Box Turtle Bulletin

I’ll tell you when, Justice Scalia

JUSTICE SCALIA: You — you’ve led me right into a question I was going to ask. The California Supreme Court decides what the law is. That’s what we decide, right? We don’t prescribe law for the future.

We — we decide what the law is. I’m curious, when — when did — when did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted? Sometimes — some time after Baker, where we said it didn’t even raise a substantial Federal question? When — when — when did the law become this?

Scalia rants as though there is no date, as though this is all arbitrary and subjective and up to some whimsical liberal social ‘living constitution’ interpretation of law. He is mistaken.

There is a date, a specific date, upon which it became unconstitutional under the provisions of the US Constitution to exclude homosexual couples from marriage.

On the day, the very first day, that a same-sex couple decided that they would avail themselves of the equal provisions of their governmental contract and seek the protections afforded by marriage, and on the very first day that this same-sex couple was told that, no, they were excluded – explicitly excluded – from the protections offered by the state because they were an unfavored people, on that specific day, Justice Scolia, the state acted in an unconstitutional manner.

Yes, the Supreme Court of the United States “decides what the law is”. But the wording of our contract – our agreement with the Federal Government that they may govern us and patrol our liberties and, at times, curtail our freedoms when necessary – is not decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. And that wording, that guarantee, allows the Federal Government to serve as our representative government only within certain confines, among which are that all citizens are provided with the same rights.

That provision exists either with or without social recognition. It exists whether or not a Supreme Court “decides” that it is the law.

It is inevitable that some day the Court will recognize – not decide – that gay citizens are equal citizens and that arbitrary animus-based discrimination such as that which Justice Scalia defends is a violation of our national contract. And some day, a Supreme Court will decide that the law is such that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a gross violation of the clear provisions of the US Constitution.

But that will not be the day in which such discrimination becomes unconstitutional. That day has passed.

Part 1 of Rob’s Snarky Play-by-Play of the Prop 8 Hearing

I downloaded the transcript and audio and simply started typing as I listened. I’ve done minimal formatting and proofing so please forgive the many errors. The time codes correspond roughly to the relevant spot in the downloadable audio. Cooper (the anti-same-sex marriage attorney spoke first). I’ll do our side in my next post.

11:00  Cooper begins by saying the Court has to decide whether the Constitution should put  a stop to the ongoing democratic debate and answer this question for all 50 states. Cooper says such a thing can only happen if  “no rational, thoughtful person of goodwill could possibly disagree with them in good faith on this agonizingly difficult issue.”

Agonizing difficult issue? When did that become the position of our opponents? I thought it was supposed to be perfectly obvious that marriage can only be between one man and one woman.

This is the start of their show of reasonableness, their feigned demonstration of no ill-will against gays. Read the rest of this entry »

NOM Rallied Today

After their march, the National Organization for Marriage – along with their various supporting organizations – rallied to protect marriage from being equally applied to all citizens.

The Red Caped Loons of the Catholic organization, Tradition, Values & Property, were present

The rally surrounded the bandbox.

And they certainly had plenty of space in which to congregate.

But it’s nice to see that not much grass was damaged.

Prop 8 Oral Arguments Released

Audio and transcript of today’s oral arguments for Hollingsworth v. Perry are available here.

NOM Marched today

The National Organization for Marriage has been declaring that they were going to turn out busloads of people to march on the Supreme Court to protect traditional marriage (in the fine old tradition of keeping rights limited to the people who they think are better than you). And they have posted pictures on their NOMblog showing their glorious march.

For Example: (NOMblog)

But NOM’s pics tend to be close up and don’t give much of a sense of size. That’s not to say there aren’t any large group pics in their photostream, but those tend to be problematic; they have rainbow flags and “Equality Now” signs in them.

Fortunately, a BTB reader had a birds eye view of NOM’s march and has offered to share some pictures that give some perspective to their “busloads”. Here they start marching past:

There they go, banners unfurled.

And the middle of the pack.

And finally, the last of the saints go straggling by.

And after months of preparation and “busloads” of support, that was their march, pretty much in total.

No, it’s not exactly pathetic; thirty or forty people would be pathetic. At what looks to me to be a few thousand people, this was … well, let’s just say Brian Brown probably found it to be a bit of a disappointing turnout.

But I fully expect NOM to claim “hundreds of thousands”.

Tweets from the Court House

It’s looking good so far:

Update: The question of standing has also come up. Proposition 8 is not being defended by the state of California, but by proponents of Prop 8. Kennedy appears uncomfortable with this, which also bodes well:

Update: An important caveat:

Sens. Mark Begich and Jay Rockefeller Support Marriage Equality

Allee-Allee-All-In-Free!

After remaining mum on the subject when asked about it last week, Sen. Mark Begich’s (D) office issued a statement Monday night from the senator supporting marriage equality.

“I believe that same sex couples should be able to marry and should have the same rights, privileges and responsibilities as any other married couple,” the Alaskan senator said in what appears to be his first direct statement on the subject.

“Government should keep out of individuals’ personal lives — if someone wants to marry someone they love, they should be able to. Alaskans are fed up with government intrusion into our private lives, our daily business, and in the way we manage our resources and economy,” he continued.

And West Virginia’s Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D) sent this statement to the Charleston Daily Mail:

“Like so many of my generation, my views on allowing gay couples to marry have been challenged in recent years by a new, more open generation.

“Churches and ministers should never have to perform marriages that violate their religious beliefs but the government shouldn’t discriminate against people who want to marry just because of their gender.

“Younger people in West Virginia and even my own children have grown up in a much more equal society and they rightly push us to question old assumptions. To think deeply about what it means for all Americans to be created equal. This has been a process for me, but at this point I think it’s clear that DOMA is discriminatory.

“I’m against discrimination in all its forms and I think we can move forward in our progress toward true equality by repealing DOMA.”

Rockefeller and Begich join Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Mark Warner (D-VA) in the rush to be on the right side of history.

Just remember the deadline for "I've evolved on gay marriage" statements is *tonight* at midnight, EST.

— DENALI (@timothypmurphy) March 25, 2013

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, March 26

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Supreme Court to Hear Oral Arguments for Prop 8: Washington, D.C. This is the month where history will be made. Today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California’s Proposition 8 which bans marriage equality for same-sex couples. Oral arguments will begin this morning at 10:00 a.m. and they are scheduled to last one hour. Audio recordings of the oral arguments are typically released at the end of the week, but, in an unusual move, the court will release the recordings at about 1:00 p.m. EDT. The last time the court made the recordings available on the same day was when it heard three days of arguments over the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”). You can find the full docket of documents and amici briefs here.

In addition to the drama taking place inside the court room, there will be competing marches and demonstrations outside of the Supreme Court building. The anti-gay National Organization for Marriage has organized a march and rally, which will run up against the pro-equality United for Marriage Rally, both of which will take place in front of the Supreme Court. For more information on attending the United for Marriage Rally or to attend one of the other rallies in 50 states around the nation, click here.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Boulder, CO Issues Nation’s First Same-Sex Marriage Licenses: 1975. There’s a lot I don’t know about this case, and so ordinarily I probably would have waited until I was able to gather more information before writing about it today. But with this historic event touching on same-sex marriage coinciding to the U.S. Supreme Court’s hearing of oral arguments for Prop 8 makes this story far to relevant to pass over. For example, I don’t know why Boulder, Colorado’s Assistant District Attorney William C. Wise issued a memorandum on March 26, 1975 which noted that Colorado’s marriage laws were not gender specific. “There is no statutory law prohibiting the issuance of a license, probably because the situation was simply not contemplated in the past by our legislature. The case law is strongly on the side of the public official that refuses to issue a marriage license in these situations, and a public official could not be prosecuted for violation of any criminal law by such marriage licensing,” Wise wrote.

Boulder County Clerk Clela Rorex (perhaps that same day, although the chronology isn’t entirely clear) issued the County’s first marriage license to Dave McCord and Dave Zamora, both 27, who went to Boulder County after having been refused a license in El Paso County (Colorado Springs). McCord told reporters that the El Paso County Clerks office told them, “We do not do that here in El Paso County, but if you want to, go to Boulder County, they might do it there.” Rorex however, decided to issue the license “strictly (as) an administration decision. I am not in violation of any law and it is not for me to legislate morality and not give persons a license if I so desire.” She also said she would continue to issue licenses in similar case as long as it was legal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next day, White House Press Secretary Jody Powell appeared in CBS’s Face the Nation and defended the meeting. “For an organized group who feel they have a grievance that they are not being treated fairly, for them to have a right to put that grievance before high officials and say ‘we want redress,’ that to me is what the essence of America is all about.” But Anita Bryant, who was then campaigning against a Miami, Florida gay rights ordinance, denounced the meeting. “Behind the high sounding appeal against discrimination in job and housing — which is not a problem to the ‘closet’ homosexual — they are really asking to be blessed in their abnormal lifestyle by the office of the President if the United States. I protest the action of the White House staff in dignifying these activists for special privilege with a serious discussion of their alleged ‘human rights’,” she said in a written statement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Knowing Gay People Drives Growth in Marriage Equality Support

CNN is calling it “the Portman Effect”:

One day before the Supreme Court hears a high profile case on same-sex marriage, a new national poll indicates that the percentage of Americans who say they have a family member or close friend who is gay or lesbian is on the rise. And that increase matches a jump in the percent of the public who support legal same-sex marriages

According to a CNN/ORC International survey, 57% say they have a family member or close friend who is gay or lesbian, up 12 points from 2007.

“The number of Americans who support same-sex marriage has risen by almost the same amount in that time – from 40% in 2007 to 53% today – strongly suggesting that the rise in support for gay marriage is due in part to the rising number of Americans who have become aware that someone close to them is gay,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Sen. Mark Warner Supports Marriage Equality

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the senior senator of the exceptionally socially-conservative state of Virginia, has posted on his Facebook page his support for marriage equality.

I support marriage equality because it is the fair and right thing to do. Like many Virginians and Americans, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and this is the inevitable extension of my efforts to promote equality and opportunity for everyone. I was proud to be the first Virginia governor to extend anti-discrimination protections to LGBT state workers. In 2010, I supported an end to the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, and earlier this month I signed an amicus brief urging the repeal of DOMA. I believe we should continue working to expand equal rights and opportunities for all Americans.

This isn’t entirely surprising, given his signing onto the amicus brief for DOMA’s repeal. But this does make him the only state-wide elected official in Virginia to support marriage equality.

Warner joins Sen.Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who also announced her support for marriage equality yesterday on her Tumblr page. On the Democratic side of the aisle, this has the feel of a mopping-up operation rather than another hard-fought victory in a long-running battle. As Rob Tisinai pointed out last week, the window is rapidly closing for those political leaders who will want their children and grandchildren to remember them as being on the right side of history while it still matters.

Sen. Claire McCaskill Supports Marriage Equality

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), the senior Senator from socially-conservative Missouri, took to her Tumblr page yesterday to announce her support for marriage equality:

I have come to the conclusion that our government should not limit the right to marry based on who you love. While churches should never be required to conduct marriages outside of their religious beliefs, neither should the government tell people who they have a right to marry.

My views on this subject have changed over time, but as many of my gay and lesbian friends, colleagues and staff embrace long term committed relationships, I find myself unable to look them in the eye without honestly confronting this uncomfortable inequality. Supporting marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is simply the right thing to do for our country, a country founded on the principals of liberty and equality.

Good people disagree with me. On the other hand, my children have a hard time understanding why this is even controversial. I think history will agree with my children.

When the Political Is the Personal

Those of us who have been out for a very long time can sometimes forget what a daunting chore coming out can be. Sen. Rob Portman’s (R-OH) son, Will Portman, was eighteen years old and a freshman at Yale when he decided to come out to everyone. The biggest chore was to his parents, then he went down a checklist of friends and relatives, some of whom he came out to in person, others via letter, email, phone call or Skype. And to add to that, imagine the pressure of being eighteen and having the emotional difficulties of having your coming out wrapped up in national politics:

I started talking to my dad more about being gay. Through the process of my coming out, we’d had a tacit understanding that he was my dad first and my senator a distant second. Eventually, though, we began talking about the policy issues surrounding marriage for same-sex couples.

The following summer, the summer of 2012, my dad was under consideration to be Gov. Romney’s running mate. The rest of my family and I had given him the go-ahead to enter the vetting process. My dad told the Romney campaign that I was gay, that he and my mom were supportive and proud of their son, and that we’d be open about it on the campaign trail.

When he ultimately wasn’t chosen for the ticket, I was pretty relieved to have avoided the spotlight of a presidential campaign. Some people have criticized my dad for waiting for two years after I came out to him before he endorsed marriage for gay couples. Part of the reason for that is that it took time for him to think through the issue more deeply after the impetus of my coming out. But another factor was my reluctance to make my personal life public.

Now that Will Portman is twenty and a junior, most of that reluctance appears to have melted away, if this essay in the Yale Daily News is any indication. Will is rightly proud of his father for handling his coming out the way he did. It can be complicated for any young man to navigate, and given the larger picture it seems to me that father and son handled it pretty well. “It has been strange to have my personal life in the headlines,” Will writes, of which we can only imagine. I wonder how many other nineteen year old sons of U.S. Senators would be able to go through all this pressure.

As for how that impacted the Romney campaign’s decision not to go with Portman for the number two slot and carry with it the key swing state of the election, that story hasn’t been told. But every campaign has its Primary Colors and Game Change, and its only a matter of time before this story gets written as well.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, March 25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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250,000 Children? Piffle!

I might have a little crush on NOM’s Communications Director, Thomas Peters — or perhaps I just mean it’s been a long time since a 30-year-old has given me such delight. And he continues to deliver.

NOM posted this excerpt of an NPR story on their blog (sorry, they didn’t link to the story itself). As you read, keep in mind they’re happy about what it says:

Surveys suggest that kids younger than 18 in same-sex families still number fewer than a quarter-million.

“It’s a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent,” says Thomas Peters of the National Organization for Marriage, a leading group opposing same-sex marriage.

“The difference is that children raised by gay parents are very much in the media’s eye,” he says. “We see it on Modern Family. We see this hugely blown out of proportion. It’s why, by the way, in Gallup [polls], Americans believe that a third to a fourth of Americans are gay.”

Don’t you see Peters’ point? Let me paraphrase: We’re only denying family protections to a quarter of a million kids! That’s 250 thousand, not, like 250 gazillion! That’s barely the population of Orlando, only about 60,000 more people than live in Salt Lake City. What’s all this fuss over just a quarter of million kids? I mean, a quarter is somewhere around 25 cents, and nobody even cares about pennies!

And NOM — which is all about the kids, right? — is highlighting Peters’ quote, not apologizing for it.

Herein lies NOM’s strange and revealing contradiction. Peters, in this quote, is minimizing not just the number of kids in same-sex homes, but the number of gays as well, presumably to give the impression that this population of children is unlikely to grow. Factor in NOM’s other rhetoric, and you’re left with this:

• We need to ban same-sex marriage because every child deserves a mother and father, and every child is important.

• We can refute the need for same-sex marriage because only a quarter of a million kids are raised in such households, and they can be dismissed as “a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent.”

It seems the importance of children to NOM depends entirely on their argument of the moment.

Along these lines I’d like to detour for a moment into another NOM post called, “Examples of Excellent Testimony Against SSM in Minnesota” (their title, not mine). They approvingly quote this bit from Doug Mainwaring, their favorite gay who opposes gay marriage:

Doug (gay man): “marriage isn’t about love, commitment and responsibility–it’s about kids. Ignore the media push and adult demands for same-sex marriage.”

That is one of their “examples of excellent testimony.”  It leaves me thinking NOM has no idea why married parents are such a good thing for kids. Of course, it’s perfectly in line with Thomas Peters’ recent tweet about marriage: “Orientation doesnt matter, sexual difference does!”

Yeah. Marriage is all about the kids. But for NOM, apparently, a loveless, uncommitted, irresponsible opposite-sex couple is better for those kids than any same-sex couple you can find, because sexual difference matters so much more than those trivial concerns.

I’ll be keeping an eye on Thomas Peters. It’s fun. My only worry is that NOM could realize something might be wrong if your opponents are eager to publicize everything your Communications Director has to say.

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, March 24

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Banned Ugandan Play To Be Staged In U.S.: Baltimore, MD. Last summer, play featuring a gay character in a pro-gay treatment was performed in a couple of small venues in suburban Kampala, Uganda. British national David Cecil, who served as the play’s producer, was soon arrested, jailed, tried and acquitted of charges in connection with staging the play, only to be re-arrested again and deported a month later. That play, The River and the Mountain, is being presented as a stage reading through this weekend  in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area. Today’s reading of The River and the Mountain will be held at Single Carrot Theatre, 1727 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD., at 5:30 p.m. Readings are free, though donations will be accepted. Click here for more information.

Events This Weekend: Florida AIDS Walk & Music Festival, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London, UK; Black Party, New York, NY; European Snow Pride, Tignes, France; OutBoard, Winter Park, CO.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
ACT-UP Launches First Protest: 1987. Morning rush hour became ensnarled in lower Manhattan as 250 AIDS activists protested at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street. The protest was the result of growing frustration over New York City’s lax response to the AIDS crisis in the city as well as the Food and Drug Administration’s cautious and excruciatingly slow process for approving new drugs to combat the disease. Only one drug, AZT, had been approved so far, but at $10,000 per year ($20,000 in today’s dollars) it was prohibitively expensive, hard to obtain (it was being rationed), and of very limited efficacy in treating the disease. European regulators had approved several other drugs for use in combating AIDS, but the FDA’s standard process for approval would take the better part of a decade, far longer than most people with AIDS would have to live.

The newly-formed group, ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power), was born from that frustration, and on the morning of March 24 they took to the streets for the first time. Playwright Larry Kramer, one of the group’s founder, said, “We’ve been told by the leading AIDS experts that there are drugs that are safer to use and more promising than AZT. We want these drugs and we want the Wall Street business community to help us get them.” The group also called for a massive public education campaign to stop the spread of the disease, an anti-discrimination policy for people with AIDS in treatment, insurance, employment and housing, and a national comprehensive national policy on AIDS. Protesters sat down in the middle of the street, resulting in seventeen arrests. After more than a year of protests, including a massive protest in which members of ACT-UP occupied the grounds of the FDA in Washington, D.C., (See Oct 11), the FDA finally relented and instituted a new emergency streamlined process for quicker approval of AIDS drugs.

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

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