Precourt so longs for entertainment from the days of black and white TV that he’s willing to pay good money for it. Well, the public’s good money, that is. (Palm Beach Post)

Movies and TV shows with gay characters could be ineligible for a “family-friendly” tax credit in Florida under a little-noticed provision tucked into a $75 million incentive package that Republican House leaders hope will attract film and entertainment jobs to the state.

The bill would prohibit productions with “nontraditional family values” from receiving a so-called family-friendly tax credit. But it doesn’t define what “nontraditional family values” are, something the bill’s sponsor had a hard time doing, too.

While some folks were having trouble understanding what “nontraditional family values” means, not Charlie Crist.

“Let me define it in the positive,” said Gov. Charlie Crist, who wants lawmakers to approve a $55 million corporate income tax cut he has proposed. “A traditional family is a marriage between a man and a woman. That’s traditional.”

And if you’re still unsure, Precourt has an example

“Think of it as like Mayberry,” state Rep. Stephen Precourt, R-Orlando, said, referring to The Andy Griffith Show. “That’s when I grew up — the ’60s. That’s what life was like. I want Florida to be known for making those kinds of movies: Disney movies for kids and all that stuff. Like it used to be, you know?”

Ah, Mayberry. Opie, whistling, fishin’, traditional families… oh, wait.

Was there anyone actually married in Mayberry? Andy? Barney? Aunt Bee? Anyone?

Today, the paper’s successor, DCAgenda, announced that they have successfully purchased the print and electronic archives and other assets of the Blade, ensuring that this historical treasure will be in safe hands.

Here are a few (but certainly not all) moments in which Presidents and our community interacted:
February 23, 1778 – Baron Friedrich von Steuben arrived to offer his services General George Washington (not yet President) and his Continental Army. Steuben was probably Washington’s best military asset, as he provided the training and structure that had been up until then missing from the Americans. Steuben’s methods would be utilized for the next century and a half. Although Washington officially did not tolerate homosexual acts (drumming out an officer caught in the act of, um, fraternizing), Steuben’s reputation – and accompaniment of handsome men – did not dissuade the General from placing him in authority. One could even suggest that “don’t ask, don’t tell” was the military policy from the start.

March 4, 1857 – President James Buchanan was sworn into office. Buchanan was a bachelor who had lived for 15 years with Alabama Senator William Rufus King (King had died in 1852, after serving as Vice President for less than a month). While evidence of the two as a couple is not overwhelmingly conclusive enough to convince those who are inclined to dismiss any historical inclusion of non-heterosexuality (the nieces of the two men burned their correspondences), contemporaries certainly seemed to think of them in this manner. Buchanan was our only bachelor President, a sin that would certainly be seen as a liability today.

March 5, 1861 – President Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office. While rumors about Lincoln were less pronounced than those about his predecessor, his space sharing was even more intimate than that of Buchanan. In his late 20’s he met Joshua Speed, moved in with him, and shared his bed for the next four years. The two exchanged flowery letters expressing devotion, and C. A. Tripp, in The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, argued that Lincoln was primarily same-sex attracted. Dissenters argue that sharing beds was common in an era in which beds were scarce. However, they are a bit less adamant about a shortage of beds in the White House when Lincoln shared his bed with David Derickson, his bodyguard, when Mary Todd Lincoln was away. Whether, indeed, Lincoln was primarily homosexual in orientation, he was certainly unconventional in his bed-mate patterns and worthy of mention.

November 1, 1978 – The Briggs Initiative was on the California ballot, for a November 7 vote. If passed, it would have banned gay man and women from working in California’s public schools. Ronald Reagan, the prior Governor and soon to be President, wrote an editorial in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner opposing the bill, saying “Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual’s sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child’s teachers do not really influence this.” This was an official follow-up on a September interview in which he expressed his opposition, and the timing of the editorial is closely associated with a massive shift from strong support to overwhelming opposition. In January 1981, the decorators for Nancy Reagan are the first known gay couple to spend the night in the White House.

January 20, 1993 – President Bill Clinton was sworn into office. Clinton was the first President elected with a campaign which included specific gay rights provisions and shortly into his term, Clinton sought to fulfill his promises by lifting the ban on open service of gay personnel. He ran into immediate opposition in Congress and ultimately signed off on the “compromise” that became Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as well as the Defense of Marriage Act, both of which still haunt us. But for a brief shining moment the world looked full of promise. In October 1997, Clinton nominated James Hormel, an openly gay man and significant contributor, to be Ambassador to Luxembourg. After a year and a half of opposition from conservative Senators, Clinton employed a recess appointment in May 1999 and Hormel was sworn in the following month.

February 23, 1996 – Former President Jimmy Carter, writing in the LA Times, called for a rejection of “the politics of hate.” He stated, “We must make it clear that a platform of ‘I hate gay men and women’ is not a way to become president of the United States.” On April 5, 2004, in an interview with the American Prospect, he set himself in opposition to George Bush’s election campaign against same-sex couples. “I personally, in my Sunday-school lessons, don’t favor the religious endorsement of a gay marriage. But I do favor equal treatment under the law for people who differ from me in sexual orientation.” In December of the following year, he reiterated, “My own belief is that there should be a distinction between so-called gay marriages, which I look upon as a possibility of a church- ordained blessing of God on a union, which I think should be between a man and a woman. But at the same time, that people who do have gay union in a court or in secular terms not relating to religion, should be treated with complete equality.”

September 18, 2001 – Michael Guest was sworn in as Ambassador to Romania. Unlike James Hormel, this George W. Bush appointment was based on civil service record and received Senate confirmation. This early in W’s first term, there was considerable optimism that he would oversee an inclusive administration.

October 29, 2001 – Reporter Deb Price ran an article based on an interview with former President Gerald Ford. To her surprise, Ford endorsed non-discrimination and declared that gay couples should have the same tax and Social Security rights as married heterosexuals. “I think they ought to be treated equally. Period.” That year Ford joined the Republican Unity Coalition, an organization dedicated to making sexual orientation a non-issue in the Republican Party, thus becoming the only President to engage in pro-gay activism. Shortly before his 2006 death, Ford discussed with his Episcopal priest the divisions in the denomination over the place of gay congregants in the church. In his homily, his pastor noted, “He said he did not think (such inclusive steps) should be divisive for anyone who lived by the Great Commandments and the Great Commission — to love God and to love neighbor.” Ford was the only President who was not elected to any position by the American voters at large. He was sent to Congress by the people of Grand Rapids. After the resignation of Vice-President Spiro Agnew, Ford was selected as a replacement based primarily on his reputation for honesty and integrity, and he become president upon the resignation of Richard Nixon.

The current President has promised to be a fierce advocate for our community. And history will advise us of the most favorable action that President Barack Obama will take in his administration. To date, we are thankful for statements made during the election cycle, for Bishop Robinson’s inaugural prayer, for several gay appointments, and for current efforts to reverse the ban on open service in the military. Let’s hope we have much for to celebrate next Presidents’ Day.

Undoubtedly, I’ve omitted several milestones, for which I apologize. Feel free to praise Presidents in the comments section (for today, let’s try and keep it to praise. We’ll start the criticism again tomorrow.)

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963

Keep the dream alive.

Continue the struggle.

The web site’s author (his name isn’t given) ran across some videos as part of his research project, one of which includes an interview of Matthew and his boyfriend in the mid-1990’s when they were attending Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. The video, which is not embeddable but can be seen here, shows us a moving, breathing, intelligent and soft-spoken Matthew Shepard that we’ve never seen before, and reminds us of the very ordinary college student that we lost more then ten years ago.

AFA's Bryan Fischer speaking at the 2009 Value Voters Summit

This is shocking even by usual American Family Association “standards.”  Here’s what the AFA’s Bryan Fischer is saying:

It it is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military. The reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security. Devout Muslims, who accept the teachings of the Prophet as divinely inspired, believe it is their duty to kill infidels. Yesterday’s massacre is living proof.  And yesterday’s incident is not the first fragging incident involving a Muslim taking out his fellow U.S. soldiers.

Of course, most U.S. Muslims don’t shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we’ll go back to allowing them to serve. You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you’re right, and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it’s used, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms.

Let’s contrast Fischer’s statement to the 1942 US Government propaganda film “Japanese Relocation” (wikipedia / youtube):

We knew that some among them [Japanese Americans] were potentially dangerous but no one knew what would happen among this concentrated population if Japanese forces should try and invade our shores. Military authorities therefore determined that all of them, citizens and aliens alike would have to move.

Near the end of the film:

[This current story of Japanese internment] will be fully told only when circumstances permit the loyal American citizens once again to enjoy the freedom we in this country cherish and when the disloyal, we hope, have left this country for good. In the mean time we are setting a standard for the rest of the world in the treatment for people who may have loyalties to an enemy nation, we are protecting ourselves without violating the principals of Christian decency.  We won’t change this fundamental decency no matter what our enemies do.

via Joe.My.God

Fans of South Park, including myself, often view the show as one of TV’s most intelligent outlets for artistic cultural commentary.  “The F Word” episode was no exception as it examined the power of the word “fag,” its constantly changing definition throughout history, and lastly the ability of a community to reclaim an insult into a badge of honor and identity.

GLAAD sees things differently and issued a Call To Acton.  Poor GLAAD couldn’t even bring themselves to using the word “fag” in their Call To Action:

The creators of South Park are right on one important point: more and more people are using the F-word as an all-purpose insult. However, it is irresponsible and wrong to suggest that it is a benign insult or that promoting its use has no consequences for those who are the targets of anti-gay bullying and violence. This is a slur whose meaning remains rooted in homophobia. And while many South Park viewers will understand the sophisticated satire and critique in last night’s episode, others won’t [emphasis added] – and if even a small number of those take from this a message that using the “F-word” is OK, it worsens the hostile climate that many in our community continue to face.

Let me establish my credibility as a creative professional;  I’m a licensed architect, I create films and interviews for my gay activism, and I’m a paid blogger for a community events group in Denver.  There are a variety of ways to criticize creative works, some of which are stronger than others.  Here’s how I see things…

Examples of valid and strong criticisms:

• The theme of your work is offensive to gay people
• Your work exploits gay people
• Your work presents ugly stereotypes as truth
• Your work is uninteresting or uncompelling
• Your work failed to make its point
• Your work is unoriginal

Examples of weak criticisms:

• Stupid people won’t understand your work
• You didn’t fit our talking points into your work
• You didn’t articulate your work’s message the way we wanted

It’s like saying contemporary art superstar Damien Hurst shouldn’t create works of art like the image below because someone might not understand the piece and think it’s OK to go out and spear an animal dozens of times with arrows.

The only thing I find offensive about “The F Word” is GLAAD asking other creative professionals to cater to the lowest common denominator in their audience because someone, somewhere might not understand it.  The weak and invalid argument GLAAD presents would dumb-down America’s great cultural landscape for all of us.

The full episode can be viewed on South Park’s website until Wednesday night when the next new episode airs.

Dr. Weber, on his website claims:

What is the cure rate for homosexuals?
Virtually 100%. This is not consistent with current teachings but proper treatment in the western nations has not been available to patients since the late 1950s. Those nations which allowed treatment of sexual disorders have had very high cure rates of all psychosexual disorders.

Dr. Weber’s methods are quite international in their research:

Dr. Eric Svenson pioneered work demonstrating electroshock treatments following castration showed great promise for the more seriously disordered. When followed by a strict regiment of drug therapy for life nearly all patients never have return of symptoms. Japanese and Soviet researchers found that combinations of all these techniques for treatment have very high cure rates and insignificant fatalities when performed properly. Lobotomy, castration and electroshock, followed by drug therapy for the most difficult cases had 100% success in curing the patients and under 22% fatality in our own studies conducted in Argentina, Brazil, and Columbia. The milder cases had few fatalities.

Soviet studies by Dr. Sergei Voronkova and Dr. Andre Kotov beginning in 1946 on sexual criminals and children showing deviant sexual development demonstrated castration to be nearly 100% effective when performed early in curing the patient but castration alone is much less effective with older patients. Partial excision of the hypothalamus followed by drug and or aversion therapy is highly effective as his data shows.

Dr. Ryuiji Kajitsuka’s research near Harbin, China concluded that many suffering from various psychosexual disorders responded positively to aversion and chemical therapy when isolated for long periods during the treatments. Typical isolation during treatment was thirty months. Of thirty seven patients twenty three were cured without lobotomy or castration. Only nine were continuing drug therapy after two years and none had been arrested for sexual crimes including sodomy.

Alas, Lobotomy, castration, electroshock, induced vomiting, and years of isolation they are not generally offered in the United States as a cure for homosexuality. But Dr. Weber has hope that that due to “costs associated with treating HIV related disease” laws can be changed.

We are waiting for research to be approved and legal changes regarding the mentally impaired and their supposed right to refuse necessary treatment before we can continue here. Until it is approves it is largely academic. Parents needing treatment for their children must leave the country to have them treated and insurance does not cover the cost.

And loving parents can rest assured that it works. Consider Henry’s story:

Interviews demonstrated aggressive tendency and because of his age [19] castration was performed followed by weeks of further interviews. He continued displaying resentment of males and his doctors in particular. It was apparent that the castration alone could not make him productive and content.

Henry underwent partial excision of the his left frontal lobe and radiation therapy exposure to the hypothalamus 4 weeks after his first surgery. This was followed by aversion therapy consisting of exposure to male genitalia while injections of apomorphine to induce vomiting twice daily. His aggression ceased almost immediately and after only two weeks treatment he no longer showed any symptoms of psychosexual disorders.

It’s hard to imagine why he was resentful or paranoid about doctors. Well, before they hacked out chunks of his brain, that is.

Now, Dr. Weber is an anomaly. His intentions are hardly the medical standard or considered humane by even many of the more strident anti-gay activists. Or, not these days.

But let us not forget that there are still plenty of people walking around today who see homosexuality as such a curse, sin, or social threat that they could readily justify actions such as these in an effort to “cure and rehabilitate” gay people.

In 1936, two years out of college, Turing presented the paper, On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem. In this, he proposed that a machine could perform mathematical computations if presented as an algorithm. These Turing Machines (in practice, theoretical) were programmable and could replicate the function of any other machine.

During the Second World War, the German superpower communicated by means of an encryption device call the Enigma. With British and other allied sources unable to decrypt communications, Germany was free to engage in warfare that was immediate and reactive.

England found it essential that these codes be conquered and turned to Turing. Turing and his associates at the Government Code and Cypher School created a series of machines that were about to intercept and decrypt Germany’s military messages, an endeavor that was incalculably valuable. Turing even traveled the the United States to work with U.S. Navy cryptanalysts and to assist with the development of secure speech devices.

It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of the Second World War could have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war.

After the war, Turing returned his attention to computing. He extrapolated on his earlier work, presenting papers on how to create a programmable machine – or computer – and on artificial intelligence, among other contributions.

So influential was Turing to your ability to read what I’m writing that he is considered by many to be the father of modern computer science. And the most prestigious award given to contributions to computer science is the A.M. Turing Award.

An appreciative world should have thrown flowers at his feet. But Turing had a flaw that 1950’s western civilization could not find forgivable. Turing was gay.

In January 1952, Turing met a charming young man, Arnold Murray. Murray accepted an invitation to stay the night at Turing’s home, but he had other than amorous motives. During the night, he let in an accomplice to rob the place.

When Turing reported the incident to the police, the investigation revealed that Turing and Murray had a sexual encounter. This being illegal, Turing was convicted under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885.

England found that it’s appreciation for his war efforts on its behalf was far less compelling than its disapproval of his orientation. So his government gave Turing a choice, imprisonment or chemical castration.

After two years of oestrogen hormone injections, during which Turing grew breasts, he ended his life at age 42. And one of the greatest mathematical minds that the world has known ceased to contribute to society.

Today the United Kingdom has apologized.

In an article in the Telegraph, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has penned a tribute to Turing and expressed regret on behalf of the nation.

While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly. Over the years, millions more lived in fear in conviction.
…
So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work, I am very proud to say: we’re sorry. You deserved so much better.

Yes. He did.

The Gordon Brown’s statement has also been posted on the Number 10 Downing Street web site, which is the official governmental web site for the office of the Prime Minister:

2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

Since her husband passed away a few  years earlier, Pearl declared that she had no intention of sitting at home getting old. So she decided to buy an RV and see the world. She joined a Winnebago club and took trips with her friends, caravanning across the continent and down into Mexico. They even arranged trips across Europe in rented RV’s and once took a trip to Moscow, although that wouldn’t be until much later. We always looked forward to Pearl’s visits so we could hear about her latest adventures on the open road.

And that’s what we were doing that day on July 20, 1969 when Pearl came into town. We were at my great-grandparents’ house, helping Pearl load the RV with groceries while she did some laundry. Then sometime after lunch, we all packed ourselves into various cars and coaches — me, my brothers and parents in our car, my grandparents and great-grandparents in their cars, and Pearl in her Winnebago — and we headed out to a state park outside of town. I remember that Dad didn’t think she would be able to back the RV into the tight camp spot. I mean, you could barely see her above the steering wheel. But she backed it right in like the seasoned pro that she was.

We spent most of the afternoon around the picnic table under the outstretched awning beside the RV. It was hot that day, and this was before RV’s were air-conditioned. Heck, this was even before most homes and cars were air-conditioned, so an afternoon out at Shawnee State Forrest was quite a treat. At about 3:30 that afternoon, Pearl went inside and came back out with a small, portable black-and-white television. She washed the dust off the screen and plugged it into an outside outlet. Dad fiddled with the dials and the rabbit ears until he was able to pull in a snowy picture from an ABC station in Huntington, WV. (The preferred CBS station in Charleston, which would have featured Walter Cronkite, was just too far away.)

The sun was so bright that day that we couldn’t see the picture very well, so someone turned up the sound and we listened to the play-by-play as Apollo 11 slowly descended to the moon. We heard someone giving a countdown before landing, and we held our breath after that voice quit counting down. After what seemed like a lifetime of not breathing — we heard Houston barking out, “we’ve got to get down!” in a voice verging on panic — we finally heard what we were waiting for: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Whenever I hear those words today, I get goose bumps all over again and sometimes even tear up a little. I was — and still am — that excited.  I remember jumping up and down laughing and screaming and celebrating with my brothers while the grownups commented on their own amazement. My great-grandmother, Easter, often remembered that day as an important milestone for her. Being born in 1898, she used to say, meant that she had lived through the most exciting transformational advancements in human history. Those weren’t exactly her words, but she explained it this way: “I’ve seen everything from the horse and buggy to the moon,” she said, “And no one will ever live a different lifetime in history with more progress than that.”

I wasn’t so reflective of course, so my brothers and I rushed off to a playground where we played astronauts for the rest of that hot summer afternoon, “beeping” between all of our transmissions in imitation of what we had just heard.

The moon walk itself wouldn’t be until much later that night — way past our bedtimes. But our parents promised we would get to watch it. Even so, my parents put my brothers and me to bed thinking that maybe we’d get a short nap before the moon walk was scheduled to begin. But of course there was no hope for that. Finally sometime before 11:00 p.m., our parents called us downstairs and we gathered around the Zenith console and waited impatiently as one talking head after another reviewed the events of the day and talked about what would lie just ahead.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Looking back on these images now makes it all seem so primitive. But to my young 8-year-old imagination, these pictures presaged something else: the long-awaited future was just about to arrive. Finally the CBS studio broke away to the live, grainy pictures from the moon, and we watch speechless as Neil Armstrong made history.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is what the future looked like in 1969. It’s amazing what we were able to accomplish with such primitive technology by today’s standards. It’s also remarkable considering how difficult it still would be to pull off the same feat today.

People often talk about where they were when they heard John F. Kennedy was assassinated or when the Twin Towers fell. There are moments in history which serve as profound landmarks in our lives. I was too young to remember JFK’s assassination, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968 somehow passed without my notice at the time. That was a very frightening year for my parents, and they wanted to shield our innocent childhoods from it. The events of 9/11 will always remain seared in my memory, but there is no moment of history that transports me back, body, mind and spirit, as does the Apollo 11 moon landing. Whenever I watch it today, I’m eight years old again, sitting upright in rapt attention on the living room in my pajamas, watching the grainy images flickering across the Zenith console — the fancy one with the “Space Command” remote control — and seeing the future finally arrive. I knew then and there I was going to be an astronaut. I still will be someday. You’ll see.