Box Turtle Bulletin

New marriage poll

From the Christian Science Monitor

The United States is in the midst of a broad and rapid change in attitudes about gay marriage, with 55 percent now favoring full recognition of same-sex marriage and 40 percent opposed, according to a national survey released on Thursday.

The poll, conducted for a gay rights organization, found that support for same-sex marriage is highest among young adults, with 75 percent approval among those ages 18 to 29. Among that group, 58 percent said they are strongly in favor, compared with 13 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds identified as strongly opposed.

The only age group with a majority opposed to such recognition is those 65 years and older. Among that group, 55 percent said they disagree with gay marriage.

The synopsis says that it has a 3.1% margin of error, but I have not yet found a link to the poll questions, so I don’t know the extent to which I can trust the poll’s accuracy.

But while the numbers are more aggressive than other media polling, they are not way outside what we’ve seen lately.

4 year old murdered by mother

Some things are just too disgusting to even comment about: (The Oregonian)

Jessica Dutro believed her 4-year-old son, Zachary Dutro-Boggess was gay, prosecutors told the court Wednesday, and that was her motive for subjecting him to deadly beatings.

Dutro, charged with murder, murder by abuse and second-degree assault, is on trial in Washington County Circuit Court.

Emergency crews brought Zachary to a Portland hospital Aug. 14, 2012, where doctors determined he was dying from trauma to his abdomen that caused tears in his bowel. He was taken off life support two days later.

San Diego Mayor co-chairs marriage equality group

From Freedom to Marry:

Today Republican Mayor Kevin Faulconer of San Diego became a chair of Mayors for the Freedom to Marry, joining fellow chairs Kasim Reed of Atlanta; Julián Castro of San Antonio; Michael Nutter of Philadelphia; Annise Parker of Houston; Greg Stanton of Phoenix; and Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles.

“I am a strong supporter of marriage equality,” said San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer. “I came to my decision after speaking with my fellow San Diegans about the importance of ensuring that everyone in love has access to the respect, dignity and protections offered by marriage. I value freedom, family, and individual liberty, and I’m proud to join Mayors for the Freedom to Marry to continue making the case for marriage nationwide.”

The group has about 400 mayors from cities in 38 states.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, March 27

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: European Gay Ski Week, Alpe d’Huez, France; Belgian LGBT Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Los Angeles Leather Pride, Los Angeles, CA; Gay Snow Happening, Sölden, Austria; OutBoard, Steamboat Springs, CO; European Snow Pride, Tignes, France.

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From The Advocate, April 3, 1980, page 39.

 
The original location, in a light industrial area of Miami underneath the flight path for Miami International, is gone, replaced with a parking lot for an auto paint shop. The Ft. Lauderdale location is now a strip mall.

ONE Magazine, March 1955.

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
Miami Bar Posts House Rules: 1955. Gallows humor, or at the least, sardonic humor, has long been a valuable coping mechanism whenever things haven’t been going well. And things hadn’t been going well for Miami’s gay community, which had experienced wave after wave of police raids, arbitrary arrests, and general persecution over the previous year (see Aug 3, Aug 11, Aug 12, Aug 13 (twice that day), Aug 14,Aug 26, Aug 31, Sep 1, Sep 2, Sep 7, Sep 15, Sep 19, Oct 6 Oct 20, Nov 12 and Dec 16). According to ONE Magazine, an un-named Miami-area bar tried to make light of the situation by posting the following set of rules for its patrons to follow:

Rules and Regulations Covering the Behavior of Our Customers

First of all-remember that the customer is never right.

Before drinking each beer customer is to repeat six times “Customer is never right.”

When customer wishes to go to the restroom–please raise hand and barmaid will direct you to proper door.

Mother and daughter customers are not allowed to hold hands, kiss or pat each other on back. On week-ends they are not allowed to even talk to each other.

No after-shave lotion or talcum powder allowed on men customers.

Women must wear make-up-false eyelashes and beauty marks will be provided at the bar for those women customers who have just come from the beach and don’t have their make-up kits with them.

Men may wear only stiff shirts and tails.

Any male customer caught buying a beer for another male customer will have to buy a beer for the barmaid too so that the management will know that the man customer is of high moral character and not one of those characters.

Female customers may not talk at all–they are required to walk around the bar at least once every five minutes, dropping handkerchiefs and swooning at the far turn.

Male customers ‘may NOT wave at friends or relatives passing by in the street because we’ll have none of those gestures in this place, my dear.

Lady customers may smoke only if male customer lights cigarette for them.

Lady customers may smoke only cigarettes with ivory tips, jewelled pipes or Between the Acts cigars.

Male customers must have hair on the chest–if you have none–please bring along another chest with the required hair on it. (We will gladly refrigerate it for you while you’re here).

Male customers are required to spit periodically. Since we have no spittoons please use the guy next to you.

Please do not be offended if we do not serve you. Here are but a few of the people we could not serve if they were able to patronize us : Socrates, Wilde, Proust, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Queen Christina, Amy Lowell, Lord Tennyson, etc., etc. and far on into the night.

The bar also posted a detailed “Questionnaire to be filled in by prospective customer before selling 15¢ beer”, which asked for the customer’s name, address, phone number, boss’s phone number, parents’ names and three references. Also, and presumably to make the police’s job of notifying everyone possible if you were arrested, it asked for “names and addresses of five business or personal friends of your parents and their wives or husbands.”

[Source: J.K. “Letter from Miami.” ONE 3, no. 3 (March 1955): 44.]

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Bob Mizer: 1922-1992. Before there was the internet and its most lucrative offering, online porn, and before the proliferation of dead-tree porn in the late 1960s through the 1980s, there was the “physique” magazines that sprang up after World War II. Bob Mizer was the mild-mannered publisher and photographer for Physique Pictorial, one of many such magazines that published “beefcake” photographs under the guise of bodybuilding and health. His photography studio, the Athletic Model Guild (AMG), specialized in men (gay and straight) doing bodybuilding poses or wrestling in pairs. But that thin guise — almost as thin as the posing pouch that his models wore — wasn’t enough to keep him from being convicted in 1947 of unlawful distribution of obscene materials and serving a nine month sentence at a work camp in Saugus, California.

Physique Pictorial, Summer 1958.

That setback barely put a dent into Mizer’s career. In addition the Physique Pictorial, Mizer added Young Adonis in 1963 and Grecian Guild Studio Quarterly in 1966. When obscenity laws were relaxed in 1968 allowing full male frontal nudity, Mizer quickly adapted with the times. Through it all, AMG was very much a family affair, with Mizer’s mother (her skills as a seamstress was put to use in creating a line of skimpy briefs and posing pouches) and brother (an accountant) playing important roles in the business. Mizer would photograph thousands of men and take nearly a million different images. He also produced over 3000 film titles from the 1950s to the 1980’s, which mostly consisted of film (and later, videotape) of his photo sessions.

He died in 1992, and AMG went dormant for a while. But under new ownership, Mizer’s archives are being catalogued and digitally remastered. Mizer never thought of himself as an artists, but his work has garnered a significant re-appraisal in the past two decades, which influenced artists like Robert Mappelthorpe and David Hockney. The Los Angeles Times wrote in 2004 that “Mizer’s pictures are historically important because they capture a time, place and attitude so vividly that it still seems to be with us. His photographs are inspiring because they were not made to fill a market niche that already existed. Instead, they created the niche and then filled it with aplomb.” In 2009, Taschen Books released the monograph Bob’s World: The Life and Boys of A.M.G.’s Bob Mizer.

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).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

World Vision Reverses Its Decision on Married Gay Employees

World Vision, the Christian charitable organization which earlier this week announced that they would employ persons in same-sex marriages according to the same fidelity expecations for those in opposite-sex marriages, have now reversed their decision following a backlash from contributors and supporters. In a letter sent to supporters this afternoon, World Vision says that they “made a mistake” and “humbly ask for your forgiveness.” The full letter to supporters follows:

Dear Friends,

today, the World Vision U.S. board publicly reversed its recent decision to change our national employment conduct policy. The board acknowledged they made a mistake and chose to revert to our longstanding conduct policy requiring sexual abstinence for all single employees and faithfullness within the Biblical covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.

We are writing to you our trusted partners and Christian leaders who have come to us in the spirit of Matthew 18 to express your concern in love and conviction. You share our desire to come together in the Body of Christ around our mission to serve the poorest of the poor. We have listened to you and want to say thank you and to humbly ask for your forgiveness.

In our board’s effort to unite around the church’s shared mission to serve the poor in the name of Christ, we failed to be consistent with World Vision’s U.S.’s commitment to the traditional understanding of Biblical marriage and our own Statement of Faith, which says, “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.” And we also failed to seek enough counsel from our own Christian partners. As a result, we made a change to our conduct policy that was not consistent with our Statement of Faith and our commitment to the sanctity of marriage.

We are brokenhearted over the pain and confusion we have caused many of our friends, who saw this decision as a reversal of our strong commitment to Biblical authority. We ask that you understand that thi was never the board’s intent. We are asking for your continued support. We commit to you that we will continue to listen to the wise counsel of Christian brothers and sisters, and we will reach out to key partners in the weeks ahead.

While World Vision U.S. stands firmly on the biblical view of marriage, we strongly affirm that all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, are created by God and are to be loved and treated with dignity and respect.

Please know that World Vision continues to serve all people in our ministry around the world. We pray that you will continue to join with us in our mission to be “an international partnership of Christians whose mission is to follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in workig with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice, and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of God.”

Sincerely in Christ

Richard Stearns, President

Jim Beré, Chairman of the World Vision U.S. Board

Zimbabwe: it’s ok to stab gay people

It’s beginning to look as if the entire population of the continent of Africa has lost its collective mind. Here’s the latest evidence.

In Zimbabwe, a man was acquitted of stabbing another man because he accused the victim of being gay. (DailyNews)

With regard to the nature of the case, [regional magistrate Sikhumbuzo] Nyathi also admitted that issues pertaining to homosexuality in Zimbabwe were controversial.

“In Zimbabwe, the issue of homosexuality is a controversial one to such extent that it has drawn into the fray, the highest office in the country. Some people are known to hold strong views on homosexuality,” he said.

As a result Nyathi, found Phiri not guilty.

Snyder suspends legal marriages

Earlier today I speculated that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) would find that those legal marriages occurring between the time in which Judge Friedman found the anti-gay ban unconstitutional and the time in which the court issued a stay would be precisely that: legal marriage. It seems I guessed wrong. (Buzzfeed)

On Wednesday, Snyder stated that those marriages are legal but that, because the state’s amendment banning recognition of such marriages is back on the books while the stay is in place, “the rights tied to these marriages are suspended” for the time being.

There may be legal arguments supporting that view, but I suspect this may have political consequences that do not work in his favor.

The immediate consequence is that this opens the marriages up to federal recognition.

Michigan Gov. Snyder coy on marriage, waiting for legal counsel

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) has been walking a narrow line since Federal Judge Bernard Friedman found that his state’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the US Constitution. Although Snyder is on tape stating in 2010 that he believed marriage to be “between a man and a woman”, he is now insisting that he has no public opinion on the matter and will go by whatever the courts decide.

Snyder is trying to differentiate himself from the state’s Attorney General, Bill Schuette (R), who has appealed the decision and on whose behest the court has issued a stay. He’s trying to play the role of spectator, an uninterested party who will do as directed.

And, as a practical matter, he is. Other than as cheerleader in either direction, his views are immaterial to the outcome.

But Snyder does have one significant role in the process. He will decide whether or not the State of Michigan will honor those marriages that occurred between the ruling and the stay.

Of course the courts can overrule Snyder’s decision, whatever it may be. But should he decide to honor the marriages, it will eliminate delay and ease the transition. And it is unlikely that a court would overturn such a decision or even that anyone has standing to appeal it.

And on that matter, Snyder is walking softly: (MLive)

“I appreciate that it’s a confusing circumstance, and I would like to provide some clarity, but I need to do that based on legal advice,” Snyder told reporters after an unrelated event in Lansing. “We’re going through that analysis at this time.”
…
The legal status of those marriage licenses is in question, and a three-judge 6th Circuit panel did not offer any clarification on Tuesday when they extended the stay pending the outcome of an appeal by Attorney General Bill Schuette.

Press Secretary Sara Wurfel said the Snyder administration is prepared to offer guidance to same-sex couples who obtained licenses as soon as a legal analysis is complete. That could be later Wednesday, or it could be later in the week.

Wurfel said the governor’s legal team is examining whether the state should recognize those marriage licenses for tax purposes, adoption and more. Michigan does not currently recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states.

“Legal advice” could go either way. But, to speculate, I think the likelier course is that Snyder’s legal team will find that legally married couples are legally married.

There’s very little political downside to recognizing marriages that have occurred. And Snyder, who seems to have no fire in his belly over social issue has mostly shied away from contentious issues, expressing a desire to focus on jobs and the economy.

And the risk of opposing recognition is high. Michigan is a purple state in which a majority supports marriage equality. Should he refuse to recognize marriage – only to be overruled by a court – it could make him appear to be an intransigent right-winger in a year in which he is seeking reelection.

UPDATE: Snyder opposes recognition.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, March 26

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: European Gay Ski Week, Alpe d’Huez, France; Belgian LGBT Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Los Angeles Leather Pride, Los Angeles, CA; Gay Snow Happening, Sölden, Austria; OutBoard, Steamboat Springs, CO; European Snow Pride, Tignes, France.

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From The Los Angeles Advocate, March 1968, page 8

 
Located in Los Angeles’s Silverlake gayborhood where Santa Monica Blvd veers to the southeast to become Sunset, Connie’s place was one of a handful of gay bars located within just a few blocks of each other. A few months after this ad appeared in the Los Angeles Advocate, Connie’s place apparently redecorated, and its ads invited readers to see their “all-new roaring twenties atmosphere.” Apparently that didn’t work out. A few years later, Connie’s Place chucked whatever elegance it could muster, changed its name to the Male Box, and became a gay leather/biker bar (see the ad for Mar 22). The building’s still there, and is home to the (straight) hipster 4100 Bar.

L-R: David McCord, David Zamora, and Boulder County Clerk Clela Rorex.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Boulder, CO Issues Same-Sex Marriage Licenses: 1975. It all began when Dave McCord and Dave Zamora, both 27, went to their local county clerk’s office for El Paso County (Colorado Springs) and sought a marriage license. According to McCord, the clerk told them, “We do not do that here in El Paso County, but if you want to, go to Boulder County, they might do it there.”

They then went to Boulder and asked County Clerk Clela Rorex for a license. Rorex turned to the county’s Assistant District Attorney, William C. Wise, who wrote a quick memorandum noting that Colorado’s marriage laws weren’t gender specific. “There is no statutory law prohibiting the issuance of a license, probably because the situation was simply not contemplated in the past by our legislature. The case law is strongly on the side of the public official that refuses to issue a marriage license in these situations, and a public official could not be prosecuted for violation of any criminal law by such marriage licensing,” Wise wrote.

With Wise’s decision in hand, Rorex decided, as a “strictly administration decision,” that she would issue the county’s first same-sex marriage license to McCord and Zamora. “I am not in violation of any law,” she reasoned, “and it is not for me to legislate morality and not give persons a license if I so desire.” She also said she would continue to issue licenses in similar case as long as it was legal.

A month later, a guy by the name of Roswell Howard tried to protest the decision by showing up with a horse and a plethora of reporters. “a boy can marry a boy and a girl can marry a girl, why can’t a lonesome old cowboy get hitched to his favorite saddle mare?”, he said to the cameras. But Rorex as quick to deny the license, and she had solid legal backing to do so: the horse was too young to marry without written parental consent.

Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan.

Six couples were married altogether before the State Attorney General stepped in to call a halt. Among them were California residents Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan, an Australian national who was trying to legally immigrate to the U.S. to be with Adams. They had already married on March 20 in a religious ceremony officiated by the Metropolitan Community Church’s founder, Rev. Troy Perry, in the hopes that they could secure a green card for Sullivan on First Amendment freedom-of-religion grounds. When they heard Johnny Carson joke about the marriage licenses being issued in Boulder, they flew to Colorado and got their license on April 21.

Three days later, the Colorado Attorney General declared the six marriages invalid and ordered a halt to the licenses. The INS made it clear that it would not recognize Sullivan’s marriage. The INS district director wrote, “You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots.” That crude ruling was quickly replaced with a more official declaration stating that the marriage was invalid because neither spouse “can perform the female functions in marriage.” The couple sued in Federal Court, but judge Irving Hill ruled against them, grounding his ruling partly on religious principles, which “could not possibly sanction any marriage between persons of the same because of the vehement condemnation in the Scriptures of both religions (Christianity and Judaism) of all homosexual relationships” — ignoring the couple’s MCC religious marriage in the process. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

After living abroad, Adams and Sullivan slipped back into the U.S., with Sullivan living as an undocumented immigrant. The couple remained together for four decades, until Adams’s death in 2012. None of the six couples married in Colorado saw their marriages formally annulled. Instead, their licenses were simply ignored, as though they didn’t exist. Two decades after Boulder’s historic step, Rorex reflected on that momentous decision to grant the licenses:

“Honestly, I was pretty young,” says Rorex, who went on to get her master’s in both public administration and legal administration and has been with the Native American Rights Fund’s Boulder office since 1992. “I had no real political background; I was not a political animal when I ran for that office. I didn’t even know any gays or lesbians. I didn’t know anything about the issue. I just operated from gut instinct.”

And her gut told her to give a license to two men who loved each other and wanted to get married. “It felt like the right thing to do,” she recalls, “but I couldn’t have articulated why in 1975.” She can today.

“Over all of these years, I’ve watched this issue, because of the place I was at that time — the accidental moment of history I was involved in — and I’ve grown to become a real staunch crusader for same-sex marriages,” Rorex says. “I’m continually surprised that it has taken so long for people to give equal rights to same-sex partnerships.

[Additional source: Joyce Murdoch & Deb Price. Courting Justice: Gay Men And Lesbians V. The Supreme Court (New York: Basic Books, 2001): 219-225.]

Gay Group Meets at White House: 1977. In a historic first, a group of gay advocates from the National Gay Task Force (later, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) met with presidential aide Midge Costanza for the first official discussion of gay rights at the White House. Gay rights leaders, including Bruce Voeller (see May 12), Jean O’Leary, Frank Kameny (see May 21), Elaine Noble (see Jan 22), Rev. Troy Perry (see Jul 27), William B. Kelley, and several others, told reporters that the three hour meeting was “a happy milestone on the road to full equality under the law.” The meeting took place while President Jimmy Carter was away at Camp David for the weekend, but participants were assured that Carter was aware of the meeting and promised to support anti-discrimination legislation for employment in the federal government. “We had a fantastic meeting,” said O’Leary, NGTF co-director, “What we got was a commitment on all the issues we brought up” for further discussion not only at the White House, but within individual executive agencies.

The next day, White House Press Secretary Jody Powell appeared in CBS’s Face the Nation and defended the meeting. “For an organized group who feel they have a grievance that they are not being treated fairly, for them to have a right to put that grievance before high officials and say ‘we want redress,’ that to me is what the essence of America is all about.”

But Anita Bryant, who was then campaigning against a Miami, Florida gay rights ordinance, thundered her disaproval in a written statement. “Behind the high sounding appeal against discrimination in job and housing — which is not a problem to the ‘closet’ homosexual — they are really asking to be blessed in their abnormal lifestyle by the office of the President if the United States. I protest the action of the White House staff in dignifying these activists for special privilege with a serious discussion of their alleged ‘human rights’.” Later that day her self-righteous indignation grew: “Before I surrender to this insidious attack on God and His laws and the parents and their rights to protect their children, I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before.”

US Supreme Court Overturns Oklahoma’s Ban on Teachers Who Support Gay Rights: 1985. In 1978, Oklahoma state Senator Mary Helm introduced a bill allowing public schools to fire or refuse to hire anyone who engaged in “public homosexual activity” or “public homosexual conduct” (see Feb 21). The first was violation, “public homosexual activity,” was defined as any act which violated the state’s anti-sodomy law (which also banned heterosexual sodomy, but Helms’s law only dealt with violations by gay people) and the second provision concerning “public homosexual conduct” was defined to include “advocating, soliciting, imposing, encouraging or promoting public or private homosexual activity in a manner that creates a substantial risk that such conduct will come to the attention of schoolchildren or school employees.” That latter provision endangered heterosexual teachers who might presume to defend gay neighbors or relatives. Shortly after the bill was introduced, more than 100 teenage boys joined KKK chapters in local high schools to “declare war on homosexuals” (see Jan 25) with the full support of Klan leader David Duke (who happened to be a friend of Family Research Council’s current president Tony Perkins.) One student Klansman declared, “We are not just against blacks like the old Klan. We are against gays … because this activity is morally and socially wrong.”

Anita Bryant lobbied the Senate for the bill’s passage, saying that it would curb “the flaunting of homosexuality.” The Helm’s Bill sailed through the House and Senate, passing the upper chamber unanimously. Stan Easter, a gay man licensed to teach in Oklahoma, sued the Oklahoma City Board of Education in Federal Court with the backing of the National Gay Task Force. But Easter backed out over the backlash. Fortunately, Federal Judge Luther Eubanks said NGTF had standing to sue based on sworn affidavits stating that the group’s gay members included Oklahoma teachers who feared that having their names made public would result in their immediate firing. But Eubanks then went on to uphold the law’s constitutionality. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals largely reversed his decision, saying that while a teacher could be fired for violating Oklahoma’s sodomy law, the rest of the law violated teachers’ free speech rights under the First Amendment. The State of Oklahoma appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which deadlocked 4-4 (Justice Lewis Powell, seriously ill with prostate cancer, was absent during oral arguments and didn’t vote). That meant that the lower court’s ruling stood and the gag rule against Oklahoma teachers was lifted, but the ban on teachers engaging in “public homosexual activity” remained.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Tennessee Williams: 1911-1983. If you were to ask who was the most celebrated gay playwright in history, most people, gay or straight, may point to Tennessee Williams. Which is ironic because if the gay themes in his work is any indication, he appears to have been rather conflicted by his homosexuality. Blanche’s first husband in the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Streetcar Named Desire killed himself. So did Skipper in the Pulitzer Prize winning Cat on the Hot Tin Roof, and his death threatened to out his pro football buddy and severe alcoholic Brick. In Suddenly, Last Summer, Sebastian was torn apart and eaten by the boys whose sexual favors he sought. For the most part, gay characters are dead and don’t appear on the stage in Williams’s plays; Brick remained closeted, with just enough deniability for straight audience members who didn’t want to see it.

As for Williams himself, he was certainly not closeted, socializing in gay circles and taking a string of lovers. His most enduring relationship with Frank Merlo lasted sixteen years; they remained together until Merlo’s death in 1963. That plunged Williams into a severe depressions, for which he turned to Dr. Max Jacobson for help. Jacobson, nicknamed “Dr. Feelgood,” prescribed amphetamines for this depression and Seconal for his insomnia. Unsurprisingly, Williams appeared incoherent in several interviews, and his reputation suffered. He died in a Paris hotel room in 1983, having chocked to death on the cap from an eye drops bottle, surrounded by barbiturates and other prescription drugs.

T.R. Knight: 1973. Theodore Raymond began his acting career at the age of five at Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theater. He won a scholarship the the Minneapolis-based Children’s Theatre Company while a freshman in high school. After high school, he landed several leading roles at the Guthrie before moving to New York to try his luck on Broadway, where he appeared in the 2001 revival of Noises Off and the 2003 revival of Tertuffe. But his big break came two years later when he landed the role as Dr. George O’Malley in ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy.

Knight’s work on Grey’s Anatomy was well received and things seemed to be going fairly well until late 2006, when rumors began circulating that his Grey’s Anatomy co-star Isaiah Washington insulted Knight with a homophobic slur. A short time later, Knight came out and Washington issued a statement apologizing for his “unfortunate use of words during the recent incident on-set.” But the controversy resurfaced again during the Golden Globe Awards in January when Washington responded to a question from the press that “I never called T.R. a faggot.” But Knight countered that defense during an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, saying “everybody heard him.” Washington apologized again, but his fate was sealed. Later that summer, ABC announced that it wasn’t renewing Washington’s Contract. Knight, for his part, remained with Grey’s Anatomy for two more seasons before leaving in 2009 due to what he called a “breakdown in communication” with the executive producer over his lack of screen time and his decision to be open about his sexuality.

Since Grey’s Anatomy, Knight returned to the theater, appearing in several off-Broadway productions as well as the Broadway’s A Life in the Theatre in 2010. On October 5, 2013, Knight married Patrick Leahy, his partner of three years, in Hudson, New York.

Jonathan Groff: 1985. The bulk of his career has been in the theater, beginning with his role as Melchior Gabor in Spring Awakening, for which he was nominated for a Tony and a Drama Desk Award, and won a Grammy for best Musical Show Album featured soloist. He has appeared in an off-Broadway revival of Hair, and he made his West End debut in 2010 in Deathtrap at the Noël Coward Theatre. He’s also worked in some television time, with a recurring role in One Life to Live and Glee. My four-year-old niece will recognize his voice in the Disney animated feature Frozen, for which he lent his voice to the mountain man, Kristoff.

His last two projects have both been with HBO. This year, he starred as Patrick, a gay video game developer in the HBO series Looking, which completed its eight-episode first season earlier this month. The series started slowly, but found its footing as the season went on, with Groff’s character ending the season in an awkward unresolved triangle with Richie, a barber and Patrick’s main love interest, and a drunken session with Kevin, his boss. HBO has announced that they are ordering a second season. Groff has also signed on to play Craig Donner in HBO’s adaptation of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart.

Scotty Joe Weaver: 1986-2004. He should have turned twenty-eight today, but he only managed to see his eighteenth birthday. On July 22, 2004, his badly burned body was found at the side of a rural Alabama road. He had been beaten, strangled, cut, burned and robbed of between $65 and $80. While robbery was first thought to be the main motivation, Baldwin County District Attorney David Whetstone quickly determined that Weaver’s sexuality was the reason he was killed. “We have very specific evidence that indicates part of the motive involved his sexual orientation,” he said, noting that the wounds on Scotty Joe’s body indicated “overkill,” a common feature of anti-gay hate crimes.

Robert Porter, 18, Nichole Bryars Kelsay, 18, and Christopher Gaines, 20 were arrested and charged with capital murder. Gaines and Kelsay had been Scotty Joe’s roommates, and Gaines’ lawyer at that time said that Gaines told him that Porter “spoke openly of wanting to kill the guy because he was gay.” Gaines pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty, and was sentenced to life without parole. Porter pleaded guilty and received two consecutive life sentences. Kelsay pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to 20 years. Alabama doesn’t have a hate crime law covering sexual orientation. And despite the District Attorney’s findings, Scotty Joe Weaver’s murder was not included in the FBI’s hate crime statistics for 2004, representing another example of the gaps in the FBI’s hate crime reporting program. The crime was featured in the 2006 documentary, Small Town Gay Bar.

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).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Michigan Episcopalians on marriage

What do you do if the Speakers for Jesus speak words that reflect the message of no Jesus that you know? If you are Episcopal Bishops in Michigan, you take to the papers. (Detroit Free Press)

As Christians, we cannot be silent as our state’s highest laws discriminate against segments of our society based on the personal biases of those in power, particularly when a majority of Michigan’s population now supports marriage equality. To remain silent is to be complicit in the decline of our society through demonizing unprotected minorities, segregation based on sexual preference, denial of benefits to selected groups, and fear-based prejudice. Our continued silence can lead only to further discrimination, bullying and other forms of physical, emotional and spiritual violence.

Amen

Oh the apostasy, the apostasy!!

Long time Box Turtle Bulletin readers will recognize Michael Brown.

Brown is the pastor in Charlotte, NC, who for years led a red-shirted mob to protest and harass witness to attendees at the local gay pride. He used the opportunity of the massacre at a gay youth center in Tel Aviv to complain the Proposition 8 supporters had received “death threats”. He railed against programs designed to reduce anti-gay bullying. And then I stopped paying attention.

Brown is pretty much the educated man’s Linda Harvey. Every bit as mean, but with a better vocabulary.

So Brown is a perfect candidate for the Christian Post to have respond to the article in Christianity Today about the change in policy at World Vision. A fixture in the brand of Christianity that believes that Jesus came primarily so that the Old Testament’s purity codes could be expanded to Gentiles (he’d never put it this way, of course), it was a sure thing that Brown would denounce World Vision in certain and absolute (if somewhat comical) terms.

He didn’t disappoint.

The Apostasy of World Vision Embracing Gay Marriage
…
World Vision has decided to embrace homosexual “marriage” among its employees and to recognize practicing homosexual employees who profess faith in Jesus as true Christians.

This is a betrayal of the gospel, a betrayal of the Lord, a betrayal of the family, and a betrayal of the countless thousands of Christians who have put their trust in World Vision as a legitimate Christian organization.

Because surely professing faith in Jesus is not a measure of “true Christianity”. True Heaven forbid!!

It reminds me of the time that I read the definition of True Christians that True Jesus established:

John 13: 34-35 – A new commandment I give to you, that you love reject one another, even as I have loved ranted at you, that you also love condemn one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love restrictions, litmus tests, and accusations of apostacy for one another.” [True Christian Version]

About that radical militant activist Judge Friedman

The National Organization for Marriage (theirs, not yours) has had a rough time of it lately. With loss after loss in courts across the country, financial woes, and staggering shifts in public opinion, they’ve pretty much given up the fight in the US.

Oh, they are still flogging their plans for a Marriage March (as the last one was so effective, snark) but when I went to their website following the Michigan ruling for the predictable rant about liberals and one man in robes overruling the voters, Brian Brown and Co. hadn’t even made a comment. They finally, yesterday, got around to posting the opinion of the local Catholic bishop, but it was just too tame to quote.

So we’ll have to settle for the knowledge that if Brian Brown hadn’t been sobbing under his desk, he’d have served us the usual portion of “radical militant activist judges legislating from the bench”.

So let’s take a look at radical militant activist Judge Friedman. And you already know where this is going, don’t you.

The great gods of irony have long since writ the script on marriage equality decisions. And they’ve decided that despite decades of Republicans campaigning on the idea that they must be elected to appoint true defenders of the constitution, a good many of those jurists who have found that gay people are equally protected by the US Constitution hail from the R side of the judicial pool.

So, of course, for this ruling – the one that tolled the death knell of their last claim to anti-gay “research” – the irony gods pulled out all the stops. Not only is Friedman a life-long conservative Republican with long record of right-side-of-the-aisle perspective on law, he was appointed by the glowing idol of the GOP. (Slate)

Judge Bernard Friedman is from eastern Michigan, where he was an honors student at Michigan State University and did JAG service during Vietnam. He became a reliable conservative jurist and was appointed by President Reagan in 1988.

Someone hand Brian Brown another hanky.

Judge Friedman on Mark Regnerus

The Michigan trial on the constitutionality of excluding same-sex couples from the rights and responsibilities of marriage was (after Hawaii and California) only the third case to present and try the facts presented by the various sides. And, as such, the ruling by Judge Friedman was important not just for finding the ban unconstitutional but also in its measure of the merits of the arguments presented.

Particularly interesting was US District Court Judge Bernard Friedman’s opinion on the arguments presented by star witness Mark Regnerus, whose “study” comparing children raised in intact heterosexual families to, well, something else, has been touted by anti-gays as their smoking gun.

It’s a bit lengthy, but here it is in its entirety:

In defense of their asserted justifications for the MMA, the state defendants first called sociologist Mark Regnerus. Regnerus’s testimony focused on the results of his 2012 “New Family Structures Study” (“NFSS”), a survey data collection project that was formulated to assess adult outcomes of children who reported that one of their parents had been in a “romantic relationship with someone of the same-sex” during the respondents’ childhood years. Of the 15,000 participants ranging in age from 18 to 39, 248 of them reported that one of their parents had been in such a romantic relationship. From this sample, 175 reported that their mother had a same-sex romantic relationship while 73 reported that their father had been romantically involved with another man. Regnerus then compared the adult outcomes of these two subgroups with another set of participants who were raised by intact biological parents. The outcomes of these groups were significantly different.

Regnerus found that children who reported that their mothers had a same-sex relationship were less likely to pursue an education or obtain full-time employment and more likely to be unemployed and receiving public assistance, more likely to experience sexual assault, more likely to cheat on their partners or spouses and more likely to have been arrested at some point in their past. Similarly, Regnerus discovered that children who reported that their fathers had a same-sex relationship were more likely to have been arrested, more likely to plead guilty to non-minor offenses and more likely to have numerous sexual partners.

Although Regnerus touted the NFSS as one of the few studies to use a large representative pool of participants drawn from a random population-based sample, other sociological and demographic experts, including Rosenfeld and Gates, heavily criticized the study on several grounds. First, it failed to measure the adult outcomes of children who were actually raised in same-sex households. This is because the participants’ household histories revealed that many parental same-sex romantic relationships lasted for only brief periods of time. And many of the participants never lived in a same-sex household at all. Regnerus reported that “just over half (90) of the 175 respondents whose mother had a lesbian relationship reported that they did not live with both their mother and her same-sex partner at the same time.” Id. at 11. Second, many critics voiced their concern that the NFSS made an unfair comparison between children raised by parents who happened to engage in some form of same-sex relationship and those raised by intact biological families. This is because almost all of the children in the former group were the offspring of a failed prior heterosexual union, which produced a significant measure of household instability and parental relationship fluctuation.

Even Regnerus recognized the limitations of the NFSS. In his expert report, Regnerus acknowledged that “any suboptimal outcomes may not be due to the sexual orientation of the parent” and that “[t]he exact source of group differences” are unknown. Defs.’ Ex. 28 at 5. Moreover, of the only two participants who reported living with their mother and her same-sex partner for their entire childhood, Regnerus found each of them to be “comparatively well-adjusted on most developmental and contemporary outcomes.” Id. at 11. Nonetheless, Regnerus testified that there is no conclusive evidence that “growing up in households wherein parents are in (or have been in) same-sex relationships” does not adversely affect child outcomes. Id. at 16.

The Court finds Regnerus’s testimony entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration. The evidence adduced at trial demonstrated that his 2012 “study” was hastily concocted at the behest of a third-party funder, which found it “essential that the necessary data be gathered to settle the question in the forum of public debate about what kinds of family arrangement are best for society” and which “was confident that the traditional understanding of marriage will be vindicated by this study.” See Pls.’ Motion in limine to Exclude Testimony of Mark Regnerus, Ex. 9. In the funder’s view, “the future of the institution of marriage at this moment is very uncertain” and “proper research” was needed to counter the many studies showing no differences in child outcomes. Id. The funder also stated that “this is a project where time is of the essence.” Id. Time was of the essence at the time of the funder’s comments in April 2011, and when Dr. Regnerus published the NFSS in 2012, because decisions such as Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F. Supp. 2d 921 (N.D. Cal. 2010), and Windsor v. United States, 833 F. Supp. 2d 394 (S.D.N.Y. 2012), were threatening the funder’s concept of “the institution of marriage.”

While Regnerus maintained that the funding source did not affect his impartiality as a researcher, the Court finds this testimony unbelievable. The funder clearly wanted a certain result, and Regnerus obliged. Additionally, the NFSS is flawed on its face, as it purported to study “a large, random sample of American young adults (ages 18-39) who were raised in different types of family arrangements” (emphasis added), but in fact it did not study this at all, as Regnerus equated being raised by a same-sex couple with having ever lived with a parent who had a “romantic relationship with someone of the same sex” for any length of time. Whatever Regnerus may have found in this “study,” he certainly cannot purport to have undertaken a scholarly research effort to compare the outcomes of children raised by same-sex couples with those of children raised by heterosexual couples. It is no wonder that the NFSS has been widely and severely criticized by other scholars, and that Regnerus’s own sociology department at the University of Texas has distanced itself from the NFSS in particular and Dr. Regnerus’s views in general and reaffirmed the aforementioned APA position statement.

Translation: liar, liar, pants on fire.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, March 25

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From The Blade (Washington, D.C.), September 1977, page 10.

 
That burst of gay-rights activism right after the 1969 Stonewall rebellion had petered out considerably as the first half of the 1970s ground on. After weathering Vietnam, Watergate, the oil embargo, runaway inflation and “Feelings”, all anybody wanted to do, gay or straight, was do a little dance, make a little love, and get down tonight. But Anita Bryant’s vicious anti-gay campaign to repeal Miami’s gay rights ordinance (see Jun 7) re-galvanized a complacent gay community into action, and not just in South Florida. Bryant promised to take her anti-gay crusade nationwide, and rumors abounded about further anti-gay ordinances and ballot initiatives in cities across America. Activists in Washington, D.C., fearing that the nation’s capital would be a likely target, organized a coalition called the Dialog for Human Rights. Member groups included the National Organization for Women, the Gay Activists Alliance, and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, and they immediately set about a fundraising drive to counter whatever might be headed their way. As it happened, D.C. was spared, but St. Paul, Minnesota (see Apr 25); Wichita, Kansas (see May 9);  and Eugene, Oregon fell victim to the Bryant steamroller before it was finally turned back in Seattle and California (see Nov 7).

TODAY IN HISTORY:
385 YEARS AGO: Thomas/Thomasine Hall: 1629. The Virginia Colony Court’s records describe the case of a servant, Thomas or Thomasine Hall, who claimed to be “both a man and a woman.” In testimony before the court, Hall told of being born at or near Newcastle Upon Tyne and recalled being christened “by the name of Thomasine.” Hall was dressed in woman’s apparel until the age of twelve. At the age of 22 while living in London, Hall’s brother joined the army and Hall “cut off his hair and changed his apparel into the fashion of a man” and joined the army. After leaving the army, Hall again “changed himself into woman’s apparel and made bone lace and did other work with his needle.” Shortly after, Hall again changed “his apparel into the habit of a man and so came over into this country.”

After arriving in Virginia as a male, he changed his expression back to that of a woman, but rumors spread that “Hall did lie with a maid … called Great Bess.” In one encounter, two men assaulted Hall, threw him on his back and “pulled out his members,” revealing that Hall anatomically “was a perfect man.” Three other women testified to having searched Hall and reported that “he was a man.” But a Captain Basse performed an inspection and determined that there was “a piece of flesh growing at the [section of the document is missing] belly as big as the top of his littler finger (an) inch long.” Basse commanded Hall “to be put in woman’s apparel,” apparently deciding that Hall was a female. To finally resolve the case, the Court decided to accept Hall’s own self-definition as both man and woman, and ordered the determination “to be published in the plantation” where Hall lived, “that he is a man and a woman” and ordered Hall to “go clothed in man’s apparel, only his head to be attired in a coyfe (coif) and crosscloth with an apron before him.”

280 YEARS AGO: 300 Lashes In Savannah for Sodomy: 1734. The description is extremely brief. No names, no details, just two short sentences in the diary of Johann Boltzius and Israel Gronau, Lutheran pastors who ministered to German settlers in the Georgia Colony:

Today an execution of judgment was held here in Savannah. A man from this place had been accused and convicted of sodomy and inciting others, for which he was to receive three hundred lashes under the gallows.

Samuel B. Woodward

“Insanity, Produced by Masturbation”: 1835. In 1829, the state of Massachusetts was alerted to the growing problem of “lunatics and persons furiously mad” who were being kept in local jails, almshouses, or private homes. After completing an informal census of the numbers of people suffering from mental illness, the state legislature established in the Massachusetts Lunatic Hospital in Worcester, among the nation’s first insane asylums, which opened its doors in 1833 under its first superintendent, Dr. Samuel B. Woodward. In many ways, Woodward’s approach represented a significant breakthrough in the attitudes towards treating the mentally ill, who he regarded as suffering from diseases which were not unlike physical illnesses.

However, being a product of his times, Woodward’s understanding of physical and mental illnesses reflected an era when medicine was still based on little more than lore and folk medicine. The mental health profession had even less to go on than that. But I guess they had to start somewhere. And observing the activities of the patients at the Lunatic Hospital was perhaps as good a place to start as anywhere else. On March 25, 1835, Woodward contributed a short article to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (which would later become the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine) detailing what he considered to be an important cause of mental illness:

No cause is more influential in producing Insanity, and, in a special manner, perpetuating the disease, than Masturbation. The records of the institutions give an appalling catalogue of cases attributed to this cause; and yet such records do not show nearly all the cases which are justly ascribable to it. For it is so obscure, and so secret in its operation, that the friends in almost all cases are wholly ignorant of it. It is in a few cases only, where the practice of the vice becomes shamefully notorious, that friends are willing to allow its agency in the production of any disease, particularly insanity; and yet no cause operates more directly upon the mind and the feeling. The mental energies are prostrated by the habit in innumerable cases, long before the delusions of insanity appear. Indeed there are many cases, in which insanity does not intervene between the incipient stages of that mental and physical imbecility, which comes early upon the victim of masturbation, and the most deplorable and hopeless idiocy, in which it frequently results.

It’s easy to be distracted by the terminology used in the early nineteenth century: idiocy, imbecility, lunacy. Today, these words are purely pejorative. But in the nineteenth century, these words had different and rather specific meanings to describe what we today would call severe intellectual disability (or severe mental retardation), milder learning difficulties, and psychosis respectively. And while Woodward used to word “vice” to describe the “notorious” practice, it would be a mistake to assume that Woodward was writing wholely out of moral indignation. (It would also be a mistake to assert that Woodward was immune to the moral indignity directed towards all non-procreative sex acts that was common in his society.)

Instead, it is perhaps best to understand Woodward as operating from what was perhaps the first true mental health laboratory in the U.S. For the first time, a trained physician could directly observe, under controlled conditions, their charges’ conduct. And these charges, often, weren’t self-possessed enough to limit their activities to what was considered proper conduct, including sexual conduct. And since sexual conduct was most certainly not a subject for polite society, Kinsey’s findings that virtually everyone masturbated would come more than a century too late to be of any use to Woodward. And so when Woodward saw crazy people masturbating, he drew the conclusion that masturbation made people crazy, though not always:

This is not, however, always the case. In some individuals there is all the raving of the most furious mania, or the deep and cruel torture of hapless melancholy, before the mind is obliterated and the energies of the system forever prostrated. … Those cases of insanity arising from other known causes, in which masturbation is a symptom, are rendered more hopeless by this circumstance. It is a counteracting influence to all the means of cure employed, either moral or medicinal, and coinciding as it does with whatever other causes may have had an agency in producing disease, renders the case almost hopeless. Of the number of tbe insane that have come under the observation of the writer (and that number is not small), few, very few have recovered, who have been in the habit of this evil practice; and still fewer, I might say almost none, have recovered, in which insanity or idiory has followed the train of symptoms enumerated in a former paper, indicating the presence of the habit, and its debilitating influence upon the minds and bodies of the young.

Clearly, with the limited data available to him, Woodward had difficulty sorting out causation versus correlation, which was a common problem in his day (as it often is today). But he provided some data to try to cast some light on this conundrum. But with no criteria to ascertain whether it was a cause or an effect of the patients’ mental health problems (or totally unrelated altogether, a prospect which apparently never occurred to him), it’s hard to see how it helps:

Of eighty males, insane, that have come under the observation of the writer, and who have been particularly examined and watched, with reference to ascertaining the proportion that practised masturbation, something more than a quarter were found to practise it; and in about 10 per cent., a large proportion of which are idiotic, the disease is supposed to have arisen from this cause.

Once someone had moved on to madness, Woodward wrote, it would be almost impossible to cure him of the practice. “They will rarely form resolutions on the subject, and still more rarely adhere to them. Reason, the balance wheel of the mind, being denied them, they are obnoxious to the influence of all the propensities in a high degree.” But he offered this advice for those who found that they could strain themselves from the habit:

As the inebriate would probably never conquer his appetite for alcoholic drink if he indulged once a month only — so in this habit, the occasional indulgence will thwart the whole plan of cure. The diet should be simple and nutritious; the exercise should be moderate and gentle; indulgence in bed should not be allowed, and the individual should always sleep alone. A matrass (sic) is better than a soft bed. He should rise immediately upon waking, and never retire till the disposition to sleep comes strongly upon him. The cold bath is a valuable remedy, a sea bath is better, and the shower bath often superior to either.

Narcotics, if there is a high degree of irritability in the system, are valuable remedies, of which conium, belladonna, hyoscyamus, nux vomica, and opium, may be used under different circumstances, combined or singly, according to the effects. Blisters and issues on the pudenda or perineum, promise well, and the different preparations of bark and iron, and other mineral tonics, should be used till all the effects of the habit are removed, till the propensity is fully conquered, and the constitution is restored to health and vigor.

Ironically, the very next article in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, titled “Quackery,” warned against the dangerous practice that passed for medical practice and called for a system of statewide regulation of the medical profession.

As for Woodward, he would go on to co-found the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, and serve as the first president. That organization, in 1892, would rename itself the American Medico-Psychological Association which, in 1921, would rename itself again as the American Psychiatric Association.

[Source: Samuel B. Woodward. “Insanity, produced by masturbation.” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 12, no. 7 (March 25, 1835): 109-111. Available online at Google Books.]

State Department Announces Firing of 126 Homosexuals: 1952. Carlisle H. Humelsine, deputy undersecretary at the Department of State, told a House Appropriations Committee that the State Department had fired 126 people accused of homosexuality since January 1, 1951. He said that 119 had been fired from the department and the foreign service during calendar year 1951, and that seven more had been fired so far in 1952. “There is no doubt in our minds,” he told the committee, “that homosexuals are security risks. We havce been working in a very vigorous way on this particular problem. We have resolved that we are going to clean it up.”

Humelsine explained how the Department went about the task. “I think one of the reasons for what appears to be a large figure is that we went to each chief of mission and called his personal attention to it, and said that there is no doubt that we have just got to eradicate this influence from the foreign service. We did the same ting in the department, and I think this shows the results of that sort of work. I hope that next year will show that we have broken the back of this particular problem.”

Committee chairman Rep. John J. Rooney (D-NY) commended the State Department’s efforts, and went on to make what he called a “gratuitous observation that the State Department wasn’t the only government agency with gay people on the payroll. “We probably could do the same thing in all of the departments of the Government, including Interior, Post Office, Treasury and everywhere else. This has been extensively advertised as a problem which is solely the State Department’s, but the facts do not bear that out …. After this committee questioned such possible conditions in the Department of Commerce, it was only a very short time until they had 53, and they were still weeding them out.”

Betty Friedan Says Lesbians Are Taking Over the Women’s Movement: 1973. During the first major fundraising event for the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women, noted feminist author Betty Friedan and NOW founder cited “man hating” and lesbians as two factors that would hinder progress for women. In remarks to those gathered, the author of the 1963 book The Feminine Mystique which is credited for sparking the Women’s movement in the 1960s, repeated her opinion that lesbians were being used as a ploy to divide women. “Let U.S. Rep. Bella Abzug introduce a bill for lesbian mothers. Let Ms. Magazine do a special issue about lesbians. But let us concentrate on men and women working together for full partnership in society.” She continued:

“I have had to say some uncomfortable things because I felt they were important. I think the movement has been infiltrated and the lesbian issue has been pushed forward for divisive purposes. We must not let ourselves be used. … You don’t have to hate men or give up children to be liberated.”

An Associated Press article describing the meeting reported this reaction to Friedan’s remarks:

“Her putting down of the lesbian issue as irrelevant to the women’s movement was incredible,” said Jan Welch, who described herself as a feminist, NOW member and a lesbian, but not a man hater. “I want her to prove that I am somehow harmful to the movement because I am a lesbian. I think it’s Betty that’s causing all the problems.”

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Anita Bryant: 1940. The less said, the better.

Elton John: 1947. He was born Reginald Dwight in Middlesex. He started playing piano at the age of three, and took up formal lessons at seven. He took to composition and showmanship early, writing his own music and playing piano like Jerry Lee Lewis at school functions. By eleven, he won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where he learned Chopin and Bach. He became a pub pianist at fifteen and began playing in bands around London. He answered an ad in the New Musical Express for a songwriter, and was given a stack of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin. Dwight wrote music for the lyrics and sent them back to Taupin, and one of history’s most successful song-writing partnerships was born. Shortly after, Dwight adopted the name Elton John. In 1969 he recorded his first Album, Empty Sky, and followed that up with the eponymous Elton John, which yielded him his first US Top Ten single, “Your Song.” A string of hits followed, building toward the 1973 smash “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” from the album by the same name. In 1976, he “came out” as bisexual, but few believed him. When he married German recording engineer Renate Blauel in 1984, many speculated that the marriage was just a cover. They divorced in 1988, and he finally decided he was “comfortable” being gay.” In 1992, he founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation which raises money for HIV/AIDS prevention and fighting stigma and discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS. Since 1993, John has been in a relationship with David Furnish, which they formalized with a civil partnership in 2005. They became parents in 2010.

Sheryl Swoops: 1971. The standout women’s basketball player led her Texas Tech teammates to the NCAA women’s basketball championship in 1993 during her senior year after setting several NCAA records which are still on the books today. When the Women’s National Basketball Association was formed in 1997, she was the first player signed to the new league. She began her professional career with the Houston Comets, returning to the court only six weeks after giving birth to her son and leading the Comets to the 1997 WNBA Championship. From 1995 to 1999, she was married to her high school sweetheart, but in 2005 she finally announced that she was gay, saying “it doesn’t change who I am. I can’t help who I fall in love with. No one can. … Discovering I’m gay just sort of happened much later in life. Being intimate with [Alisa] or any other woman never entered my mind. At the same time, I’m a firm believer that when you fall in love with somebody, you can’t control that.” Over time, it appears that Swoopes has determined that she is not so much gay as bisexual: in 2011, she broke up with Alisa and became engaged to a man.

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).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

World Vision unifies marriage requirements

World Vision is one of the largest charities in the world, pulling in between 1.5 and 2 billion dollars each year. They are also highly rated, with good transparency and spending about 85 cents of each dollar on program services.

Focused on fighting poverty, hunger and injustice, they provide services to about 100 million people in 100 countries basing their charity on need, not on religious belief or political ideology. Although they are one of the largest AIDS services providers in the world, they also focus strongly on community development and sustainable futures.

World Vision is decided an Evangelical Christian organization. And, as such, they have strict rules about hiring, requiring employees to be Christian and to adhere to sexual ethics which includes “abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage”.

Now World Vision has decided to, well, NOT change the terms of those requirements. They have, however, decided that gay Christians who seek employment with them must follow the same rules as heterosexuals. (Christianity Today)

“Changing the employee conduct policy to allow someone in a same-sex marriage who is a professed believer in Jesus Christ to work for us makes our policy more consistent with our practice on other divisive issues,” he said. “It also allows us to treat all of our employees the same way: abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage.”

This was a decision based on the reality that Christendom is no longer unified on the place of gay people in society or the church. With many Episcopalians and Lutherans and Congregationalists now finding grace in same-sex marriages, World Vision decided that it was not its job to hold to some purity test for just who could be the hands of Christ to a sick child or impoverished family.

Stearns took pains to emphasize what World Vision is not communicating by the policy change.

“It’s easy to read a lot more into this decision than is really there,” he said. “This is not an endorsement of same-sex marriage. We have decided we are not going to get into that debate. Nor is this a rejection of traditional marriage, which we affirm and support.”

“We’re not caving to some kind of pressure. We’re not on some slippery slope. There is no lawsuit threatening us. There is no employee group lobbying us,” said Stearns. “This is not us compromising. It is us deferring to the authority of churches and denominations on theological issues. We’re an operational arm of the global church, we’re not a theological arm of the church.
…
“Denominations disagree on many, many things: on divorce and remarriage, modes of baptism, women in leadership roles in the church, beliefs on evolution, etc.,” he said. “So our practice has always been to defer to the authority and autonomy of local churches and denominational bodies on matters of doctrine that go beyond the Apostles’ Creed and our statement of faith. We unite around our [Trinitarian beliefs], and we have always deferred to the local church on these other matters.”

The organization leaves a great deal of autonomy to local affiliates in hiring decisions, so this policy will not necessarily have global impact. For example, although World Vision opposed the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda, there is a recognition that the Christian community in Uganda is homophobic so there is little expectation that local managers will hire someone in a same-sex marriage.

Nevertheless, this is a hugely important shift.

Until just a few years ago, marriage was a shared position of much of Christian faith and those who supported inclusion were an anomaly. Now it appears that one’s take on recognition of same sex marriage is becoming – at least to this important organization – a issue of denominational theological variance, an interesting and respected matter of opinion but not essential to Christian faith.

[The article is incorrect on one item: the Presbyterian Church (USA) does not allow its ministers to conduct same-sex marriages. It is likely that this policy change will occur at the next convention (it narrowly lost in 2012), but at present the Presbyterian Church (USA) is not a marriage equality denomination.]