Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMarch 1st, 2012
Now here is a celebration that I can get behind: it’s Beer Day in Iceland. And they’ve as much reason to celebrate it as anyone, what with beer only being legal on the island since 1989. The US isn’t the only Western country plagued by the insanity that we now know as prohibition. Iceland’s version of prohibition went into effect in 1915. It was partially lifted in 1921 when Spain refused to buy Iceland’s main export, fish, unless Iceland opened its economy to Spanish wines. Then in 1935, a national referendum lifted a ban on hard spirits. But the ban on beer with alcohol content greater than 2.25% remained in place as a sop to the temperance lobby. It was thought that because beer was cheaper than hard spirits, legalizing it would lead the entire nation to ruin. To fill the gap left by the ban on real beer, Icland’s bars improvised by adding a shot of vodka to a glass of near-beer to create a bjorliki, or “like beer.” In 1985, the Justice Ministry moved to ban that practice, and provoked an provoked a national outcry. By 1989, Iceland’s parliament finally ended the ban. Since then, Icelanders have celebrated beer day every year on March 1 to commemorate that auspicious cultural event.
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Celebrations This Weekend: Cape Town Pride: Cape Town, South Africa, Texas Tradition Gay Rodeo: Ft. Worth, TX., and Sydney Mardi Gras: Sydney, NSW.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Trial for “Lewd & Sodomitical Pracices: 1642. The Plymouth Colony Court heard a case brought against Edward Michell and Edward Preston for “lewd & sodomitical practices tending to sodomy.” The precise wording was important: sodomy itself was punishable by death, but practices which fell short of sodomy itself (which required proof of penetration and emission), were deemed merely “sodomitical” or sodomy-like. According to surviving records:
Edward Michell, for his lewd & sodomitical practices tending to sodomy with Edward Preston, and other lewd carriages with Lydia Hatch, is censured to be presently whipped at Plymouth, at the public place, and once more at Bamestable, in convenient time, in the presence of Mr. Freeman and the committees of the said town.
Edward Preston, for his lewd practices tending to sodomy with Edward Michell, and pressing John Keene thereunto (if he would have yielded), is also censured [sentenced] to be forthwith whipped at Plymouth, and once more at Bamestable (when Edward Michell is whipped), in the presence of Mr. Freeman & the committees of the same town.
John Keene, because he resisted the temptation, & used means to discover it, is appointed to stand by whilst Michell and Preston are whipped, though in some thing he was faulty.
New Haven Colony Passes Sodomy Law: 1656. When the New Haven Colony, in what is now Connecticut, its legislation was unique in the English-speaking world for mandating the death penalty for women as well as men for acts “against nature,” as well as for masturbation and anal sex among heterosexual couples. The act read as follows:
If any man lyeth with mankinde, as a man lyeth with a woman, both of them have Committed abomination, they both shall surely be put to death. Levit. 20. 13. And if any woman change the naturall use, into that which is against nature, as Rom. 1. 26. she shall be liable to the same Sentence, and punishment, or If any person, or persons, shall Commit any other kinde of unnaturall and shamefull filthines, called in Scripture the going after strange flesh, or other flesh then God alloweth, by canall knowledge of another vessel then God in nature hath appointed to becomp one flesh, whether it be by abusing the contrary part of a grown woman, or Child of either sex, or unripe vessel of a Girle, wherein the naturall use of the woman is left, which God hath ordained for the propagation of posterity, and Sodomiticall filthinesse (tending to the destruction of the race of mankind) is committed by a kind of Rape, nature being forced, though the will were inticed, every such person shall be put to death. Or if any man shall act upon himself, and in the sight of others spill his owne seed, by example, or counsel, or both, corrupting or tempting others to doe the like, which tends to the sin of Sodomy, if it be not one kind of it; or shall defile, or corrupt himself and others, by any kind of sinfull filthinesse, he shall be punished according to the nature of the offence; or if the case considered with the aggravating circumstances, shall according to the mind of God revealed in his word require it, he shall be put to death, as the Court of Magistrates shall determine.
New Haven Colony also applied the death penalty for adultery. This law remained in effect for the next ten years, until 1665 when New Haven Colony joined Connecticut and came under Connecticut law, which specified the death penalty for “man lying with man” only. That and adultery.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Bryan Batt: 1963. He played Sal Romano, gay art director at the Sterling Cooper ad agency for AMC’s Mad Men, and he played gay roles n Kiss Me, Guido, Jeffrey, and the stage version of La Cage aux Folles. Jeffrey came out while he was playing a male (straight) lead on the Broadway version of Sunset Blvd. He was worried that coming out would ruin his career, “but now I couldn’t give a rat’s ass. It’s normal to be gay.” When he’s not acting, Batt is in New Orleans with his partner of 23 years where they own a home decorating store.
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Lindoro Almaviva
March 1st, 2012
Proves that men are like wine. they get better with age. Happy birthday
Ben in Oakland
March 1st, 2012
I hate to be picky, but it was a SOP to the temperance lobby. A fop to said lobby would have been asking Liberace to join.
Jim Burroway
March 1st, 2012
Thanks for correcting my brain fart. That’s what happens when you get a jump on the celebrations.
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