Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, February 21

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Important Prop 8 Deadline: San Francisco, CA. Today is the last day in which Prop 8 supporters can file a petition for en banc review of the decision by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a lower court’s ruling that the passage of Prop 8 violates the U.S. Constitution. If Prop 8 supporters don’t file a request, then the stay on the lower court’s ruling expires exactly one week from today. If the do file a request, then the stay remains in place until until the request for a re-hearing is either denied or accepted and ruled on.

Alternatively, Prop 8 supporters have ninety days following the February 7 decision to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If they do that, then they can request an extension of the stay from the Ninth Circuit Court pending the Supreme Court’s review. If the Ninth denies the stay’s extension, Prop 8 supporters can also file a petition to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has responsibility for answering petitions in the Ninth Circuit. With all of those options, it still looks like it will be a very long time before marriages can resume in the Golden State.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Atlanta Gay Bar Bombed: 1997. Memrie Wells-Cresswell, of Snellville, GA, went to Atlanta’s Otherside Lounge to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Memrie had not told many people that she was lesbian, but the bombing that night at the popular lesbian bar would change all that. Five people were injured, but hers were the most serious: a three to four inch nail entered her arm and severed a brachial artery. When Mayor Bill Campbell mentioned her by name everyone suddenly knew her sercret, including her employer who fired her. She later told The Advocate, “The company ended up giving me some hush money just to make me go away.”

Police found a second bomb just outside the bar, which they detonated with a robot. It had been placed there to harm police and medical workers responding to the first explosion. That fit a pattern established with two earlier Atlanta bombings, one at the Centennial Olympic Park on July 27, 1996 and another at an Atlanta abortion clinic on January 16, 1997. Three days after the Otherside Lounge Bombing, police received a letter from an organization calling themselves The Army of God claiming responsibility. The letter threatened “total war” and promised more attacks against abortion clinics and gay people.

In 1998, Federal Authorities charged Eric Rudolph with the three Atlanta bombings and a fourth one at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. They spent the next four and a half years looking for him around the town of Murphy, North Carolina, where Randolph spent his teenage years. Murphy residents printed teeshirts reading “Run, Rudolph Run.” He was finally captured there on May 31, 2003. He was well-groomed and well-fed, suggesting he had help in Murphy. On August 13, 2005, Rudolph pleaded guilty to all four bombings in a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. In an eleven page statement, he wrote, “Whether it is gay marriage, homosexual adoption, hate crimes laws including gays, or the attempt to introduce a homosexual normalizing curriculum into our schools, all of these efforts should be ruthlessly opposed.” He also said that the attack on The Otherside Lounge was “meant to send a powerful message in protest of Washington’s continued tolerance and support for the homosexual political agenda.” He is currently serving four life sentences.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Alan Chambers: 1972. Exodus International president Alan Chambers yesterday tweeted out that today is his big 4-0. I don’t know whether he finds these kind of milestones difficult (Chambers doesn’t strike me as the sort of person to obsess over these things, but I don’t know him personally), but I can say that as someone who crossed the half-century mark more than a year ago that forty is no big deal. Life for many begins at 40. It did for me. That’s when I made the first steps toward coming out of the closet.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, February 20

Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Roy Cohn: 1927. Could there be a more despicable character in all of gay history? The Columbia Law grad showed signs of legal brilliance early, having been admitted to the bar at twenty-one, becoming an Assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan and playing a prominent role in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1951. In 1952, Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) appointed him as chief counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on the recommendation of FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, where Cohn became known for his aggressive questioning of suspected Communists. Cohn brought in his good friend, David Schine as consultant to McCarthy’s staff. But when the young and handsome Schine was drafted into the army in 1953, Cohn embarked on a private campaign to ensure special treatment for Schine — light duties, extra leave, an exemption from overseas assignment — and threatened to “wreck the Army” if they didn’t accede to his demands. The bitter irony of all this is that while Cohn was pursuing special treatment for his special friend, McCarthy’s witch hunt extended beyond communists to also include gay people (See, for example, July 2, July 15, July 18, Sept 7).

Roy Cohn and David Schine on the cover of Time.

By 1954, McCarthy’s anti-communist and anti-gay witchhunt extended to the Army, which decided to fight back. During one exchange during a committee hearing, the Army’s head counsel, Joseph Welch, asked a McCarthy staffer about the origin of a photon that included a picture of Schine and Army Secretary Robert Stevens, which had been doctored to omit the presence of Air Force Colonel Jack Bradley. Welch asked the  staffer sarcastically, “Did you think it came from a pixie?” McCarthy interjected, “Will counsel (Welch) for my benefit define– I think he might be an expert on that– what a pixie is?” Welch responded, “Yes. I should say, Mr. Senator, that a pixie is a close relative of a fairy.” Others in the chamber who were in on the rumors, broke into laughter. Cohn later called the remark, “malicious,” “wicked,” and “indecent.”

Roy Cohn, four months before he died in 1986.

Cohn later forced to resign from McCarthy’s staff due to growing outrage over his tactics. He returned to New York and entered private practice, where his clients included mafia figures, the New York Yankees, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. He was friends with Barbara Walters (she served as his “beard” for a while), columnist Walter Wenchell, and North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms. While publicly closeted and working actively against gay rights, he partied at the best gay bars and threw lavish parties in New York and Provincetown. In 1984, he was diagnosed with AIDS. He used his connections to jump to the head of the line for treatment with the then-scarce and experimental AZT. By the time he died in 1986, he maintained his public denial both of his homosexuality and his disease — he said it was “cancer.” In Tony Kushner’s Angels In America, Cohn is portrayed as a power hungry, self-loathing hypocrite who is dying of AIDS while haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. Cohn’s name is also on a panel of the AIDS memorial quilt. It reads, “Roy Cohn: Bully, Coward, Victim.” A fitting eulogy if there ever was one.

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The Daily Agenda for Sunday, February 19

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Celebrations This Weekend: Road Runner Regional Gay Rodeo, Chandler, AZ; Rainbow Reykjavik, Iceland; Sitges Carnival, Sitges, Spain; and Out In the Desert Film Festival, Tucson, AZ.

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
The following letter to the editor appeared in the February  1884 edition of the journal Alienist and Neurologist (an alienist is an archaic term for a psychiatrist). The letter was notable for two reasons. Nearly all letters to the editor were routinely signed, but this one is kept anonymous. And it is also a very rare early example of an American writer, apparently a professional, asking whether men who don’t conform to the rigid gender roles of the day should be left alone (or at least relatively alone) and not treated as a criminal:

MR. EDITOR: — Will you kindly permit me to say a few words about Sexual Perversion, in reply to Dr. Rice’s paper. The latter says that it has but little forensic interest in this country, and I beg to differ with him. In the first place, it is quite generally admitted that lunatics and maniacs are not responsible, and irresponsible people are not to be punished for a thing that they cannot help doing.

When a man dons female attire, or vice versa, he either has an object or he has none. If he has an object, it may be good, bad or indifferent. If it is to conceal past crime, or as an aid to future crime, it is bad, and deserves punishment. If he seeks the disguise to enable him to ferret out a crime, the object is praiseworthy, — detectives are allowed it. In the third case, it must be said that the sole object is pleasure or satisfaction of some sort. Crime may be a pleasure to some, but if we exclude all evil intent, is it not harmless? Another case that resembles, sometimes one and sometimes another of the above, is when it is done for a livelihood; women give this as an excuse, a plea to be allowed men’s dress; men rarely.

Quite a large number of cases are occurring in all large cities, of persons arrested for dressing like the opposite sex. But few are criminals; many are highly respectable and honorable. Should they be punished as criminals? If the object is good, No! If bad, Yes! If neither, what then?

It is self-evident that no sane man will take the pains and go to the expense of obtaining a full set of female attire, and persist in the practice of wearing it until he becomes expert in its uses, initiating himself into all the mysteries of a lady’s toilet, submitting voluntarily to the tortures of tight corsets and high-heeled boots and false hair, hoops, pull-backs and frizzes, unless impelled thereto by some motive stronger than mere mischief. There can be no doubt in my mind that such a miserable being deserves pity rather than punishment. There have been several arrests in this city within five or six years for wearing female attire, and I believe nearly all the victims belonged to that innocent class, since no other object or purpose was ever proved against them.

Why should it be a crime, to dress as you please? The dress itself inflicts punishment enough on its wearer. No one but the wearer is injured, nor need others be any the wiser for it. Certain it is that many of these poor people have suffered severe punishment at the hands of our judges, and with no one bold enough to defend them.

Is it not sad enough that they must suffer daily between two fires — love of this dress, and fear of punishment, which they have known to be swift and certain? Would the world be any the worse for allowing them this little modicum of comfort, the only pleasure they have in life, under proper restrictions? What these restrictions should be I am not prepared to say. Perhaps an asylum or retreat might be provided, where they could resort when these paroxysms came on, and there enjoy (?) in seclusion from the public eye, where the law could not reach them, such indulgences as might be deemed proper, or compelled to follow these practices until they were thoroughly cured of such desires. I know of one case, at least, that would be benefited, perhaps cured, by suitable treatment of this sort. I should be glad to hear the opinion of those of greater experience than myself.

E.J.H.

(From “E.J.H.” (Anonymous) “Correspondence” Alienist and Neurologist 5 no. 2 (February 1884): 351-352. All italics and parentheticals in the original.)

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The Daily Agenda for Saturday, February 18

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Love Won Out Ex-Gay Conference: Atlanta, GA. Exodus International is taking their Love Won Out traveling infomercial to the Atlanta suburb of Villa Rico, for an all-day sales pitch for those “struggling with homosexuality.” They will be met by a contingent of people who aren’t struggling in the least with their homosexuality, as Wayne Besen’s Truth Wins Out is teaming up with the Southern Poverty Law Center for a protest beginning at 10:00 a.m. at the conference venue, with an “early bird” shift assembling at 7:00 a.m. to greet conference participants as they arrive.

Celebrations This Weekend: Road Runner Regional Gay Rodeo, Chandler, AZ; Rainbow Reykjavik, Iceland; Sitges Carnival, Sitges, Spain; and Out In the Desert Film Festival, Tucson, AZ.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Marquess of Queensbury Accuses Oscar Wilde of Being a Sodomite: 1895. British playwright Oscar Wilde was dining at the Albermarle Club when the Marquess of Queensbury left a calling card with the porter. It read, “To Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite.” The misspelling may have been the product of Queensbury’s rage over the relationship between Wilde and his son, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. Queensbury had ferocious arguments with his son, trying to get him to stop seeing Wilde, but Bosie refused. Queensbury even threatened to go public with what he knew, but Bosie refused to back down. So on February 18, 1895, Queensbury followed through on his threat.

This action led to a long string of events which eventually led to Wilde’s disgrace, imprisonment, exile in France, and early death. Perhaps all that could have been avoided if Wilde had decided not to sue Queensbury for libel. His friends advised him against it, but he may have felt he had little choice. Having been called out publicly like that, declining to sue might be taken as an admission of guilt. Unfortunately, Wilde’s libel case collapsed when Queensbury’s lawyer asked whether he had ever kissed Walter Grainger in greeting. “Oh, dear no,” Wilde replied, “He was a peculiarly plain boy. He was unfortunately extremely ugly. I pitied him for it.”

Queensbury’s lawyer pounced on Wilde’s admission that attraction was the reason he didn’t kiss him.  In short order, Wilde lost the case, and was charged with gross indecency. Wilde’s first criminal trial ended in a hung jury but the second one resulted in Wilde’s conviction and sentence to two years at hard labor.

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The Daily Agenda for Friday, February 17

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Maryland House To Vote On Same-Sex Marriage: Annapolis, MD. It’s looking very likely that there are enough marriage equality supporters in Maryland’s House of Delegates to pass the Civil Marriage Protection Act, which will provide marriage equality in the state of Maryland. Right now, it looks like a vote may take place sometime today. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

Celebrations This Weekend: Road Runner Regional Gay Rodeo, Chandler, AZ; Rainbow Reykjavik, Iceland; Sitges Carnival, Sitges, Spain; and Out In the Desert Film Festival, Tucson, AZ.

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).

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The Daily Agenda for Thursday, February 16

TODAY’S AGENDA:
New Jersey House to Vote On Same-Sex Marriage: Trenton, NJ. The New Jersey House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a bill to provide marriage equality this afternoon. This follows a bipartisan 24-16 Senate vote approving the measure on Monday, a vote which was just shy of the 27 votes needed to overcome an promised veto by Republican Gov. Chris Christie. The House’s vote is expected to begin at about 1:00 p.m. EST. Assuming Christie follows through on his veto promise, marriage supports will have until the end of the legislative session in January 2014 to build support to override the veto.

Celebrations This Weekend: Rainbow Reykjavik, Iceland; Sitges Carnival, Sitges, Spain; and Out In the Desert Film Festival, Tucson, AZ.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Katharine Cornell: 1893. She shared the title of “The First Lady of the Theatre” with Helen Hayes; as good friends and colleagues, they each deferred the title to each other. While Hayes is probably more well known today, Cornell’s own acting and contributions to the theater are legendary. Part of her success can be attributed to her collaboration with her husband, Guthrie McClintic, a successful director and producer. Their marriage was both professional and one of convenience: Cornell was lesbian and McClintic was gay. She was a member of New York’s “sewing circles, with relationships with Tallulah Bankhead and Mercedes de Acosta, among others. Meanwhile, McClinctic directed Cornell in every play since their marriage.

Cornell’s acclaimed Broadway roles include the title character of George Bernard Shaw’s Candide, Countess Ellen Olenska in The Age of Innocence, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in The Barretts of Wimpole Street — and that’s just before the Great Depression. Her career continued unabated through the 1950s. Her appearance in the title role of 1936’s St. Joan won her a bevy of honorary degrees from several colleges and universities, and she won a Tony Award for Best Actress for  Antony and Cleopatra in 1947. After McClintic died in 1961, Cornell decided to retire rather than work with another director. She restored the 300-year-old Association Hall on Martha’s Vineyard, which was later rename the Katharine Cornell Theater. She died of pneumonia in 1974, and was buried next to the theater named in her honor.

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The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, February 15

Today is also Parinirana, or Nirvana Day, in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. It’s the festival marking the anniversary of Buddha’s death. In some areas, it was celebrated on February 8, but it’s mostly celebrated on the 15th. Buddhists celebreate the Bhudda’s death because it is believed that because he achieved enlightenment, he achieved freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth and therefore exited the experience of physical existence and its sufferings.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Edwin Cameron: 1953. As far as closets go, the outspoken Justice on South Africa’s Constitutional Court has obliterated the biggest ones: he’s gay and he’s HIV-positive. Justice Cameron was a human rights lawyer during Africa’s Apartheid years in the 1980s, where he co-drafted the Charter of Rights on AIDS and HIV, co-founded the AIDS Consortium, and was the first director of the LAIDS Law Project. As Appartheid crumbled, he worked to safeguard human rights, including the rights of LGBT people, in the new Constitution of South Africa.

In 1994, President Nelson Mandela appointed him an Acting Judge of the High Court, an appointment that became permanent in 1995. By then, he had long been out of the gay closet, but in in 1998, after a poor black woman living in a township in Durban went on the radio to talk about having AIDS  and was killed three weeks later, he decided it was time to come out of the HIV closet. “I thought if [this woman], without any protection, living in a township, not behind a palisade like I do in my middle-class suburb in Johannesburg, not with the income of a judge, not with the constitutional protection… I thought that I should speak out…”

In 1999, he became an Active Justice on the Constitutional Court before being appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2000. In 2009, he was made a permanent Justice of the Constitutional Court by President Kgalema Motlanthe.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, February 14

Today is the traditional Feast Day of St. Valentine. Which Valentine is anybody’s guess. One tradition, as laid out in Legenda Aurea, has it that the day commemorates Valentine the Presbyter (also known as Valentine of Rome), although very little is known if him. Pope Gelasius I in 496 included him as among those “whose names are justly reverenced among me, but whose acts are known only to God.” It is said that he was martyred in about 269 during the reign of Claudius II, after having been arrested and imprisoned for marrying Christian couples who were then under persecution in Rome at a time when Christians were seen as a grave threat to civilization, to all the traditions that made the nation great, and to the natural order of things. But there is no written record of his being associated with romantic love until Geoffrey Chaucer wrote Parlement of Foules in 1382:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

(For this was Saint Valentine’s Day
when every bird comes there to choose his mate)

When the notoriously romantic Victorians got hold of St. Valentine’s Day in the nineteenth century, all hell broke loose on the love-dovey front, and it hasn’t let up since then.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
San Francisco Establishes Domestic Partnership Registry: 1991. The idea had been tossed around since 1979, when gay rights activist Tom Brougham proposed a new category of relationship called “domestic partnership.” His cause was taken up in 1982 by San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt, who had taken the seat of slain Supervisor Harvey Milk. Britt’s bill authorizing domestic partnerships was vetoed that year by Mayor Dianne Feinstein, It would be passed again in 1989, but that law was repealed by a voter initiative in 1990. Fortunately, that same year city voters approved Proposition K which established a modified version of domestic partnerships which allowed same-sex and opposite-sex couples to register. Fittingly, on February 14, 1991, the brand new registry was established in San Francisco allowing partners to register. San Francisco however wasn’t the first city to provide domestic partnerships. That honor went to West Hollywood in 1985.

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The Daily Agenda for Monday, February 13

TODAY’S AGENDA:
New Jersey Senate To Vote on Marriage Equality: Trenton, NJ. The New Jersey Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill providing marriage equality for same-sex couples this afternoon. The session begins at twelve noon, but it’s unclear when the marriage bill itself will be brought to a vote. The New Jersey House is expected to vote on the measure Thursday. Republican Gov. Chris Christie has vowed to veto the bill when it reaches his desk.

Washington Governor to Sign Marriage Equality Bill: Olympia, WA. Gov. Chris Cregoire is expected to sign a bill into law making marriage equality the law of the land today. Her signature, however, doesn’t mean that gay c0uples can begin taking out marriage licenses right away. The bill would take effect June 7, ninety days after the end of the legislative session. But if opponents can gather at least 120,577 signatures by June 6, they can block the law from taking effect and place the issue on the ballot in November. Anti-gay opponents of marriage vow to do just that. And as luck (or planning) would have it, GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum will be campaigning in Olympia and Tacoma today as Gov. Greguire signs the bill.

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The Daily Agenda for Sunday, February 12

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Celebrations This Weekend: Whistler Ski Week, Whistler, BC.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Premiere of “Making Love”: 1982. Starring Michael Ontkean, Charlie’s Angels star Kate Jackson, and Harry Hamlin, Making Love opened in theaters as the first mainstream film to tackle homosexuality in a nonjudgemental way. That’s not to say that the story wasn’t without drama when Zach (Ontkean) and Claire (Jackson) dealt with a crumbling marriage as Zach struggled to deal with his attractions to other men. When he meets gay novelist Bart McGuire (Hamlin), their professional relationship (Zach was a doctor, Bart a patient who was in for a check-up) turned into a lunch date, then a dinner date, and then a full-fledged relationship, which over time, ends in a divorce for Zach and Claire. Claire handles the news badly, but over time comes to understand that gay people can live happy lives.The film’s happily-ever-after ending had the feel of a made-for-TV movie which critics hated. Gay critics, however, were overjoyed that the film was a positive portrayal where the gay characters didn’t all die in the end.

In real life however, the film demonstrated one significant difficulty in making mainstream movies about gay men: it seemed to confirm the fear that taking such a role would be career killers. Tom Berenger, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, William Hurt and Peter Strauss were all approached to play Zach; they all turned the role down. After the film’s release Ontkean and Hamlin had trouble living the film down. Hamlin’s promising career stalled for the next four years until he landed a role in NBC’s L.A. Law. Ontkean meanwhile tried to prevent clips of his role from appearing in Vito Russo’s 1996 documentary The Celluloid Closet.

SF Mayor Grants Same-Sex Marriages: 2004. It was a stunning announcement when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom declared that the California Constitution’s equal protection clause gave him the authority to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Between February 12 and March 11, 2004, an estimated 4,000 joyous couples lined up at City Hall to take part in what was quickly dubbed “The Winter of Love.” But the weddings came to an abrupt halt when the California Supreme Court declared that the mayor lacked the authority to bypass state law. All of those marriage licenses were voided, and same-sex marriage would remain unavailable until 2008 when the state Supreme Court found that “equal respect and dignity” of marriage is a “basic civil right” for all couples in California, gay or straight. That finding was overturned by Prop 8 in 2008, which itself was ruled unconstitutional in 2010. That ruling was upheld by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week. But a stay against the resumption of marriages remains while the case continues to wind its way through the appeals process, a process which may not end until the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.

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The Daily Agenda for Saturday, February 11

TODAY’S AGENDA:
World Premiere of “Call Me Kuchu”: Berlin, Germany. “Kuchu” is the word LGBT Ugandans use to call themselves, although some think it is derogatory. Sort of like “queer” elsewhere. And as with “queer,” “kuchu” is an all-encompassing term which embraces all of the Ls, Gs, Bs, Ts, and everything inbetween. Hence the title of the documentary premiering today at the Berlin International Film Festival. Call Me Kuchu “explores a community that is at once persecuted and consoled by the Christian faith, and examines the astounding courage and determination required not only to battle an oppressive government, but also to maintain religious conviction in the face of the contradicting rhetoric of a powerful national church.”

The film follows veteran LGBT advocate David Kato as he works to prevent Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill from becoming law. The film shows his own struggles against a vicious public vigilante campaign marking him for death, and a rare legal victory for gay Ugandans against that campaign — just three weeks before Kato’s brutal murder in his home. It the film is one tenth as intense as its trailer, it is a powerful documentary indeed. Call Me Kuchu premieres today at 5:00 p.m. at CineStar 7, Potsdamer Straße 4, 10785 Berlin. There is a another screening tomorrow and Monday.

Celebrations This Weekend: Belgian LGBT Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Regenbogenball (Rainbow Ball), Vienna, Austria; Whistler Ski Week, Whistler, BC.

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The Daily Agenda for Friday, February 10

TODAY’S AGENDA (Ours):
Celebrations This Weekend: Belgian LGBT Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Regenbogenball (Rainbow Ball), Vienna, Austria; Whistler Ski Week, Whistler, BC.

TODAY’S AGENDA (Theirs):
Journey Into Manhood Weekend: London, England. Well now this will certainly be interesting: British men from the land of the stiff upper lip going into the woods to bare their souls with each other and indulge in a few cuddling sessions — all on the premise that that will make them straight! But that’s what’s happening this weekend. Built on the theory that all gay men really want is to connect with their fathers, Journey Into Manhood is a hodge-podge of psychobabble and Richard Cohen-style cuddling in the wilderness designed to caress the gay right out of them poofters. That’s the premise anyway. When Ted Cox, a straight journalist, went undercover for a JIM weekend in Arizona, he found that during one of those cuddling sessions, well…

I don’t remember exactly when I felt his erection pressing into my back. It might have been while he whispered in my ear, “Long ago, you were the Golden Child. But, somehow, that Golden Child was hurt, and you put up a wall to protect yourself.”

…I sat on the floor between the outstretched legs of a camp guide, my head leaning back against his shoulder. The guide sat behind me, his arms wrapped around my chest. This hold was called “The Motorcycle.” Five men surrounded the two of us, their hands resting gently on my arms, legs and chest.

And for all of that and US$650, JIM claims a 79% success rate. Well okay then. If that’s success, sign me up. But hold on a minute. One of JIM’s life coaches, Alan Downing, was accused by two of his clients of inappropriate behavior and sexual impropriety. A staffer at an Arizona JIM weekend was none other than Lee Caleb Brundidge, one of the three American extremists who travelled to Kampala in 2009 to host the explosive ex-gay conference that set the stage for the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. I think you get the picture. The manly-man’s he-man butchout and cuddle camp starts today at an undisclosed location somewhere in southern England, and goes on through Sunday. Matching boots and belts are strongly discouraged.

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The Daily Agenda for Thursday, February 9

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Celebrations This Weekend: Belgian LGBT Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Regenbogenball (Rainbow Ball), Vienna, Austria; Whistler Ski Week, Whistler, BC.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
AIDS Employment Discrimination Declared Illegal in California: 1987. In the first such case in the nation, the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission unanimously ordered that the defense contractor Raytheon pay damages of about $6,000 to a Santa Barbara employee who was denied reinstatement to work following hospitalization due to an AIDS-related illness. John Chadbourne was given medical leave in December 19983 when he was hospitalized with pneumonia. He was diagnosed with AIDS one month later. He recovered from pneumonia and his doctor said he healthy enough to return to work, but his employer would not reinstate him without assurances that other employees would not be endangered. Instead, Raytheon kept him on medical leave, which meant that he retained his benefits (including medical insurance), but was living on significantly reduced income from his disability insurance. The Commission ruled that AIDS is a disability under the law and employers may not discriminate against people with AIDS who are able to work. With that ruling, Chadbourne was vindicated — or at least his estate was. Chadbourne died in January 1985, two years before the Commission’s ruling.

Raytheon went on to significantly improve its policies toward LGBT people and people with AIDS, becoming the first defense contractor to earn a 100% rating on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index in 2005.

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).

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The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, February 8

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Washington House to Vote on Same Sex Marriage: Olympia, WA. The Washington House of Representatives this afternoon will take up S.B. 6239, the bill to provide marriage equality in the Evergreen State, beginning at 1:00 p.m. PST. Rep. Jamie Pedersen (D-Seattle) says the has 54 to 56 votes to pass the bill in the 98 member house. The same bill passed the state Senate last week on  a 28-21 vote. Gov. Chris Gregoire has promised to sign the measure into law when it reaches his her desk, while anti-gay opponents vow to collect the 120,000 signatures needed by the June 6 deadline to prevent the law from taking effect and place a referendum to overturn it on the November 6 ballot.

Russian “Ban-The-Gay” Bill Returns for Final Reading: St. Petersburg, Russia. The proposed anti-gay law prohibiting “public actions aimed at propaganda of pederasty, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism among minors” is expected to be brought up today in St. Petersburg’s city legislature today for the second, and possibly final, hearing. If passed, the bill will outlaw all public events by or on behalf of LGBT people, and will severely restrict publicizing anything related to LGBT rights or providing assistance. Similar laws have been passed in Kostroma, Ryazan and Arkangelsk regions. There have been reports that the Moscow city government and the Russian State Duma may consider similar bills.

Celebrations This Weekend: Belgian LGBT Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Regenbogenball (Rainbow Ball), Vienna, Austria;  Whistler Ski Week, Whistler, BC.

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 Tuesday, February 7

Today marks the twelfth annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, which is a national HIV testing and awareness initiative focusing on the African-American community. The theme this year is “Changing the course of HIB/AIDS, one Black life at a time.”

Tonight at sundown marks the start of Tu B’Shevat, a minor Jewish Holiday on the 15th of Scvat, which is also called “The New Year of the Trees” — a sort of a Jewish Arbor Day, if you will. According to the Talmud, it is one of four new years in the Jewish Calendar, marking the date for calculating when the agricultural cycle begins. In particular, the date is used to establish the age of fruit trees, regardless of when they were planted. This is important because of the prohibition (Leviticus 19:23*24) on eating the fruit of trees produced during the first three years after they are planted. The fourth-year fruit crops were then brought to Jerusalem as a tithe.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Appeals Court To Issue Prop 8 Ruling: San Francisco, CA. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has announced that they will issue their ruling on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 this morning at 10:00 a.m. PST. Whatever the ruling may be, whoever doesn’t like it then has the option of asking for an en banc review by eleven-members of the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court. The judges of the Circuit can also call for an en banc review if neither of the parties ask for it. That would involve several more weeks (or months) of hearings before a final decision is reached. From there, presumably, it goes to the Supreme Court, although it could also go before a “super en banc” review of the entire Ninth Court before moving on to the Supreme Court. Throughout the entire process, the stay on Judge Walker’s ruling is almost certain to remain in place.

Of course, all of this assumes that the Appeals Court rules that Prop 8 supporters have standing and that Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker did not have to recuse himself because he is gay. At any rate, there are three rallies that I know of already announced in California:

• San Francisco: There will be a morning rally at 9:45 a.m. on the steps of the Ninth Circuit Federal Courthouse at 95 7th Street in San Francisco. That rally will proceed with a march to City Hall after the ruling is announced. Then in the evening there will be another rally at Jane Warner Plaza on 17th street across from the MUNI station at Castro and Market beginning at 5:00 p.m.
• West Hollywood: There will be a rally at West Hollywood Park beginning at 6:00 p.m., followed by  march down Santa Monica Blvd.
• San Diego: There will be a rally at Sixth Avenue and University in the Hillcrest neighborhood at 6:00 p.m.

Uganda’s Parliament Resumes: Kampala, Uganda. It’s time to keep an eye on things in Uganda as the nation’s Parliament begins another session. There have been reports that Parliament is expected to revive the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and bring it to the floor of the house for debate, perhaps as early as today. So far, Parliament’s web site has no new postings, with the most recent Order Paper posted for November 10, 2011. We will however try to monitor things as best we can and keep you up to date on anything we hear.

Protest against AIDS Medical Rationing: Steubenville, OH. The administration of Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) has ordered changes to how the Ohio Department of Health administers the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADA), which the AIDS Healthcare Foundation warn will result in “arbitrarily cutting off care to people with AIDS. Already, a judge granted three Ohioans with AIDS a preliminary injunction from enforcing proposed changes to state ADAP regulations, which AHF says are “some of the most severe medical and financial-eligibility changes to a government medical assistance program nationwide.” AFER will protest Gov. Kasich’s “State of the State” address at the Wells Academy in Steubenville beginning at 1:00 p.m. EST.

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?