The Daily Agenda for Monday, August 25

Jim Burroway

August 25th, 2014

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From Arizona Gay News October 5, 1978, page 14.

From Arizona Gay News October 5, 1978, page 14.

As a rule, I try to avoid posting an ad from the same city on two consecutive days, but this one was worth mentioning after yesterday’s post which touched on a terrible rash of anti-gay violence taking place in Phoenix in 1978, amid national anti-gay acrimony being stirred up by various anti-gay political campaigns inspired by Anita Bryant and the contentious debate over the Briggs Amendment that was just then taking place across Arizona’s western border in California. At least three serious anti-gay assaults had taken place in Phoenix in late July, and a gay bar hosted a fundraiser to cover some of the medical costs facing a 22-year-old gay man who was assaulted while leaving the 307 bar. Any hopes at that fundraiser that the spate of violence had come to an end were quickly dashed, as the Tucson-based Arizona Gay News reported on August 25:

Double Killing on Phoenix

Two men were found shot to death in the parking lot of a Phoenix gay bar. At presstime, it was not known whether either man’s death was gay oriented. Phoenix detective Mike Grant said the unidentified men were found dead early Monday morning at the edge of the parking area outside the 307 Lounge.

An officer checking a report of shots in the area found the bodies. The officer had seen a man running, followed, and discovered the bodies. Investigators said the running man had no apparent connection with the slayings. Police were using fingerprints in an attempt to identify the bodies.

I’ve not been able to find any further follow-up information on those murders.

It was not immediately obvious how the bar, located at 222 E. Roosevelt Street in downtown Phoenix got to be named the 3-0-7. It turns out that its original location was apparently located down the block at 307 E. Roosevelt before that section of the street was widened and the original bar closed down. Mark Suever tracked down some of the bar’s origins:

When S.W. Hubbard purchased it, the name was “Roy’s 307 Buffet”. Phone directories from the late 40’s and 50’s listed it as just “Three-O-Seven Buffet”, later it was changed to “Hubbard’s Three-O-Seven”. The name was changed once more to Palmer’s 307 when it was purchased by Palmer E. Ganske. In 1981 Ganske sold the bar for $40,000 to Jerry L. Graham, dba Little Jim’s 307. Little Jim’s was a gay bar chain that included Little Jim’s Chicago and another one in Florida.

The 3-0-7 was Phoenix’s oldest gay bar when it finally closed in 2000, with a reputation as being something of a gay bar as far back as the 1940s. In the sixties and seventies, the entire neighborhood was known for its hustlers and rough trade. When the bar finally closed in 2000, the owner’s told the Phoenix New Times that they would be opening back up in a new, larger location on North Central near two other popular gay bars. Plans were for the new location included operating as an after-hours club with a restaurant located next door. But for whatever reason those plans never came to fruition, and the 3-0-7 wound up being closed for good. The building on Roosevelt was later done-up nicely where it is now home to an artsy boutique and gallery.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Leonard Bernstein: 1918-1990. When he died only five days after announcing his retirement in 1990, the New York Times lionized him as “one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history.” He became instantly famous in 1943 when he stepped in at the last minute — unrehearsed — to conduct the New York Philharmonic when conductor Bruno Walter fell ill. That concert at Carnegie Hall was nationally broadcast, and it led to guest conductor engagements around the country. In 1947 he conducted a complete Boston Symphony concert in Carnegie Hall, the first time that orchestra had allowed a guest to do so in 22 years. In 1953 he became the first American-born conductor to conduct an opera at Milan’s famed La Scala. When he was named the New York Philharmonic’s musical director in 1958, he became the youngest person to fill that role in the orchestra’s history.

Bernstein was also the first conductor to give numerous television lectures on classical music, starting in 1954, continuing until his death. Meanwhile, he also achieved popular success with his many compositions, including three symphonies, ballets and operas; his Mass; and music for such Broadway hits as Candide, On the Town, and most famously, West Side Story.

Bernstein conducting the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, 1970.

Bernstein was known for both his punishing schedule and his highly animated conducting style. One legendary story has it that at his first rehearsal as guest conductor for the St. Louis Symphony, his initial downbeat was so dramatic that the startled musicians simply stared in amazement and made no sound. In 1982 Bernstein fell off the podium while conducting the Houston Symphony, and he did it again in 1984 while leading the Vienna Philharmonic in Chicago.

Bernstein married Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn in 1951. and although they had three children, the marriage didn’t seem to fool anyone. It did somehow last some 25 years before embarking on a kind of a “trial separation” where they continued to appear together at his performances. She died in 1978. Bernstein’s homosexuality, often rumored throughout his life, became public knowledge with the 1987 publication of Joan Peyser’s Bernstein: A Biography. Arthur Laurents, Bernstein’s collaborator in West Side Story, said simply that Bernstein was “a gay man who got married. He wasn’t conflicted about it at all. He was just gay.”

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?

Hunter

August 25th, 2014

Bernstein was also a prolific and sometimes challenging composer whose output was not limited to musicals and who had no hesitation in combining idioms and genres.

Aside from that, my day is going to be very low-key: the forecast is for the low 90s, which means move as little as possible. Or go to a movie.

Jay

August 25th, 2014

The World Conference for Families is having difficulty finding a venue for their International Conference scheduled in Australia. Venues keep canceling on them when pitchfork-bearing gay people protest. Now Mike Huckabee and Brian Brown have launched a petition urging Australia to find them a venue and protect them from gay bullies. I am sure that you will want to sign on to that letter since you are so opposed to pitchfork bearing gay people bullying others. Read more about the dilemma faced by the World Conference for Families here.

Jay

August 25th, 2014

Re Bernstein. He apparently contributed to the whisper campaign against Dmitri Mitropoulos that led to his firing by the New York Philharmonic. Since he was married, Bernstein could present himself as the sort of “family man” that the orchestra wanted in the McCarthy days.
Bernstein was named co-conductor with Mitropoulos for the 1957-58 season and then over as sole musical director the next year. Typically gracious, Mitropoulos bowed out with praise for Bernstein’s talent, but the loss of his position as director of the leading American orchestra was deeply hurtful to him, a wound from which he never fully recovered. (source: glbtq.com entry on Mitropoulis.

Jim Burroway

August 25th, 2014

Jay,

Please stop lying about what I oppose.

I was most clear about exactly what I oppose. I oppose people demanding that other people be fired from their jobs when they didn’t publicly participate in any leadership capacity or were in any way outspoken about their anti-gay beliefs, and where whatever minimal outside activities they may have participated in (in this case, contributing to a perfectly legal political campaign, as I did) had not one iota to do with the job they were hired to do.

I have been more than clear and upfront about what I believe AND WHAT I DON’T BELIEVE. And I stand behind every word of it. Because my preferred future does not look like Brian Brown’s in reverse, where we go after people’s livelihoods because of the political campaigns they contribute to, as many of them would love to go after mine if they knew where I work (and as they did try to do to Pam Spaulding.)

You are actually sounding much more like Brian Brown in the way you seem to want to turn reality on its head.

Jay

August 25th, 2014

I think you are misrepresenting your own position re the Brendan Eich affair, particularly the characterization of a gay mob agitating for Eich’s firing. There was no such organized agitation, and to suggest that there was is certainly to align you much closer to Brian Brown and Mike Huckabee than anything I have said.

Jim Burroway

August 25th, 2014

By your own words you show how badly you’re misrepresenting me. I never once said anywhere that there was any kind of “organized agitation.” There can be no denying that there was agitation before the fact and cheering after. But the very nature of mobs often precludes organizing. And so once again I have to point out that it is you who are trying to claim that I wrote something that I clearly didn’t write. If that’s not a textbook definition of misrepresentation then I don’t know what is.

I have been very careful in describing both what happened and my beliefs. It is you who are being slipshod, and apparently intentionally so. Until you can find the decency to address what I actually wrote rather than just making stuff up, I see no need to engage you any further.

Jay

August 25th, 2014

Soon you will be denying that you characterized the gay community as a pitchfork-bearing mob. I have no desire to reignite an old controversy, but I don’t think many of us are going to forget it anytime soon.

Jim Burroway

August 25th, 2014

You evidently won’t be happy unless you can paint me as some kind of lying, hypocritical, or cowardly monster that you’ve somehow managed to create in your head.

I would never deny the pitchfork analogy because it was appropriate. Absolutely, totally, beyond-a-doubt appropriate:

Thank you for admitting that you are self-hating faggots. Wouldn’t it be funny if you were both gay bashed to death? I sure would laugh.

Yeah, those were rough times.

I don’t see why you would want to deny your desire to reignite an old controversy, since obviously you had that desire earlier this morning. Of all the controversies worth re-igniting, I still consider it one of the most important ones I’ve been a part of. You promise not to forget. I hope you don’t, although I do wish you could accurately remember what I actually said. I am proud of what I wrote — still proud — and stand behind it, and will do so again when/if another situation rises. I will defend anyone’s right to hold a job despte whatever political contributions they have made outside of their job, just as I would defend your right if I were to learn that others would have your job on the line if they didn’t like a political contribution you made.

Jay

August 26th, 2014

I am sorry that you think that I am attempting to paint you as some kind of monster. I assure you that I do not believe that at all. In fact, I greatly admire you for all the good things you have done at this site, which was once my favorite blog.

My complaint is your inflammatory characterization of gay people as a bullying mob, which I think was entirely uncalled for and which dangerously plays into the narrative of our enemies. If you are hypocritical, it is insofar as you fail to defend others who have been “fired” for their racial statements, for example, yet you rush to the defense of Brendan Eich. I am sorry that you continue to stand by your actions that I think have damaged the credibility of the site.

In any case, I apologize for having made you think that I don’t admire you or that I am not grateful for the hard work you do on behalf of equal rights.

JEM

August 26th, 2014

Wow, what started out as a really good comment about the hate fest that can’t find a venue turned into a total pile of crap. Give it a rest!

Timothy Kincaid

August 26th, 2014

Jay,

It would seem to me that igniting an old controversy was exactly what you were trying to do. But I agree with you that it is time to move on and I appreciate that you respect the hard work Jim does.

I don’t speak for Jim, but I do know that for me, at least, not everything is in the starkest contrast of black and white. That I like some foods does not mean I like all foods. That I dislike some music does not mean that I dislike all music. And that I disapprove of some social action does not mean that I disapprove of all social action.

I do not find it contradictory or hypocritical that I find some anti-gay actions and positions to be so objectionable that I speak out against them, while other anti-gay positions do not merit the same response.

We are not automatons. We use our judgment, we measure situations, and we seek to distinguish between evil and mistaken, between dangerous and flawed, and between hatred and malice-less adherence to prejudiced traditions.

You might not agree with our judgment, and that’s fine. But the attack on our character has worn old and needs to stop.

Dave H

August 27th, 2014

I think the part of this article about the 3-0-7 bar in Phoenix is factually inaccurate.

I was the very active at Phoenix’s gay community center in the late 90s, starting out as a staffer on the switchboard and ending up as the volunteer coordinator. On the switchboard, at least 1/3 of our calls were from out-of-town visitors asking where the bars are, so I became quite knowledgeable about Phoenix’s bar scene.

I’ve never heard of the 3-0-7 bar.

I moved to Phoenix in late 1995, and I’m pretty certain that the bar did not exist at that time.

The explanation that the original location at 307 E. Roosevelt was torn down to make way for the Chase Bank building is incorrect. The Chase tower is located seven blocks south, on Central Avenue between Van Buren and Monroe.

Jay

August 27th, 2014

Timothy Kincaid, I have not attacked anyone’s character. Like Jim, you are trying to place words in my mouth. Not only have I not painted him “as some kind of lying, hypocritical, or cowardly monster” that he accused me of doing, but I have said that I greatly admire him for some of his work. I admire most of your work as well even as I sometimes disagree with your statements and actions.

I have no doubt that you and Jim and the other bloggers here believe that your ill-advised defense of Eich was warranted. I vehemently disagree. In characterizing the gay community as a pitchfork-bearing mob, you simply aided and abetted our enemies who are happy to think of us that way. And you did so with no real justification since the outrage against Eich was hardly orchestrated by the gay community.

Moreover, because you seem perfectly happy when racists such as Donald Sterling are fired as a result of their political speech, you also telegraph your belief that racism is far more serious than homophobia. That is a strange message for a gay rights blog to be sending.

I also wonder why you and Rob Tisinai don’t speak out against the firing of the creepy guy who recently made all those transphobic comments. Why does Eich get so much sympathy, but racists and transphobes not so much? Is it because Eich is a Mormon and their speech is more valuable than others?

Timothy Kincaid

August 27th, 2014

Jay,

Yes, you disagree with us.

But as for what I seem perfectly happy about or whose speech I think is more valuable, well that’s just downright wacky.

So instead of having to imagine strange motivations for our position, why don’t you just accept that we judged the situation differently from you and came to different conclusions.

You’ve stated your reasons. We’ve considered them. It hasn’t changed our views. Perhaps it’s time to stop trying.

Jim Burroway

August 27th, 2014

I’m going to dissent slightly on this:

You’ve stated your reasons. We’ve considered them. It hasn’t changed our views. Perhaps it’s time to stop trying.

I think the discussion has been illuminating. It didn’t change the direction of my views, although it did help enormously to clarify them. And so I’ll disagree with the last sentence. I see no reason to stop trying. As I said, it’s an important conversation. And while these conversations can get exhausting and time-outs can be beneficial when emotions get in the way, I generally don’t think discourse is advanced when one side or another “stops trying.”

And besides, that’s what open threads are all about.

I’m sure another opportunity will come along sooner or later where this theme will come up again. But as I explained when this latest thread started, the situation with Brian Brown’s inability to find a host hotel doesn’t even come close to being relevant to my objections in the Eich controversy.

Leave A Comment

All comments reflect the opinions of commenters only. They are not necessarily those of anyone associated with Box Turtle Bulletin. Comments are subject to our Comments Policy.

(Required)
(Required, never shared)

PLEASE NOTE: All comments are subject to our Comments Policy.

 

Latest Posts

The Things You Learn from the Internet

"The Intel On This Wasn't 100 Percent"

From Fake News To Real Bullets: This Is The New Normal

NC Gov McCrory Throws In The Towel

Colorado Store Manager Verbally Attacks "Faggot That Voted For Hillary" In Front of 4-Year-Old Son

Associated Press Updates "Alt-Right" Usage Guide

A Challenge for Blue Bubble Democrats

Baptist Churches in Dallas, Austin Expelled Over LGBT-Affirming Stance

Featured Reports

What Are Little Boys Made Of?

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

Slouching Towards Kampala: Uganda’s Deadly Embrace of Hate

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

Paul Cameron’s World

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"

The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths

At last, the truth can now be told.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.

Testing The Premise: Are Gays A Threat To Our Children?

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Straight From The Source: What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

The FRC’s Briefs Are Showing

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

Daniel Fetty Doesn’t Count

Daniel FettyThe FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.