Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMay 22nd, 2015
<strongTODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Angers, France; Birmingham, UK; Chicago, IL (Bear Pride); Düsseldorf, Germany; Eskilstuna, Sweden; Pensacola, FL; Puerto Vallarta, JAL; Pride Washington, DC (Black Pride).
Other Events This Weekend: International Mr. Leather, Chicago, IL; Matinee, Las Vegas, NV; Great Plains Rodeo; Oklahoma City, OK; Inside Out Toronto Film Festival, Toronto, ON.
TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:
From The Washington Blade, June 12, 1980, page 21.
Randy Rohl and Grady Quinn.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
► First Gay Couple To Attend High School Prom: 1979. Randy Rohl, a 17-year-old senior at a Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, embarked on the most quintessential high school rite of passage: attending the senior prom. His date wasn’t so quintessential: his friend, 20-year-old Grady Quinn. The couple wore matching powder blue tuxes, rose boutonnieres and matching silver pierced earrings.
Rohl wore his sexuality rather lightly, especially considering the times and the locale. He later told a friend that it wasn’t meant to be a political act. He just wanted to go to the prom. The school’s principal, Fred Stephens, granted permission for the couple to attend the dance, saying “My belief is that people need their rights protected. Homosexuals have rights.” Rohl told reporters, “The principal was very concerned for my well-being.”
And aside from a few pre-prom threats (which brought out a police presence in case anything came from those threats), and some raised eyebrows and a heavy media presence with glaring bright lights, it all went off without a hitch. . The couple danced five times. “The first one was a slow dance,” Rohl told reporters, “and people were a little surprised to see two guys dancing together.” The Washington Post reported that they got was a lot of extra room on the dance floor. But when the faster disco tunes were played, they attracted less attention.
“I think it’s rather sad that my date and I have to get more publicity or more acknowledgement from the press than any other couple,” he said. “I don’t think we’re any more worthy of special attention. Yes, maybe it’s a milestone in gay rights, but it’s being made into more of a freak show.” He also said that despite the threats, several students came over and congratulated the couple. “A lot of people were really glad we stuck to your guns and went.”
According to the National Gay Task Force, this was the first time an acknowledged gay couple attended a high school prom together in the U.S., even though the two were just friends. (Grady Quinn was the partner of a local gay rights activist.) This would be Randy Rohl’s only act as an activist. After high school, he moved to Minneapolis to attend college, and retreated back into private life. He died on December 31, 1993 of AIDS.
[Additional source: “‘It’s a Good Feeling,’ Says Gay Who Took Boyfriend to His Prom.” The Advocate, no. 271 (July 12, 1979): 7.]
► 35 YEARS AGO: Anita Bryant Files for Divorce: 1980. The Associated Press described her as a “strong-principled advocate of God, family and flag.” Nevertheless, she announced that she was divorcing her husband and manager, Bob Green because he “violated my most precious asset: my very conscience.”
Bryant’s statement, which the AP reported she released “from her 25-room Miami Beach home,” charged that Green cooperated “with certain hired staff members who conspired to control me and to use my name and reputation to build their personal careers instead of my ministry.” Her statement brought to a close their twenty year marriage. She also announced that she was resigning from Anita Bryant Ministries.
Green answered Bryant with an open letter, which was also released to the press:
Dear Anita:
I love you with all my heart and I am awaiting your return as my wife and the mother of our children. God’s love and forgiveness is open to both of us if we will but seek it.
Let us both put aside all other earthly considerations and reunite our lives in Christian love.
Your husband,
Bob
Bryant wasn’t interested in Green’s overture, such as it was, and she went ahead with the divorce, even though it was “against everything I believe in.” Green, citing his religious beliefs, refused to recognize the divorce, saying they were still married “in God’s eyes.” He also blamed gay people: “Blame gay people? I do. Their stated goal was to put [Bryant] out of business and destroy her career. And that’s what they did. It’s unfair.” He died, an embittered old man, in 2012.
As for Bryant, she married again, relaunched her career in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. When that failed, she moved to Branson, Missouri. When that failed, she declared bankruptcy and moved to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee to start over one more time. That also failed, leaving a pile of unpaid creditors and abused employees in the wake.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
► 85 YEARS AGO: Harvey Milk: 1930-1978. Also known as the Mayor of Castro Street, Harvey Milk finally succeeded in becoming California’s first (and the nation’s fourth) openly gay non-incumbent candidate to win a political office for two reasons: he refused to hide who he was; and he made it his mission to build alliances with groups that other gay activists thought were impossible to reach. So to those who knew Harvey well weren’t surprised when his 1977 as San Francisco City Supervisor that he was good terms with conservative supervisor Dan White. White, a former cop, was supported by the city’s police union whose leaders were angry over city policies which they considered to be soft on crime and homosexuals. The local media ate it up as the two made joint appearances on local talk shows where they both talked warmly of each other. Harvey began to privately telling friends that he thought White was “educatable,” and that the two might actually be able to work together.
But all that changed when Milk wound up voting against White’s proposal to bar a psychiatric treatment center from opening in White’s district. White retaliated by voting against Milk’s gay rights bill (it passed anyway), and for the next several months, White would not speak to Milk or his aides. Other supervisors noticed that White stopped spending as much time at his office in City Hall, and he was sullen during the weekly board meetings. White abruptly resigned on November 10, 1978. When he had a change of heart a few days later, Mayor George Moscone refused to commit to re-appointing him to the board. On November 27, 1978, White snuck into City Hall and confronted Moscone in his office, and shot him twice in the abdomen, then twice more in the head. He then walked down the hall to Milk’s office. After arguing with Milk, White shot him three times in the chest, once in the back and twice in the head.
Milk’s short political career changed the face of LGBT politics. During the 1978 campaign against the Briggs Amendment which would have required the firing of gay teachers and any school employee who supported gay rights, Milk insisted on aggressively confronting the anti-gay campaign by raising the visibility of the gay community. The campaign against the Briggs Amendment was also a campaign against the closet. He told a crowd during San Francisco’s Gay Pride that year:
“On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets… We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I’m going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives.”
► 
45 YEARS AGO: Mark Bingham: 1970-2001. A true hero, Mark Bingham was among the passengers who stormed the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93 after it had been hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001. His personal bravery was well known before that fateful day. His boyfriend of six years, Paul Holm, recalled that Bingham had thwarted two attempted muggings, one at gunpoint. His friends recalled that he proudly showed off the scars he received during a running of the bulls in Pamplona. During the hijacking, Bingham, who was sitting in first class, made a brief call to his mother. She later called him back after learning of the other 9/11 attacks and said the flight was being used on a suicide mission. Bingham has been honored with several others for bringing the aircraft down and preventing a much greater loss of life.
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Timothy (TRiG)
May 22nd, 2015
Other things happening today: Vote for Marriage Equality in Ireland.
Hue-Man
May 22nd, 2015
Swiss Federal Court rules: A child cannot have two fathers
“Switzerland’s highest court on Thursday annulled a decision which allowed two men in a registered partnership to both be considered the father of a child born in 2011 via assisted reproduction.”
“However, the Swiss justice office, which had appealed, had stated that only the genetic link between the child and the father who gave his sperm may be legally recognised. The Federal Court confirmed this position, stating that the paternity of the father who has no biological link to the child is unlawful.” http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/parental-recognition_-a-child-cannot-have-two-fathers—rules-federal-court/41444418
Ben in oakland
May 22nd, 2015
Anita Bryant. That brings back the memories.
I find it deliciously ironic that the same day that Anita divorced Bob is the day we celebrate Harvey milk’s birthday.
I also love that she said That her divorce went against everything that she believed i that her divorce went against everything that she believed it. n. Isn’t that a bit of self-serving nonsense? She obviously did it, and as difficult as it may have been, she did it.
What about that Christianity thing that she so deeply believe in? What about the part where Jesus says judge not, do not throw stones, treat others as you would like to be treated? What about the part where St. Paul says that revilers and slanderers will not inherit the kingdom of heaven?
Her beliefs, like her beauty, were apparently only skin deep. This woman started the war on gay people, the real war. Like so many of the so-called Christians today, she feels it is her right to attack with impunity. She should’ve had no blowback, but she did.
Too bad, Ms. Bryant. I feel not one shred of pain or pity for you. To go all biblical on you, you sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind.
Eric Payne
May 22nd, 2015
What a difference forty years makes.
Anita Bryant lost her endorsements not because her public treatment of gays was so odious, but because of the negative publicity her public appearances generated.
She could say anything she liked about gays, and governments and corporate sponsors were just fine with it… but don’t humiliate the government/brand by getting a pie in the face at a sponsored public appearance.
Her failures in Eureka Springs, Branson and Pigeon Forge in the decades following are due, in part, to her discriminatory views (and in big part to not being multitalented enough to hold audience interest).
Eric Payne
May 22nd, 2015
Since commentary in The Daily Agenda is “open,” I’m going to make a prediction about the Josh Duggar child molestation revelations.
Sometime early next week, Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar will issue a press release acknowledging the actions of their son, Josh… but in that statement will “reveal” that Josh was merely “passing along” behavior that had been pressed upon him… that Josh had been, at the time he molested his sisters, the victim of long-term sexual abuse, himself and, like many victims of childhood sexual abuse, was himself becoming an abuser.
They’ll reveal that abuser was an adult male, known to the family. If they actually name that abuser, they’ll give the name of someone that has, in the intervening years, died.
They’ll say the problem had been acknowledged and dealt with… that Josh and the unnamed sisters had received spiritual and psychological counseling, and that they had wished to keep the entire incident a “family matter.” But they will place the blame completely on Josh being molested by an adult male.
Watch for it.
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