Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Monday, July 22

New Orlean’s Dixie’s Bar, one of the South’s few openly gay bars in the 1950s.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
55 YEARS AGO: New Orleans Launches Raids Against Gay Bars: 1958. The Big Easy has long enjoyed a mind-your-own business reputation where personal and public morality is concerned. But that “Laissez les bons temps rouler” mindset didn’t extend to the city’s gay citizenry, and much like other major cities across the nation, anti-gay campaigns often heated up ahead of local elections. Mayor deLesseps “Chep” Morrison had earned a national reputation as a dynamic reformer, even as he blocked efforts to reform the city’s notoriously corrupt police department. But in 1958, city councilmen complained that the police were sitting on their hands while the French Quarter was being invaded by roving bands of homosexuals, alledgedly from other cities since, apparently, such a thing was unheard of there, the city’s storied tolerance for sexual eccentrics in music, literature and the arts notwithstanding. One councilman complained of “men with blondined hair and awful looking people all day and all night in the French Quarter,” and wondered why police had only made 86 arrests in two years on charges of lewd behavior or wearing women’s clothing. Police Supt. Provosty A. Dayries responded, “You can’t just point to someone and say he or she is a deviate — that is one of the frustrating things about the problem.”

Amid complaints about lax police enforcement and courts that insisted that those arrested should be charged with something specific and based on real evidence, Mayor Morrison appointed his half-brother, Jacob Morrison to head a citizen’s committee to look into the problem. With pressure increasing across all sectors of city govermnent, Supt. Dayries launched a raid against known “deviate bars,” arresting eighteen people (mostly bar employees) on charges of vagrancy, disturbing the peace, and “no visible means of support.” Thirty others were warned to stay away. While most of the charges were dropped the next day, the names and addresses of those arrested were printed in the newspapers. That raid was tiny, compared to another “sweeping drive” which resulted in 325 arrested in a single night. One city resident, in a letter to the editor to a local paper, noted the irony of the New Orleans political establishment enforcing morals in the city: “I consider it a piece of unmitigated gall for anyone, be he District Attorney or City Councilman, to tell me what I may see or with whom I may associate without endangering my morals. I must confess that were I to seek guidance in matters of morals, I should not likely turn to politicians.”

[Source: “Dal McIntire” (either Jim Kepner or Don Slater). “Tangents: News and Views.” ONE 6, no. 8 (September 1958): 17-20.]

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
50 YEARS AGO: Emily Saliers: 1963. A singer-songwriter and one half of Indigo Girls, she plays the guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukulele and the Greek bouzouki. She met her Indigo Girls partner, Amy Ray, when they were in elementary school together in Decatur, Georgia. Both Girls are lesbian, although Saliers jokes that she prefers “gay” because “lesbian has three syllables.” In 2004, Saliers co-wrote a book with her father, retired theology professor Don Saliers, titled A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: Reflections on Music as Spiritual Practice, and the two of them conducted a combined book tour and church appearances around the country, including a stop at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.  The Indigo Girls released their latest album, Beauty Queen Sister, in 2011, and they are currently touring as a duo, with several dates accompanied by a full band and symphony orchestras in select cities.

40 YEARS AGO: Rufus Wainwright: 1973. His mother was the late Kate McGarrigle, and his father is Loudon Wainwright III. With genes like that, it’s no wonder Rufus won a 1989 Genie Award for Best Original Song when he was only  sixteen years old. Rolling Stone named his eponymous debut album as one of the best albums of the year and named him the Best New Artist of 1998. Politically, he came late to the marriage equality bandwagon. “I wasn’t a huge gay marriage supporter before I met Jörn (Weisbrodt) because I love the whole old-school promiscuous Oscar Wilde freak show of what ‘being gay’ once was. But since meeting Jörn that all changed.” He and Weisbrodt became parents in 2011, and they married in Montauk, New York in 2012. His seventh studio album, Out of the Game, was released that same year. He is currently bringing his show to Europe, and to several U.S.and Canadian cities this fall.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

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The Daily Agenda for Sunday, July 21

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations Today: Charlotte, NC (Black Pride); Frankfurt, Germany; Hull, UK; Kitsap, WA; Peel, ON; Portland, OR (Latino Pride); Reading, PA; Rochester, MN; Rochester, NY.

AIDS Walk Today: San Francisco, CA.

Other Events Continuing Today: Sand Blast Weekend, Asbury Park, NJ; Outfest Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA; Miami Beach Bruthaz, Miami Beach, FL; QFest Film Festival, Philadelphia, PA; Bear Week, Provincetown, MA.

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
“The Homosexual and the Beat Generation”: 1959. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch (1957), and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957) introduced Americans to the “Beat Generation,” a group, and then a movement, which began in New York’s Greenwhich Village and ended up relocating, for the most part, to San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, nurtured by City Lights bookstore, Cafe Trieste, and the Six Gallery. Dubbed “Beatniks” by conservative detractors who believed that they detected Anti-American Communist sympathies among the non-conforming and spontaneous hedonists, the Beats probably reached their peak awareness among middle-Americans with the archetypal Beatnik character of Maynard G. Krebs (played by future Gilligan, Bob Denver) in “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” which aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963. Goatees, berets, black sweaters, bongo drums, roll-your-own cigarettes (often with substances other than tobacco) and a general, overall rebellion against the straight-laced norms of the McCarthy-dominated fifties marked the Beats as both a dangerous and fascinating phenomenon.

And it’s no wonder that another set of iconoclasts — gay people — would themselves become fascinated by this movement. In 1959, ONE magazine, the nation’s first nationally-distributed gay-themed publication, featured an article on “The homosexual and the Beat Generation.” The author, Wallace de Ortega Maxey, was himself the embodiment of counter-culturalism: a former priest and Archbishop of the American Old Catholic Church (an independent breakaway church) who seemed to collect consecrations from a bewildering number of pseudo-Catholic churches as well as the Episcopal Church, before abandoning independent Catholicism in 1954 and establishing a Liberal Universalist Church, first in Los Angeles in 1954, and then in Fresno. Maxey’s interests were quite small-c catholic, as being an early Mattachine member and author of Man Is A Sexual Being in 1958. By the time Maxey wrote his article for ONE, San Francisco’s Beats found themselves being gawked at by tourists and bedeviled by wannabe weekend Beatnicks. Maxey began his article by describing the difference between what he called the “real” Beats and these posseurs:

This gang of “kix” hoodlums consist of heterosexuals in the larger number. They are those who like to “cash-in” on the daring and non-conforming Beats. Havihg money in their pockets, they think they can out-buy, out-bid and out-sex the Beats. The few homos in this tribe of week-enders are of the timid sort who can’t make it in their own everyday world and in despair hope to find “satisfaction” in the world of the beat generation. …

There is a distinction to be made between the beat-homo and the nonbeat. The beat-homo has no inhibitions. Within his own consciousness he has accepted himself and is completely integrated. He is not fighting himself, much less the rest of the world. This applies to the male as well as the female of the species. He doesn’t give one god dam what the world thinks about him. Like the rest of the beat generation he simply wants to be left alone. He has closed his mental door to the rat-race. He has cut himself off from the shams and shamans of the competitive world. He is usually of the aesthetic type, psychologically, not necessarily so physically.

I have seen some gangling seamen and longshoremen, truck drivers, woodsmen and cement-construction workers, that would surprise all hell out of you when you listen to their conversation. In their particular fields of interest and study they are extraordinarily well informed. There is one chap I am thinking of who has been a seaman all his life, who can keep you spell-bound when telling about the “history of erotica”. Another, a female, could write a book about the world’s historic prostitutes and how they have influenced political thought. Still another homo-beat has been in several mental institutions under observation, but can reel off anything you want to know about the religions of the Orient. Of course, I am speaking of the real Beats, the ones who have severed all ties with the square world, as far as it is humanly possible to do, and still live.

It has been said that Allen Ginsberg is the St. Peter of the beat generation. He has been quoted in the New York Post (3-13-59) as saying: “I sleep, with men and with women. I am neither queer nor not queer, nor am I bi-sexual. My name is Allen Ginsberg and I sleep with whoever I want.” It has been my experience in discussing life in general with a considerable number of Beats, that these words of Allen Ginsberg voice quite accurately the opinions of the majority of the real Beats.

Maxey went on to describe two “Beat-homos” that he had been counseling. The first was “Tom Doe,” who had been kicked out of the Army when “it was discovered he was a homosexual.” With a less-than-honorable discharge, he had trouble finding steady work. He lost his home, turned to alcohol, and “ended up three months later on a pad in Beatnik-land.” After discovering Maxey’s book, Doe underwent counseling with Maxey, with some considerable success:

When finally he was able to stop his self·deception and admit to himself he was what he was, all other matters took their proper place. When this bug-a-boo was disposed of and he could see his “whole self”, not just the phantom side, it was not long before he had re-established himself. However, he still thinks of himself as a Beatnik and has never moved away from Beatnik-land. At present, after much struggling and hardship he owns and operates a “shop” making a moderate living off the “squares” that come to stare at the Beats.

The second example, that of “Jim Doe,” probably is a better portrayal of a true San Fransico “Beat-homo”:

As stated previously he contended homosexuality was not his problem. He freely and frankly admitted to such tendency. When we met he was quite outspoken and wasted no words in getting to the situation that was disturbing him. He lived with a man and a girl in Beatnik-land; was contemplating going to art school and was quite talented in music and painting. He had been successful to the extent of having sold two of his composilions and one oil painting for a quite tidy sum of money. He claimed that his social relations were excellent with the other Beatniks and that generally speaking they liked him. What was his problem? Doubt. Underneath all the social relationships there was ever present a constant fear of someone betraying him. Of misplaced confidence. He never completely trusted anyone. Basically, when he got right down to the subject he was so damn lonesome, at nights after social events he usually went home alone, locked himself in his room and cried.

Doubt was his problem. First, I learned that he really doubted himself. After considerable discussion with Jim, I came to the conclusion his acceptance of his homosexuality was not as he made it appear. From his reading of abnormal phychology he wondered about his sex. As he said to me, “Am I a man or a woman?” “Who really was my father?” (He had never been able to find a birth record.) “Have I ever loved anyone?” “Does anything have any real meaning-or is life just an illusion?” “Dare I really trust anyone, completely?” “Must I go through all my life in doubt?” “The only reason I’m a Beatnik is that none of them try to pry into my personal life … I can get along with the other Beatniks because they don’t ask ‘personal questions’ “.

Naturally it took considerable time and effort to bring about a change in his outlook on life. After exploring the various psychological “excuses” he presented for his condition, we assumed none were satisfactory by way of explanation. He had experienced a rotten home life in his youth. So have thousands of people. Examples were cited of heroic characters who began in pot-sheds. Switching to the existentialist treatment, in a few words I made it clear to him quoting from Jean-Paul Sartre: “Whereas the existentialist says that the coward makes himself cowardly, the hero makes himself heroic; and that there is always the possibility for the coward to give up cowardice and for the hero to stop being a hero. What counts is the total commitment, and it is not by a particular case or particular action that you are committed altogether.”

…The final outcome in Jim Doe’s story is interesting. He met a girl named Dora, a confirmed Lesbian. They got married and now have two children, a boy and a girl. Jim still says he is an homosexual and Dora affirms she is still a Lesbian, and they both live in Beatnik-land.

Maxey observed that there were several general similarities between the Beat Generation and the so-called “Lost Generation,” the group of artists of the inter-war years which included Earnest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. But…

I think the Lost Generation placed more emphasis on the social and civil liberties interests than the Beats are doing. I think the beat generation is more nude than the Lost Generation was. There is little to discover among the Beatniks. As a matter of fact, they have a certain amount of juvenile crudeness in their art work and writing, with exceptions of course. They, the Beats, are not forced to starve while many · of the Lost Generation were, during the long siege of the depression.

However, with all their vices and virtues if they can teach the world by example the evils of social conformity, I feel they will go down in history as having made a worthwhile contribution.

[Source: Wallace de Ortega Maxey. “The Homosexual and the Beat Generation” ONE 7, no. 7 (July 1959): 5-9. ]

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, July 20

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Charlotte, NC (Black Pride); Colorado Springs, CO; Frankfurt, Germany; Hull, UK; Kitsap, WA; Leipzig, Germany; Marseille, France (EuroPride 2013); Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK; Peel, ON; Plymouth, UK; Portland, OR (Latino Pride); Reading, PA; Rochester, MN; Rochester, NY.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: San Francisco, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Sand Blast Weekend, Asbury Park, NJ; Outfest Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA; Miami Beach Bruthaz, Miami Beach, FL; QFest Film Festival, Philadelphia, PA; Bear Week, Provincetown, MA.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
 55 YEARS AGO: Panel Discussion on Homosexuality Airs in L.A.: 1958. KTLA’s Crime Story was one of those very serious, topical panel discussion programs, airing in the graveyard time slot of 11:00 p.m. on Sunday nights. The program picked a topic each week, and moderator Sandy Howard would assemble a panel of “experts” — typically from among the KTLA staff, since real experts weren’t eager to schlep to the studio late at night for a low-rated program. Topics for discussion included drugs, law enforcement, prison reform, international crime, and, on this night, homosexuality, which itself was a crime under California law.

In previous episodes when the subject of homosexuality came up, the tone was almost entirely negative and the opinions offered were ill-informed. But on this night, things were different. Sitting in for Howard was Bill Bradley, who this time actually managed to assemble a panel of real people who actually had experience on the topic, including Herbert Selwyn, attorney for the Los Angeles Chapter of the Mattachine Society. Also on the panel were two psychiatrists (both of them working for state penal systems), and a private detective and former L.A. policeman who also free-lanced for the scandal magazine Confidential. After the announcer made clear that the opinions expressed on the program were not those of KTLA, Bradley asked the panel to define “sex crime.” Right off the bat, one of the two psychiatrists, Dr. Isidore Ziferstein of the Iowa State Penitentiary, declared that he didn’t consider sex acts between consenting adults to be criminal because no one was harmed — a radical idea in 1958. Fred Otash, the private detective, began explaining that California’s penal code defined “sex perversion” as including, more specifically, “copulation by mouth.” Ziferstein responded, “Yes, the penal code regarding sex acts would make nearly every American citizen a sex criminal.” The other psychiatrist, Dr. William Graves of San Quentin, then joined Ziferstein in agreement.

Bradley then asked whether all homosexual men — lesbians were never mentioned during the entire program — were sex criminals. Otash jumped in and said yes, according to the letter of the law, and rightly so, contending that homosexuals bred other homosexuals simply by contact. Because homosexuals could not keep to themselves, they “preyed on normal men” and made them gay. He then got tired of saying the word “homosexual,” over and over. “You may call them homosexuals, I call them ‘fags’,” he declared. That, for the most part, was the extent of his “expertise.”

Selwyn, confident that the two psychiatrists would answer the question of whether “normal men” could be turned so easily, turned the topic instead to the problem of police entrapment, which was rampant in Los Angeles. If a policeman could strike up a conversation with a gay man in a bar and get the man to suggest that they retire to his apartment, he was liable to find himself in handcuffs and facing a fifteen year sentence.

The program ended with the two psychiatrists agreeing that homosexuality should not be against the law, but they debated whether homosexuality was a neurosis or not. Ziferstien said that society wasn’t just anti-gay, but anti-sex, and that this produced an abundance of “sex deviates,” including homosexuals. Graves pushed back, and pointed out that because society was so anti-gay, it would be surprising if some gay people didn’t become in some way disturbed or distressed over the situation. (In other words, Graves was explaining the concept of homophobia some ten years before the word itself was invented.) By this point in the program, the panelists were regularly ignoring Otash as they lamented the way the law and society treated gay people. A review by ONE magazine, the nation’s first gay magazine, commented that viewers “may have been gratified, if surprised, by the unexpectedly friendly attitudes toward homosexuality expressed on the program. … The members of the qualified panel made effective, intelligent observations, and many positive and constructive points.”

[Sources: “Sten Russell” (Stella Rush) “TV: Crime Story.” ONE 6, no. 8 (September 1958): 26-28.

“Sten Russell” (Stella Rush). “Crime Story.” The Ladder 2, no 12. (September 1958): 11-14.]

30 YEARS AGO: Rep. Gerry Studds Censured: 1983. The U.S. House of Representatives voted to censure Reps. Gerry Studds (D-MA) and Daniel Crane (R-IL), both of whom admitted to having sexual affairs with pages. Crane admitted to having sex with a 17-year-old female page three years earlier, while Studds acknowledged a relationship with a 17-year-old male page ten years earlier. (Both pages were above the age of consent.) In Studds’s case, the page himself defended the relationship as consensual and not intimidating. When Studds returned home to his district following his censure, he was met with standing ovations at his first town meeting. He would continue to be re-elected to Congress where he fought for AIDS funding, gays in the military, and marriage equality, right up until his retirement in 1997. When Studds died in 2006, his legally married husband was denied Studd’s pension, the same pension which was provided to all other surviving spouses of former members of Congress.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

The Proposed Federal Marriage Amendment Has Gone Bipartisan

Soon after the the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, Rep .Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment (now re-named the Marriage Protection Amendment) into Congress. At that time, Huelskamp was joined by twenty-eight other Representatives as co-sponsors, all Republicans. Since then, that list of co-sponsors has grown to thirty-eight, including the first and (so far) lone Democrat, West Virginia’s Rep. Nick Rahall.

Justice Department Did NOT Step In As BLAG Pulls Out

A Report that the Justice Department filed a brief opposing a request by gay veterans and their spouses for judgment in their favor their challenge to veterans’ benefits statutes led to some confusion as to what the Justice Department’s objections really were. One interpretation was that the Justice Department was trying to take up the work of the GOP-controlled House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) after BLAG announced that they would drop their efforts to prevent the veterans spousal and family benefits from being extended to married same-sex couples. But according to the actual filing by the Justice Department:

In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Windsor, striking down Section 3 of DOMA, the Department of Defense will now construe the definitional provisions of “spouse” in Titles 10and 32 to include same-sex spouses See Extending Benefits to Same-Sex Domestic Partners of Military Members, Memorandum for Secretaries of the Military Departments, Feb. 11, 2013, available at http://www.defense.gov/news/Same-SexBenefitsMemo.pdf (“In the event that the Defense of Marriage Act is no longer applicable to the Department of Defense, it will be the policy of the Department to construe the words ‘spouse’ and ‘marriage’ without regard to sexualorientation, and married couples, irrespective of sexual orientation, and their dependents, will begranted full military benefits.”). The Department of Defense intends to expeditiously make available benefits provided under Titles 10 and 32 to the same-sex spouses of servicemembers. To that end, the Department of Defense is currently working to revamp its Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (“DEERS”), a computerized database of military sponsors, families and others who are entitled to various military benefits. Indeed, the central claim in the Complaint is Plaintiffs’ inability to enroll in DEERS, which in turn has prevented Plaintiffs fromfiling claims for military benefits.

Because the Supreme Court has already struck down Section 3 of DOMA in Windsor, there is no need for this Court to grant any declaratory relief with respect to Section 3 of DOMA.There is also no need for this Court to grant declaratory or injunctive relief with respect to the definitional provisions of Titles 10 and 32. As noted above, the government will apply these provisions in light of Windsor to include same-sex spouses. There is no longer any dispute with respect to Defendants’ obligations to process and consider Plaintiffs’ claims for military benefits because the government agrees that it needs to do so, and is working to do so as it implements the Supreme Court’s decision in Windsor. Given the government’s agreement, there is no longer any case or controversy with respect to Plaintiffs’ Titles 10 and 32 claims.

The Justice Department then went on to argue that, with DOMA3 out of the way and the Defense Department moving to implement the Windsor decision, the court had no jurisdiction on procedural grounds. BLAG was seeking to block veterans spouses from accessing veterans benefits altogether, which is precisely the opposite of what this motion says.

Disciples of Christ Moves Toward Inclusion

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), during their General Assembly this week in Orlando, approved resolution 1327 in which the church declares itself “a people of grace and welcome to all“:

…WHEREAS, the 1997 General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) called for the church to give continuing research and reflection “concerning the participation of gay and lesbian persons in the full life and ministry of the Church”; and

WHEREAS, persons continue to be devalued and discriminated against within society and more sadly, within the church because of their sexual orientation and or gender identity; and

WHEREAS, Disciples find identity at the Lord’s table, sharing as the body of Christ, valuing each other in covenantal relationship even when we disagree; and

WHEREAS, Disciples historically affirm that individuals and congregations hold differing interpretations of scripture, but that all are called to transcend differences and claim one another in Christian unity;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the General Assembly meeting in Orlando, Florida, July 13-17, 2013, calls upon the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to recognize itself as striving to become a people of grace and welcome to all God’s children though differing in race, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, ethnicity, marital status, physical or mental ability, political stance or theological perspective; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the General Assembly calls upon the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to affirm the faith, baptism and spiritual gifts of all Christians regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and that neither is grounds for exclusion from fellowship or service within the church, but we celebrate that all are part of God’s good creation; and

The resolution, which passed with 75% of the vote, does not address same-sex marriage or ordination of LGBT clergy. The church’s decentralized church structure leaves questions of ordination to its regional bodies, and resolutions like this one are non-binding. According to Wikipedia:

Northern California is the only region labeled as Open and Inclusive; however, the Ohio Commission on Ministry (the body that grants ordination) has decided that sexual orientation is not a criterion for ordination. At the 2012 Regional Assemblies, a number of Disciples regions (including Kentucky and Indiana) joined Ohio in eliminating sexual orientation as a restriction for ordination. Other regions are in the process of investigating the matter, mostly on a polity (since congregations determine ethical fitness for candidates and hire their ministers) and not a theological basis.

Kiwi one-upmanship

Australia and New Zealand are friendly rivals, a bit like brothers who are ever competing with each other. So, naturally, when New Zealand achieved marriage equality laws, well…

And on August 19, 2013, Paul McCarthy and Trent Kandler are going to be the very first Aussie gay couple to be wed in New Zealand under the Marriage Amendment Act which will also take effect that very same day.
…
The couple had won the Tourism New Zealand promotion.

Tim Burgess, Tourism New Zealand’s General Manager said that, “Trent and Paul’s entry was unique, inspiring and had a distinct Kiwi flavor. Their affection for New Zealand shone through and we immediately knew that we had the perfect Australian couple to come and tie the knot in New Zealand. We are looking forward to helping Trent and Paul “Make History” in Wellington next month, it is going to be a wonderful celebration.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, July 19

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Charlotte, NC (Black Pride); Colorado Springs, CO; Frankfurt, Germany; Hull, UK; Kitsap, WA; Leipzig, Germany; Marseille, France (EuroPride 2013); Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK; Peel, ON; Plymouth, UK; Portland, OR (Latino Pride); Reading, PA; Rochester, MN; Rochester, NY.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: San Francisco, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Sand Blast Weekend, Asbury Park, NJ; Outfest Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA; Miami Beach Bruthaz, Miami Beach, FL; QFest Film Festival, Philadelphia, PA; Bear Week, Provincetown, MA.

Dr. George F. Shrady

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Medical Journal Describes “Perverted Sexual Instinct”: 1884. One of the many startling things one encounters in nineteenth-century medical journals is the terminology which writers deployed to describe something which heretofore had no name. The German word Homosexualität wouldn’t make its way into the English language for another decade when Dr. George F. Shrady, editor of The Medical Record and one of the nation’s most prominent physicians, penned a short article in his journal describing those whose inclinations were not toward procreation:

SIR THOMAS BROWN once wrote, platonically, that the act of procreation was “the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life. Nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination.” The physician learns, however, that man, so far from tending toward this ideal, is more apt to show instincts of a violently opposite character, and finds, far down beneath the surface of ordinary social life, currents of human passion and action that would shock and sicken the mind not accustomed to think everything pertaining to living creatures worthy of study. Science has indeed discovered that, amid the lowest forms of bestiality and sensuousness exhibited by debased men, there are phenomena which are truly pathological and which deserve the considerate attention and help of the physician.

That Shrady used the word “pathological” shows that already he had been influenced by various German authors — Carl Westphal, Karl Heinrich Ulrich, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, to name a few — who had already made a name for themselves in the study of Homosexualität (or Urnings, a term that was more widely used in Germany.) Before homosexuality became the subject of serious study, it had been written off as mere evil or vice. Viewing it as pathology invited society to consider that homosexuals weren’t criminals, but were somehow diseased or deformed, and were merely acting according to what came naturally to them. This framework was considered far more enlightened, because the proper response wasn’t punishment and scorn, but treatment and pity, an arguable advancement in how gay people would be treated.

But what was the name of this condition? Westphal called it “Contrare Sexualempfindung” (contrary sexual instinct), while others employed various ideas of “inversion” (inverted sexual instinct, Invertion of the genesic function, etc.). Early American writers tended to use the term “perverted sexual instinct” with “perverted” taking its original meaning as something which “has been corrupted or distorted from its original course, meaning, or state.” In the nineteenth century, all sorts of things could be “perverted,” including the understanding of religious doctrine (where the term actually originated), the application of economic incentives or the course of justice. It would only take another decade or so before “perverted sexual instinct” became shortened to “perversion,” and the “pervert” would become synonymous with gay people.

And it’s this term that Shrady settled on. He reviewed the literature and found:

Up to that time (1883) only twenty-one cases were on record, three being reported by Americans, the rest mainly by Germans, and none at all by English observers. In a recent number of the Irrenfreund (vol. xxvi., No. I, 1884), Krafft-Ebing has reported six more cases. …In the reported cases of congenital perversion, the abnormal instinct begins oftenest as early as the eighth or ninth year, but shows itself at first, perhaps, only in an inclination to adopt the manners and practices of girls or women. The victims show the somatic basis of their trouble in various ways. There is often an hereditary psychopathic or neuropathic taint. Epilepsy is sometimes present. There are noticed in some cases, though not often, defects of the genital organs, such as hypospadias or epispadias, small or defective testicles. The hair on the face is sometimes thin, the voice almost always soft. The” Urnings” have a mincing gait, and sometimes the hips are broad like those of women. Exacerbations of the perverted feeling appear periodically. It may be accompanied with melancholia and end in insanity or suicide.

The mental peculiarities of these unfortunates have much in common. They are of the artistic, poetical. and imaginative temperament, often exhibiting a tendency to rather weak philosophizing. Sometimes they are of a vigorous understanding. In most cases there is great mental distress felt through a consciousness of their unnatural instincts. Two or three have, like Ulrichs, boldly defended their practices.

As for what to do about these individuals:

If congenital perverted sexual instinct is a pathological rather than a vicious condition, the query arises whether there is any remedy for it. The history of cases reported shows that sometimes the instinct is cultivated and intensified by bad surroundings in childhood, such as, for example, the exclusive society of women and immoral nurses. Excessive sexual indulgence seems to increase it, and we may question whether in a few cases the condition would have ever developed, were it not for an early abuse and misdirection of the sexual powers. In conditions of nervous exhaustion and weakness, the symptoms are exaggerated, and Krafft-Ebing, in his last communication, reports the case of a married man, previously healthy, who experienced an entire change in the sexual feeling, which lasted for twenty-five years. He was then cured by general faradization and other tonic measures.

“Faradization” refers to the use of electrical instruments to induce an electrical current or magnetic field in the vicinity of an afflicted body part or in general areas of the head or body.  (This is not the same as electric shock conversion therapy, which would come about much later (see Mar 11).) The late nineteenth century belief in the power of electricity and magnetism to cure all sorts of maladies gave rise to a thriving industry geared toward providing doctors with all sorts of “quack” instruments. “Tonic measures,” of course, refers to who knows what sort of snake oil which would may have been prescribed to restore masculine vigor to the unfortunate soul. (One wonders why NARTH hasn’t looked into these.) Shrady closes with this description:

In conclusion, we believe it to be demonstrated that conditions once considered criminal are really pathological, and come within the province of the physician. We have undertaken, therefore, the disagreeable task of laying some of the facts regarding sexual perversion before our readers. The profession can be trusted to sift the degrading and vicious from what is truly morbid.

We cannot do better than append the conclusions which Krafft-Ebing has reached upon this subject. He says: ” 1. There exists a congenital absence of sexual feeling toward the opposite sex, at times even disgust of sexual intercourse. 2. This defect occurs in a physically differentiated sexual type and with a normal development of the sexual organs. 3. Absence of the psychical qualities corresponding to the anatomical sexual type, but the feelings, thoughts, and actions of a perverted sexual instinct. 4. Abnormally early appearance of sexual desire. 5. Painful consciousness of the perverted sexual desire. 6. Sexual desire toward the same sex. 7. The sexual desire remains purely platonic or finds gratification in mutual onanism, or in feeling of the object of the affections. Often there is self-pollution, but for the want of something better. 8. There are symptoms of a morbid excitability of the sexual desires, together with an irritable weakness of the nervous symptoms, so that sensuous feelings, magnetic sensations, and even pollutions occur in simply touching the object of the affections. 9. The perverse sexual impulse is abnormally intense and rules all thought and sensation. The love of such individuals is excessive even to adoration, and is often followed by sorrow, melancholy, and jealousy. 10. People afflicted with this abnormity frequently possess an instinctive power to recognize one another.”

In this last conclusion we cannot agree. The power of mutual recognition is not instinctive but acquired.

Dr. Shrady’s credentials were very impressive when wrote this article. He was president of the New York Pathological Society, a fellow of the American and New York Academies of Medicine, a member of the New York State Medical Society  and had served as a consultant or resident physician for a number of prominent New York hospitals, and was a trustees of the Hudson State Hospital for the Insane in Poughkeepsie. He gained national prominence in 1881 when, after President James Garfield was shot, Shrady was called in to consult on the various options for treatment, and he wrote up the autopsy report following Garfield’s death. In 1885, Shrady was in the limelight again as General Ulyses S. Grant’s personal physician while the former president was dying of throat cancer.

[Source: George F. Shrady “Perverted sexual instinct.” Medical Record 26, no. 3 (July, 19, 1884): 70-71. Available online for free via Google Books here.]

President Clinton passes members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at Ft. McNair before announcing his new “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

20 YEARS AGO: President Clinton Unveils “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Policy: 1993. “Let me say a few words now about this policy. It is not a perfect solution. It is not identical with some of my own goals. And it certainly will not please everyone, perhaps not anyone, and clearly not those who hold the most adamant opinions on either side of this issue.” With those words, President Bill Clinton unveiled a new policy on gays and lesbians in the military, which he called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue.”

This new policy was intended as a compromise posture, after his campaign promise to overturn the military’s blanket ban on gays and lesbians in the military ran into a buzz saw of opposition in Congress led by Sen Sam Nunn (D-GA), chair of the powerful U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. With the support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress began the process of rushing through a federal law which would have reinforced the Pentagon’s then-existing policy of total exclusion. Clinton’s called for the new law’s repeal went nowhere, so on July 19, he proposed a compromise solution, at a speech at the National Defense University at Ft. McNair:

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Justice Department steps in after BLAG pulls out

Earlier today we learned that the House Bipartisan Legal Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), under the direction of Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, had ceased defending any of the laws which seek to distinguish between opposite-sex and same-sex marriage. Most of us assumed that meant that there was no opposition to the judge in McLaughlin v. Panetta awarding spousal benefits.

But in an odd turn of events, the Obama Administration has stepped in to oppose the assignment of benefits. (Chris Geidner at BuzzFeed, who has been all over this story).

The Justice Department, however, goes on to claim two reasons why the court should not rule in the veterans and their same-sex spouses on their claims regarding Title 38. The first is an argument that “no plaintiff has sufficiently alleged that he or she has applied for or would be entitled to veterans’ benefits but for the definitional provisions in Title 38.”

“We disagree with that and will be addressing that with the court,” an attorney for the plaintiffs, Christopher Man with Chadbourne and Park, told BuzzFeed Thursday night.

The second reason, according to Justice Department lawyers, is that the court doesn’t have “jurisdiction to hear any claim for veterans’ benefits” because the Veterans’ Judicial Review Act “provides an exclusive review scheme for veterans to pursue benefits claims, including raising constitutional challenges to statutes and regulations that govern veterans’ benefits.”

While the second reason may have some technical merit (outweighed, I believe, by the question before the judge about the constitutionality of unequal treatment), the first is mouth-gapingly nonsense. It is difficult to fathom how suing in federal court for benefits is not sufficient evidence that Major McLaughlin would have applied for them had they been available.

Violence-Plagued City in Mexico Elects First Gay Mayor

Benjamín Medrano Quezada (via Facebook)

Voters in Fresnillo (pop: 110,000), in northern Mexico’s violence-plagued Zacatecas state, have elected a new mayor. Benjamín Medrano Quezada, of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), will become Mexico’s first openly gay mayor when he is sworn into office. He won on a campaign aimed at building a new wastewater treatment plant, ending the drinking water shortage, improving roads and basic services, and addressing problems with the city’s troubled police force. Those concerns are far more pressing than anything else right now:

He said Thursday he won’t challenge the Catholic church, or advocate for gay marriage or adoption. Medrano instead says he’ll focus on more pressing issues, like professionalizing and vetting the city’s police force.

“It’s not like I’m going to paint town hall pink,” Medrano said.

House Republicans stop anti-marriage efforts

In a slightly oddly worded filing, the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG), under the direction of Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, has ceased defending any of the laws which seek to distinguish between opposite-sex and same-sex marriage. The BLAG’s last-minute filing in a case involving service member’s marital benefits was the venue through which this retreat was announced. (BuzzFeed)

The Supreme Court recently resolved the issue of DOMA Section 3’s constitutionality. See United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. __ (2013), 2013 WL 3196928 (U.S. June 26, 2013). The Windsor decision necessarily resolves the issue of DOMA Section 3’s constitutionality in this case. While the question of whether 38 U.S.C. § 101(3), (31) is constitutional remains open, the House has determined, in light of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Windsor, that it no longer will defend that statute. Accordingly, the House now seeks leave to withdraw as a party defendant.

In other words, while Windsor only addressed DOMA3, not the myriad of laws that are written such that they limit application to male-female marriage, the decision on DOMA3 made clear the court’s intent. And so – unlike the Proposition 8 supporters in California – the Republicans in the House will not spend any more time or money fighting the minutia in court.

This is a bit further than I expected.

The broad stroke exclusion of gay couples found in DOMA3 was struck down as unconstitutional. This does not mean, from a legal perspective, that every exclusion of same-sex couples is unconstitutional. The BLAG could have continued on a case-by-case basis to argue that while broad exclusion is not allowed, in the instances at question there are good and valid governmental interests in upholding unequal laws and it’s possible that they would prevail in some.

So this decision to pull out and the language utilized suggests that more than just a legal determination has been made. This also heralds a shift in political will.

Today is Boehner’s deadline to oppose service member benefits

BuzzFeed reminds us that not all of the legal questions relating to federal same-sex marriage benefits have been answered.

The House Republican leadership faces a Thursday deadline to decide if it will continue to defend laws that limit veterans benefits to opposite-sex couples in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling striking down a similar provision in the Defense of Marriage Act.

“We’re reviewing the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision, and don’t have any announcement to make at this time,” House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel, told BuzzFeed on Wednesday when asked if the defense of the veterans’ statutes would continue.

This is a no-win situation for Boehner.

The Republican Party has a real problem on their hands when it comes to marriage equality. The country in increasingly supportive and even many of those who oppose equality don’t want strident anti-gay action to be taken. But “the base” of the party is strongly opposed to equality, so for the last year Boehner has “defended” DOMA (while trying hard never to discuss it and, in some instances, not even filing even the most flimsy of responses).

This particular situation is even more troublesome for Republican leadership. Service members are also a base of the Republican Party, and opposing military benefits sets one loyal party group against another.

So here’s betting that Boehner woke up late, forgot his watch, lost his briefcase, and got tied up in meetings all day and just, gosh darn it, just didn’t have time to file a motion today.

Eugene Delgaudio Finally Disciplined By Loudoun County Board of Supervisors

Censured.

It took the Loudin County (VA) Board of Supervisors an awfully long time to get around to censuring Eugene Delgaudio, but they finally did it:

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors took decisive disciplinary action against Sterling Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio on Wednesday night, issuing a strong condemnation of problems identified in a special grand jury’s report about the veteran public official last month.

In three separate votes, the supervisors moved to formally censure Delgaudio; to place his district budget under the control of the full board, except for minor expenditures; to remove his staff aides; and to prohibit him from serving on any county, local and regional committees.

The special grand jury looked into charges by a former staffer that he illegally used taxpayer-paid staff for his anti-gay fundraising activities. The grand jury didn’t hand down any indictments but…

…but the jurors took the unusual step of issuing a report that outlined a number of possible problems with the operation of Delgaudio’s public office. Those issues included the potential misuse of county resources and county employees; a suspicion of unreported campaign donations; a lack of focus on constituent services; a hostile work environment; and the blurring of lines between work done for his county office and his anti-gay, conservative nonprofit organization, Public Advocate of the United States.

Delgaudio used to be a regular feature of BTB’s Email of the Day, but his emails stopped showing up in my inbox at the end of 2012.

Anti-Gay Extremist Vows “Sexual Orientation Registry” of Maine Politicians and Staffers

Teabag party favorite Gov. Paul LePage (R) of Maine has let his mouth fly again, and now the roosters are coming home to roost. Last month, LePage unleashed yet another round of controversy during a local television interview by saying that a Democratic state senator, Troy Jackson of Aroostook, who is trying to overturn LePage’s veto of the state budget, had a “black heart” and “claims to be for the people but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.” Lawmakers and Mainers denounced LePage’s comments as “vulgar,” and even a few fellow Republicans offered what the Bangor Daily News called “mild criticism” of the Governor’s comments.

LePage issued a half-hearted “apology” — along the lines of “if you were offended then I apologize,” although he pointedly didn’t apologize to Jackson, only to his constituents. And with that, the Governor’s office had hoped that they had exerted the absolute minimum amount of effort to put the controversy behind them. But now, the state’s most wing-nuttiest anti-gay extremist to come to LePage’s defense. Michael Heath — you may remember his unsuccessful 2012 campaign against what he called “sodomy-based marriage” — and his buddy Paul Madore, leapt to LePage’s defense and put the controversy back onto front page news yesterday:

“Gov. Paul LePage was in good company using an allusion to sodomy to condemn expensive, big-government solutions to the challenges confronting Maine people,” said Heath to reporters and about a dozen members of the public. “Those condemned by the governor’s remark are the very same leaders who are promoting sodomy in our schools. This fact makes his allusion even more powerful. He used figurative language to reveal a profound truth about our current situation. Maine is being sodomized by the left, especially our impressionable and innocent children.”

…He was angry and he spoke out very emotionally and like a man and I loved it,” said Heath. “It felt like thunder and lightning to me. It’s so refreshing in this age of insanity when it comes to sexuality to hear someone in public life use sodomy, gay, homosexual — pick your word — in the proper context. It’s negative. … What’s good is sexuality in marriage and what is linked to having children and grandchildren. Civilization has survived because we reward that behavior and discourage the other behavior.”

LePage’s office sought to distance themselves from Heath, but Heath won’t let go of the spotlight. this morning, Heath issued an email to his followers threatening to institute a “sexual orientation registry”:

It’s Time for the “Sexual Orientation” Registry

In 2004 I threatened to publish the sexual orientation of politicians and their staff. The Left went apoplectic. In the devilish agony of the moment I apologized. My board put me on paid leave for a month. On the day I returned to work the state’s capitol city newspaper published a glowing tribute to Maine’s most influential homosexuality advocate.

A year later, after spending another million or two — or three (I can’t remember) bucks to intimidate the chattering class and fool the people, they finally added “sexual orientation” to the Maine Human Rights Act. Sexual orientation is a term of art that means “the right to sodomize (read kill) everything good without even thinking that is what you are doing.” It’s a kind of demonic stupor. Think Gollum and you’re on your way to understanding.

I’m pondering whether the ten year anniversary of that original email would be a good time to begin publishing the “Sexual Orientation Registry.” That’ll be next April. I’ll go back and find the exact date. My “evil deed” was all over the news at the time so it shouldn’t be too hard to find the date.

I figure waiting until next year to start publishing will give everyone time to choose which one (or more) of the thirty or more sexual orientations they want to claim for their own. It will take some time, I think. I want to give the politicians, government employees, teachers, pastors … Maine’s chattering class … plenty of time to figure it out. I don’t want to get it wrong.

Of course, that’ll take money:

If you want to help me fight to end the Left’s sexual tyranny then please pray, and make a financial donation. I’m pleased to report God has provided a pledge of $250 a month already!

Unfortunately you don’t have many choices about where to put your hard earned money if you want to win this fight. Pray that God gives me wisdom, as well as resources, as I proceed.

In 2009, Michael Heath was forced out of the Christian Civic League because anti-gay activists feared that his extreme rhetoric would wreck their plans to ban marriage at the ballot box that year. He left, and they prevailed. Heath went on to become board chair of Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth (an SPLC-designated anti-gay hate group) and an Iowa state campaign director for Ron Paul in 2011. Heath returned to Maine in 2012 to press his crusade against “sodomy-based marriage when Mainers were asked to vote to overturn the 2009 ban on same-sex marriage. Heath lost and equality prevailed.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, July 18

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Charlotte, NC (Black Pride); Colorado Springs, CO; Frankfurt, Germany; Hull, UK; Kitsap, WA; Leipzig, Germany; Marseille, France (EuroPride 2013); Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK; Peel, ON; Plymouth, UK; Portland, OR (Latino Pride); Reading, PA; Rochester, MN; Rochester, NY.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: San Francisco, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Sand Blast Weekend, Asbury Park, NJ; Outfest Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA; Miami Beach Bruthaz, Miami Beach, FL; QFest Film Festival, Philadelphia, PA; Bear Week, Provincetown, MA.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Psychiatrist Denounces Anti-Gay Witchhunt: 1950. A Senate subcommittee under Joseph McCarthy investigating the federal employment of gay Americans was warned that their investigation would have negative consequences on government functioning. “The immediate effect of the probe is to threaten the emotional security and mental health of many government employees, warned Dr. Henry P. Laughlin of the Washington Psychiatric Society. “This is indeed unfortunate, tending to lower the efficiency and work production of those who have some actual or imagined basis for concern, and especially for those people whose homosexual experiences have been isolated or of a token nature or perhaps never occurred.”

Laughlin however emphasized that he was only speaking for himself and not the Society, before continuing on a line rarely heard in 1950: “Sexual orientation doesn’t enter into a person’s ability or capacity to do work. I am sure that many persons in government, as well as in industry and other areas of endeavor, have made significant contributions, although their orientation happens to be homosexual.” Laughlin’s testimony would fall on deaf years. Tens of thousands of people would be hounded out of their jobs over the next several decades, whether they were gay, suspected of being gay, or simply accused of being gay for whatever reasons.

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?