The Daily Agenda for Sunday, December 14

Jim Burroway

December 14th, 2014

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From The Calendar (San Antonio, TX), December 12, 1986, page 4.

From The Calendar (San Antonio, TX), December 12, 1986, page 4.

San Antonio’s El Jardin had been a longtime fixture in the city’s gay nightlife ever since it opened in 1946. It apparently closed sometime at around the turn of the millennium:

The El Jardin. It was the oldest gay bar in Texas, and had the exhausted clientele to prove it. They had to close it a couple of years ago because the San Antonio Conservation Society purchased the building –– they’re gonna “save” it. …

The well-intentioned ladies will restore the building to what they perceive as its most important historical pinnacle; when it was the thriving business of an industrious German peach grower in the 1870’s, or something like that. Der Yawn. They will excitedly refresh its colors to juniper berry blue with cranapple red trim; “authentic” historic colors (in Cape Cod). And the El Jardin will be buried under the building’s newest layer, masked as an early 21st Century, Martha Stewart, “it’s a good thing”, over-restored, Disneyland, “Ye Old German Towne” of a building. There!

Why can’t they just restore it to what I truly feel is its greatest historic apex –– when it was the only place in town where you could score a dime bag and listen to Edith Piaf on the jukebox.

Rising property values due to the building’s proximity to the Riverwalk finally did El Jardin in. The entire building now is a boutique hotel.

The Milwaukee Journal, Dec 14, 1954. (Click to enlarge.)

TODAY IN HISTORY:
60 YEARS AGO: Milwaukee Doctor Faced Blackmail: 1954. The Milwaukee Journal reported that Anthony Roy, 26, was charged with attempting to extort $500 from a Milwaukee physician in exchange for not “exposing” him for being gay. He also made similar extortion attempts against a jeweler and an osteopath. These blackmail attempts took place at a time when even rumors that someone was gay might result in the complete ruining of that person’s reputation. In the case of the doctor and osteopath, it might have even resulted in their licenses being revoked. After all, in 1954 they were both legally criminals and (according to the APA) mentally ill. The Journal described how Roy was caught:

Roy was seized in a public toilet at 1905 E. North av. The doctor, co-operating with police, had placed there a fake money package containing a dye powder. Officers said Roy’s hands were stained blue and the package was in his topcoat.

Police said the three professional men received a total of 10 extortion notes, demanding pPayment of $500 each  from the physician and the jeweler and $1,000 from the osteopath. None of the intended victims is a homosexual, police said.

CA state Sen. John V. Briggs

CA state Sen. John V. Briggs

CA State Sen. Briggs Urges Appointment of Non-Gay To Succeed Harvey Milk: 1978. San Francisco Mayor Diane Feinstein released a telegram sent to her from California State Sen. John Briggs urging her to fill the vacancy left by San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk’s assassination with a “non-homosexual.” Briggs, who was the driving force behind an unsuccessful 1978 ballot measure (see Nov 7) which would have banned gays, lesbians, and anyone who supported them from working in public schools, responded that he was a “little shocked” that Mayor Feinstein made the telegram public. Feinstein, who had been elected mayor to fill the vacancy left by the Nov. 27 shooting deaths of Milk and Mayor George Moscone, had said that she was considering appointing another gay person to fill Milk’s vacancy. Briggs responded via telegram:

“I am appalled by your apparent desire to use the quota system in appointing supervisor Harvey Milk’s successor ‘as the only moral thing to do.’ Surely merit not sexual preference should be the criterion. Supervisor Milk always insisted to be considered a human being first and a homosexual second. As an attractive alternative, perhaps now is the time to provide fair representation for San Francisco’s Oriental, black or Chicano populations.”

It’s pretty rich that Briggs wanted her to consider gay people “a human being first and a homosexual second,” given that his ballot measure, Proposition 6, would have done precisely the opposite. Feinstein ignored Briggs’s advice, and on January 8, 1979, she appointed Harry G. Britt, a former United Methodist minister and “avowed homosexual,” to fill Milk’s vacancy to represent the Castro district.

Dr. Robert Bernstein

Texas Health Department Gives Tentative Approval to AIDS Quarantine: 1985. The Texas Board of Health voted 12-5 to give tentative approval for a rule which would allow “incorrigible” people with AIDS to be declared as a public health threat and be placed under quarantine.  Dr. Robert Bernstein, the state health commissioner, proposed the rule two months earlier (see Oct 22) to ensure the “isolation or separation” of those who refused to curtail their sexual activity or drug use. “This does not deal with the average AIDS patient,” he told the press. “This is not aimed at a disease. It is aimed at individuals who have the disease and might be incorrigible in a public health way. Whether we’ll use this, I don’t know.”

Board member Dr. Barry Cunningham, a Round Rock dentist, was more blunt: “We have a moral obligation to protect the people of Texas against a disease that is 100 percent fatal.”

Bernstein emphasized that the proposed rule would only be used as a “last resort.” Local health officials would have to first get the state commissioner’s approval before imposing a quarantine. He justified the proposal by citing a Houston male prostitute with AIDS who had initially refused to stop working. The man later accepted counseling from a local gay advocacy group and admitted himself into a hospital.

Several Texas doctors spoke out against the proposal. Dr. Phillip Anderson, and Austin physician whose practice was about 60% gay, said, “The law is clearly outdated and inappropriate.” Board chairman Dr. Ron Anderson of Dallas, who voted against the proposal, said, “It’s not really scientifically what would help us very much.” Others noted that quarantines had historically been imposed on people with diseases which were spread through casual contact, and that HIV/AIDS is not a casually-spread disease. A hearing was set for public comment for January 13.

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?

Hue-Man

December 14th, 2014

“A care facility in Vancouver’s West End is attempting to implement recommendations from a three-month-old report on providing better care for LGBT seniors. But neither the provincial government nor its local health authority will mandate all facilities and intake workers to follow suit.”

“Mae Quon-Forsythe, manager of residential care for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCHA), which collaborated with Qmunity on the research, welcomes the report and the information it offers care providers. “As the population ages there’s going to be more LGBTQ people that need to be supported so they can live how they choose to live,” she says.

But VCHA won’t order facilities to train their staff. “We don’t mandate education; we promote it,” Quon-Forsythe says. “It’s really up to the [LGBT] community to get that lobbying done,” she adds.” http://dailyxtra.com/vancouver/news/bc-won%E2%80%99t-improve-intake-policies-lgbt-seniors-entering-care-97004

It’s hard to see who in the “LGBT Community” is going to lobby, certainly not anyone approaching the age where back in the closet long-term care is the only option – a strident lesbian or gay may never get a place. And the rest are never going to grow old…

FYoung

December 14th, 2014

Is France’s far right flirting with gay vote?

http://www.france24.com/en/20141213-france-far-right-national-front-flirting-gay-vote-chenu-philippot/

This is a fascinating development. It is surprisingly logical for French gays in a “the enemy [Front National] of my enemy [anti-gay Muslims and immigrants] is my friend” sort of way.

Could it happen in the Republican Party in the US? I don’t think so, because American gays don’t see immigrants as being more anti-gay than native Americans, and they don’t see Muslims as being powerful enough to be threatening.

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