Box Turtle Bulletin

Obama: Anti-Homosexuality Bill “Will Complicate Our Valued Relationship With Uganda”

The WHite House has issued this statement by President Barack Obama on Uganda’s pending adoption of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill:

As a country and a people, the United States has consistently stood for the protection of fundamental freedoms and universal human rights. We believe that people everywhere should be treated equally, with dignity and respect, and that they should have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential, no matter who they are or whom they love.

That is why I am so deeply disappointed that Uganda will shortly enact legislation that would criminalize homosexuality. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, once law, will be more than an affront and a danger to the gay community in Uganda. It will be a step backward for all Ugandans and reflect poorly on Uganda’s commitment to protecting the human rights of its people. It also will mark a serious setback for all those around the world who share a commitment to freedom, justice and equal rights.

As we have conveyed to President Museveni, enacting this legislation will complicate our valued relationship with Uganda. At a time when, tragically, we are seeing an increase in reports of violence and harassment targeting members of the LGBT community from Russia to Nigeria, I salute all those in Uganda and around the world who remain committed to respecting the human rights and fundamental human dignity of all persons.

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, February 16

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Brighton Half Marathon, Brighton, UK; Arizona Gay Rodeo, Phoenix, AZ; SF Bear Weekend, San Francisco, CA; Sydney Mardi Gras, Sydney, NSW.

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From the Advocate, March 3, 1983, page 48.

 
I don’t have much information about the Texas Drilling Company, except that it was located in the Virginia-Highland area of Atlanta. Which means that we’re now referencing three very different geographies in one little establishment. (Reminds me of the first Latino gay bar I went to, the Arizona Mining Company in El Paso, Texas.) The Texas Drilling Company was apparently an important incubator for Atlanta’s cowboy and leather scene. It closed in 1985 when the neighborhood changed from biker bars to frat house hangouts. The building, which had earlier been a neighborhood grocery store, now houses the Fontaine Oyster House.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Katharine Cornell: 1893-1974. 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.

John Schlesinger: 1926-2003. The British director of film, stage, television and opera became one of the more influential figures in Britain’s post-war entertainment industry. He began acting in a small number of small parts in films shortly after leaving Oxford. In the mid-fifties, he began directing short documentaries for the BBC. His first feature film came in 1961 with Terminus, a documentary set on a London train station. It earned him a Venice Film Festival Gold Lion a British Academy Award. He then set about making fictional feature films beginning with the award-winning A Kind of Loving (1962), which was the sixth most popular movie in Britain that year. A string of films followed, many of which were set in “swinging London” of the 1960s, and which established Schlesinger as an influential part of the British New Wave.

His first American film, 1969’s Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, became the first and only X-rated film to win an Oscar. It actually won three: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. By today’s standards, the film is much less daring than its x-rating would suggest. The rating came from the story line in which Joe Buck (Voight), a Texas transplant, becomes a hustler soon after arriving in New York. He also begins a relationship of sorts with a con man by the name of “Ratso” Rizzo (Hoffman). MPAA pointed to the film’s “homosexual frame of reference” and its “possible influence upon youngsters” in giving it an X-rating. (It has been reclassified as an “R” with no edits to the original film.) In 1994, Midnight Cowboy was designated as “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation by the U.S. National Film Registry. In 1970, Schlesinger was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Schlesinger went on to make a string of films, some portraying the underbelly of society, others focusing on unusual and often flawed characters, including Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), The Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976), Yanks (1979), The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), Pacific Heights (1990). In 1999’s The Next Best Thing, he paired Madonna and Rupert Everett for a one-night stand between a gay man and a straight woman.

Schlesinger lived quite openly with his partner, Michael Childers, since the late 1960s, although he didn’t publicly address his sexuality until 1991, when Sir Ian McKellen was attacked for being the first openly gay person to be knighted. Schlesinger was one of a dozen British gay and lesbian artists who signed a letter coming to McKellen’s defense.

In 1998, Schlesinger underwent a quadruple heart bypass, and then suffered a stroke in 2000. He remained in poor health until 2003, when he was taken off of life support and died the following day.

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?

Judge Wright Allen’s faith

It seems that those who oppose equality had reason to hope that Judge Arenda Wright Allen would rule in defense of Virginia’s constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage. A profile in the Washington Post reveals her to be a very religious woman:

When Wright Allen testified about her career before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she brought her pastor from the 300-year-old First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk. Besides her husband, Delroy Anthony Allen, the prospective judge said the Rev. Jim Wood was “probably the closest man in my life.”

“I first have to thank God, because it’s clear to me that if it weren’t for him, I would not be here,” Wright Allen said then.

And the First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk is so staunchly opposed to equality that they’ve made it a tenet of their faith:

Regarding Issues Debated in the Church

In 2001, 2009 and again in 2011, the Session of First Presbyterian wrote and affirmed the following three tenets:

1. Jesus Christ is Lord God of all and the only way of salvation.
2. The Holy Scripture is God’s revealed Word, the only infallible rule for faith and life.
3. God’s people are called to holiness in all aspects of life. This includes honoring the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, the only relationship in which sexual activity is appropriate.

We require that judges separate their religious beliefs from civil law. Yet, as judges such as Antonin Scalia illustrate, the chasm between law and religious beliefs about law can sometimes be narrow. And within her ruling she honors the “faith-enriched heritage” of Virginia’s laws.

But Wright Allen rightly found the separation between religious beliefs about how society should be and the constitutional rights of those who disagree with her church’s position. Which makes Wright Allen’s forceful ruling the more powerful.

Ugandan Pro-Government Newspaper: “Uganda Scientists Turn Homosexuality Debate Around”

New Vision, the government-owned newspaper, has weighed in on President Yoweri Museveni’s announcement that he will sign the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law by posting on its web site the press release from the NRM ruling party caucus spokesperson:

PRESENTATION BY A TEAM OF SCIENTISTS FROM MOH AND MAKERERE UNIVERSITY ON HOMOSEXUALITY AND GENETICS IN HUMANS

A Ministerial Committee comprising of scientists from MOH and Makerere University was set up to study homosexuality and genetics in human beings and advise the President and the NRM Caucus on the subject of homosexuality.

The committee comprised of;

– Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng – Director General of Health Services

– Dr. Isaac Ezati – Director Planning and Development at MOH

– Dr. Jacinto Amandua – Commissioner Clinical Services

– Dr. Sheila Ndyanabangi – Head, Mental Health Desk

– Prof. Seggane Musisi – Professor of Psychiatry at Makerere

– Assoc. Prof. Eugene Kinyanda – Senior Research Scientist, Medical Research Council

– Dr. David Basangwa – Director, Butabika Hospital

– Dr. Sylvester Onzivua – Senior Pathologist, Mulago Hospital

– Dr. Misaki Wayengera – Geneticist, Makerere

– Dr. Paul Bangirana – Clinical Psychologist, Makerere

– Prof. Wilson Byarugaba – Rtd. Professor and former Head of Human and Molecular Genetics, Dept of Pathology, Makerere

Two medical Parliamentarians names; Dr. Chris Baryomunsi and Dr. Medard Bitekerezo also presented a report whose findings and conclusions concurred with that of the Ministerial Committee.

The following were their observations;

1. There is no definitive gene responsible for homosexuality.

2. Homosexuality is not a disease but merely an abnormal behavior which may be learned through experiences in life.

3. In every society, there is a small number of people with homosexuality tendencies.

4. Homosexuality can be influenced by environmental factors e.g. culture, religion and peer pressure among others.

5. The practice needs regulation like any other human behavior especially to protect the vulnerable.

6. There is need for further studies to address sexuality in the African context.

Presidential Advisor on Science Dr. Richard Tushemereirwe stated that homosexuality has serious Public Health consequences and should therefore not be tolerated.

H.E. the President then made it clear that his work was done and that all he needed was for the Scientists to sign the paper they presented since it would be a historical document forming basis for the signing of the Bill.

H.E. also declared that he would sign the Bill since the question of whether one can be born a homosexual or not had been answered.

The President emphasized that Promoters, exhibitionists and those who practice homosexuality for Mercenary reasons will not be tolerated and will therefore be dealt with harshly.

Hon. Anite Evelyn

NRM Caucus Spokes person

[All emphases in the original]

You can read the full report here.

Uganda TV Airs MPs’ Reactions to Museveni’s Promise to Sign Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Reactions include that from M.P. David Bahati, who sponsored the legislation in Parliament.

Well, the scientists’ conclusion is very clear that homosexuality is not a disease, that it is not an abnormality, there is no definitive … gene that is responsible for homosexuality.

You can read the “scientists’ conclusion” here.

Ugandan “Scientific Statement on Homosexuality” Surfaces

Ugandan Ministry of Health’s “Scientific Statement on Homosexuality”, dated February 10, 2014. Click to download (PDF: 2MB/12 pages).

Warren Throckmorton has obtained a copy of the Ugandan Ministry of Health’s “Scientific Statement on Homosexuality.” He has also posted a Uganda State House press release announcing President Yoweri Museveni’s intention of giving his assent to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that was passed by Parliament last December without a proper quorum.

Soon after Parliament acted, Museveni scolded Speaker Rebecca Kadaga in a letter for rushing to pass the bill, saying that it was important to find a “scientifically correct solution.” He then ordered a local team of doctors to report back to him on whether homosexuality was genetic. This question appears to be the sole factor in Museveni’s mind on the question of whether people are “born gay,” to the exclusion of very broad range of identified biological, non-genetic factors which have surfaced in the scientific literature over the past three decades. The “Scientific Statement” provided by local doctors barely scratches the surface of the genetic question before dismissing it. It does not explore the many studies addressing laterality, brain structures, pre-natal hormones, maternal immunological responses, etc., which suggest multiple and varying biological foundations for homosexuality later in life. The report however states:

Ultimately, all sexual functions are determined by genes and their interactions with the environment. Thus the causes of homosexuality can be traced to biological, social, environmental, psychological or a combination of them. These influence each other. Reparative therapies to change people’s sexual practices have not proven successful and their scientific validity has remained questionable.

The report then goes on to dedicate more than two pages to the question of whether homosexuality can be “learned or unlearned.” That section again reiterates, “The conclusion from the current body of scientific evidence is that there is no single gene responsible for homosexuality and there is no anatomical or physiological data that can fully explain its occurrence.”

This is true, if one were to expect there to be a single point explanation to explain every individual’s sexuality. In fact, researchers are studying the question from the basis of multiple potential factors, and they uniformly dismiss that fallacy outright. What the hundreds of studies identifying multiple biological foundations for homosexuality suggest is that there are multiple pathways to different expressions of sexuality, and some of those pathways or combinations of pathways may be present in some individuals, while other individuals may be the product of other factors, including different biological factors. In other words, there appears to be multiple biological foundations, rather than a single, clean explanation for homosexuality for every individual. This report fails to recognize the complexity of the question that is recognized in virtually every piece of published research on the subject.

Instead, the report dismisses known biological and physiological data and devotes considerable space in identifying what it contends to be environmental factors in the development of homosexuality:

Psychosocial causes of homosexuality imply that it may be learned through experiences in life. Previous disastrous heterosexual encounters (e.g. erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation) may lead to aversion towards homosexual intercourse. A chance homosexual encounter in early life may be associated with sexual pleasure leading to homosexual relationships being associated with pleasure. The increasing influence of Western culture provides homosexuality as a choice one can make, it’s therefore seen as a socially acceptable option for a few. In conclusion, homosexual tendencies can be taken up based on the person’s judgement on what is pleasurable for them. Why this happens to some people is  not clear, Whereas some homosexuals may take up the behaviour as an open choice, for others it may be due to indoctrination, In summary, homosexuality has no clear cut cause, several factors are involved which differ from individual to individual. It is not a disease that has a treatment. [Emphasis in the original]

The report states that “the essence of homosexuality would be an antithesis for the Darwinian evolution of sex in species largely because homosexuality does not offer an opportunity for the self-propagation of the species,” a common argument posed by anti-gay activists. It continues:

This has been a critical and fundamental argument by some scholars against the non-genetic basis of homosexuality, However, the counterargument has been for group survival, that some individuals in a group not overburdened by reproduction responsibilities would be available to give a hand to weak members of the group (e.g, the elderly and children) as happens in social animals. In our view, at least from existing knowledge and literature, there is no basis for a single, definitive structural genetic basis of homosexuality.

That said, the influence of the largely unstudied processes of epigenetics — which involves non-structural modifications of the genetic code, and represent one of the ways by which we learn many of our acquired traits that we can even pass on to our off-springs, cannot be ruled out.

The report then concludes with an argument for “the need to regulate sexualities”:

Throughout the world, human activity is regulated to ‘safeguard citizens, especially the weak and vulnerable, against the dangers inherent in human activities. Thus human sexuality also needs to be regulated especially as it is the core of the family and hence the nation. At anyone time rules and regulations are based on the current prevailing knowledge and understanding of what is to be regulated. This knowledge and understanding may change depending on the times and circumstances. Today the world has come to the realization that indeed homosexuality is a minority sexual expression practiced by some few members of the community. But, like heterosexuality, it needs to be regulated. No country, in the world today, has come up with a successful way to regulate human sexuality, hence the daily scandals and rapes of this world including sexual and gender based violence or human trafficking for sex. That vulnerable populations (including children, minorities, refugees, the poor, the elderly, mentally ill etc) need to be protected against sexual (and other) exploitations is not in question. African cultures had contained sexual vices. May be we need to revisit them to contain the present explosion of overt and coercive homosexual activity with the exploitation of our young children.

This report appears to have given Museveni the justification he feels he needs to give his assent to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.  According to the press release from State House, Museveni spoke on the decision before the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) caucus “amidst ululations and clapping by NRM members of parliament”:

The President emphasized that this is a job for the scientists before reading out a letter from USA scientist about the same debate. (Letter from US scientists to be sent to the media ASAP) “The authorities are these ones, the University Medical School and medical authorities. And since they have put this in writing…me my job is finished. The most important thing is on the three where there is no debate. On the promotion/recruitment of homosexuals no debate; mercenary homosexuals no debate and exhibitionism not debate. Leadership is not a joke. Don’t just sit there because somebody is calling you Your Excellency, Honourable and you think you are a God. You are just a servant and a servant does his best to do the right thing. That is why I want a scientific answer not a political answer. Let the scientists answer this. And according to the way they have answered it, if they mislead us they are the ones who are responsible,” he said.

A final draft of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill has not been publicly released. According to multiple reports when the bill was passed by Parliament last December, it will impose a life sentence on anyone who is found to be in a gay relationship or who is a “repeat offender” of any other portion of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Other provisions include criminal penalties for providing lodgings or services to gay people, officiating a same-sex wedding ceremony, or advocated for or on behalf of LGBT people. Museveni has also reportedly told his caucus that he supports a constitutional revision to prevent suspects charged under the nation’s sodomy laws from being released on bail before trial.

Update: You can read the NRM’s press release about the report here.

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, February 15

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Brighton Half Marathon, Brighton, UK; Arizona Gay Rodeo, Phoenix, AZ; SF Bear Weekend, San Francisco, CA; Sydney Mardi Gras, Sydney, NSW.

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From Boston’s Gay Community News, June 24, 1983, page 14.

 
Located just northwest of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the Marquee was the only gay bar of three clubs owned by Don Holland. The other two were Man Ray and Campus. The building today houses the Phoenix Landing, “an alternative Irish bar.”

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Michael Swift’s “The Gay Revolutionary”: 1987. Think back to what the beginning of 1987 was like. AIDS was ravaging the gay community, with nearly 25,000 dead and AZT, the first U.S. government-approved treatment for HIV therapy, wouldn’t become FDA approved for another month. The year would be the year of the cri de coeur, with ACT-Up’s formation that year being the most visible manifestation of the growing anger over the apparent indifference on the part of public officials in New York City and Washington, D.C., as well as the overt hostility that the epidemic engendered in much of conservative Christianity.

Another cry rang out from Boston, although it was little noticed at the time. Just another crazy essay from the often-provocative Gay Community News. This one, written under the byline of Michael Swift was printed and then soon forgotten, until two years later when Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-CA) read it into the Congressional Record:

We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.

…All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.

All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.

If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.

…We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.

Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.

From there, the essay became the anti-gay establishment’s favorite example of the so-called “homosexual agenda.” Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition put out a notorious video, “Gay Rights, Special Rights,” which repeated passages from the so-called manifesto and paired it with ominous music and pictures of children. In the 2001 book, Bringing Up Boys, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson cited Swift’s essay (retitling it “Goals of the Homosexual Movement”) as evidence that parents must protect their children from homosexuals. “Guard them night and day when they are young,” he wrote. “Don’t send them into a public bathroom alone.” In more recent years, the so-called manifesto has gone international — from Latvia and Russia, to Uganda and Jamaica — and it still re-emerges from time to time here at home.

But every time the essay is repeated by anti-gay extremists, they always carefully omit a vitally important component of the piece, just as that component was skipped when Dannemeyer read it into the Congressional Record. And for the essay to serve their purpose, it’s critical this crucial piece be left out, because it’s impossible to understand the true nature of the essay without it. That piece that they always leave out is this, the prologue:

This essay is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor.

The name of the essay’s author, Michael Swift, should also be a clue. Nobody knows who the real author is, but the essayist clearly took his cue from the famous satirist Jonathan Swift, whose 1729 essay A Modest Proposal — in which the other Swift suggested that the easiest way to ease the crushing poverty in Ireland was for the Irish to sell their plentiful babies as a food delicacy for the rich — created a wave of outrage in England for the way that he savaged the condescending attitudes of those behind many of the illogical solutions that had been proposed at that time.

The 20th-century Swift’s essay, similarly, satirized the attitudes behind some of the worst homophobic expressions that were then being unleashed in 1987, by perfectly mimicking how those homophobes imagined the worst of the “militant homosexuals.” He mimicked their prejudices so well that they took it as a genuine manifesto, and it’s that accomplishment which makes it, I think, a perfect satire. But it’s also ironic that those whose attitudes Michael Swift satirized so well found such a nearly perfect weapon in that very same essay. Michael Bronski, who had been a features writer for Gay Community News when the first essay ran, later developed second thoughts about it. In 2003, Bronski said, “We printed it thinking that it was sort of funny. It’s been picked up by all these lunatic right-wing fringe people. In retrospect, it’s caused so much… it keeps getting quoted as being serious by people on the right and it simply was making a political point, using humor. I personally would, knowing how much it’s been misrepresented, I would think twice about printing it then.”

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 Apartheid 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.

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?

Inconvenient Scripture

In something out of Kansas called The Rolla Daily News, Jim Brock rants about the proposed pro-discrimination bill. He doesn’t think it’s very Christian:

I guess some members of the Kansas House never read Matthew 25:40-45: “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'”

The holy words of Bible can be so inconvenient, especially when they don’t come from Exodus or Leviticus.

Uganda President Supports Changing the Constitution to Scrap Bail for Sodomy

On the heels of reports that Uganda President Yoweri Museveni intends to sign the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law comes more distressing news that Museveni also supports a change to the Uganda Constitution to allow holding people suspected of breaking that nation’s antiquated anti-sodomy laws in jail without bail:

The ruling party majority yesterday resolved to back President Museveni’s proposal to deny bail for sodomy suspects, defilers and rapists and tasked Ministry of Justice to expedite the process of amending the Constitution to that effect.

Mr Museveni, in a renewed call for the scrapping of the bail window for suspects in capital offences, told the NRM Caucus retreat in Kyankwanzi that the status-quo is encouraging crime in the country.

While corruption is not part of President’s list of targeted offences, sources told the Daily Monitor that “sodomy” was included at the behest of MPs who told their party leader that it has become such an “insidious” problem in the country.

…Caucus spokesperson Evelyn Anite confirmed the latest developments to the Daily Monitor that the Ministry of Justice was tasked to kick-start the process amid cheers from the ruling party members. “The President had proposed that bail must be denied to those who rape and defile others and MPs amended it to include those that sodomise others. The proposal was overwhelmingly supported,” said Ms Anite.

It would appear that Museveni is angling to out-populist the populist Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadagga, an early supporter of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill who shepherded it through Parliament last December. She is reported to have ambitions for Museveni’s job in 2016.

Spokesman: Uganda President to Sign Anti-Homosexuality Bill into Law

This news comes by way of J. Lester Feder at Buzzfeed:

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has decided to sign a law imposing up to a lifetime jail sentence for homosexuality, announced government spokesman Ofwono Opondo via Twitter on Friday. NRM caucus spokeswoman Evelyn Anite confirmed Opondo’s announcement to BuzzFeed.

This is a reversal for Museveni, who had written to members of parliament after the legislation passed in December that he had come to believe that homosexuality was a biological “abnormality” and not something that should be criminalized. He had also told Western human rights activists that he would reject the bill during a meeting last month.

Throughout the years since the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was first introduced in Uganda’s Parliament, Museveni has made several attempts to sidetrack the bill. In 2010, four months after the bill’s introduction, Museveni told his ruling party caucus that the government should “go slow” with the bill, citing foreign policy concerns. Later that year, Museveni’s cabinet reported that they had “rejected” the private member’s bill sponsored by M.P. David Bahati. His cabinet tried to repeat that assertion again in 2011, only to be told that because it is a private member’s bill, it was not the cabinet’s to reject. After Parliament passed the bill last December despite not having a proper quorum as required by the constitution, Museveni denounced the bill in a letter to Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga and vowed to find a “scientifically correct solution.” He also told representatives from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights that he would not give his assent to what he called a “fascist” bill.

One possible development in Museveni’s reconsideration of the bill may be political. Speaker Kadaga, who is among the bill’s earliest supporters, reportedly has presidential aspirations and sees pushing Anti-Homosexuality Bill as a convenient populist move. Her pushing the bill through Parliament set up an interesting dynamic ahead of the annual NRM Caucus in January where Museveni had planned to line up support for his bid for re-election in 2016 to add another 5-year term to what will be thirty years in office. At least one of his ministers had threatened to resign if Museveni were to return the bill to Parliament, a development that would complicate his party’s coronation. Another turning point may have occurred two weeks ago when, according to a report in Uganda’s Observer, he “surprised his ruling NRM MPs on Friday when he said he would only sign the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law, if he gets scientific proof that homosexuals are made and not born.” Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, also reported on that development, adding:

A source who attended the Friday meeting said MPs urged the President to sign the Bill. Dr Medard Bitekyerezo, MP for Mbarara Municipality, informed the President that nobody is born a homosexual but the behaviour is only acquired through training. “Homosexuality is not genetically transmitted. It is a behavioural deviation but on the negative side,” Dr Betekyerezo reportedly said.

Dr Chris Baryomunsi (Kinkizi East) said: “The President wanted the science which we gave him and he agreed with us that recruiters and promoters should be dealt with accordingly. We told him that homosexuality started as a result of adventurism.”

This development comes despite the American Psychiatric Association’s recent statement denouncing the bill and calling into question “the quality of the scientific pronouncements about homosexuality by Ugandan mental health organizations.” It also comes on the heels of today’s news that researchers in Chicago have identified a possible genetic link between homosexuality and the Xq28 chromosome and homosexuality in at least some gay men.

If Museveni signs the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law, it will impose a life sentence on anyone who is found to be in a gay relationship or who is a “repeat offender” of any other portion of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Other provisions include criminal penalties for providing lodgings or services to gay people, conducting a same-sex wedding ceremony, or advocated for or on behalf of LGBT people.

Wyoming House votes down anti-gay marriage bill

Yesterday we reported that the Wyoming House of Representatives had rejected a marriage equality bill by a 41 to 17 vote. Later in the day, the House also rejected an anti-gay marriage bill. (SFGate)

The state later Thursday voted down a bill sponsored by Casper Republican Rep. Gerald Gay that would have specified that Wyoming wouldn’t recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

Cheyenne Rep. Dan Zwonitzer [R – Cheyenne] spoke against the bill, saying the “Equality State” shouldn’t take a step backward.

The House voted against introducing the bill by a vote of 31-to-29.

I suppose the message here is that the Wyoming House of Representatives is not ready to support marriage equality. Yet. But they’re on their way.

Perhaps it is time to try again for Domestic Partnerships.

Another Genetic Link?

That’s what a new study from Chicago suggests:

A region of the X chromosome called Xq28 had some impact on men’s sexual behaviour – though scientists have no idea which of the many genes in the region are involved, nor how many lie elsewhere in the genome.

Another stretch of DNA on chromosome 8 also played a role in male sexual orientation – though again the precise mechanism is unclear.

Researchers have speculated in the past that genes linked to homosexuality in men may have survived evolution because they happened to make women who carried them more fertile. This may be the case for genes in the Xq28 region, as the X chromosome is passed down to men exclusively from their mothers.

Michael Bailey, of Northwest University in Chicago, presented his findings at a meeting of the of the American Association for the Advancement of Science yesterday in Chicago. Bailey’s findings have yet to be published. Earlier research by Dean Hamer in 1993 also found that 33 out of 40 gay brothers had inherited similar genetic markers on the Xq28 region of the X chromosome.

The data however suggests that this may not explain homosexuality in all gay men. Some may inherit these markers, while others may be gay due to other factors, including potentially other biological factors such as pre-natal hormones. The data also suggests that even for those who do inherit these markers, genetics is likely not the sole influence on sexuality. For example, identical twins are not carbon copies of each other. For example, they still have unique fingerprints, irises, mole patterns, and many other differences.

Federal District Judge Declares Virginia Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

While I was sleeping, Federal District Judge U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen found Virginias constitutional amendment banning marriage equality and the recognition of same-sex marriages from other states as a violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban is considered one of the most sweeping bans in the country. It’s only fitting, then, the Judge Allen’s ruling is similarly sweeping. In addition to striking down the constitutional amendment, she also set aside portions of the civil code and “any other Virginia law that bars same-sex marriage or prohibits Virginia’s recognition of lawful same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions.” Marriages won’t begin anytime soon however, ah Judge Allen issued a stay pending an appeal to the Fourth Circuit Court. In Judge Allen’s 42-page ruling, she concludes:

The Court is compelled to conclude that Virginia’s Marriage Laws unconstitutionally deny Virginia’s gay and lesbian citizens the fundamental freedom to choose to marry. Government interests in perpetuating traditions, shielding state matters from federal interference, and favoring one model of parenting over others must yield to this country’s cherished protections that ensure the exercise of the private choices of the individual citizen regarding love and family.

Judge Allen set the tone for her ruling on the cover page of her opinion, when she took the unusual step to add a preface consisting of a block quotation from Mildred Loving (née Jeter) the African-American Virginia resident who married her white husband, Richard Perry Loving in 1958, in violation of Virginia’s Anti-miscegenation law, and whose case went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck those laws down nationwide:

We made a commitment to each other in our love and lives, and now had the legal commitment, called marriage, to match. Isn’t that what marriage is? … I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry. Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. … I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

— Mildred Loving, “Loving for All”

Judge Allen turns to another landmark American at the conclusion of her opinion:

Justice has often been forged from fires of indignities and prejudices suffered. Our triumphs that celebrate the freedom of choice are hallowed. We have arrived upon another moment in history when We the People becomes more inclusive, and our freedom more perfect.

Almost one hundred and fifty four years ago, as Abraham Lincoln approached the cataclysmic rending of our nation over a struggle for other freedoms, a rending that would take his life and the lives of hundreds of thousands of others, he wrote these words: “It can not have failed to strike you that these men ask for just. . . the same thing–fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have. “

The men and women, and the children too, whose voices join in noble harmony with Plaintiffs today, also ask for fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as it is in this Court’s power, they and all others shall have. [Emphasis in the original]

The Daily Agenda for Friday, February 14

Today’s Valentine’s Day poem comes to us from the February, 1962 issue of ONE magazine.

John, Passing

Steve, you say your name is, from Columbus, somewhere,
Going through New York on your way to somewhere else.
Oh New York is my home, I offer, smiling secretly
At the handsome aspirant who is really no longer
An aspirant but — John, passing — in one of his legion disguises.

Only last week you were Tim from Maine’s lumbering woods
Ending your vacation days here — Steve, you say.
Oh, yes. You’ve chosen that temporary name, John, passing.

But before we start, and you leave, admiring the neatness of my petite bedroom,
Let me make another plea as I did when you, John, passing, were here as Milo,
A hundred Bobs, Franks, Georges, Bills and one Sylvester ago.

Stay.
John, passing.
Stay.
So I may stop days and weeks searching you,
Finding the many different names you answer to and faces you wear.
So we can weld an iron home from this swirling world
And fend from reality’s cruel sunlight
So loneliness’ deep ulcers can have end and justification in you
And what’s left of this savagely confused pattern can bring a happier existence.

Pause.
You needn’t answer.
I’m sorry.
I’ve embarrassed you.
Steve you say your name is.
We’d better get on before you’re late for your train.

— Vincent Synge

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Brighton Half Marathon, Brighton, UK; Arizona Gay Rodeo, Phoenix, AZ; SF Bear Weekend, San Francisco, CA; Sydney Mardi Gras, Sydney, NSW.

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From the Arizona Gay News, February 9, 1979, page 10. Available online here.

 
Connection was a very popular Phoenix bar, located on North 7th Street across from the VA Hospital. Their parking lot was home to an annual Luau, with trucked in sand converting it into a tropical beach. In its previous incarnation, the club had been known as the Sugar Shack, and it later became simply The Club. The building has since been torn down and replaced with an empty parking lot.

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.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Jim Kepner: 1923-1997. There’s no telling exactly when Kepner was born. His mother found him wrapped in newspapers under an oleander bush in an empty lot in Galveston, Texas in late September of 1923. They guessed he was about eight months old, give or take. He never knew exactly how old he really was. I asked around trying to get more clues, but Paul Cain, author of Leading the Parade: Conversations with America’s Most Influential Lesbians and Gay Men checked his notes and didn’t have anthing either. He then suggested, “If you just want to pick a day in February, maybe you could pick Feb 14 — Jim really was a sweetheart!”

And so I shall.

Kepner may have been abandoned because of his deformed leg and club foot, which despite corrective surgery and physical therapy, gave him a limp for the rest of his life. That limp, more than his attempt to classify himself as a Conscientious Objector, probably kept him out of the draft during World War II. That he was open about his homosexuality may have been a factor as well. In 1942, he moved with his father to San Francisco, where he discovered the underground gay scene. He also began searching for books and other material on homosexuality. Over the years, that search would lead him to compile one of the largest archives of LGBT literature in the U.S.

Between 1943 and 1951, he moved to Los Angeles, New York, Miami, back to San Francisco, then back to Los Angeles. Along the way, he became involved with the Communist party while the U.S. was still allied with the Soviet Union, but was kicked out when his homosexuality became known. Upon returning to L.A., Kepner became involved with the Mattachine Society. Soon after, he met up with other former Mattachine members who had just launched ONE, the first nationally-distributed gay magazine (see Oct 15).

Kepner’s first article in ONE appeared in March, 1954, titled “The Importance of Being Different” under the pseudonym of Lyn Pedersen. His debut article went to the very heart of a critical debate taking place in the gay community. Mattachine founder Harry Hay, for example (see Apr 7), argued that gay people were a distinct cultural minority, while others like Dale Jennings (see Oct 21) held that the only difference between gay people and straight people was who they went to bed with. Kepner threw his support with Hay, announcing “Vive la Différence!” But he also urged readers not to let the controversy split the nascent movement. “What can a Society accomplish if half of it feels its object is to convince the world we’re just like everyone else and the other half feels homosexuals are variants in the full sense of the term and have every right to be? … Only by allowing the free action of individual groups within the structure of an elastic society can such diverse philosophies work together.”

By the fall of 1954, Kepner was working more or less full time at ONE, although he didn’t draw a salary until 1957. Kepner continued writing under his own name as well as several pseudonyms, mainly as a marketing ploy to mask the fact that ONE had such a tiny staff. Meanwhile, ONE had also established an educational branch, the ONE Institute, in addition to the publication arm of ONE magazine. The competing goals, education versus publication, put a strain on the organization, with the two arms competing for priorities and scarce resources. Kepner finally resigned from ONE in 1960, frustrated by the infighting and lax management in the organization.

Kepner stayed out of gay advocacy until the mid sixties. In 1966, he became the secretary of the Southern California Council on Religion and the Homophile, and edited ten issues of their newsletter. He also began publishing his own magazine, Pursuit & Symposium, which focused on gay history. He mortgaged his house to fund it. After two years, the magazine failed and he lost his house. In 1967, he helped to organize a rally in response to the LAPD raid on the Black Cat bar (see Jan 1), where he declared that “the nameless love would never again shut up.” Out of that rally came a new gay rights group, PRIDE (Personal Rights in Defense and Education), and Kepner served as the editor for the group’s newsletter. In October, that newsletter would become The Los Angeles Advocate, then later simply The Advocate. Kepner remained a regular with The Advocate through 1976, and contributed sporadically afterwards. Kepner also helped to form the Society of Pat Rocco Enlightened Enthusiasts (SPREE), and is credited with convincing the Park Theatre’s (straight) owners to program for gay audiences (see Feb 9). In 1969, he became an active member of the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front, and he served on the Christopher Street West committee from 1970 to 1977. He was a founder of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, and would would come to work as a member of their paid staff for their education program from 1978 to 1980.

Jim Kepner with his archives

Beginning in 1971, Kepner made his vast collection of gay documents and memorabilia available to the public. In 1975, he dubbed his collection the Western Gay Archives, then renamed them again in 1984 as the International Gay and Lesbian Archives. By then, the collection consisted of 25,000 books and thousands of other items. In 1994, Kepner’s collection was merged with ONE’s archives at the University of Southern California. That archive today is known as the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives. (If you ever have a chance to stop in, I heartily recommend it.) Kepner died in 1997, at about the age of 74. A month later, his anthology, Rough News, Daring Views: 1950s’ Pioneer Gay Press Journalism, was published by Haworth Press.

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?

Wyoming House votes down a marriage bill

From SFGate

The Wyoming House has defeated a bill that would have changed state law to allow same-sex marriages.

Democratic Rep. Cathy Connolly of Laramie sponsored the bill. It would have removed the state’s current legal specification that marriage is a civil contract between a man and a woman.

The House voted 41-to-17 against the bill on Thursday.

I don’t think anyone expected this bill to pass. What’s interesting, however, is that the Wyoming House has 52 Republicans and 8 Democrats. Which means that a marriage equality bill in Wyoming got the support of 9 Republicans.

And that is a sign of progress.