The Daily Agenda for Sunday, May 5

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations Today: Maspalomas, Gran Canaria.

AIDS Walks Today: Atlantic City / Asbury Park / Morristown / Newark / Ridgewood, NJ.

Other Events Today: Hot Rodeo, Banning, CA; Boston LGBT Film Festival, Boston, MA; Frieberg Gay Film Festival, Frieberg, Germany; Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Miami, FL; Urban Bear Weekend, New York, NY; Sitges International Bear Meeting, Sitges, Spain; Tybee Gay Days, Tybee Island, GA.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Marriage In Hawaii, Almost: 1993. In the case of Baehr v Lewin, Nina Baehr sued the state of Hawaii over the state’s refusal to issue her and her partner a marriage license. That refusal, according to their lawsuit, amounted to illegal discrimination. On May 5, 1992, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that her argument had merit. They didn’t rule Hawaii’s ban illegal, but remanded the case to a lower court, and placed the burden on the state to prove that it had a compelling interest under strict scrutiny for denying same-sex partners a marriage license.

The case would drag on for another six years with little doubt about where the state Supreme Court would go if the case made its way back there again. And so on 1998, voters approved Amendment 2 to the state constitution, which made Hawaii the first state to amend its constitution to address same-sex marriage. But unlike other state constitutional amendments that would follow, Hawaii’s Amendment 2 didn’t ban same-sex marriage outright. It granted Hawaii’s legislature the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples, which it later did by passing a law that banned same-sex marriage.

In February of 2011, Hawaii’s governor signed into law a bill granting civil unions to the state’s same-sex couples. That law took effect on January 1, 2012. A bill to allow same-sex marriage was introduced into the legislature again this year, but it failed to generate much traction despite 55% of Hawaiians supporting marriage equality.

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Del Martin: 1921. When young Dorothy Taliaferro was six years old, she experienced her first act of discrimination when she was denied a magazine delivery route just because she was a girl. That alone made her a life-long feminist, and it was that awareness that informed everything she did as an activist.

Her adult life started out rather conventionally. She studied journalism, married James Martin when she was nineteen, had a daughter, and divorced four years later. So much for conventionality. By 1950, Del was living in Seattle, writing for a construction trade magazine, where she met Phyllis Lyon (see Nov 10). In 1953, the couple moved to San Francisco, moved into a home together, established a joint bank account, and embarked on more than a half-century together as a couple.

But being a lesbian couple in the 1950s was a lonely experience for them. In their search for lesbian friends, Martin and Lyon, along with six other women, founded the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955, which became the first major lesbian organization in the United States (see Oct 19). The DOB grow from a small Bay-area club to a national organization dedicated to “the education of the variant; education of the public at large; participation in research projects; and investigation of the penal code as it pertains to the homosexual.” In 1956, the DOB began publishing a monthly newsletter, The Ladder, with Lyons acting as its first editor and Martin contributing a groundbreaking essay in the very first issue. The DOB struggled to stake out its place in the emerging homophile movement. Martin chaffed when, as happened all too often, DOB was dismissed as the “women’s auxiliary” of the Mattachine Society. At the Mattachine’s 1959 convention in Denver, Del addressed the delegates and defended the need to keep DOB as a separate, women’s-only organization:

What do you men know about lesbians? In all of your programs and your Mattachine Review you speak of the male homosexual and follow this with — oh yes, and incidentally there are some female homosexuals, too. … ONE magazine has done little better. For years they have relegated the lesbian interest to a column called “Feminine Viewpoint.” So it would appear to me that quite obviously neither organization (the Mattachine Society nor ONE) has recognized the fact that lesbians are women and that the twentieth century is the era of emancipation of women…

In 1964, Del and Phyllis helped to found the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, bringing together national religious leaders and gay and lesbian activists for a discussion of gay rights (see Jan 1). In the late sixties, Del and Phyllis became active in the National Organization for Women, with Martin becoming the first open lesbian elected to the gruop’s board of directors. As Martin saw it, lesbian issues were feminist issues, and she consistently lambasted examples of chauvinism among the male leaders of the gay rights movement. In 1970, Martin wrote a scathing article for The Advocate titled, “Goodbye, My Alienated Brothers,” which became a clarion call for a separate lesbian movement that was completely independent from the male-dominated gay movement. “Goodbye to the male homophile community,” she wrote. “‘Gay is good,’ but not good enough …We joined with you in what we mistakenly thought was a common cause.” But her commitment to lesbian causes didn’t end all cooperation with other gay activists. A year later, she flew to Washington D.C. for the annual American Psychiatric Association meeting to speak on a panel of “nonpatient” homosexuals, where Martin accused psychiatrists of becoming “the guardians of mental illness rather than promoting the mental health of homosexuals as a class of people in our society.”

In the next decade, Martin’s activism turned to domestic violence with the 1976 publication of her groundbreaking book Battered Wives. That book, which is still in print, helped to launch battered women’s shelters across the country. She also co-founded the Coalition for Justice for Battered Women and chaired NOW’s Task Force on Battered Women and Household Violence. In the 1980s, Martin and Lyons became involved in advocacy on behalf of ageing gays and lesbians. They both served as delegates for the 1995 White House Conference on Ageing, where they represented the interests of older lesbians and prodded the conference into including sexual orientation in a nondiscrimination declaration. The couple also became heavily involved with Bay area Democratic politics. In 2008, Martin and Lyons became the first same-sex couple to be married after the California’s Supreme Court ruling legalizing marriage equality. Del passed away two months later.

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, May 4

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Maspalomas, Gran Canaria; Mobile, AL; Norrköping, Sweden; Northhampton, MA; Raleigh, NC.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Anaheim, CA; Atlantic City / Asbury Park / Morristown / Newark / Ridgewood, NJ; Charlotte, NC; Ft. Wayne, IN.

Other Events This Weekend: Hot Rodeo, Banning, CA; Boston LGBT Film Festival, Boston, MA; Frieberg Gay Film Festival, Frieberg, Germany; Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Miami, FL; Urban Bear Weekend, New York, NY; Sitges International Bear Meeting, Sitges, Spain; Tybee Gay Days, Tybee Island, GA.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Keith Haring: 1958. Inspired by graffiti art in New York, Keith Haring’s bold lines, vivid colors, and simple, active figures became an iconic presence throughout the 1980’s. He was a huge proponent of public art, and that led to commissions and collaborations from around the world. The very out, HIV-positive gay man even found common ground in his collaboration with the visionary Baptist preacher/folk artist Howard Finster.

From his diagnosis of AIDS in 1988 until his death in 1990 at the age of thirty-one, his artwork also became the de facto art of AIDS through the work of the Keith Haring Foundation. In 2008, Rizolli published a 522-page monograph supplemented with a wealth of material including drawings, studio photo, and journal entries. His journals, which he kept from the age of nineteen until his death, were re-issued in 2010 by Penguin Classics.

Lance Bass: 1979. The ‘N Sync alum grew up in Mississippi in a Southern Baptist family where, as many southern gay boys do, he learned to sing in the church choir. He further honed his bass voice (no pun intended) in his high school’s award-winning show choir and in a state-wide choir, where he just happened to work with Justin Timberlake’s vocal coach. When Timberlake left The Mickey Mouse Club in 1994 and joined up with Lou Perlman to put together a boy band, it was Timberlake’s vocal coach who recommended Bass after the original bass singer dropped out. ‘N Sync went on the record three multi-platinum studio albums which yielded eleven top forty pop singles including number one hits “Bye Bye Bye” and “It’s Gonna Be Me.”

After ‘N Sync went on permanent “temporary hiatus,” Bass took a turn at training at Star City, Russia to qualify for a seat on a Soyuz capsule for a trip to the International Space Station in 2002. He completed the grueling training which earned him a certification from NASA and the Russian Space Agency, only to lose that chance to go into space when his commercial sponsors withdrew their support over financial and liability concerns. In 2006, Bass came out in a cover story for People magazine.

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?

Minnesota lawmaker chooses integrity

From CBS Minnesota:

A freshman Democratic state representative from a socially conservative district said Friday that he’d support the bill to legalize gay marriage in Minnesota, a key pickup for supporters as votes on the issue get closer at the Capitol.

Rep. Joe Radinovich, of Crosby, had been undecided. He said he decided more than a decade ago that he personally supports letting same-sex couples legally marry, but was conflicted knowing that many residents of his Brainerd-area district are more skeptical.

“This was not an easy decision, but at the end of the day I’d rather protect my integrity than my job,” Radinovich told The Associated Press. The 27-year-old lawmaker won his seat by just 323 votes last fall.

I believe that by the time he runs again, this vote will likely not cost him. However, we can’t know that so he’s showing courage today. And regardless of the outcome, he gets to hold his head high.

NOM Exec: Should Conservative Women Just Shut Up and Have Babies?

Perhaps I’m overstating what NOM executive Jennifer Roback Morse said in an email blast today. I’ll just post it without further comment; all emphasis in the original and, no, this is not a parody:

The Social Conservative movement is dominated by women. Every audience I address, the ratio is at least two to one female, sometimes much more.

Is that a bad thing? And what can we do about it?

We want to have our babies, and be supported by our husbands in stable lifelong loving marriages. It is no surprise that we care about the social issues.

You and I know that men care too. They want their babies. And if they don’t want to get married as badly as we do, once they do get married, they are often more doggedly loyal and committed than we are. Divorce triples a man’s probability of suicide, but doesn’t affect women’s suicide risk at all!! The guys definitely care!

Feminists have marginalized men from these conversations. They called any men who disagreed with them “male chauvinist pigs.” Men came to feel they were not welcome to express reservations about the radical feminist agenda. And since men have a natural, almost instinctive desire to please women, protect women, and not anger them,
men shut down and shut up.

I think it is a bad thing!

Shutting up the men is a great defense. Getting men off the playing field leaves women with children alone to defend themselves against the radical women who view children as enemies to their ambitions.

So, what can we do about it?

Invite your husband or boyfriend, sons, nephews or fathers, to the First Ever Ruth Institute Gala Dinner and Live Auction. Why? Because this will not be your average “lovey dovey hearts and flowers, let’s all be nice to kids” event. (Though, there will be flowers on the table!)

WE ARE HAVING A VERY MASCULINE
MAN’S MAN AS OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKER.

 

You may have seen Tim Clemente on CNN, giving his expert opinion about capturing the Boston Marathon Bombers. He’s a former counter-terrorism agent for the FBI. That expertise got him into Hollywood, as a technical consultant on law enforcement and military issues. Producer, writer, actor and stuntman: those are just some of his roles in Hollywood.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, May 3

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Maspalomas, Gran Canaria; Mobile, AL; Norrköping, Sweden; Northhampton, MA; Raleigh, NC.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Anaheim, CA; Atlantic City / Asbury Park / Morristown / Newark / Ridgewood, NJ; Charlotte, NC; Ft. Wayne, IN.

Other Events This Weekend: Hot Rodeo, Banning, CA; Boston LGBT Film Festival, Boston, MA; Frieberg Gay Film Festival, Frieberg, Germany; Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Miami, FL; Urban Bear Weekend, New York, NY; Sitges International Bear Meeting, Sitges, Spain; Tybee Gay Days, Tybee Island, GA.

Sir Francis Bacon, looking fabulous as always

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Sr. Francis Bacon Accused of “His Most Abominable and Darling Sin”: 1621. On May 3, 1621, Sir Simonds D’Ewes published his political biography of Sir Francis Bacon, in which he accuses the great lawyer, scholar and “father of empiricism” of “his most abominable and darling sin.” D’Ewes continued, “I should rather bury in silence than mention it, were it not a most admirable instance of how men are enslaved by wickedness and held captive by the devil.” D’Ewes accused Bacon of “keeping still one Godrick, a very effeminate-faced youth, to be his catamite and bedfellow… deserting the bed of his Lady.” That same year, Bacon resigned as Lord Chancellor over accusations that he accepted payment from litigants, which, while against the law, was a widespread and accepted practice at the time. He quickly confessed to accepting payments, a confession that may have been prompted by threats to charge him with the capital offense of sodomy.

Medical Report of a Gay Civil War Veteran: 1921. Dr. Clarence P. Oberndorf, a New York City psychoanalyst, spoke at the Annual Meeting of the Medical Society of the State of New York in Brooklyn about one of his patients, a 74-year-old Civil War veteran who suffered from depression, saying “For sixty years I have been leading a double life.” He became aware of his feelings for other men at a very early age. “He preferred rough, coarse men, like longshoremen, husky and full of vitality. These he sought at intervals, while his acquaintances knew him as a refined gentleman interested in art and literature.” He never married. “In my younger days,” he remarked, “I used to grieve because of my affliction, but in later years I have become indifferent.”

Oberndorf’s goal was not to cure homosexuality per se. “Where treatment is undertaken for passive homoerotism in the male,” — active homosexuals, or “tops,” were not considered truly homosexual in the early 20th century — “psychoanalysis may powerfully influence the attitude of the patient toward his malady by removing some of the urgent neurotic fears which accompany the inversion. After analysis such an invert at least feels himself more reconciled to his passive homoeroticism than previously. I have had male passive homoerotics seek treatment with just such stipulations — not to be cured but to be made more content with their lives.”

[Source: Clarence P. Oberndorf. “Homosexuality.” New York Medical Journal 22, no. 4 (April 1922): 176-180. Available online here.]

MCC Wins Federal Grant to Resettle Gay Refugees: 1981. The Rev. Elder Freda Smith, vice moderator of the Metropolitan Community Church, announced that the gay church had been awared a $380,000 grant from the Reagan Administration to resettle gay Cuban refugees who were currently being housed in four reception centers across the country. Rev. Smith said the church had already resettled nearly 500 gay Cubans who had arrived during the previous year during the Mariel boatlift that brought 127,000 refugees to southern Florida. The gay refugees had additional motives for joining the boatlift: “Gays are looked down in Cuba because homosexuality runs against the macho attitudes in the country,” Rev. Smith added.

Rev. Smith said that federal officials authorized the grant because the MCC was better equiped to resettle gay refugees than other groups. “We are an idea whose time has come,” she said. She also reveald that the church itself would front another $100,000 toward the effort.

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?

Rhode Island Did It!

Done:

Rhode Island’s House, led by Representative Gordon D. Fox, a Democrat and the country’s first openly gay House speaker, first passed a same-sex marriage measure by 51 to 19 in January. On April 24, the Senate approved a modified version by 26 to 12 that expanded protections for religious organizations. That change prompted today’s vote, which was largely procedural. It passed, 56 to 15.

and done:

Gov. Lincoln Chaffee signs the marriage equality bill into law.

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee on Thursday signed a bill that will allow same-sex couples to marry in the Ocean State.

“Today we are making history,” he said. “We are living up to the ideals of our founders.”

Rhode Islanders United for Marriage Campaign Director Ray Sullivan, gay House Speaker Gordon Fox (D-Providence) and other same-sex marriage supporters joined Chafee on the steps of the State House in Providence as he signed the measure into law.

Rhode Island will become the tenth state, in addition to the District of Columbia, to provide marriage equality when the law takes effect on August 1. All of New England, the Cradle of Liberty, is now a solid mass of equalityness. Interesting to note that four legislators took a last-minute opportunity to go from opposition to support in what was otherwise a procedural vote.

Marriage equality bills are also working their way through the state legislatures in Delaware, Illinois and Minnesota. Meanwhile, NOM’s Brian Brown remains in denial:

“I don’t know that I would say Rhode Island is a trend.”

GOP Leaders Threaten to Sink Immigration Reform If Gay Couples Are Included

In their bid to pick up Hispanic voters in the upcoming mid-term elections, GOP leaders have decided that passing immigration reform would help. Immigration reform has also been a goal of Democratic legislators as well. And so earlier this month, a bipartisan group known as the “Gang of Eight” came up with an immigration reform proposal which, presumably, both sides could support. Except large constituencies on both sides find that they won’t support it. The nativist, xenophobic wing of the GOP would rather see the whole issue die, and it would only be icing on their cake if they could blame immigration reform’s death on the Democrats. And since the immigration proposal as it stands excludes gay couples, Democrats find themselves at odds with a key constituency:

Gay advocates were sharply disappointed to find that same-sex couples were excluded from the legislation, since the Democrats who wrote it included two of their most consistent champions, Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second highest-ranking Senate Democrat. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Democrat who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, where the bill is under consideration, has offered, since as far back as 2003, a separate measure that would allow immigrants in long-term same-sex relationships to obtain residency with a green card.

But in the lengthy closed-door negotiations that produced the overhaul proposal, the four Republicans in the bipartisan group made it clear early on that they did not want to include such a hot-button issue in a bill that would be a challenge to sell to their party even without it, according to Senate staff members. The Republicans are Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona, and Marco Rubio of Florida.

…”There’s a reason this language wasn’t included in the Gang of Eight’s bill: It’s a deal-breaker for most Republicans,” Senator Flake said. “Finding consensus on immigration legislation is tough enough without opening the bill up to social issues.”

Sen. Mark Rubio (R-FL), who is being talked up as a possible Presidential contender in 2016, told a conservative talk radio host, “”If that issue is injected into this bill, this bill will fail. It will not have the support. It will not have my support.” Jonathan Rauch reacts:

Really? Republicans will deep-six the entire effort, and demolish themselves with Latino voters and business interests and young people in order to prevent gay people from having someone to take care of them?

Even to write those words is to wonder whether they can possibly be true. Surely Republicans know that, according to many polls, support for same-sex marriage has tipped above the majority level and is rising. Perhaps some also know that, according to a recent Huffington Post poll, partner immigration enjoys solid 7-percentage-point support. They certainly know that, from a political point of view, the perception among younger voters that a pro-Republican vote is an anti-gay vote is toxic to the GOP brand. …and Republicans themselves are split down the middle on the more general question of whether “same sex couples should have the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.”

Even among Republicans, in other words, the constituency for policies disadvantaging gay and lesbian couples is withering. And this is where Senate Republicans want to make their stand?

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, May 2

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Marriage Equality Bills To Be Signed Into Law: Providence, RI. So this is where we are so far: in January, the Rhode Island House passed a marriage equality bill in a 51-19 vote. Then last week, the Rhode Island Senate passed a similar but not identical marriage equality bill in a 26-12 vote — a vote which, in a historic first, saw all five Republicans in the chamber voting to support same-sex marriage. But because that bill wasn’t identical to the House bill, it went back to the House for its final approval. On Tuesday,  House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the Senate version and sent it on to the House floor for its final approval. That is expected to take place today, and Gov. Lincoln Chaffee has announced that he will sign it at 5:45 p.m. in a ceremony at the State House. And with that, Rhode Island will become the tenth state, in addition to the District of Columbia, to provide marriage equality when the law goes into effect on August 1.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Maspalomas, Gran Canaria; Mobile, AL; Norrköping, Sweden; Northhampton, MA; Raleigh, NC.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Anaheim, CA; Atlantic City / Asbury Park / Morristown / Newark / Ridgewood, NJ; Charlotte, NC; Ft. Wayne, IN.

Other Events This Weekend: Hot Rodeo, Banning, CA; Boston LGBT Film Festival, Boston, MA; Frieberg Gay Film Festival, Frieberg, Germany; Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Miami, FL;  Urban Bear Weekend, New York, NY; Sitges International Bear Meeting, Sitges, Spain; Tybee Gay Days, Tybee Island, GA.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Disloyalty vs. Security Risk: 1950. So if you’ve been following along on the Daily Agendas (for example, Feb 28, Mar 14, Mar 23, Apr 18, Apr 26) you would have a pretty good feel for the incredible anti-gay hysteria that was sweeping the country in 1950. The twin scares — the Lavender Scare and the Red Scare — cemented in everyone’s mind the argument that gay people in federal employment, particularly in the State Department and in the armed forces, represented a security risk which, in the words of the GOP chairman, were “as dangerous as the actual Communists” (see Apr 18). On May 2, columnist James Marlow took the opportunity to provide a couple of hypothetical situations to explain to readers the difference between being disloyal and being a security risk:

1. Jones, completely loyal, is a good worker, sober on the job. But at night, sometimes or often, he gets drunk and talks too much. In the non-sensitive agriculture department that might not make much difference, as long as Jones did his work and kept out of trouble when drunk. In the commerce department, if Jones held a sensitive job, he might be considered a security risk: he might blab secrets when drunk.

The commerce department could do one of two things: fire Jones on the ground that he was “unsuitable” for government work; or transfer him to a non-sensitive job. But state department officials say that if Jones worked there and was considered a security risk, he’d be fired. (The say emphatically they keep no known security risks or disloyal persons on the payroll, although Senator McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, says the place is full of them.)

2. Smith is found to be a homosexual. He’s completely loyal but because of his secret sex habits may some day run into an individual or group which would blackmail him. In the state department, he’d be considered a security risk and out, officials there say.

Officials of other government agencies, sensitive and non-sensitive, told this writer they would get rid of a homosexual on the grounds that he was “unsuitable” for government employment, not because he was a security risk.

L-R: Barbara Gittings, Frank Kameny, and John Fryer as “Dr. H. Anonymous”

“Dr. H. Anonymous” Addresses the APA: 1972. For several years, gay activists Barbara Gittings (see Jul 31) and Frank Kameny (see May 21), among others, saw the American Psychiatric Association’s classification of homosexuality as a mental illness as the single greatest impediment to equal rights for gays and lesbians. As long as the APA labeled gay people as sick, the government had an excuse to refuse to hire them, immigration authorities could refuse to allow them into the country, and thousands of therapists could continue to inflict harmful and questionable treatments to try to “cure” their patients (see, for example, Jan 18, Jan 20, Mar 29, Jun 3, Jul 26, Oct 30, Dec 8), and our award-winning investigation, What are Little Boys Made Of?).

For Gittings and Kameny in particular, getting the APA to change its stance was a pressing priority. After years of protesting APA conventions as outsiders (see May 14), they finally were given permission in 1972 to organize a panel on homosexuality for that year’s convention in Dallas. The panel’s topic was to be “Lifestyles of Non-Patient Homosexuals.” Gittings and Kameny were part of the panel, and they had recruited three other prominent psychiatrists, Judd Marmor, Robert Siedenberg and Kent Robinson. But they also felt it was important to include a professional psychiatrist who was gay. Finding one who would agree to speak was virtually impossible. Everyone they asked turned them down, except one: John Fryer (see Nov 7), and he would only do it in disguise. He wore a mask, wig, and a suit several sizes too big (which was not easy to find since Fryer was already a big man to begin with), and he spoke into a microphone which distorted his voice. And with all of those precautions in place, American pschiatrists, for the first time, heard a fellow psychiatrist by the name of “Dr. H. Anonymous” describe what it was like to be gay in a profession that considered him sick. His speech was short, but to the point:

Thank you, Dr. Robinson. I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist. I, like most of you in this room, am a member of the APA and am proud to be a member. However, tonight I am, insofar as in it is possible, a “we.” I attempt tonight to speak for many of my fellow gay members of the APA as well as for myself. When we gather at these conventions, we have a group, which we have glibly come to call the Gay-PA. And several of us feel that it is time that real flesh and blood stand up before you and ask to be listened to and understood insofar as that is possible. I am disguised tonight in order that I might speak freely without conjuring up too much regard on your part about the particular WHO I happen to be. I do that mostly for your protection. I can assure you that I could be any one of more than a hundred psychiatrists registered at this convention. And the curious among you should cease attempting to figure out who I am and listen to what I say.

We homosexual psychiatrists must persistently deal with a variety of what we shall call ‘Nigger Syndromes.’ We shall describe some of them and how they make us feel.

As psychiatrists who are homosexual, we must know our place and what we must do to be successful. If our goal is academic appointment, a level of earning capacity equal to our fellows, or admission to a psychoanalytic institute, we must make certain that no one in a position of power is aware of our sexual orientation or gender identity. Much like the black man with the light skin who chooses to live as a white man, we cannot be seen with our real friends — our real homosexual family — lest our secret be known and our dooms sealed. There are practicing psychoanalysts among us who have completed their training analysis without mentioning their homosexuality to their analysts. Those who are willing to speak up openly will do so only if they have nothing to lose, then they won’t be listened to.

As psychiatrists who are homosexuals, we must look carefully at the power which lies in our hands to define the health of others around us. In particular, we should have clearly in our minds, our own particular understanding of what it is to be a healthy homosexual in a world, which sees that appellation as an impossible oxymoron. One cannot be healthy and be homosexual, they say. One result of being psychiatrists who are homosexual is that we are required to be more healthy than our heterosexual counterparts. We have to make some sort of attempt through therapy or analysis to work problems out. Many of us who make that effort are still left with a sense of failure and of persistence of “the problem.” Just as the black man must be super person, so must we, in order to face those among our colleagues who know we are gay. We could continue to cite examples of this sort of situation for the remainder of the night. It would be useful, however, if we could now look at the reverse.

What is it like to be a homosexual who is also a psychiatrist? Most of us Gay-PA members do not wear our badges into the Bayou Landing, [a gay bar in Dallas] or the local Canal Baths. If we did, we could risk the derision of all the non-psychiatrist homosexuals. There is much negative feeling in the homosexual community towards psychiatrists. And those of us, who are visible, are the easiest targets from which the angry can vent their wrath. Beyond that, in our own hometowns, the chances are that in any gathering of homosexuals, there is likely to be any number of patients or paraprofessional employees who might try to hurt us professionally in a larger community if those communities enable them to hurt us that way.

Finally, as homosexual psychiatrists, we seem to present a unique ability to marry ourselves to institutions rather than wives or lovers. Many of us work twenty hours daily to protect institutions that would literally chew us up and spit us out if they knew the truth. These are our feelings, and like any set of feelings, they have value insofar as they move us toward concrete action.

Here, I will speak primarily to the other members of the Gay-PA who are present, not in costume tonight. Perhaps you can help your fellow psychiatrist friends understand what I am saying. When you are with professionals, fellow professionals, fellow psychiatrists who are denigrating the “faggots” and the “queers,” don’t just stand back, but don’t give up your careers either. Show a little creative ingenuity; make sure you let your associates know that they have a few issues that they have to think through again. When fellow homosexuals come to you for treatment, don’t let your own problems get in your way, but develop creative ways to let the patient know that they’re all right. And teach them everything they need to know. Refer them to other sources of information with basic differences from your own so that the homosexual will be freely able to make his own choices.

Finally, pull up your courage by your bootstraps and discover ways in which you and homosexual psychiatrists can be closely involved in movements which attempt to change the attitudes of heterosexuals — and homosexuals — toward homosexuality. For all of us have something to lose. We may not be considered for that professorship. The analyst down the street may stop referring us his overflow. Our supervisor may ask us to take a leave of absence. We are taking an even bigger risk, however, not accepting fully our own humanity, with all of the lessons it has to teach all the other humans around us and ourselves. This is the greatest loss: our honest humanity. And that loss leads all those others around us to lose that little bit of their humanity as well. For, if they were truly comfortable with their own homosexuality, then they could be comfortable with ours. We must use our skills and wisdom to help them — and us — grow to be comfortable with that little piece of humanity called homosexuality.

The panel was a sensation. Despite the august credentials held by the other psychiatrists, their contributions to the discussion were all but ignored. Dr. Anonymous’s speech was the only thing people talked about. The “Dr. Anonymous” speech proved to be a critical turning point. The following year, Dr. Robert Spitzer, who was editor of the Diagnostic And Statistical Manual, met quietly with the Gay-PA and began the process of removing homosexuality from the authoritative manual. That process was completed by the end of the year (see Dec 15)

But on that day, the end goal still seemed to be very far away. But Fryer, despite his initial hesitation, was elated. The next day as he was flying back to Boston from Dallas, Fryer wrote in his diary:

The day has passed — it has come and gone and I am still alive. For the first time, I have identified with a force which is akin to my selfhood. I am not Black. I am not alcoholic. I am not really addicted. I am homosexual, and I am the only American psychiatrist who has stood up on a podium to let real flesh and blood tell this nation it is so.

[You can see Dr. Fryer’s handwritten speech here and his diary entry here.]

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Lesley Gore: 1946. She was still a junior in high school in 1963 when her single, “It’s My Party” shot to number one, was nominated for a Grammy, and sold over one million copies. She followed that with a string of top forty hits: “Judy’s Turn to Cry”, “She’s a Fool,” “You Don’t Own Me,” and another Grammy nominated hit, “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows.” Her fame led to a cameo in the beach party movie, The Girls on the Beach, which also included an early appearance by the Beach Boys, and she played the villain, Pussycat, one of Catwoman’s acolytes, in the Batman TV series. In 1980, she won an Academy Award, with her brother Michael, for the song  “Out Here On My Own” for the Fame soundtrack. In 2005, Gore revealed in an interview that she was a lesbian, and had been living with her partner since 1982.

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?

Civil Unions come to Colorado

At Midnight, Anna Sher and Fran Simon became the first couple in Colorado to become civil unioned (civilly unioned?). They were one couple of many that have been waiting for a long time to have the state recognize their relationship and it is a joyous day. Mazel Tov!

Robert Gagnon Explains Why Consensual Gay Relationships Are Worse Than Bestiality and Incest

Robert Gagnon

Jeremy Hooper was forwarded a lengthy email chain sent to over seventy social conservative anti-gay activists in advance of the National Organization for Marriage’s Ruth Institute’s conference at the end of May. Among those receiving the email chain was Exodus International Alan Chambers, who tired of the anti-gay rhetoric and, after asking to be removed from the chain, finally added Hooper’s email address to it. In one email response, Robert Gagnon called Chambers to task for “secretly adding the name of someone whose whole objective is to promote sexually immoral behavior and abuse those who uphold what Jesus and Scripture regarded as sacred.” Gagnon also went on to justify his use of the word “perverse” to describe gay people:

The verb “to pervert” is from the Latin meaning “to turn thoroughly,” i.e. away from the truth or right course of action. Applied to sexual practice, a perversion is “any of various means of obtaining sexual gratification that are generally regarded as being unnatural or abnormal.” Paul in Scripture makes a point of singling out homosexual practice as sexual behavior that is manifestly contrary to nature in that it is clear that a man and a woman are sexual complements or counterparts, not males with males or females with females. He als refers to such behavior as self-“dishonoring” (Atimazo / atimia) and as “indecent/shameful behavior” (askhemosune). The Levitical prohibitions and some Deuteronomical texts add the description of to’evah, something abominable or abhorrent to God. The latter (along with Revelation) adds the epithet of of “dogs” to men who actively emasculate their appearance to attract male sex partners in a cultic context, treating themselves as “sacred” (hence the Hebrew name qedeshim). Bestiality is an even more unnatural form of sexual practice since it is cross-species. Adult-consensual incest is also a particularly perverse form of sexual practice since it involves sex with someone who is too much of a familial same. But Scripture treats homosexual practice as even more severely unnatural because the male-female requirement for sexual relations is foundational for all that follows (so Genisis and Jesus) and because sex or gender is a more constituent feature of sexual behavior than kinship.

Gagnon has argued that homosexuality is worse than incest before. In one 11-page polemic from 2007 — yes, Gagnon does like to hear himself speak — Gagnon writes (PDF: 61KB/11 pages):

It is my contention that homosexual practice is a more serious violation of Scripture’s sexual norms than even incest, adultery, plural marriage, and divorce. (The reader will note that I did not mention bestiality because the evidence from ancient Israel and early Judaism suggests that bestiality is a worse offense than same-sex intercourse.) [Emphasis in the original]

I guess in the six years since then Gagnon’s sorted out God’s mind on bestiality and, unsurprisingly, Gagnon’s God now agrees with Gagnon that gays are worse.

In addition to Gagnon’s close association with the NOM, he is also a founding board member of Restored Hope Network, comprised of a group of break-away ex-gay ministries which left Exodus International after Exodus president Alan Chambers acknowledged that “the majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them, have not experienced a change in their orientation.” Chambers also repudiated the particular type of counseling intended to change sexual orientation known as Reparative Therapy, and he has declared that Exodus will no longer take sides in the political debates surrounding gay rights, including marriage rights.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, May 1

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Delaware Senate Committee To Hear Marriage Equality Bill: Dover, DE. The Delaware Senate Executive Committee has scheduled a hearing this afternoon for H.R. 75, a bill to provide marriage equality for The First State’s same-sex couples. Delaware currently provides civil unions for same-sex couples, and this bill would also allow them to undergo a separate marriage ceremony if they so choose. (All civil unions not converted to marriages will automatically become marriages on July 1, 2014.) The bill cleared the Delaware House last week in a 23-18 vote. The Executive Committee will hear the bill in the Senate Chamber beginning at 2:30 p.m. Seven of the Senate’s twenty-one members are cosponsors of the bill.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Maspalomas, Gran Canaria; Mobile, AL; Norrköping, Sweden; Raleigh, NC.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Anaheim, CA; Atlantic City / Asbury Park / Morristown / Newark / Ridgewood, NJ; Charlotte, NC; Ft. Wayne, IN.

Other Events This Weekend: Hot Rodeo, Banning, CA; Boston LGBT Film Festival, Boston, MA; Frieberg Gay Film Festival, Frieberg, Germany; Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Miami, FL;  Sitges International Bear Meeting, Sitges, Spain; Tybee Gay Days, Tybee Island, GA.

Romaine Brooks, Self Portrait, 1923.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Romaine Brooks: 1874. The American painter worked mostly in France, where she was surrounded by the brilliant colors of Fauvism and the decompositional attitudes of cubism, but her work hearkened back to the style of James Whistler. She was born Beatrice Romaine Goddard, and in 1903 she married John Ellingham Brooks. He was gay, but he couldn’t take her gender-bending manner of dress and hairstyle. Their marriage lasted only a year, but she wound up keeping his name. The following year, she discarded the bright colors of her works which were so fashionable and adopted the darker, more subdued colors which would become her trademark.

Brooks took a string of unconventional lovers, including the American heiress Winnaretta Singer and Lord Alfred Douglas (Oscar Wilde’s former lover), and the Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein, who Brooks painted more than any other subject. Her paintings were almost all portraits, and very nearly all of them of women. By 1925, she had been featured in several successful solo exhibitions in Paris, London and New York, but after that year she produced only four more paintings. She briefly took up line drawing in 1930, but dropped that by 1935. Her longtime partner, Natalie Barney, also became her manager and continued to arrange shows for her. But after the Second World War, Brooks became increasingly reclusive and paranoid. By 1969, Brooks’s paranoia led her to stop communicating with Barney entirely. Brooks died in 1970 at the age of 96.

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?

Marriage Map

In the map above, the dark green nations offer marriage equality. The light green nations are either those which offer civil unions or some variation of partner recognition or those in which some but not all portions of the nation offer marriage or civil unions.

A look at marriage in Brazil

Brazil has an interesting approach to marriage. Since 2011, same-sex couples have been able to register their unions across the nation. And once registered, they could petition a judge to convert that union into a marriage.

However, many of Brazil’s states have eliminated the two-step dance by allowing marriage licenses to be granted directly to same-sex couples. Two more passed marriage equality bills yesterday, bringing the total to 14 of the 27 jurisdictions: the states of Alagoas, Sergipe, Espíritu Santo, Bahía, Piauí, São Paulo, Ceará, Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Rondônia, Paraíba, and Santa Catarina along with the Brazilian Federal District.

Nine of those were enacted within the last six months (four this month alone).

Delaware Senate Executive Committee votes on Equality tomorrow

The Delaware Senate Executive Committee will meet on Wednesday, May 1, at 2:30. The only item on the agenda is a vote on House Bill 75, the marriage equality bill. Three of the six committee members are sponsors and another has stated his support for the bill, so it is expected to pass.

Don’t be fooled by pretty talk, NOM opposes ANY rights for same-sex couples

The National Organization for Marriage often pretends that they don’t oppose same-sex couple having some accomodations for their relationship, they just want to defend the definition of marriage. They lie.

As an illustration, today NOMBlog has a commentary about the ruling by the Texas Attorney General that cities and municipalities cannot offer any rights to same-sex couples.

In a six-page opinion, Abbott found that the constitution “prohibits political subdivisions from creating a legal status of domestic partnership and recognizing that status by offering public benefits based upon it.” He said city governments and school districts constitute political subdivisions.

That was a news report about Abbott’s position. But this is what NOM itself had to say:

Patrick is concerned that Texas law states “cities, counties and school districts cannot subvert the will of Texans” but that this is precisely what is happening in those municipalities and school districts which offer same-sex partner benefits.

The petty snideness is hard to miss. Don’t be fooled by the pretty words they use in the press; NOM has never met a lie that they thought was prohibited by the Bible.