The Daily Agenda for Monday, January 18

Jim Burroway

January 18th, 2016

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From the Body Politic (Toronto, ON), January 1984, page 14.

From the Body Politic (Toronto, ON), January 1984, page 14.

Buddy’s opened in the spring of 1982 in Vancouver’s West End, and closed in the summer of 1988. According to a walking tour published by Xtra in 2006:

Many people have fond memories of Buddies; some say it was the last 1970s-style denim cruising bar in Vancouver. Its two-storey building was torn down to make way for the Ellington in 1991. To this day, many Buddies regulars have bittersweet memories of the bar’s farewell party.

Before it became Buddies in 1981, the site housed another gay space called the Boom Boom Room.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Transgender Man In the News: 1894. The following item appeared in the Badger State Banner, published in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. A larceny case became a case about the nature of the defendant and his wife.

Anna Morris Given One Year
Anna Morris, alias Frank Blunt, the woman who has tried to be a man for the last fifteen years, was sentenced to the penitentiary for one year by Judge Gibson at Fond du Lac. She was arrested several months ago in Milwaukee charged with stealing $175 in Fond du Lac. It was then discovered that the prisoner was a woman, although she had worn masculine attire nearly all her life. A jury convicted her of larceny and a motion for a new trial was overruled. After the sentenced had been passed Gertrude Field, a woman who claimed to have been married to the prisoner in Eau Claire, fell upon the neck of the prison and wept for half an hour. This woman had furnished all the money for Blunt’s defense, and now proposes to carry the case to the Supreme Court.

[Source: Jonathan Katz’s, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976): pp 231-232.]

A Simple Home Device for Aversion Therapy: 1964. On this date, the British Medical Journal published this article by R.J. McGuire and M. Vallance:

A Simple Apparatus

Click to enlarge

Aversion Therapy by Electric Shock: a Simple Technique
Aversion therapy has been used for many years in the treatment of alcoholism. Apomorphine and emetine are the usual drugs used as the unconditioned stimuli for nausea and vomiting, with alcohol as the conditioned stimulus. More recently the same procedure has been used in the treatment of sexual perversions — for example, fetishism, transvestism and homosexuality.

There are several disadvantages to the use of drugs in conditioning procedures. The time between the stimulus being presented and the nausea being produced is uncertain. The patient may not even feel nausea; and, further, the cerebral depressant effect of the drug may interfere with the patient’s ability to form conditioned responses. In addition, the treatment may have to be terminated prematurely because of its dangerous side-effects.

Alternative unpleasant responses can be used to produce aversion. In experimental psychology electric shock has been widely used both in animals and in humans. In clinical treatment, however, it has been less often used. The technique is simpler, more accurately controlled, and more certain in producing an unpleasant effect than drugs. This article describes a simple apparatus designed by one of us (R. J. McG.) and its use in the aversive treatment of sexual perversions, alcoholism, smoking, and neurotic symptoms.

Apparatus. — The components are cheap (under £1) and fit into a box approximately 6 in. (15 cm.) square and 2 in. (5 cm.) deep (Figs. 1 and 2). It is powered by a 9-volt battery and is therefore completely portable. The shock is administered through electrodes on a cuff around the patient’s forearm. To construct the apparatus requires no special skill, and the technical details are given at the end of the article.

…After initial instruction he can treat himself and may take the apparatus home to continue the treatment there. Besides saving the therapist’s time and making frequent treatment possible, this arrangement is to be preferred when the symptom is one usually indulged in alone-for example, masturbation to perverse fantasies. While the patient can use the apparatus whenever he is tempted to masturbate, he should also each day deliberately carry out the treatment at a time when the desire to masturbate is not strong.

This isn’t the first time a device for administering electric shock has been described in the medical literature for treating homosexuality. Electric Shock Aversion Therapy has been discussed since at least 1935 (see Sep 6). But as modern science entered the space age, a few therapists got the idea that there was a demand for an inexpensive home version.

[Source: R.J. McGuire, M. Vallance. “Aversion Therapy By Electric Shock: A Simple Technique.” British Medical Journal 1, no. 5376 (January 18, 1964): 151-153. Available online here.]

Anita Bryant and Bob Green at a church service during the campaign against Miam-Dade’s gay rights ordinance.

Miami-Dade County Approves Gay Rights Ordinance: 1977. An angry mob of anti-gay conservatives led by singer and Florida Orange Juice spokesperson Anita Bryant packed the Miami Commission Chambers in an attempt to shout down a proposed gay rights ordinance which would extending nondiscrimination protections in employment, housing and accommodations on the basis of “affectional or sexual preference.” Despite the evident anger in the room, the Commission passed the ordinance 5-3.

Bryant and her husband, Bob Green, vowed to lead a campaign to repeal the ordinance at the ballot box, a campaign that she subsequently won (see Jun 7). That victory led to similar campaigns to overturn similar ordinances in St Paul, Minnesota (see Apr 25); Wichita, Kansas (see May 9); and Eugene Oregon (see May 23). That tidal wave reached its high-water mark in on November 7, 1978 when California voters defeated the Brigg’s Initiative which would have banned gays and lesbians from working in public schools. That same day, voters in Seattle also roundly rejected a ballot initiative to rescind that city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

On December 1, 1998, the Miami-Dade County Commission again passed another non-discrimination ordinance by a vote of 7-6. Opponents again petitioned for a vote, but the law was upheld on September 10, 2002.

All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, CA.

First Same-Sex Blessing In Episcopal Church: 1992. Mark Benson, a 47-year-old physician’s assistant, and Philip Straw, a 45-year-old postal worker, both of Pasadena, California, had been together for eight years when they decided to make honest men of each other. And so they did what any normal self-respecting church-going couple would do when they wanted to get married. They went to their church, All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, which just happens to be the largest Episcopal Church west of the Mississippi. It also happened to have a very receptive rector in Rev. George Regas. He had already proposed that All Saints begin blessing gay unions in a sermon two years earlier.

Regas held back from calling the ceremony a “wedding,” calling it a blessing instead. But even that small concession went far beyond what the national denomination at the time was willing to sanction. At the denomination’s national summit in 1991, they were unable to reach a consensus on a wide range of gay-related issues, instead affirming a “traditional” standard which calls for unmarried people to remain celibate. Regas understood that the ceremony, which was attended by 500 guests, would case a stir. “Homosexuality is such a divisive issue, I’m sure there is a great deal of distress” about the ceremony, he told a reporter from The Los Angeles Times. “But the people who were there, who know these men, knew this was appropriate and good. … It had such a sense of rightness about it.”

Of course, not everyone agreed. Two weeks later, a group of fundamentalists marched outside All Saints during a Sunday service holding signs reading “Homosex is a sin,” and handing out flyers asking “What’s worse than dying with AIDS?” to parishioners. The protest was organized by R.L. Hymers, pastor of the Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles, who in 1986 had asked his parishioners to pray for God to remove Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan from his seat on the court by death over Brennan’s 1973 vote in Roe v Wade. He also chartered an airplane to fly over Los Angeles trailing a banner reading, “Pray for Death: Baby killer Brennan.” Hymers was similarly bombastic during this protest. “It’s absolutely the wrong signal with the AIDS epidemic raging out of control, he told reporters. “The last thing a pastor should do is advocate a life-threatening and soul-threatening practice of sodomy.”

Regas remained unapologetic. “We have done what we think God is calling us to do. We believe the inclusive love of Christ welcomes everybody.” Philip Straw died from AIDS the following December.

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?

Nathaniel

January 18th, 2016

Well, this seems appropriate to share, then. It looks like the Episcopal Church has been officially censured by the larger Anglican Communion for its pro-gay actions. The biggest effect: loss of voting rights within the Communion. The irony, of course, is that means the anti-gay branches of the Communion will make up a larger proportion of those able to vote in Communion matters. The Episcopal Church might now consider leaving the Communion, but they are certainly not going to back down. If the Communion wanted to avoid schism, this was not the way to go about it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anglican-communion-episcopal-church_56992fe2e4b0b4eb759e331f

David Wachter

January 20th, 2016

I can say from personal experience that the blessing ceremony in 1992 at All Saints, Pasadena, was merely the public tip of an iceberg. I was organist for the ceremony that two friends held at Grace Episcopal Church in Tucson before 1991, and was organist for another private ceremony at another Episcopal church before 1992. These were both small, private, unpublicized ceremonies, but they involved clergy, and were celebrated in the context of communion services.

I am glad that the Episcopal Church has spoken, and if it leads to a split with the rest of the Anglican Communion, so be it.

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.