Bill Clinton signed an Executive Order officially banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in granting security clearances. For decades, federal agencies routinely denied security clearances to gay people on the assumption that all gay people were subject to blackmail. But a GAO study found that eight government agencies had already stopped using homosexuality as a reason for denying clearances, including the Defense Department, State Department, the FBI and the Secret Service. A 1953 Executive Order signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower included “sexual perversion” as a basis for firing from the federal workforce. That ban was lifted in 1975, but policies regarded security clearances remained vague. Clinton’s Order established uniform standards for granting security clearances, and it added sexual orientation to the non-discrimination clause. This Executive Order came two years after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was passed by Congress.

The Family “Research” Council’s Robert Maginnis denounced the move, saying that “in all healthy societies, homosexuality is recognized as a pathology with very serious implications for a person’s behavior. … Even more importantly for security concerns, this is a behavior that is associated with a lot of anti-security markers such as drug and alcohol abuse, promiscuity and violence.” FRC hasn’t changed much since then. Rep. Bob Dornan (R-CA), who was never at a loss for words when it came to outrageous statements, called gay people “promiscuous by definition,” and said that Clinton’s action was “something else he didn’t have to do that’s gotten in our face. I wouldn’t trust them with a $5 loan, let alone the nation’s secrets.”

Smashing the Stained Glass Closet

Rev. Gene Robinson Elected Episcopal Bishop: 2003. Overcoming eleventh-hour charges that he had sexually harassed a parishioner — charges which were withdrawn with regrets from the person making them — senior bishops at the Episcopal Church’s General Convention voted 62 to 43 with two abstentions to approve Rev. Gene Robinson’s election as bishop of New Hampshire. The election ended months of emotional debate, threats, and bizarre charges. One charge was that a web site run by a youth advocacy group that he supported had links to porn sites. The Boston Globe investigated, and found, that, yes, it was possible to find explicit photos from that web site, but it would take seven clicks outside of it to get there.

At issue was the fact that Robinson was not celibate and had been living with his life partner since 1988. During committee hearings leading up to his confirmation, Robinson said that his relationship with his partner was an essential element in his own spiritual life. “‘What I can tell you is that in my relationship with my partner, I am able to express the deep love that’s in my heart,” he explained. ”And in his unfailing and unquestioning love of me, I experience just a little bit of the kind of never-ending, never-failing love that God has for me. So it’s sacramental.”

When Robinson’s election was finally confirmed, about thirty delegates walked out, and opponents called the election “a step toward moral disintegration in America. Anglican leaders in Asia and Africa immediately denounced the decision and threatened schism.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, August 4

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Amsterdam, Netherlands; Belfast, UK; Cork, Ireland; Hamburg, Germany; Hanoi, Vietnam; Leeds, UK; Liverpool, UK; Salem, OR; Stockholm, Sweden; Swindon, UK; and Vancouver, BC.

Other Events This Weekend: Divers/Cité Montréal, QC; Summer Diversity Weekend, Eureka Springs, AK; Zia Regional Rodeo, Santa Fe, NM.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
New York TV Station Airs “Introduction to the Problem of Homosexuality”: 1956. The pioneering WRCA-TV (now WNBC) aired an award-winning weekly panel discussion program called “The Open Mind”. The program, hosted by Richard Heffner, was not only well ahead of its time when it first went on the air in May 1956, it is still acclaimed today today as a syndicated program — still hosted by Heffner — for American Public Television. On August 4, 1956, Heffner hosted the first televised discussion on the East Coast on homosexuality.  And fortunately, the Daughters of Bilitis’s magazine The Ladder featured a review of the program by Sten Russell (real name: Stella Rush). If it weren’t for her review, it might be difficult to reconstruct the discussions that took place that night.

According to Russell, the program featured attorney Florence Kelley, psychologist R.W. Laidlaw, and a clergyman by the name of Dr. August Swift. The program started on a relatively non-condemning note, although it wouldn’t take long for the prevailing prejudices about gay people to take root. When Heffner asked the panel whether homosexuality harmed society and should be punished by law, it was the clergyman who re-cast the question as to whether the law should concern itself with people who were not harming society. Kelley, the attorney, jumped in to counter that the law certainly should apply “when children were involved” — reflecting the common view that gays were child molesters — unless, she added, it was found that “homosexual offenders” could be treated. Laidlaw, the psychologist, said that of course they could be treated, to which Kelly retorted, “Yeah, anything can be treated… but how successfully?” Russell’s account indicated that the program continued along those lines:

The moderator asked if the homosexual could accept himself if society didn’t accept him. The conclusion was that it was very difficult, indeed. The moderator asked if there were cultural factors in the present making for more homosexuality. Miss Kelley asked if homosexuality were [sic] growing or just being more talked about. She cited Kinsey’s books as examples. The moderator said that the matter of national “security” had focussed attention on this problem. He mentioned blackmail potential as part of the “security problem”.

Laidlaw said that a homosexual was not necessarily neurotic or psychotic, but that he was more likely to be in certain ways, due mainly to the pressures of public opinion which caused him to have to hide and cover up his actions and desires. Dean Swift was concerned as to the shock children experienced when approached by adult males. Laidlaw said that that depended on the predisposition of the child. Miss Kelley said that she was not worried about the “predisposition of the child,” but that the American Law Institute wished to protect any child from the traumatic shock of any sexual attack.

Despite the obvious prejudices, the program was (for 1956) relatively evenhanded and balanced — as balanced as a program like this could be where people were talking about another group of people who weren’t in the room. But even without the presence of a genuine gay person on the panel, the program proved controversial; New York’s Francis Cardinal Spellman threatened to have NBC affiliate WRCA’s broadcasting license revoked.

California’s Prop 8 Declared Unconstitutional: 2010. It’s hard to believe that only two years have passed since Federal Judge Walker Vaughn’s decision declaring California’s Proposition 8 unconstitutional. We’ve been following the case so closely that it now seems like a lifetime ago. Judge Walker’s findings were far-reaching, saying that Prop 8 could not withstand any level of scrutiny under the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The case then went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which narrowed Judge Walker’s ruling considerably, holding that the key thing that made Prop 8 unconsitutional was that it took away a right from just one group of people who already enjoyed that right. According to the three judge Appeals panel, ” Withdrawing from a disfavored group the right to obtain a designation with significant societal consequences is different from declining to extend that designation in the first place, regardless of whether the right was withdrawn after a week, a year, or a decade. The action of changing something suggests a more deliberate purpose than does the inaction of leaving it as it is.”  On Tuesday, Prop 8’s supporters announced that they had filed an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).