Box Turtle Bulletin

Today In History, 1964: J. Edgar Hoover Demands His Name Be Removed From Mattachine Mailing List

J. Edgar Hoover

Frank Kameny was not one to shy away from directly confronting the powerful in Washington, D.C. (May 21). He was also not one to shy away from publicity. Just the year before, Kameny became the first gay rights activist to appear before a Congressional committee (Aug 8, Aug 9), where he refused to comply with a Congressman’s demands that he turn over the membership list of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. (MSW). Kameny took the opportunity to lambast Congressional efforts to strip his organization of its tax-exempt status and, further, to argue forcefully for the full equality for all gay and lesbian Americans.

Frank Kameny

One of MSW’s early efforts was to keep its own members informed of issues and events through a typewritten and mimeographed newsletter called The Gazette. The newsletter was also sent out to other interested and uninterested parties, including the Supreme Court Justices, members of Congress, the President, the Attorney General and other members of the President’s cabinet, and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. In July, an FBI agent wrote an internal memo objecting to the Society’s adding Hoover to their mailing list without his consent. “This Society attempts to legalize the activities of homosexuals and carries on an active campaign to have these persons admitted to employment in the United States Government and elsewhere,” he wrote. “This material is disgusting and offensive and it is believed a vigorous objection to the addition of the Director to its mailing list should be made.” He recommended that two FBI agents contact Kameny and impress upon him “that Mr. Hoover objects to receiving this material and his name should immediately be removed from their mailing list.”

Hoover concurred with the recommendation with a handwritten notation at the end of the memo: “Right – H.” On August 6, the FBI contacted Kameny, and he and Gazette editor Robert King met with the agents at FBI headquarters. The agents told them that Hoover’s inclusion in the mailing list “was considered offensive” and demanded his name be removed. Kameny and King explained that they sent the newsletter to government officials as part of a larger educational effort. Kameny also pointed out that as an organization working for the civil rights of gays and lesbians, they “have a right to communicate with government officials.” But Kameny and King did agree to take the FBI’s request back to the MSW executive board. They also asked the agents to convey to Hoover an invitation to attend a homophile convention that was to be held in Washington later that year (Oct 10, Oct 11, Oct 11 again). According to another FBI memo, “This invitation was emphatically and immediately declined.”

When the MSW executive board met, they decided to accede to the FBI’s request on one condition: if the director personally assured MSW, in writing, that the FBI had destroyed all of its files about the MSW. Their decision was sent in a letter to the FBI on October 1. FBI agent M.A. Jones wrote in an internal memorandum, “This letter is a blatant attempt to open a controversy with the Bureau. Any further contact with them will be exploited to the Bureau’s disadvantage. It is apparent they are attempting to involve government officials in their program for recognition and any further contact by the Bureau will only serve their ulterior motives.” The FBI declined to respond to the letter, and Hoover continued to receive the Gazette.

[Source: Michael G. Long (ed.) Gay is Good: The Life and Letters of Gay Rights Pioneer Franklin Kameny (Syracuse, New York; Syracuse University Press: 2014): 75-76.

You can read a copy of the Gazette from the spring of 1964 here.]

Today In History, 1968: Philadelphia’s Homophile Action League Founded

Barbara Gittings (left) holds a Homophile Action League banner.

Five months had passed since Philadelphia police raided Rusty’s, a bar that was popular with local lesbians (Mar 8). The Daughters of Bilites had organized a chapter in the City of Brotherly Love the year before, and chapter members were furious at their treatment during the raid. They were eager to confront the city’s political establishment, but the national organization’s rules dictated that the national board had to approve all activities deemed “political,” especially if protests were involved. Ada Bello recalled, “It was difficult to get authorization from the administration of DOB. We couldn’t find the president — remember, it was before cell phones and email — and we felt that it was hampering our ability to react… And so we thought, ‘Why not start another organization — one whose middle name is Action!'”

On August 7, 1968, the Philadelphia DOB chapter voted to dissolve itself and re-form as the Homophile Action League, or HAL. Bello and Carole Friedman announced the organization’s purpose in the first HAL newsletter:

This newly formed group, open to both men and women, has adopted the name “Homophile Action League,” and has as its main purpose “to strive to change society’s legal, social and scientific attitudes toward the homosexual in order to achieve justified recognition of the homosexual as a first class citizen and a first class human being. … “We are not a social group. We do not intend to concentrate our energies on “uplifting” the homosexual community, for such efforts would be sadly misplaced. It is our firm conviction that it is the heterosexual community which is badly in need of uplifting.

Pioneering gay rights advocate Barbara Gittings (Jul 31), who later joined HAL, recalled that “there hadn’t been any really concerted effort on the political scene until HAL was organized and began to attract some men.” HAL would become the main representative of the gay community to the city’s power brokers until the early 1970s, when it was displaced by the more aggressive Gay Liberation Front.

Born On This Day, 1928: James Randi

Known as “The Amazing Randi,” the Canadian-born magician turned debunker took up magic while spending thirteen months in a body cast following a bicycle accident. He dropped out of school at 17 to join the carnival circuit and performed as a psychic in Toronto nightclubs. But when he recognized that some of the tricks of the trade were being presented as supernatural, he decided to blow the lid off of the scams.

Among his earlier revelations was in the late 1960s, when he “wrote” a successful astrological column by cutting up other astrological columns and randomly assigning those predictions to astrological signs and dates. In 1972, Randi seized the skeptics’ spotlight by publicly challenging the claims of Uri Geller, a popular performer of the television talk show circuit, famous for supposedly bending spoons telepathically. Randi claimed Geller used standard magic tricks to perform his paranormal feats and demonstrated how Geller performed his stunts. Geller sued Randi for $15 million for defamation, and lost.

Randi founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, later renamed the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Over the years, he has tackled psychics, UFOs, faith healers, psychic surgeons, and other charlatans. In one bizarre episode, when Randi was demonstrating Geller’s spoon-bending tricks, an audience member shouted, “You’re a fraud because you’re pretending to do these things through trickery, but you’re actually using psychic powers and misleading us by not admitting it.” An atheist, Randi has a special empathy for victims of religious scams and faith healers, and was instrumental in exposing televangelists W.V. Grant, Earnest Angley, and Peter Popoff, who Randi exposed live on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show in 1986. However, he’s characteristically careful with how he describes his atheism:

I’ve said it before: there are two sorts of atheists. One sort claims that there is no deity, the other claims that there is no evidence that proves the existence of a deity; I belong to the latter group, because if I were to claim that no god exists, I would have to produce evidence to establish that claim, and I cannot. Religious persons have by far the easier position; they say they believe in a deity because that’s their preference, and they’ve read it in a book. That’s their right.

Randi became a U.S. citizen in 1987. Since then, he’s recovered from two major bouts with cancer, and in 2010 he came out as gay after seeing the 2008 biopic Milk. During an appearance at an annual skeptics’ convention in 2013, Randi announced that he and his partner of 27 years had just gotten married in Washington D.C.

Today’s Agenda Is Brought To You By…

From the American Journal of Urology and Sexology, January 1920.

File this under: Whatever Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger.

Today In History, 1637: Plymouth Colony Convicts Two Men Of “Lewd Behavior and Unclean Carriage”

The crime wasn’t sodomy — that required proof of penetration — but it was shocking nevertheless. From the official record:

John Allexander & Thomas Roberts were both examined and found guilty of lewd behavior and unclean carriage one with another, by often spending their seed one upon another, which was proved both by witness & their own confession; the said Allexander [was] found to have been formerly notoriously guilty that way, and seeking to allure others thereunto. The said John Allexander was therefore censured [sentenced] by the Court to be severely whipped, and burnt in the shoulder with a hot iron, and to be perpetually banished [from] the government [territory] of New Plymouth, and if he be at any time found within the same, to be whipped out again by the appointment [order] of the next justice, etc., and so as oft as he shall be found within this government. Which penalty was accordingly inflicted.

Thomas Roberts was censured to be severley whipped, and to return to his master, Mr. Atwood, and serve out his time with him, but to be disabled hereby to enjoy any lands within this government, except he manifest better desert.

[Source: William B. Rubenstein. Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Law (New York: New Press, 1993): 47-53.]

Today In History, 1836: A Case Of Adhesiveness “So Excessive, As To Amount To a Disease”

Dr. Robert Macnish. Drawing by Daniel Maclise, 1835. (Source.)

180 YEARS AGO: Today we recognize phrenology as a pseudoscience, but in the late 1700s the attempt to map various human characteristics to different regions of the brain was notable for two things: 1) it reflected a growing realization among scientists that all of those things associated with the mind — thoughts, feelings, and emotions — were actually products of the brain rather than the heart, eyes or gut; and 2) it reflected a growing understanding that the brain wasn’t just a lump of homogenous gelatinous tissue, but was organized in some kind of a structure with specialized functions taking place in different regions of the brain.

In these ways, phrenology set the stage for the later development of neuroscience and psychiatry. But until then, it also became the basis for some strange and sometimes dangerous beliefs, particularly the belief that the shape of a person’s skull could reveal that individual’s intelligence and character. In some cases, these beliefs took on racial and nationalistic tones, as the skulls of South Asians and Africans were compared with various European skulls and found to be deficient in the eyes of many phrenologists.

The theories behind phrenology were first articulated by the German physician Franz Joseph Gall, who described the process of reading the shape of an individual’s skull to ascertain that person’s strengths and weaknesses. Gall’s collaborator, Johann Spurzheim carried Gall’s theories to England and Scotland in a series of lectures. Scottish lawyer George Crombe, whose interest in phrenology was based on the desire to understand what made criminals criminal, brought those lectures to the general public’s attention when he founded the Phrenological Society in 1823. Between the Society’s Phrenological Journal and Crombe’s best-selling books, Elements of Phrenology (1824), and The Constitution of Man and its Relationship to External Objects (1828), he drew attention to the emerging science from both professionals as well as in the popular press.

Robert Macnish’s phrenology chart, from his 1837 book, An Introduction to Phrenology. (Click to enlarge.)

Among those drawn to the new “science” was a young Scottish surgeon, Dr. Robert Macnish. In 1837 he published An Introduction to Phrenology, which was both a paean to the “genius of Gall,” and a vigorous defense of Gall’s controversial theories. Macnish would wind up being a minor figure in phrenology, owing to his early death (unmarried) at the age of 38 that same year. But because Macnish provides us with the earliest description of what we would now recognize as homosexuality in a medical journal in 1836 — and we’ll get to that in a moment — his views on phrenology are particularly relevant. Macnish’s book, much like a catechism, is organized as a series of questions and answers. Here, in laying out the foundation of the theories of Phrenology, he explained how the brain was organized:

There is irresistible evidence to demonstrate that the brain is not a single organ, but in reality a congeries of organs, so intimately blended, however, as to appear one. Each of these is the seat of a particular mental faculty; so that, as the whole mind acts through the medium of the whole brain, so does each faculty of the mind act through the medium of a certain portion of the brain. Thus, there is a part appropriated to the faculty of Tune, another to that of Imitation, and so on through the whole series. The brain, in short, as Dr. Spurzheim observes, “is not a simple unit, but a collection of many peculiar instruments.”

These “instruments” were called “organs” or “faculties.” If a particular organ was especially well-developed, then the area of the skull corresponding to that organ would be enlarged, and thus creating a bulge or a lump on the skull. A deficiently developed organ would correspond to a smaller area, perhaps an indentation or a recessed area. By conducting a full “reading” in which precise measurements were made for each of the organs (Macnish listed 35 such organs; some phrenologists listed as many as 95), an individual’s entire intellectual, emotional and moral fitness could be determined.

Detail of Macnish’s phrenology chart, showing the locations of Amativeness (1), Philoprogenitiveness (2), and Adhesiveness (4).

Two particular organs hold special interest to those who would look for evidence of homosexuality in history. To find the first organ of interest, reach back and place your fingers on your upper neck at the base of your scull. Now move outward toward your ears. Feel those two bumps on either side of your skull? Those constitute the organ of Amativeness, which — and I’ll bet you didn’t know this — is the source of your sex drive. Or as Macnish explained, “the seat of the amative propensity”:

This point is now universally admitted by physiologists, and is supported by so many facts that it can no longer be doubtful. The effects of cerebellar disease in calling the sexual feeling into vehement action, demonstrate conclusively that the latter has its seat in the particular part of brain alluded to. The great purpose served by Amativeness is the continuance of the species.

…(I)t is generally very full in those unfortunate females who walk the streets, and gain a livelihood by prostitution. In what are called “ladies’ men” the organ is small. These individuals feel towards women precisely as they would to one of their own sex. Women intuitively know this, and acquire a kind of easy familiarity with them which they do not attain with men of a warmer complexion.

So already you can see that this is the first organ we would want to pay attention to.

Now, from Amativeness, run your fingers upward and inward toward the back center of your skull, at roughly a 45 degree angle. Feel where your skull sticks out furthest out the back? That is Philoprogenitiveness. Macnish wrote that its function was “(t)o bestow an ardent attachment to offspring, and children in general; and, according to some phrenologists, to weak and tender animals.” Phrenologists believed that Philoprogenitiveness was generally better developed in women than in men, as evidenced by their maternal instinct. Now move your fingers upward and outward. You may notice a pair of smaller bulges forming a kind of a corner of your skull. These two bulges collectively are the organ of Adhesiveness, and this is the second organ that we would want to pay close attention to. Macnish explained Adhesiveness this way:

(It) is that portion of the brain with which the feeling of attachment is connected. No faculty, save Destructiveness, is displayed more early than this: it is exhibited even by the infant in the nurse’s arms. When very strong, it gives ardent strength of attachment and warmth of friendship.

Does this faculty constitute love?

Not strictly speaking; for love, in the legitimate sense of the word, is a compound of Amativeness and Adhesiveness. Such is the love which the lover bears to his mistress, and the husband to his young wife. The attachment of a parent to his child, or of a brother to his sister, is not, in reality, love, but strong Adhesiveness—powerfully aided, in the former case, by Philoprogenitiveness.

Is this faculty more energetic in men or women?

Generally in the latter; although in men there are not wanting instances of the most violent attachments, even towards their own sex. Such is represented to have been the case with Pylades and Orestes, and with Damon and Pythias, whose attachment to each other (the result of excessive Adhesiveness) defied even death itself. What beautiful pictures of friendship between men, have been drawn by Homer, by Virgil, and by the sacred writers, in the instances of Achilles and Patroclus, of Nisus and Euryalus, and of Jonathan and David!

If an individual’s Amativeness, Philoprogenitiveness and Adhesiveness were well-developed — and by that I mean if all of those bulges were prominent — then a happy and fulfilling family life was assured. But if, for example, a person’s Amativeness was deficient but his Adhesiveness was prominent, then you might have a situation that Macnish briefly described in the August 6, 1836 edition of the journal The Lancet. As far as I know, this single paragraph is the earliest description of romantic love between two men to appear in a English-language medical journal:

ADHESIVENESS. — I knew two gentlemen whose attachment to each other was so excessive, as to amount to a disease. When the one visited the other, they slept in the same bed, sat constantly alongside of each other at table, spoke in affectionate whispers, and were, in short, miserable when separated. The strength of their attachment was shown, by the uneasiness, amounting to jealousy, with which the one surveyed any thing approaching to tenderness and kindness, which the other might show to a third party. This violent excitement of adhesiveness continued for some years, but gradually exhausted itself, or at least abated to something like a natural or healthy feeling. Such attachments are, however, much more common among females than among the other sex. — Dr. Macnish.

Macnish wasn’t the only one to associate an overdeveloped Adhesiveness, when accompanied by an underdeveloped Amativeness, with what we would today recognize as homosexuality. Phrenology was immensely popular in the United States through much of the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century, with Walt Whitman one of its devotes. In Democratic Vistas (1871), Whitman spoke of “adhesive love, at least rivaling the amative love.” In his introduction to his first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855, he called phrenologists “the lawgiver of poets,” and he scattered phrenological terms and concepts throughout his poetry, like these lines from “Song of the Open Road”:

Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion’d, it is apropos;
Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers?
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?

[Sources: George Crombe. Elements of Phrenology 3rd ed. (Edinburgh: John Anderson, Jr., 1828). Available online at Google Books here.

George Crombe. The Constitution of Man and its Relationship to External Objects 7th ed. (Edinburgh: John Anderson, Jr., 1828). Available online at Google Books here.

Robert Macnish. An Introduction to Phrenology 2nd ed. (Glasgow: John Symington & Co., 1837). Available online at Archive.org here.]

Born On This Day, 1903: John “Bunny” Breckinridge

(d. 1966) Independently wealthy, he was the great grandson of U.S. vice president John Breckinridge and the founder of Wells Fargo Back Lloyd Tevis. He was born in Paris and studied at Eton College and Oxford University. Gravitating toward acting, he performed in Shakespeare in England before moving to San Francisco in the late 1920s. He had all of the advantages that life could offer, but today the one thing he is the most known for would have to be his appearance as “The Ruler” in Ed Wood’s 1956 film Plan 9 From Outer Space. The film featured Los Angeles late-night television movie host Vampira and the narcotics-addled Bela Lugosi, the latter made possible by scenes spliced into the film which had been shot for another abandoned project shortly before Lugosi died. The film was so bad it remained unreleased until 1959 because distributor after distributor refused to take it on. Michael Medved named it “The Worst Film Ever” in his 1981 book, The Golden Turkey Awards. Despite, or perhaps because of, that nomination, Plan 9 has somehow managed to become a camp classic, although copious amounts of alcohol is generally considered a requirement to render the film tolerable.

Breckenridge lived the sort of life for whom the word “eccentric” was coined. He became a drag queen in Paris in 1927, where he married the daughter of a reputed French countess. The couple had a daugher, then divorced in 1929, and he moved to the U.S. Two decades later, as all of America was riveted over the news of Christine Jorensen’s gender re-assignment surgery (May 30), Breckenridge decided to give it a whirl. He announced plans in 1954 to go to Denmark for the surgery so he could marry his then-boyfriend, but those plans fell apart when a Judge in San Francisco ordered him to make good on an earlier agreement to financially support his elderly blind mother. He then decided to go to Mexico for a less expensive operation, but a car accident scotched those plans. I’ll let Bill Murray, who played Breckenridge in Tim Burton’s 1994 biopic Ed Wood, take it from there:

Shortly after the Plan 9’s release, Breckenridge was arrested for taking two underage boys on a trip to Las Vegas. That landed him in the Atascadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for about a year. After his release, he returned to San Francisco and continued to appear in small local stage productions. He also continued to maintain another home in New Jersey. By the time he became famous again thanks to Burton’s Ed Wood, he was too ill to take part in any publicity events. He died four years later in a Monterey nursing home at the age of 93.

Here’s a clip of the real Bunny Breckenridge from Plan 9:

You can also torture yourself with the full movie here.

Born On This Day, 1928: Andy Warhol

(d. 1987) He didn’t invent pop art, but it is more his brand than anyone else’s. Andrej Varhola was born to working class Lemko/Ukrainian immigrants in Pittsburgh, where he attended an Eastern Rite Byzantine Catholic Church. Maybe it was the religious icons that filled the church which inspired him to make icons of ordinary things and extraordinary people. Brillo pads and soup cans were more than their mere packages after his treatment, electric chairs became sculptures of transcendent mystery, and Marylin Monroe and Jacqui Onassis became the Madonnas and St. Catherines of the modern era. Even the white-haired wig he wore later in life became an icon of his personality. “I love Los Angeles,” he once said. “I love Hollywood. They’re so beautiful. Everything’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.”

In 1968, he was shot by Valerie Solanas, a minor artist working off and on at Wahol’s studio The Factory, and very nearly died. But he would go on to live two more decades. He became a fixture in the scene at Studio 54 and other 1970s hot spots around Manhattan, and he also remained a devout Catholic, attending Mass nearly daily. When he died after complications from gallbladder surgery, he was buried in Pittsburgh following a traditional Eastern Rite funeral. His will left virtually his entire estate for the establishment of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which is one of the the largest grant-making foundations for visual arts in the U.S. And if you ever visit Pittsburgh without stopping in to the Andy Warhol Museum, then you’re just doing life all wrong.

Born On This Day, 1989: Angie Zapata

(d.2008) She died too young at only eighteen when she was savagely beaten to death by Allen Andrade, first with his fists and then with a fire extinguisher to the head. They had met through a social networking site and spent three days together, including one sexual encounter, before Andrade found out that Angie was transgender. In his murder trial, Andrade’s lawyer posed the trans-panic defense, saying that Andrade beat Angie after she smiled at him and said, “I’m all woman”. That, according to Andrade’s lawyer, was a “highly provoking act.” The jury didn’t buy it fortunately, and Andrade was found guilty of first degree murder with hate crime enhancements, and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

LGBT Activists Cancel Uganda Pride After Threats From Government Official

Uganda government official Minister of ethics & integrity Lokodo has threaten to call for mob violence towards any @Prideuganda2016 events

— Dr. Frank Mugisha (@frankmugisha) August 5, 2016

Minister Lokodo threatened to mobilize mob & large police attacks 4anyone who turns up for Pride Parade.This events suspended 4safety of all

— Nicholas Opiyo (@nickopiyo) August 5, 2016

Engagements with the State will continue next week with a view of holding Parade at a later date to be announced. Hopefully soon. Stay safe

— Nicholas Opiyo (@nickopiyo) August 5, 2016

UPDATE: @Prideuganda2016 postponed after lokodo threatens 2arrest any1 who takes part @KashaJacqueline @SMUG2004 #ugpridehijack #UGpride2016

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 5, 2016

Is this right,no. But we must prioritize our lives.We wl b of no gd dead o behind bars @Prideuganda2016 #UGpridecancelled #ugpridehijack

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 5, 2016

Yesterday, Uganda police raided a private party being held as part of Uganda Pride celebrations, arresting about 20-25 people and severely beating several transgender and crossdressing people attending a Mr/Mrs/Mx Uganda Pride pageant. Police later released all of those who had been arrested. LGBT leaders had vowed to continue with the rest of the planned activities for the week, but after a meeting with a government minister, organizers called off the rest of the Pride activities out of concern for the safety of participants. J. Lester Feder at BuzzFeed has the details:

On Friday, lawyer Nick Opiyo of Chapter 4 Uganda met with Ethics Minister Simon Lokodo to discuss the raid. Following the meeting, Opiyo told BuzzFeed News that Lokodo had threatened to bring opposition to the event to the streets, so organizers decided it should be canceled.

Frank Mugisha of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a local NGO, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the parade on Saturday was cancelled and postponed “at least” until the following week.

“We decided to suspend it because of the risks to personal safety,” Opiyo said. “The minister threatened to mobilize a mob and a large police group to beat up anyone who shows up for pride tomorrow. We will engage the government next week with a view of holding the pride parade at another date soon.”

Opiyo indicates that Lokodo may be acting as a loose canon by directly breaking an agreement between the Ugandan government and donor nations which allowed similar pride events to take place quietly in 2014 and 2015.

Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo

Simon Lokodo is a defrocked Catholic priest who is now, ironically, in charge of the Ministry of Ethics and Integrity. Seriously. He was one of the strongest proponents of the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which provided the death penalty for “repeat offenders” of homosexual activity, as well as for anyone who was gay and HIV-positive. It also added criminal penalties for anyone who advocated on behalf of gay people, anyone who provided housing or other services to gay people, and anyone who neglected to report gay people to police. Lokodo was among the chorus of Ugandans who repeatedly lied to the rest of the world about the existence of the death penalty in the proposed legislation. Even before Parliament acted on the bill, Lokodo often pretended as though the proposed legislation had already become law by shutting down LGBT rights conferences and meetings. He arrested the producer of a play which was being performed at a small theater portraying the difficulties LGBT people face living in Uganda. He has also moved to shut down NGOs for their perceived or actual support for LGBT rights, although Ugandan activists have repeatedly defied his ban on their work.

In 2014, the Uganda Parliament approved an amended version the Anti-Homosexualty Bill which dropped the death penalty in favor of a lifetime sentence. Following worldwide condemnation and several countries suspending foreign aid to Uganda, the country’s Constitutional Court annulled the law on a technicality later that year in a face-saving move.

This latest action against the LGBT community is taking place amid a rapid escalation of human rights violations being committed by Uganda police over the past few years in support of the increasingly authoritarian President Yowery Museveni. Police violence against the ruling party’s political opponents have become routine, culminating the arrest last March of opposition leader Kizza Besigye on trumped up charges of treason after Museveni won an unprecedented fifth term to continue his 30-year rule. According to a statement issued by a coalition of NGOs participating in the Uganda Pride activities:

This episode of police brutality did not happen in isolation, the groups said. It comes at a time of escalating police violence targeting media, independent organizations, and the political opposition.

“Any force by Ugandan police targeting a peaceful and lawful assembly is outrageous,” said Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), who was among those arrested. “The LGBTI community stands with all Ugandan civil society movements against police brutality.”

“The Ugandan government should condemn violent illegal actions by police targeting the LGBTI community and all Ugandans,” said Asia Russell at Health GAP. “The US and all governments should challenge President Museveni to intervene immediately and hold his police force accountable.”

LGBTI Ugandans routinely face violence, discrimination, bigotry, blackmail, and extortion. The unlawful government raid on a spirited celebration displays the impunity under which Ugandan police are operating. “The state has a duty to protect all citizens’ enjoyment of their rights, including the right to peacefully assemble to celebrate Pride Uganda,” said Hassan Shire, executive director at Defend Defenders. “A swift and transparent investigation should be conducted into last night’s unacceptable demonstration of police brutality.”

Yesterday’s raid provides a tragic reminder of why everyone needs to be concerned about the personal safety of anyone who might show up at a pride event the next few days. During yesterday’s raid, one transman was severely injured when he tried to escape by jumping from a balcony on the fourth floor of the hosting pub. He is currently in Mulago hospital in very serious condition:

The young man who was hurt last night, still needs our strength. He has not received full treatment – @Prideuganda2016

— Dr. Frank Mugisha (@frankmugisha) August 5, 2016

Young man hurt @Prideuganda2016 earlier examinations show 2 broken vertebrates,more exams tomorrow & possible treatment,send him strength

— Dr. Frank Mugisha (@frankmugisha) August 5, 2016

U.S. Ambassador to Uganda Condemns Police Raid of Uganda Pride

A statement by @USAmbUganda on last night's police raid of a Uganda Pride Week event in Kampala. pic.twitter.com/1nzGeFD7fQ

— U.S. Mission Uganda (@usmissionuganda) August 5, 2016

The U.S. Ambassador to Uganda has released its statement on last night’s police raid on a LGBT pride celebration in Kampala:

Statement by U.S. Ambassador to Uganda Deborah R. Malac.

I was dismayed to hear the accounts of a police raid last night on a peaceful event in Kampala to celebrate Uganda Pride Week and recognize the talents and contributions of the country’s LGBTI community. The fact that police reportedly beat and assaulted Ugandan citizens engaged in peaceful activities is unacceptable and deeply troubling.

This incident adds to a growing list of reports concerning police brutality in Uganda. While the United States has faced its own recent allegations of improper use of force by law enforcement officials, the fact remains that abuses committed by those sworn to uphold the law are unacceptable in any country. As our own experience shows, issues of police brutality and impunity can only be resolved by holding officials accountable, and by encouraging open and frank dialogue between citizens and government. I hope Ugandan authorities will investigate this and other incidents, and treat them with the seriousness they deserve.

No person should face abuse or discrimination because of who they are. The U.S. Embassy stands with Uganda’s LGBTI community and Ugandans of all backgrounds and beliefs to defend the dignity of all citizens. We call on the Ugandan authorities to safeguard the freedoms of all Ugandans under the law.

The increasingly dictatorial president Yoweri Museveni continues to hold power after thirty years in office by grabbing ever greater police powers to harass and jail dissidents and political opponents. Last night’s raid is just part of a much larger pattern of police crackdowns on all peaceful gathering and meetings, including those taking place in private venues.

Meanwhile, Ugandan media have been following very closely the examples of police shootings in the U.S., and East Africans know the names of Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile about as well as do most Americans. Museveni has been pointing to those events to discredit American criticisms of Ugandan police actions against his political opponents.

More Details About Police Raid on Uganda Pride Emerge

Kasha Jaqueline’s Kuchu Times has published more details about yesterday’s police raid on a Uganda Pride event at a rooftop pub in downtown Kampala:

Soon, they started confiscating people’s cameras and phones claiming they did not want people to spread the news on Facebook! The Officer in Charge, a rather arrogant man in demeanor, addressed the now extremely perplexed crowd and informed us were being held for conducting a gay wedding even though the laws of the land were very clear on homosexuality. Our faces fell! It seemed like our ordeal had just began and on bad note. Efforts to correct this information were futile as he shut down everyone who attempted to pass on the right information of what was actually happening.

A short while later, the same officer said he was retaining us for holding an unlawful gathering under the Public Order Management Act. The organizers still tried to inform him that they had attained permission from the Police prior but all their pleas fell on deaf ears.

…The beatings then started as the officers kicked and whipped people. Media was called and pictures of the attendees taken; all this while with the police forcing them (the attendees) to look into the cameras. The officer once again addressed us and said he would not tolerate this kind of ‘nonsense’ in his division.

After staying in the cold bundled up like criminals for over one and a half hours, we were released with caution that next time would be fatal.

According to other tweets from last night, it appears that police singled out transgender and crossdressing participants for especially harsh treatment. It’s unknown at this time what other media photographers were at the raid. One tabloid, Red Pepper, has a particularly notorious history of publishing, photos, names, occupations and places of residences of LGBT people in prior vigilante campaigns.

Despite last nights events, the LGBT community remains defiant, and promise to maintain their schedule of activities this week:

If we get scared they win, pride is still going on @frankmugisha @KashaJacqueline @maronharewood @Opimva @FredKwint @KuchuTimes @HealthLGBTQ

— Pride Uganda (@Prideuganda2016) August 5, 2016

Yes, today we continue with the festival as planned! we refuse to be broken #ugpridehijack https://t.co/oQFZav5bDv

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 5, 2016

Although activists urge caution:

dont pik unknown calls o meet wt any 1one requestg 4 a meetg.u cn refer em 2 @Prideuganda2016 o @clarekabale @KashaJacqueline #ugpridehijack

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 5, 2016

Uganda Pride Raided By Police

These are tweets Pride Uganda, Kasha Jaqueline’s Kuchu Times, Frank Mugisha, and other Ugandan LGBT activists describing a raid on a Uganda Pride event as it happened Thursday night:

@deryk_beatsby_deryk is the makeup artists for the Miss Pride 2016 Contestants @maronharewood @miz_cracker pic.twitter.com/cYnxsfFLnn

— Pride Uganda (@Prideuganda2016) August 4, 2016

Creative wear dedicated to #orlando49 @Prideuganda2016 @KashaJacqueline @SMUG2004 @Far_Uganda @frankmugisha pic.twitter.com/ONc1GaaiZX

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Creative wear showcasing @Prideuganda2016 @KashaJacqueline @Opimva @SMUG2004 @frankmugisha @Far_Uganda pic.twitter.com/xQNvhCJ5uZ

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Police interrupts Mr and miss pride pageant calm is being restored @KashaJacqueline @SMUG2004 .we remain strong Faith

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Uganda Pride has been held annually for several years, although it is never widely publicized. In most years, it has been held in secret, and publicized only after the events have taken place. Pride participants are usually told where the event is located very soon before it is scheduled to begin.

But there is one catch to that secrecy. The ruling party of Uganda’s increasingly dictatorial President Yoweri Museveni pushed the Public Order Management Act (PDF: 473KB/20 pages) through Parliament in 2013. The law gives police broad powers to prohibit peaceful assembly for any reason or for no reason. Museveni, who has been President since 1986, has used his expanded police powers to jail political opponents and prohibit peaceful meetings and rallies during his re-election campaign earlier this year.

Nevertheless, LGBT activists say that they had obtained permission from the police to hold this year’s event as required by law, and as they have done since the Public Order Management Act went into effect. No problems with police were reported by LGBT activists in 2014 or 2015. Why things are different for 2016 is anyone’s guess, although speculation obviously turns to possible connections to widespread allegations of police brutality against opposition leader Kizza Besigye and his supporters during and after Museveni’s re-election.  Besigye is currently out on bail on trumped up charges of treason. It’s a common practice in Uganda to divert public attention to LGBT people whenever public confidence in the country’s political and legal institutions is shaken.

Uganda police wants to cover up the ongoing criticism against their brutality with a gay story. It's really absurd. @KuchuTimes @SMUG2004

— DHALIE WOW (@DHALIEWOW) August 4, 2016

Dr. Frank Mugisha is Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda:

I am arrested by Ugandan police

— Dr. Frank Mugisha (@frankmugisha) August 4, 2016

And @Opimva is the Twitter handle for Pepe Julian Onziema, a prominent Ugandan transgender advocate.

Arrested

— TheNilote (@Opimva) August 4, 2016

Trans folks worse attacked by the Uganda Police- kicked, fondled & abused in today's raid of a Pride Beauty Contest pic.twitter.com/CZOIzsi6GC

— Nicholas Opiyo (@nickopiyo) August 4, 2016

Police rounds up all e attendees of Mr and miss pride. Says e gathering is illegal since homosexuality z a crime in uganda @KashaJacqueline

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

J. Lester Feder at Buzzfeed spoke to some of the activists:

Around 20 to 25 people were arrested, those detained told BuzzFeed News after their release. That number included Pepe Julian Onziema and Frank Mugisha of Sexual Minorities Uganda, who both posted on their Twitter timelines that they were being placed under arrest at around 10:30 p.m. local time. Clare Byarugaba, former co-coordinator of the coalition opposing anti-LGBT legislation in Uganda and now on the staff of the human rights group Chapter 4 Uganda was also among those taken into custody, Chapter 4 director Nick Opiyo told BuzzFeed News.

Michael Lavers at the Washington Blade adds:

Asia Russell, executive director of Health GAP, an HIV/AIDS service organization, told the Washington Blade from Kampala that eyewitnesses said officers entered a nightclub in which a Uganda Pride beauty pageant was taking place at around 11 p.m. local time.

Russell said that up to 300 people were inside the nightclub — which is across the street from the U.S. Embassy — when the raid began.

She told the Blade that police “were assaulting people” with their hands and canes.

Russell said officers were “extremely brutal with” the gender non-conforming and trans women they singled out.

Russell told the Blade that eyewitnesses said the police sexually assaulted those who were inside the nightclub. She said they confiscated their cell phones and threatened to send the pictures they took of them to the media.

 

Police pulled off hair/braids from transwoman, transmen forced to undress by inmates, community queen arrested n severly beaten, To much

— BombasticKasha (@KashaJacqueline) August 5, 2016

Buzzfeed reports:

“They were beating people … mostly the trans women,” Adebayo Katiiti Phiona, who won the title of Mr. Pride in 2015, told BuzzFeed News. “A police person even stepped on a trans woman.”

At one point, police were apparently claiming that a gay wedding was taking place. While Uganda’s constitution does not allow same-sex marriage, conducting a gay wedding is not, in and of itself, a criminal offense in Uganda.

😕😤 Uganda police breaking up À@Prideuganda2016 Mr &miss celebrations mbu it's a gay wedding#brokensystem @KuchuTimes @KashaJacqueline –

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

We are all waiting on police to tell us what to do next. This is a recap of 2012 @KashaJacqueline @Prideuganda2016 pic.twitter.com/c2V8DQAM7W

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Police claims gathering was a gay wedding @Prideuganda2016 @KashaJacqueline @SMUG2004 @Icebreakers_UG

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Homosexuality is a crime under an older Ugandan law that was inherited from Britain when Uganda gained independence in 1962. According to that law, any person who “permits a male person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature…commits an offence and is liable to imprisonment for life.”

In 2009, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced into Parliament which would have provided for the death penalty for homosexual acts. It would have also provided criminal penalties for anyone who refused to report gay people to police, or who provided shelter or aid to anyone who was gay. An amended version of the law was passed by Parliament in 2014, but after worldwide condemnation with several countries suspending foreign aid to Uganda, the country’s Constitutional Court found a face-saving technicality to cite in order to annul the law. Meanwhile, the legal situation for LGBT people in Uganda remains very tenuous.

Let's make this inhumanity viral. What did we do wrong?why didn't they say no when organizers asked for permission?

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Police calls media to take pictures. Unnecessary outings. People being beaten @KashaJacqueline @Prideuganda2016 @SMUG2004

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

People demanding to be told what our crime is. Police shuts us down with intimidation @KashaJacqueline @SMUG2004

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Of says he doesn't want this 'nonsense' in his division @Prideuganda2016 @KashaJacqueline @SMUG2004

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Police reinforcements brought in @KashaJacqueline @SMUG2004 @nickopiyo @chapter4uganda @

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

All decor brought down. Claims of someone jumping off balcony in fear making rounds. @KashaJacqueline @SMUG2004 @chapter4uganda

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Police trying to explain the public management act. But how is this wrong if police has been informed? @KashaJacqueline @SMUG2004

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Police apparently were trying to use the Public Order Management Act as justification for blocking the Pride celebration, but activists say that they had complied with the law by obtaining police permission ahead of time.

Pepe Julian Onziema of Sexual Minorities Uganda told BuzzFeed News that police said the event was held without proper permission from police, a claim he emphatically denied.

“There’s no way we would hold an event without a clearance,” Onziema said, saying organizers had always communicated with police before holding Pride events for the last four years. “They don’t care as long as the word homosexuality is mentioned. As soon as that is mentioned, everything else ceases and [police feel they] have to act.”

Oc says gathering z illegal evn though @Prideuganda2016 had sought permission f4m relevant authorities @Prideuganda2016 @KashaJacqueline

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

People have been released @SMUG2004 @KashaJacqueline @spectrumuganda what happens to the arrested activists now?

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Mr n miss pride attendes slowly trickle out of venue.Glad we r safe,nw let's gt our activists out of jail @Prideuganda2016 @KashaJacqueline

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

A couple of hours later, all of the LGBT leaders were set free, apparently without charge:

After a few hours of detention,I have been set free,every one is safe. Thankyou all my friends for the support & solidarity @Prideuganda2016

— Dr. Frank Mugisha (@frankmugisha) August 4, 2016

@jeenashahesq @frankmugisha @Opimva Everyone has been released without a charge & are on their way home. We remiss unshaken by this

— Nicholas Opiyo (@nickopiyo) August 4, 2016

Although one person was reportedly injured seriously while trying to escape. According to the Washington Blade:

Russell also told the Blade that a trans woman who jumped from the fourth floor of the nightclub during the raid remains in critical condition at a local hospital.

“Police behavior throughout this unlawful raid was brutal,” said Russell.

A victim is currently hospitalized after jumping off the 4th floor to escape @PoliceUg brutality @frankmugisha @Opimva @KuchuTimes

— Sexual Minorities UG (@SMUG2004) August 4, 2016

Now at Mulago national hospital, Ugandan gay young man injured after jumping off 6th floor building during the police raid @Prideuganda2016

— Dr. Frank Mugisha (@frankmugisha) August 5, 2016

All that were arrested are out. But the one who jumped off the building is fighting for his life at the Mulago hospital #PrideUg2016

— Icebreakers Uganda (@Icebreakers_UG) August 4, 2016

This is very unfortunate, that one would rather jump off a building than face @PoliceUg brutality #PrideUg2016 https://t.co/n896wAL3Ai

— Sexual Minorities UG (@SMUG2004) August 4, 2016

Thank u world 4 standing wt n encouraging us!Our activists av bn released. We go to bed with heavy hearts @Prideuganda2016 @KashaJacqueline

— KuchuTimes (Q-Times) (@KuchuTimes) August 4, 2016

Today’s Agenda Is Brought To You By…

From GPU News, June 1977, page 13. (Source.)

You’ll have to click on the image to read the details. It was a short cruise, running from 9:00 p.m. to midnight with music, dancing, and a cash bar. The Quad Cities actually consists of five cities straddling the banks of the Mississippi. Davenport, Iowa, with Rock Island and Moline in Illinois, were the original “Tri Cities.” East Moline grew in the 1930s to rival Moline, and the moniker stretched to encompass the Quad Cities. But the name would stretch no further, despite an Alcoa plant bringing massive growth to Bettendorf, Iowa after the war. By then, the area was so well known as the Quad Cities that efforts by the area’s media to popularize “Quint Cities” failed to take hold.

As I’m putting this Agenda together now, I’m back in my hometown of Portsmouth, Ohio, another river city. (It’s why posting may be light on this blog for the next couple of weeks.) I grew up quite literally on the banks of the Ohio River, which would have been off of my family’s back yard if it weren’t for the levee. And so this ad always brings back some really great memories for me.

When I was in high school, the lone bridge crossing the Ohio into Kentucky from Portsmouth was closed for a couple of years’ worth of reconstruction. That closer split the greater Portsmouth community. For thousands of people living in Kentucky and working in the steel plant, the shoe factory, and other industries in Portsmouth, their ten minute commute was now more than an hour since the next nearest bridge was nearly 30 miles away.

The state of Ohio came to the rescue by providing an auto ferry and a stern-wheeler passenger ferry to try to restore at at least a minimum of transportation links to jobs and hospitals. And so for our Junior/Senior Prom, my high school rented the passenger ferry for the night’s after-prom party and set up a casino (with monopoly money), and a bar (with fruit drinks and pop — we called soft drinks “pop”). I didn’t go to the prom (go figure!) but I joined my friends at the after-prom for a cruise that left the Court Street Landing at midnight and returned at 5:00 a.m. What a great time we had, “gambling,” “drinking,” and watching the water glint in the moonlight off the ferry’s sternwheel as we churned our way upriver to Greenup Dam before turning back.

The view from Tower Hill in Kentucky.

A year later, the bridge repairs were complete, and the ferries were retired from service. The night the bridge opened, you could see a line of tail lights trailing up the road to Tower Hill in Kentucky, Ohioans rushing to reclaim their favorite “parking” spots with their phenomenal views across the valley, although, of course, it wasn’t the views they were after.

Today In History, 2003: Rev. Gene Robinson Elected Episcopal Bishop

Smashing the Stained Glass Closet

Overcoming eleventh-hour charges that he had sexually harassed a parishioner — charges which were withdrawn with regrets from the person making them — senior bishops at the Episcopal Church’s General Convention voted 62 to 43 with two abstentions to approve Rev. Gene Robinson’s election as bishop of New Hampshire. The election ended months of emotional debate, threats, and bizarre charges. One charge was that a web site run by a youth advocacy group that he supported had links to porn sites. The Boston Globe investigated and found that, yes, it was possible to find explicit photos if you kept clicking from that web site, but it would take seven clicks outside of it through several other web sites to get there.

At issue was the fact that Robinson was not celibate and had been living with his partner since 1988. During committee hearings leading up to his confirmation, Robinson said that his relationship with his partner was an essential element in his own spiritual life. “What I can tell you is that in my relationship with my partner, I am able to express the deep love that’s in my heart,” he explained. ”And in his unfailing and unquestioning love of me, I experience just a little bit of the kind of never-ending, never-failing love that God has for me. So it’s sacramental.”

When Robinson’s election was finally confirmed, about thirty delegates walked out, and opponents called the election “a step toward moral disintegration in America. Anglican leaders in Asia and Africa immediately denounced the decision and threatened schism. He was pointedly not invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conference by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, but that didn’t stop a group of conservative bishops to hold an alternate conference in Jerusalem. Robinson formally retired in 2013.