Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 20

TODAY’S AGENDA:
“Call Me Kuchu” East Coast Screening: Silver Spring, MD. The Silverdocs Documentary Film Festival will be the venue for the East Coast premiere of  Call Me Kuchu, which follows the story of Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato’s struggle for LGBT equality in the face of the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The film includes the infamous tabloid campaign which outed “Kuchus” — the Ugandan word for gay people — along with the headline “Hang Them!” The unthinkable happened when Kato was brutally murdered in his home. The film will be shown this evening at 9:30 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theater 2. Another showing will take place on Friday at 8:30 p.m., also at  AFI Silver Theater 2.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Augusta, GA; Baton Rouge, LA; Berlin, Germany; Chicago, IL; Cleveland, OH; Columbia, SC (Black Pride); Durango, CO; Harlem, NY; Houston, TX; Knoxville, TN; Lisbon, Portugal; London, UK (World Pride); Minneapolis, MN; New Orleans, LA; New York, NY; Palermo, Italy; Regina, SK; Rome, Italy; Shreveport, LA; St. Louis, MO; San Francisco, CA; Santa Fe, NM; Seattle, WA; Shanghai, China; Valencia, Spain; Wilton Manors, FL and Worcester, UK.

Other Events This Weekend: Frameline36 LGBT Film Festival, San Francisco, CA.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
E Lynn Harris: 1955. He was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. When he attended the University of Arkansas, he became the first African-American editor of the university’s yearbook. After graduation, he worked in sales for IBM and Hewlett Packard, but quit after thirteen hears to pursue his first love, writing. His first novel, Invisible Life, followed an African-American man’s journey of self-discovery as gay man, and themes of the struggle between acceptance and shame among African-American men on the “down low” would become a recurring theme in Harris’s oeuvre. Invisible Life first failed to find a publisher, so Harris he published it himself in 1991 and sold it out of the trunk of his car before he was finally discovered by Anchor Books in 1994.

After Invisible Life’s publication as a paperback, his career was set. He went on to author ten consecutive books which landed on The New York Times’s Best Seller List, making him simultaneously among the most successful African-American authors and gay authors for the past two decades. LGBT advocate Kieth Boykin observed that Harris’s books encouraged the black community to talk openly about homosexuality. “It was hard to go on a subway in places in New York or D.C. and not see some black woman reading an E. Lynn Harris novel,” Boykin said. Harris died in 2009 in Los Angeles of heart disease. In 2010, the Los Angeles Times posthumously named Invisible Life as one of the top 20 “classic works of gay literature.”

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The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, June 19

Juneteenth celebration in Richmond, Virginia, 1905.

Today is Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, an important day of African-American heritage commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the state of Texas in 1865. Although President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 to take effect on January 1, 1863, its implementation didn’t reach the southern Confederate States still under rebel control. In 1865 after the South’s surrender at Appomattox, the Union Army began implementing the Proclamation. On June 18, Gen. Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state, and the following day, the general stood on the balcony of Galbeston’s Ashton Villa and read out General Order Number 3:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

The celebration of Juneteenth spread across Texas immediately following 1865, and made its way across the old south through rest of the nineteenth century. But as African-Americans left the south during the Great Migration to the factories of the north in the twentieth century, Juneteenth very nearly died out. But it experienced a resurgence during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, and the holiday received renewed interest in the 1990s. It is currently recognized either as a state holiday or as a state observance in 41 states.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
“Call Me Kuchu” Reception and Screening: San Francisco, CA. American Jewish World Service, in association with San Francisco’s Frameline LGBT FIlm Festival, will hold a cocktail reception for documentary filmmakers Malika Zouhali-Worrall and Katherine Fairfax Wright, whose film Call Me Kuchu follows the efforts of slain Ugandan LGBT-advocate David Kato to promote tolerance for the country’s gay community.

The reception will take place on late this afternoon from 5:00 to 6:15 p.m. at the Bisou French Bistro, 2367 Market St. Advance tickets are not needed for the reception, but organizers request that you RSVP Sprinza Kats at skatz@ajws.org or call 415.593.3297.

The film itself will be shown this evening at 7:00 p.m. at the Castro Theater, as part of the Frameline36 San Francisco International Film Festival. Tickets for this evening’s showing can be purchased here.

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The Daily Agenda for Monday, June 18

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Soap Opera Introduces First Gay Teen Character: 1992. The daytime dramas known as soap operas had been a staple of radio, and then television, for some sixty years, but by the 1990s, the genre was looking increasingly tired and outdated thanks to the popularity of daytime talk shows like Jerry Springer, Sally Jesse Rafael and Rikki Lake. With soap operas now competing with real-life drama (or at least a facsimile thereof) from these sensationalistic talk shows, soap opera producers understood that they needed to bring their story lines to the 1990s or loose whatever audience they still had.

ABC’s One Life to Live, which had been on the air since 1968, began its run by tackling women’s issues and race, seemed the obvious candidate to run a new story line exploring homophobia and the difficulties of being a gay teen. Billy Douglas (played by Ryan Phillippe), a newcomer to the town of Lianview, was reluctant to tell anyone about his homosexuality, especially his parents. He did, however, confide in the town’s compassionate pastor, Rev. Andrew Carpenter. But a scheming woman who Carpenter scorned (there’s always at least one in a soap opera) began circulating rumors around town that the pastor had been molesting Billy. In a dramatic scene, the entire town, led by Billy’s parents, confronted Carpenter and demanded that he resign, the pastor delivered a riveting sermon against the evils of prejudice and homophobia. This led Billy to take a public stand in support of Carpenter — and to come out to his parents.

In 2010, Phillippe spoke about what it was like to play a gay teen in 1992:

Me and the guy who played my boyfriend might’ve held hands once or twice, but that was it. The age of those characters had something to do it, but things also weren’t as liberal in 1992. Still, I felt lucky to play the first gay teenager on television—not just daytime but television, period. What was so amazing about that for me was the response I got through fan letters that my mother and I would read together. Kids who’d never seen themselves represented on TV or in movies would write to say what a huge support they found it to be. One kid said he’d considered suicide before seeing a character like him being accepted. I also heard from a father, a mechanic, who hadn’t spoken to his son since he came out. When our show came on in his shop, it gave him some insight and understanding as to who his son was, so it opened up communication between them. As much as you can write off how silly the entertainment industry can be, it can affect change and make people see things differently. That’s beautiful.

Phillippe’s character left Lianview to attend Yale later that summer, and Phillippe left One Life to Live for good in 1993. ABC announced One Life to Live’s cancellation in late 2011, with the last episode airing on January 13, 2012.

Agnes Goodsir (top), Girl With Cigarette, 1925 (bottom)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Agnes Goodsir: 1864. An Australia-born painter, Agness Goodsir joined a mass exodus of Austrialian artists seeking the artistic stimulation and freedom that had blossomed in Paris in the early 20th century. That’s where Goodsir studied at the Académie Delécluse, the Académie Julian and then the Académie Colarossi.

Her constant companion was Rachel Dunn, who was depicted in several of her paintings, including Morning Tea (1925), Girl with Cigarette (1925), The Letter (1926) and The Chinese Skirt (1933). She was best known for her portraits including, reportedly, one of Mussolini. When she died in 1939, she left her remaining paintings to Rachel Dunn, who sent about forty to Agnes’s family in Australia and others to Australian galleries. The Agnes Goodsir memorial scholarship at the Bendigo Art Gallery, where her work first appeared, is named in her memory.

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The Daily Agenda for Sunday, June 17

Dad and me

Today is Father’s Day. This picture is one of the very few that I have of Dad and me. Like many fathers of that generation, he was always the one behind the camera, not in front of it. And so while I have many wonderful memories of Dad (he died when I was in college), we actually have very few pictures of him. We have whole albums of vacation pictures where one would think he was never with us. But of course it’s impossible to think of those vacations without him. Here’s wishing a Happy Father’s Day to all of the Dads out there.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations Today: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Bozeman, MT; Denver, CO; Edmunton, AB; Las Cruces, NM; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Nashville, TN; Outer Banks, NC; Oxford, UK; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Shanghai, China; Thunder Bay, ON; Vienna, Austria and Zurich, Switzerland.

Other Events Today: Stadfest, Berlin, Germany; Folsom Street East, New York, NY; Frameline LGBT Film Festival, San Francisco, CA.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Premiere of Documentary of Drag Queen Competition: 1968. The documentary The Queen makes its premiere in a theater in New York City. The film, shot almost entirely with hand-held cameras, is a primitive pre-Stonewall prequel to Paris is Burning, and follows the behind-the-scenes preparations for the Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pageant – a national drag queen competition in New York City. The conversations recorded in the dressing rooms about draft boards, sexual and gender identity, sex reassignment surgery, and being a drag queen captures a very specific time in LGBT history. If you are ever lucky enough to see it, keep a very sharp eye out whenever the camera pans to the audience. You might just get a quick glimpse of Andy Warhol in his trademark platinum wig. The VHS release has long been out of print, but a nine-minute clip from the documentary has been posted on YouTube.

Two more clips are available here and here.

Londoners cheer Liberace's libel victory, 1959.

Liberace Wins Libel Case: 1959. Liberace — his real name was Wladziu Valentino Liberace, but like Cher and Madonna he was known by a single name on stage — had become a piano-playing sensation in the U.S. in the 1950s. He started as a classical pianist, but he quickly added schmaltz and elements of Las-Vegas showmanship (extravagant costumes, massive diamond rings, and his signature candelabra) to his repertoire of classics, show tunes, film scores and popular songs, all of which took his performances in a decidedly unclassical direction. His curly black hair, long eyelashes and bright smile made him a sex symbol for an odd collection of somewhat nerdy teenage girls, their middle-aged mothers and even their grandmothers — and for not a few gay men who understood what they were seeing. His flamboyance attracted questions about his sexuality, but those questions didn’t do much to dent the popularity of his his hit television series and packed concert halls.

But in 1956, a Daily Mirror columnist who went by the pen name Cassandra (real name: William Connor) wrote a scathing article the day after Liberace’s arrival in London for a live BBC broadcast and a European tour. If everyone else was willing to go along with Liberace’s persona of being sweet, sensitive, sensational and straight, Connonr had no intention of playing along:

He is the summit of sex – the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she and it can ever want. I spoke to sad but kindly men on this newspaper who have met every celebrity coming from America for the past 30 years. They say that this deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love has had the biggest reception and impact on London since Charlie Chaplin arrived at the same station, Waterloo, on September 12, 1921.

Liberace replied with at telegram: “What you said hurt me very much. I cried all the way to the bank.” But he also decided to sue for libel. The case finally reached a London courtroom in 1959. On June 6, Liberace took the stand and denied that he was gay. He also denied that he was even a sex symbol. “I consider sex appeal as something possessed by Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot. I certainly do not put myself in their class,” he said, prompting laughter in the court room. When Connor took the stand, he denied trying to imply that Liberace was gay, although he found it difficult to square that claim with his word choice in the column. The most damming phrase, according to news accounts of the day, was his use of “fruit-flavored.” That was not the phrase to be tossed around at just anyone.

With no proof of actual homosexual activity on Liberace’s part — there were no former lovers to testify, no police arrests to report — the Jury returned a verdict of guilty against Connor and the Daily Mirror, and awarded damages of $22,400. But today of course we know what was true all along: that he was actually gay even though he never came out of the closet during his lifetime. His estate and many of his remaining fans continue to deny reports that when he died in 1987, it was AIDS that killed him.

Carl Van Vechten, self-portrait, 1934.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Carl Van Vechten: 1880. A writer and a photographer, Carl Van Vechten was fascinated with African-American culture and became a patron on the Harlem Renaissance. In 1926, he published his controversial 1926 novel Nigger Heaven, which portrayed  the intellectuals, political activists, workers, and others who inhabited the “great black walled city” of Harlem. The book by a white author split Harlem down the middle: Langston Hughes was among the book’s fans and defenders (Hughes even wrote new poems to replace the songs used in the book’s first printing), while W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke condemned it as an “affront to the hospitality of black folks.”

In the 1930, he took up photography and became known for his portraits of some of the leading artists of the day, including Langston Hughes, Maroan Anderson, Pearl Baily, Josephine Baker, Marlon Brando, Truman Capote, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Mahalia Jackson — the list is nearly endless.

Although Van Vechten had married the Russian-born actress Fania Marinoff in 1914, Van Vechten was gay. This was evident when his papers were unsealed twenty-five years after his death in 1964:

As the 25-year mark drew near, scholars assumed they were about to unveil Van Vechten’s diaries. “They said, ‘Of course, this is going to be exciting, and let’s open those journals and have a party,’ and the curator said, ‘Well, I don’t think so…’ It was a good instinct.” The few people who did attend the 1989 opening, including Willis, were shocked by what they found: 18 scrapbooks of graphic homoeroticism, full of mischief and devoid of explanation.

…Van Vechten collected newspaper clippings chronicling Harlem drag balls, early sex-change operations (“GI Who Turned Woman is a Happy Beauty”), court cases for “morals charges,” and abuse incidents. He assembled more restrained, if still theatrical, black and white photographs of male nudes, both Caucasian and African American, which most scholars think are mostly or entirely the work of Van Vechten. Nothing escaped him: Photos of ambiguously homoerotic Greek vases, labeled in childishly rounded handwriting, nestle against newspaper cutouts of male wrestlers locked in combat.

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The Daily Agenda for Saturday, June 16

TODAY’S AGENDA:
U.S. Premiere of “Call Me Kuchu”: Los Angeles, CA. The Los Angeles Film Festival host the U.S. premiere of the documentary Call Me Kuchu, which follows the story of Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato’s struggle for LGBT equality in the face of the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The film includes the infamous tabloid campaign which outed “Kuchus” — the Ugandan word for gay people — along with the headline “Hang Them!” The unthinkable happened when Kato was brutally murdered in his home. All of this was captured in Call Me Kuchu, which screens at Regal Cinemas at L.A. Live this afternoon at 1:50 p.m. Another screening takes place tomorrow, also at Regal Cinemas at 7:10 p.m.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Calderdale, UK; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Edmunton, AB; Erie, PA; Flagstaff, AZ; Gloucester, UK; Grand Rapids,MI; Iowa City, IA; Lancaster, PA; Lansing, MI; Las Cruces, NM; Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Nashville, TN; Oldenberg, Germany; Outer Banks, NC; Oxford, UK; Portland, ME; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Redditch, UK; Saskatoon, SK; Syracuse, NY; Thunder Bay, ON; Turin, Italy; Vienna, Austria; Zagreb, Croatia and Zurich, Switzerland.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Oakland, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Stadfest, Berlin, Germany; Folsom Street East, New York, NY; Frameline LGBT Film Festival, San Francisco, CA; and Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Rocky Horror Show: 1973. The stage musical The Rocky Horror Show premiered in London at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs, a tiny 63-seat venue set aside as a project space for new works. Starring Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter — a “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania” — the musical (set in Ohio!) follows the adventures of young lovers Brad Majors and Janet Weiss who came to the doctor’s castle to call a cab because their car has a flat tire. The production features lots of catchy songs (“Time Warp” and “Science Fiction, Double Feature”), risqué sexuality and of course, lots of makeup. The show was an instant hit, and the cast was signed for a soundtrack album right after the show’s second night. By the time the show closed seven years and four venues later, it has gone through 2,960 performances and picked up several added songs along the way.

The Rocky Horror Show opened on Broadway on March 10, 1975, but critics panned it and the show closed just three weeks later. That same year, the play was adapted for the film and retitled The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It becomes a must-see cult classic that has kept art houses in business for the next 37 years. Because it is still officially in limited release, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the longest-running theatrical release in film history.

Sen. Lott Likens Gay People to Alcoholics, Sex Addicts, Kleptomaniacs: 1998. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) appeared on Armstrong Williams’s program to talk about abortion, disciplining children (he said he used a belt on his occasionally) and his childhood (growing up in Mississippi in the 1950s and early 1960s was a “good time in America.” And he also spoke on the controversial subject of same-sex marriage, two years after the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act. Williams asked Lott what he thought about homosexuality. Lott replied, “You still love that person and you should not try to mistreat them or treat them as outcasts. You should try to show them a way to deal with that.” He said his own father had had a problem with alcoholism, adding, ”Others have a sex addiction or are kleptomaniacs. There are all kinds of problems and addictions and difficulties and experiences of this kind that are wrong. But you should try to work with that person to learn to control that problem..”

President Bill Clinton’s press secretary Michael D. McCurry blasted Lott’s statement, saying it showed how difficult it was getting things done “when you’re dealing with people who are so backward in their thinking. For over 25 years, it’s been quite clear that sexual orientation is not an affliction, it’s not a disease, it is something that is part of defining one’s sexuality.'” Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) seized on Lott’s remarks to demand that Clintoni’s nomination of openly gay James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg to be brought to the Senate floor, a move that had been blocked by Lott. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) came to Lott’s defense, adding “I abide by the Bible… I do not quarrel with the Bible on the subject.” The controversy eventually blew over and Lott kept his job as Senate Republican leader until 2002, when at a party honoring the 100th birthday of Sen. Strom Thurmond (S-SC) who had run for President as a segregationist Dixiecrat candidate in 1948, Lott said that if Thurmond had won, “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years.” Those remarks led to his resignation.

Phyllis Lyon (right, 83) and Del Martin (left, 87)

Longtime Gay Activists Become First Same-Sex Couple to Marry in California: 2008. Phillis Lyon and Del Martin of San Francisco had been together for fifty-five years when they were finally married at city hall. Their wedding capped a lifetime of advocacy for gay equality. In 1955, they and six other women founded the Daughters of Bilitis, the first major lesbian organization in the United States. Phyllis edited the DOB’s newsletter The Ladder beginning in 1956, and Del edited The Ladder from 1960 to 1962. They also took turns as head of the Daughters until 1964, when they helped found the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. Phyllis was also the first open lesbian to serve on the board of the National Organization for Women in 1973. Meanwhile, Del was heavily involved in getting the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

The California Supreme Court ruled on May 15, 2008, that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional under the state constitution, and issued a temporary stay to give the state time to implement the necessary changes in its forms and procedures. That stay expired at 5:00 p.m. on June 16. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom selected Phyllis and Del for the honor of being the first same-sex couple in California to marry in a ceremony began at precisely 5:01 p.m.

Phyllis and Del enjoyed two months of wedded bliss until Del passed away in August of that year.

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The Daily Agenda for Friday, June 15

TODAY’S AGENDA (Ours):
White House LGBT Pride Month Reception: Washington, D.C. In continuing an annual event that has occurred each year since President Barack Obama took office, the White Hose will host am LGBT Pride Month Reception this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. This reception takes place after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was implemented last September, and a month after Obama officially evolved on the marriage issue.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Calderdale, UK; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Edmunton, AB; Erie, PA; Flagstaff, AZ; Gloucester, UK; Grand Rapids,MI; Iowa City, IA; Lancaster, PA; Lansing, MI; Las Cruces, NM; Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Nashville, TN; Oldenberg, Germany; Outer Banks, NC; Oxford, UK; Portland, ME; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Redditch, UK; Saskatoon, SK; Syracuse, NY; Thunder Bay, ON; Turin, Italy; Vienna, Austria; Zagreb, Croatia and Zurich, Switzerland.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Oakland, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Stadfest, Berlin, Germany; Folsom Street East, New York, NY; Frameline LGBT Film Festival, San Francisco, CA; and Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.

TODAY’S AGENDA (Theirs):
Faith and Freedom Conference: Washington, D.C. Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition will kicked off their annual Conference and Strategy Briefing yesterday at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C. Yesterday started off light, mostly dedicated to individual lobbying on Capital Hill and other networking events, today is where the serious fun begins. Confirmed speakers for the next two days include: Grover Norquist, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, D’Souza, James O’Keefe, Concerned Women for America’s Penny Nance, Family “Research” Council’s Tony Perkins and Ken Blackwell, National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg, Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land, Tea Party Patriots’ Jenny Beth Martin, and Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Other elected officials speaking at the conference include GOP Presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rob Portman (R-OH), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Sen. Mike Lee (UT), Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R), Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (R), and former Virginia Gov. Allen George (R).

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Neil Patrick Harris: 1973. His Doogie Howser days are long over, and since then NPH has been able to cross two important acting barriers. A former child actor, he was able to successfully navigate the difficulties of becoming an adult actor in Broadway, film, and television. And he has also navigated the difficult transition from assumed-straight actor to a highly visible gay one, with partner David Burtka and twin children who were born in 2010. And as a very visible gay actor, he still manages to play straight roles on film and television. And to add just one more difficult accomplishment to his resume, last weekend he singlehandedly made the Tony Awards watchable again. As always, he made that look easy also.

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The Daily Agenda for Thursday, June 14

Individualism in the original thirteen-star flag

It’s Flag Day, a day established in 1916 to commemorate the Second Continental Congress’s adoption of the Stars and Stripes on June 14, 1777. The original specification for the flag was simple: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.” That was it. Consequently, there were as many early American flag designs as there were designers.

An eighteen star, eighteen stripe flag, commemorating Louisiana's entry into the union.

In 1795, the number of stars and stripes rose to fifteen in honor of Vermont and Kentucky’s entry into the union. As more states entered, flag makers added stars and stripes accordingly, although some flag makers decided having too many stripes made their flags look a little too busy. They took the initiative of going back to thirteen stripes for the original thirteen states. In 1818 when there were twenty states in the union, Congress decided to curb the potential stripe explosion and adopted the thirteen stripe flag with twenty stars, while specifying that new stars would be added as needed each July 4. But the arrangement of stars remained unregulated, and flag makers continued to demonstrate a great deal of creativity throughout the nineteenth century. When the forty-eight star flag came into being in 1912 with statehood for Arizona and New Mexico, Congress finally got around to declaring a uniform design for the stars and stripes.

Fifty star flag measurement specification

Today, the flag’s design is tightly specified (PDF: 1.16MB/34 pages) with careful measurements and colors defined according to the the CAUS Standard Color Reference of America. But very few commercially-made flags adhere to that standard: the measurements and aspect ratios are almost always wrong and the colors are typically off. Those that do are called Government Specification or G-Spec flags. The rest of us make do with whatever the flag makes decides it will be. In some ways, things never really change much after all.

TODAY’S AGENDA (Ours):
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Calderdale, UK; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Edmunton, AB; Erie, PA; Flagstaff, AZ; Gloucester, UK; Grand Rapids,MI; Iowa City, IA; Lancaster, PA; Lansing, MI; Las Cruces, NM; Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Nashville, TN; Oldenberg, Germany; Outer Banks, NC; Oxford, UK; Portland, ME; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Redditch, UK; Saskatoon, SK; Syracuse, NY; Thunder Bay, ON; Turin, Italy; Vienna, Austria; Zagreb, Croatia and Zurich, Switzerland.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Oakland, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Stadfest, Berlin, Germany; Folsom Street East, New York, NY; Frameline LGBT Film Festival, San Francisco, CA; and Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.

TODAY’S AGENDA (Theirs):
Faith and Freedom Conference: Washington, D.C. Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition will kick off their annual Conference and Strategy Briefing today at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C. Today begins with a luncheon with Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). Other confirmed speakers for the three day conference include: Grover Norquist, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, D’Souza, James O’Keefe, Concerned Women for America’s Penny Nance, Family “Research” Council’s Tony Perkins and Ken Blackwell, National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg, Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land, Tea Party Patriots’ Jenny Beth Martin, and Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Other elected officials speaking at the conference include GOP Presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY),  Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Sen. Mike Lee (UT), Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R), Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (R), and former Virginia Gov. Allen George (R).

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Boy George: 1961. George O’Dowd’s first stage name was Lieutenant Lush when he performed with Bow Wow Wow. That tenure was short lived: he was booed off the stage. He then joined up with drummer (and regular boyfriend) Jon Moss (previously of The Damned and Adam and the Ants), bassist Mikey Craig and guitarist/keyboardist Roy Hay. They called their group In Praise of Lemmings and then Sex Gang Children. When they finally realized that they had a androgynous Irish singer, a black bassist, a Jewish drummer and an English keyboardist, they decided to call themselves Culture Club, with Boy George as the frontman. Their debut album Kissing to be Clever was released in 1982, and their single “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” became an international hit. “Time (Clock of Heart)” and “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya,” gave them the distinction of being the first group since the Beatles to have three Top 10 hits in the U.S. from a debut album. Their next album Colour By Numbers, did almost as well, with “Church of the Poison Mind” and “Miss Me Blind” hitting the Top Ten in the U.S. and “Karma Chameleon” holding the #1 spot for three weeks (and for six weeks in the U.K.).

By the late 1980s, Boy George left Culture Club behind when his relationship with Moss soured and he began descending into a nasty heroin addiction. After rehab, he had a few modest hits as a solo artist, including the title song from the movie The Crying Game in 1992. He wrote the musical score for the London musical Taboo, which was based on his life. It earned him a Tony Award for Best Musical Score. But his troubles continued to follow him. In 2005, he was arrested in New York for cocaine possession and filing a false burglary report. The drug charge was dropped and he pleaded guilty to the false report. He was sentenced to five days of community service, fined $1,000 and ordered into drug rehab. In 2008, he was arrested and charged with assault and false imprisonment. He was convicted and sentenced to fifteen months imprisonment. He was released after four months and was placed under home detention. His latest album, Ordinary Alien, was released in 2010 after a more than ten year hiatus.

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The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 13

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Calderdale, UK; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Edmunton, AB; Erie, PA; Flagstaff, AZ; Gloucester, UK; Grand Rapids,MI; Iowa City, IA; Lancaster, PA; Lansing, MI; Las Cruces, NM; Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Nashville, TN; Oldenberg, Germany; Outer Banks, NC; Oxford, UK; Portland, ME; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Redditch, UK; Saskatoon, SK; Syracuse, NY; Thunder Bay, ON; Turin, Italy; Vienna, Austria; Zagreb, Croatia and Zurich, Switzerland.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Oakland, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Stadfest, Berlin, Germany; Folsom Street East, New York, NY; Frameline LGBT Film Festival, San Francisco, CA; and Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
LGBT Leaders Welcomed to White House With Rubber Gloves: 1995. Relations between the LGBT community and the Clinton Administration were at a low point in 1995. Instead of repealing the ban against gays in the military, the Clinton Administration negotiated “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” with conservative Democrats and Republicans. Instead of filing a Justice Department brief with the Supreme Court to weigh in on a lawsuit challenging Colorado’s Amendment 2 which would have banned civil rights protections for gay people, Attorney General Janet Reno sat on her hands. But with the White House beginning to cast an eye toward the 1996 elections, they realized that they needed to do something to try to placate a seriously pissed off constituency.

So on June 14, the Clinton Administration invited 40 gay leaders, including state senators and representatives, city council members, judges and other elected officials from around the country, to a special White House meeting. The meeting’s purpose was to announce that Marsha Scott, a deputy assistant to President Clinton, was being named as White House liason officer for gay and lesbian issues. They were also there to learn about a new 30-member presidential advisory council on HIV/AIDS. But before the meeting even got started, things got off on the wrong foot with the sight that greeted the LGBT leaders when they showed: Secret Service agents had put on rubber gloves before granting them access to the White House. The activists were furious when agents told them they were wearing the gloves to protect themselves from HIV. “For that to even happen at the White House shows they haven’t a clue about AIDS,” said Act Up spokesman Steve Michael. “It just shows where they’re at.”

What was supposed to be a grand kiss-and-make-up session quickly turned into yet another embarrasment for the Administration. Secret Service director Eljay Brown issued a statement saying that he regretted “the unfortunate actions” taken by his agents. “It is not the policy of the Secret Service to wear gloves merely based on known sexual preference.” The Treasury Department, which had jurisdiction over the Secret Service, was asked to investigate. White House press secretary Mike McCurry said, “It’s safe to say the chief of staff (Leon Panetta) and others were distressed by that and believe it to be an error of judgment.”

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Paul Lynde: 1926. He studied drama at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois with fellow students Cloris Leachman, Charlotte Rae, Patricia Neal, Jeffrey Hunter and Claude Akins. Imagine what that class must have been like. After graduating in 1948, he moved to New York and became a stand-up comic and a Broadway actor. In 1960, he appeared in Broadway’s Bye Bye Birdie, as well as in its film adaptation in 1963. But most of his work was in television, where he appeared in numerous sitcoms (he was Uncle Arthur in Bewitched) and lent his voice to animated cartoons. He is probably best known as the “center square” for the game show Hollywood Squares, with host Peter Marshall, where Lynde became famous for his one-liners and double entendres. They say his sexual orientation was an open secret in Hollywood. It’s hard to imagine any secret being more open than his. Especially considering Hollywood Squares answers like these:

Peter Marshall: In the Wizard of Oz, the lion wanted courage and the tin man wanted a heart. What did the scarecrow want?
Paul Lynde: He wanted the tin man to notice him.

Peter Marshall: What do you call a man who gives you diamonds and pearls?
Paul Lynde: I’d call him “darling”!

Peter Marshall: Paul, in what famous book will you read about a talking ass who wonders why it’s being beaten?
Paul Lynde: I read it, “The Joy of Sex.”

Peter Marshall: Paul, why do Hell’s Angels wear leather?
Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

Peter Marshall: According to legend, who looks better, a pixie or a fairy?
Paul Lynde (in deeper voice): Well, looks aren’t everything! (laughter) Well, I guess I would say…I would have to go with the fairy. (more laughter)

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The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, June 12

TODAY’S AGENDA (Ours):
Senate Hearing on ENDA: Washington, D.C. Last week, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, announced that he will hold another set of hearings today on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Among the five witnesses for today’s hearing will be Kylar Broadus, who will become the first openly transgender person to testify about the lack of employment non-discrimination protections for LGBT people. He is the founder of Trans People of Color Coalition of Columbia, MD. The other four witnesses include M.V. Lee Badgett, Research Director of the Williams Institute; Samuel Bagenstos, law professor at the University of Michigan Law SChool; Ken Charles, Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion at General Mills, Inc.; and Craig Parshal, Senior Vice President and General Council of the National Religious Broadcasters Association. The hearing will at place today at 10:00 a.m. in Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate office Building.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Loving v. Virginia: 1967. Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were an unusual couple. They had long crossed the racial barrier as friends in rural Central Point, Virginia: she was Black and Native American, he was white. But friendship turned to dating, and when Mildred became pregnant at the age of 18 in 1958, they decided to go to Washington, D.C. to elope. When they returned home, a group of police officers invaded their house late at night hoping to catch them in the act of having sex (which would have been a crime because of their racial differences). Mildred pointed to the marriage license that they had hung on the wall, hoping that it would protect them. Little did she know, but that license was proof that they had committed another crime. Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 prohibited any “colored” person with so much as one drop of African American or Indian blood from marrying a white person. Miscegenation was a felony, punishable by a prison sentence of between one and five years. The couple pleaded guilty on January 6, 1959, and they were sentenced to one year, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on the condition that they left Virginia.

The Lovings moved to D.C., and in 1963 the ACLU began a series of motions and lawsuits alleging that Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Those lawsuits eventually made their way all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, along with similar laws in fifteen other states. In the unanimous ruling, the Court held that “Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival.” Despite this ruling, anti-miscegenation laws remained on the books for several years to come, despite their being unenforceable. In 2000, Alabama voters approved a ballot initiative to repeal its anti-miscegenation law, although even then more than half a million — 40% — voted to keep it.

Mildred and Richard were never political people. After the Supreme Court victory, the couple returned to Virginia and raised three children. Richard died in 1975 at the age of 41 when their car was struck by a drunk driver. Mildred lost her right eye in the accident. She passed away in 2008 of pneumonia at the age of 68. But a year before she died, she issued a statement on the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, in which she saw the fight for the freedom to marry as unfinished business:

My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God’s plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone, they have a right to marry.

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

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The Daily Agenda for Monday, June 11

Marcus asked last Thursday:

Jim, could you guys make a tag for these Daily Agendas?

You’ve got it. And I’ve also tagged the Daily Agendas all the way back to January 1.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Wilma Burgess: 1939. Before Chely Wright came out, there was k.d. lang. But before k.d. — before everyone, in fact, there was Wilma Burgess. The difference with Burgess however was that she never really came out. She was always out throughout her career. She enjoyed recording romantic ballads, but in a break from most “girl singers,” she avoided recording gender-specific songs whenever she could. A southerner from Orlando, Wilma wasn’t much interested in country music when she first began singing professionally. But when she attended an Eddie Arnold concert, she was struck by the emotional honesty of Arnold’s music. She made her way to Nashville in 1962 where she cut her first single. “Confuses” didn’t really go anywhere, but it got her a contract for Decca Records.

After a several singles, she landed pay dirt in 1965 with “Baby,” which peaked at #7 on the country music charts. That same year, she purchased Patsy Cline’s old home in Nashville. In 1966 she recorded two more notable hits, “Don’t Touch Me” and “Misty Blue,” which became her signature song. That song was eventually covered by the man who inspired her to perform country music, Eddie Arnold. She had several more Top Forty country hits, but by the mid-1970s she decided to retire from the music business. She then opened the Hitching Post, Nashville’s first lesbian bar, where she regularly performed. She died suddenly in 2003 of a massive heart attack.

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The Daily Agenda for Sunday, June 10

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations Today: Albany, NY; Birmingham, AL; Boston, MA; Des Moines, IA; Edmunton, AB; El Paso, TX; Key West, FL; Los Angeles, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Olympia, WA; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; Prince Albert, SK; São Paulo, Brazil; Saskatoon, SA; and Washington, DC.

Other Events Today: Sierra Stampede Gay Rodeo, Rio Linda, CA; and Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Ontario Court of Appeal Strikes Down Canada’s Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: 2003. It was nearly a year earlier, on July 22, 2002, when the Ontario Superior Court issued a 3-0 ruling in the case of Halpern et al. v. Canada, finding that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights. While also finding that current statutes didn’t prohibit same-sex marriage, the court stayed its ruling for two years to give the federal government time to pass legislation implementing same-sex marriage. The plaintifs appealed the decision, requesting that the decision take effect immediatly. On June 10, 2003, the Court of Appeals for Ontario agreed, and struck down the lower court’s stay. The next day, the Attorney General of Ontario annnounced that he would comply with the ruling.

While the Ontario Appeals Court ruled on Canadian law, its jurisdiction was limited to Ontario, making the province the first jurisdiction in North America to provide same-sex marriage. (Massachusetts wouldn’t begin marrying until almost a year later: see May 17.) On February 24, the provincial legislature enacted Bill 171, (“An Act to amend various statutes in respect of spousal relationships”) which cleaned up several Ontario laws to bring them into accord with the court rulings. Meanwhile, other provincial courts began issuing similar rulings — British Columbia in 2003; Quebec, Yukon Territory, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador in 2004; and New Brunswick in 2005. By the time Parliament enacted marriage equality nationwide in July of 2005, only Alberta, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut and Northwest Territories had yet to act on marriage equality.

Judy Garland's legendary 1961 Carnegie Hall concert.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Judy Garland: 1922. A straight friend of mine, shortly after I came out to him, asked me to explain “the Judy Garland thing.” What was I to say? The Rainbow reference seemed obvious to me — Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the rainbow flag — but that didn’t explain why she meant so much to so many generations of gay men. (I would later learn that the rainbow flag was meant to symbolize diversity, not Judy Garland. Silly me.) I then turned to the song’s lyrics, but it turns out they are incredibly simple — almost a throw-away. So it’s not the song itself either. Instead, I think the explanation begins with how she sang about her yearning to find a land of happiness somewhere over there, where “the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.” And if  birds can fly overt there, “why then, oh why can’t I?”

Why can’t I? — that’s the plaintive refrain that every LGBT person has uttered in the most painful moments of their lives. Judy’s life also had its painful moments, including a marriage to the barely-closeted gay director Vincente Minnelli, a nervous breakdown, morphine addiction, alcohol problems, you name it. But her Carnegie Hall comeback concert in 1961 was called by many “the greatest night in show business history.” The resulting two-record recording, Judy At Carnegie Hall, spent thirteen weeks on Billboard’s number one spot and won four Grammies. If you’ve never heard it, you are missing out on a night of mutual love between Judy and a house full of “friends of Judy.” And it’s that resilience which, I think, explains the “Judy Garland thing” more than anything else.

That and those ruby shoes.

Maurice Sendak: 1928. He was known for more than a dozen books he wrote and illustrated himself, most famously his 1963 best-seller Where the Wild Things Are, which revolutionized the children’s book genre and established his career. But that wasn’t his favorite book. That would be 1981’s Outside Over There. Nor was it his most controversial book. That would be his 1970 award-winning In the Night Kitchen, about a boy who dreams of flying to a magical kitchen. The boy also happens to lose his clothes early in the book, and images of a naked flying boy placed the book on the American Library Association’s list of “frequently challenged and banned books.” In September 2011, HarperCollins published Sendak’s Bumble-Ardy, his first new book in 30 years.

Sendak remained publicly closeted most of his life, despite a fifty year enduring relationship with his partner, psychoanalyst Dr. Eugene Glynn. Sandak wasn’t even out to his parents, Polish Jewish immigrants whose relatives died in the Holocaust. “All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy,” he once said. “They never, never, never knew.” Glynn died in May 2007, and Sendak came out in a 2008 interview, saying that the idea of a gay man writing children books would have hurt his career when he was in his 20s and 30s. But when Sendak died last May at the age of 83, he was hailed by The New York Times as “the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century.” Another picture book, My Brother’s Book, is scheduled to be published next February.

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The Daily Agenda for Saturday, June 9

TODAY’S AGENDA (Ours):
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Albany, NY; Anchorage, AK; Athens, Greece; Birmingham, AL; Blackpool, UK; Bologna, Italy; Boston, MA; Bromsgrove, UK; Brooklyn, NY; Cheyenne, WY; Des Moines, IA; Edmunton, AB; El Paso, TX; Indianapolis, IN; Kalamazoo, MI; Key West, FL; Huntington, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Olympia, WA; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; Prince Albert, SK; San Antonio, TX; São Paulo, Brazil; Saskatoon, SK; Split, Croatia; Spokane, WA; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Washington, DC.

Other Events This Weekend: Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hartford, CT; Razzle Dazzle Dallas, Dallas, TX; Sierra Stampede Gay Rodeo, Rio Linda, CA; and Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.

TODAY’S AGENDA (Theirs):
Maine’s “No Special Rights PAC” To Officially (Re)launch: Lewiston, ME. Yeah, I know. Conservative gadflies Michael Heath and Paul Madore already launched their “no sodomy-based marriage” outfit once before last April, but I guess nobody was paying enough attention, so they’re doing it again. Their press release reiterates their their campaign message against Maine’s upcoming ballot initiative to provide marriage equality, using language which we can only hope will become the loudest message for their side:

A hallmark of their campaigns is a willingness to be frank about both their Christian convictions, and the moral aspects of the so-called “gay” rights movement. Heath and Madore are known for their candor and directness in their public tactics, and use of rhetoric.

This is why they have decided to inject the idea of sodomy and sodomy based marriage into this campaign. For the first time in Maine a campaign will directly link the goals of the so-called “gay” movement to the evil and destructive act of sodomy.

Heath is ashamed of the fact that he stayed away from the use of that word, and especially the word “sodomite” while serving as leader of the Christian Civic League of Maine. Sodomite is used many times in the popular King James Version of the Bible to describe the practitioners of sodomy. It is a legitimate word. “We’ve allowed forces in our society aligned with soft-selling the condemnation of sex outside of marriage to dictate our tone, style and tactics,” said Heath. “Those days are over.”

Michael Heath was forced out of the Christian Civic League in 2009 because anti-gay activists thought that his extreme rhetoric would wreck their plans to ban marriage at the ballot box that year. He left, and they prevailed. But now he’s back, he’s refusing to go away, and I couldn’t be happier. Their (re)launch will take place this morning at 10:30 a.m. on the steps of Lewiston City Hall. I don’t know about you, but I hope reporters from every newspaper, radio station and television channel in the Pine Tree State shows up.

An “undesirable” discharge from the Navy, 1948 (click to enlarge).

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Newsweek on “Homosexuals in Uniform”: 1947. “Although Army regulations strictly forbade the drafting of homosexuals, scores of these inverts managed to slip through induction centers during the second world war. Between 3,000 and 4,000 were discharged for this abnormality; others were released as neuropsychiatric cases. Last week, with most of the records on homosexuals tabulated, Army medical officers, for the first time, summed up their strange story.”

That strange story, in retrospect, was that gay people came from all walks of life. But in 1947, neither the Army nor Newsweek in its June 9, 1947 story could wrap their heads around that fact. Gays on average were found to be intelligent, not particularly feminine, and “as a whole, these men were law-abiding and hard working. In spite of nervous, unstable and often hysterical temperaments they performed admirably as workers. Many tried to be good soldiers.” If gay soldiers were “nervous,” that undoubtedly came from the consequences of being found out. “Once this abnormality was detected, the man was usually evacuated by the unit doctors to a general hospital where he received psychiatric treatment while a military board decided whether or not he was reclaimable. A good number begged to be cured, but doctors usually doubted their sincerity, and recommended discharge.”

But being discharged was far from the end to these soldiers’ problems. During the first half of the war, they were brought up on court-martial, punished and dishonorably discharged. But by 1943, courts-martial were overwhelmed by the rising caseload, so the Army decided to let them go with an administrative “blue” discharge — neither honorable or dishonorable, and so named for the color of paper they were printed on. The suspiciously vague nature of blue discharges made it very difficult when these soldiers hit the job market. In an economy where nearly everyone served and the vast majority could report honorable discharges to their prospective employers, these blue discharges stood out. The Veterans Administration also routinely denied benefits to blue discharge holders, despite the law’s explicit language stating that only dishonorable discharges were grounds for denial of benefits. As of July 1, 1947, the situation was about to get worse: “Instead of leaving the service with the vague and protective ‘blue’ discharge, the homosexuals who had not been guilty of a definite office would receive an ‘undesirable’ discharge.”

Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D.C.

Congress Allows Indefinite Confinement of “Sexual Psychopaths” in Washington, D.C.: 1948. The nation’s capital had experienced explosive growth through the New Deal and World War II. And in the relatively short time period, the sleepy Southern town became a major bustling East Coast city, with all of the attendant problems and anxieties which comes with rapid urban growth. Among those anxieties were worries over a declining moral environment in the growing city. In response, Congress passed and the President Harry Truman signed Public Law 615 on June 9, 1948 which provided for the indefinite interment and treatment for “sexual psychopaths” in the District. (Before D.C. was given Home Rule with an elected mayor and council in 1973, the district was ruled directly by Congress and administered by a three-person appointed commission.) “Sexual Psychopath” was defined as a:

“person, not insane, who by a course of repeated misconduct in sexual matters has evidenced such lack of power to control his sexual impulses as to be dangerous to other persons because he is likely to attack or otherwise inflict injury, loss, pain, or other evil on the objects of desire.”

The act specifically excluded rape or assault with intent to rape. Those charges were handled as normal criminal complaints. But according to this new law, the US Attorney was empowered to initiate proceedings against anyone else — even if they hadn’t been charged with a crime — to have them committed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital until the superintendent “finds that he has sufficiently recovered so as not to be dangerous to other person.”

The law’s wording suggested the aim was to keep dangerous people off the streets, but the vague definition of “sexual psychopath” left the door open to all sorts of abuse. According to a paper read at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in 1950, the law’s reach naturally extended to gay men in consensual relationships. Dr. Francis Tartaglino of St. Elizabeth reported that as of March 1, 1950, twenty-four patients had been admitted to the hospital’s maximum security ward under this new law, “including 2 non-coercive homosexuals and 1 aggressive sodomist.” Nothing further was reported of the “non-coercive homosexuals.”

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Cole Porter: 1891. American songwriters could match the sophistication, wit, and discreet naughtiness of Let’s Do It (1928), You Do Something To Me (1929), Love for Sale (1930), Anything Goes (1934), Let’s Misbehave (1937), Well Did You Evah! (1939) or Too Darn Hot (1948). That barely scratches the surface of Porter’s musical output. He was born to a wealthy family in Peru, Indiana, and after graduating from an exclusive prep school, he studied law, first at Yale (where he wrote two of Yale’s football fight songs that are still played today), then at Harvard for his graduate studies. But after finally deciding that he was more interested in music, he left Harvard Law and enrolled in Harvard’s music program. In 1917, he moved to Paris to lend his hand at the war effort, and where his luxury Paris apartment became the scene of lavish parties.

That was where he met Linda Thomas, a rich Kentucky divorced socialite who was eight years his senior. She was reportedly aware of Porters homosexuality — his affair with Ballet Russes star Borish Koncho in 1925 wasn’t much of a secret — but they both found marriage mutually advantageous. For Porter, a wife like Linda afforded a respectable heterosexual front, and for Linda, Porter’s success and growing fame only enhanced her social position. And besides, he was genuinely kind to her, which was very unlike her abusive first husband.

In 1928, Porter returned to Broadway, where he found considerable success and offers from Hollywood. The Porters moved there in 1935, but Linda didn’t appreciate Cole’s increasingly open dalliances with other men. She moved back to their home in Paris, and Porter became about as openly closeted as any other Hollywood A-gay. A severe horse riding accident in 1937, which left Porter with a permanently-crippling leg injury, brought the Porters back together, but they reconciled with an apparently renewed understanding. Linda was more than just a beard to Porter: by all accounts they were very close, at least in a spiritual or emotional sense. Yet throughout their marriage, Porter also had significant relationships with several men, including Boston socialite Howard Sturges, architect Ed Tauch (who inspired “Easy to Love”), choreographer Nelson Barclift (who inspired “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To”), actor Robert Bray, and longtime companion Ray Kelly, to whose children Porter left half of his royalties when he died in 1964. (Linda preceded him in death ten years earlier.) Porter’s life was significantly de-gayed in the 2004 biopic De-Lovely: The Cole Porter Story with Kevin Kline inthe starring role. William McBrien’s 1998 biography however provides a much more complete picture of Porter’s life.

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The Daily Agenda for Friday, June 8

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Albany, NY; Anchorage, AK; Athens, Greece; Birmingham, AL; Blackpool, UK; Bologna, Italy; Boston, MA; Bromsgrove, UK; Brooklyn, NY; Cheyenne, WY; Des Moines, IA; Edmunton, AB; El Paso, TX; Indianapolis, IN; Kalamazoo, MI; Key West, FL; Huntington, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Olympia, WA; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; Prince Albert, SK; San Antonio, TX; São Paulo, Brazil; Saskatoon, SK; Split, Croatia; Spokane, WA; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Washington, DC.

Other Events This Weekend: Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hartford, CT; Razzle Dazzle Dallas, Dallas, TX; Sierra Stampede Gay Rodeo, Rio Linda, CA; and Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Florida Bans Gay Marriage and Adoption: 1977. Florida’s gay community took a triple whammy today. On the very day after Miami voters overwhelmingly sided with Anita Bryant to rescind that county’s anti-discrimination ordinance, Florida governor Reubin Askew signed into law two anti-gay measures. The first one banned same-sex marriage and the second one banned gay adults from adopting. State Sen. Curtis Peterson, (D-Eaton Park) sponsored the measures, and said that the new laws tell homosexuals “We are tired of you and wish you would go back in the closet.” He continued, “The problem in Florida is that homosexuals are surfacing to such an extent that they are infringing on average, normal people who have a few rights, too.” The bills sailed through the legislature with little opposition and became effective immediately upon Askew’s signing.

In 2008, Florida voters made same-sex marriage even more illegaler when they passed Amendment 2. In 2010, a Florida appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that found the adoption ban unconstitutional.

First Gay Days at Disney World: 1991. It started as a very modest idea: a time for about 3,000 gays and lesbians in central Florida to enjoy a day at Orlando’s top attraction — and to become more visible. “Twenty years ago, there were hardly any visible portrayals of our community other than the pride parades,” Chris Alexander-Manley, president of Gay Days Inc., told Time in 2010. He was also one of the volunteers who helped organize the first event in 1991. He said, that the media tended to show “the drag queens and the extremes, the leather people, but that’s only a small part of the overall community.” To increase their visibility, gay attendees wore read shirts in the park. And it was that very visibility which caught the attention of anti-gay activists. The Southern Baptist Convention launched a boycott of all things Disney, despite the fact that Disney never sanctioned the event. Disney always instructed their employees to treat the first Saturday of June just like any other Saturday, which put the SBC in an odd position of, I guess, demanding that Disney ban red shirts or something.

Gay Days at Disney World has grown from that modest 3,000 assemblage to an estimated 150,000 participants in recent years. And with that growth the nature of the event has changed somewhat. There are still family events taking place catering to LGBT families, but they occur alongside pool parties, dance raves and other circuit party-style activities of a more specifically adult orientation. But within the confines of the park itself, it’s all about Mickey Mouse and Magic Mountain and getting the kids in line for the spinning teacups. And despite ongoing grumbling from social conservatives — Disney typically issues refunds to families offended by the sight of red shirts — Gay Days continues to appeal to the kids in all of us.

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The Daily Agenda for Thursday, June 7

TODAY’S AGENDA:
John Corvino and Maggie Gallagher Discuss Same-Sex Marriage: Online. Wayne State University philosophy professor and gay rights advocate John Corvino has co-written a book with National Organization for Marriage’s Maggie Gallagher titled, Debating Same-Sex Marriage. It’s a kind of a point/counterpoint of four alternating chapters between Corvino and Gallagher, making it the only book in the entire universe to earn recommendations from those two arch-nemeses, Dan Savage and Rick Santorum. Santorum calls Gallagher “relentlessly reasonable” while Savage says that Corvino “deserves a Gay Medal of Honor for the heroic work he has done in this book.” You can get a glimpse of that heroism this evening as Corvino and Gallagher meet for an online discussion at the Institute for American Values with IAV president David Blankenhorn moderating. The event begins tonight at 6:00 p.m. E.D.T. and will be live-streamed here.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Albany, NY; Anchorage, AK; Athens, Greece; Birmingham, AL; Blackpool, UK; Bologna, Italy; Boston, MA; Bromsgrove, UK; Brooklyn, NY; Cheyenne, WY; Des Moines, IA; Edmunton, AB; El Paso, TX; Indianapolis, IN; Kalamazoo, MI; Key West, FL; Huntington, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Olympia, WA; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; Prince Albert, SA; San Antonio, TX; São Paulo, Brazil; Saskatoon, SA; Split, Croatia; Spokane, WA; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Washington, DC.

Other Events This Weekend: Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hartford, CT; Razzle Dazzle Dallas, Dallas, TX; Sierra Stampede Gay Rodeo, Rio Linda, CA; and Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Miami Voters Rescind Gay Rights Ordinance: 1977. The Dade County Commission approved an ordinance in January of 1977 that would outlaw discrimination against gay people in employment, housing and public services. Miami joined about 40 other communities around the nation had similar anti-discrimination laws in effect.

Reaction from local Christian conservatives was swift. Former beauty queen and Florida Orage Juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant learned about the ordinance when it was denounced from the pulpit at Northwest Baptist Church. She sprang into action, creating a group called “Save Our Children” to overturn the ordinance at the ballot box. Fearmongering about “access to children” would be the group’s main focus. “When the law requires you to let an admitted homosexual teach your children and serve as a role model for them, it’s time to stop being so tolerant,” Bryant said. Her mean-spiritedness reportedly cost her a planned syndicated television series when producers backed away from the controversial singer. This gave her a chance to reveal her persecution complex. Declaring that “the blacklisting of Anita Bryant has begun,” she claimed that in losing that job, “it destroys the dream that I have had since I was a child.” Gay rights leader and local businessman Bob Kunst relished the irony. “She wants to cause gays to lose their jobs and she complains because she has lost a job. The lady is a hypocrite.”

As acrimonious as the campaign was, the final vote wasn’t even close. When the day of the special election came around, the final tally was 202,319 to just 89,562. Dade County voted overwhelmingly to jump onto Anita Bryant’s bandwagon. Bryant responded, “The laws of God and the cultural values of man have been vindicated,” and announced that she would take her campaign to other cities across America.

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?

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, June 6

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Netroots Nation: Providence RI. Lib’ral netizens from all across the country will gather for tomorrow’s kick-off of Netroots Nation, the annual gathering of progressive activists, politicians, and citizen journalists. There will be a pre-conference activity today for LGBT bloggers and activists. As the conference continues through Sunday, participants will hear from NAACP President Benjamin Justice, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), Paul Krugman, and many others. The confab will continue through the weekend.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Albany, NY; Anchorage, AK; Athens, Greece; Birmingham, AL; Blackpool, UK; Bologna, Italy; Boston, MA; Bromsgrove, UK; Brooklyn, NY; Cheyenne, WY; Des Moines, IA; Edmunton, AB; El Paso, TX; Indianapolis, IN; Kalamazoo, MI; Key West, FL; Huntington, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Olympia, WA; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA; Prince Albert, SA; San Antonio, TX; São Paulo, Brazil; Saskatoon, SA; Split, Croatia; Spokane, WA; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Washington, DC.

Other Events This Weekend: Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hartford, CT; Razzle Dazzle Dallas, Dallas, TX; Sierra Stampede Gay Rodeo, Rio Linda, CA; and Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Thomas Mann: 1875. The German author, social critic and 1929 Nobel Prize winner mined the rich material of his own life and family for many of his novels, including the Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, and A Death in Venice, the latter of which is credited with introducing homosexual themes in the general culture. Mann married in 1905 and had six children, but when his diaries were unsealed in 1975, they revealed his struggles with his sexuality. Mann’s political views began on the conservative end of the spectrum, having supported the Kaiser Wilhelm II. But after the Great War, he became increasingly liberal, and his staunch support of democratic principles led naturally to his strident denunciations of Nazi policies. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the Manns were vacationing in Switzerland and they never returned. Mann settled in Southern California and recorded several anti-Nazi speeches which were broadcast during World War II by the BBC into Germany. After the war, he returned to Switzerland, where he died in 1955 of atherosclerosis.

Harvey Fierstein: 1952. He’s most famous as the actor and playwright of the Tony Award-winning Torch Song Trilogy, the story of a drag-performer’s search for true love and family. He also wrote the book for La Cage aux Folles which garnered him another Tony Award. He won a Tony for his role as Edna Tumblad in the Broadway version of John Water’s Hairspray.  Film credits include his role in the film version of Torch Song Trilogy and Woody Allen’s Bullets over Broadway. He also appeared is Mrs. Doubtfire‘s makeup artist brother.  His acting debut was in 1971, when he appeared in Andy Warhol’s only play Pork.

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?