Box Turtle Bulletin

GOP tries unsuccessfully to block Minnesota marriage bill

A series of procedural votes suggest that marriage will pass the Minnesota Senate. (PostBulletin)

While the votes were procedural, Republicans portrayed a final floor vote as a functional vote on gay marriage. That motion, which adds the bill to a long list of bills awaiting action on the Senate floor, passed 35-31. One Republican senator joined all but four of the chamber’s Democrats to keep the bill moving.

But it is the argument in opposition that floors me. Having discovered that marriage equality is coming to Minnesota, Senate Republicans have suddenly found a concern over the fiscal impact of marriage.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans produced a document they said shows that authorizing gay marriage could cost the state’s insurance fund over $600,000 a year to provide coverage to spouses of gay state employees. They questioned whether it could also increase court costs or have other ramifications on state spending, and said the bill should be reviewed by the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees spending.

“I think it’s going to cost the state of Minnesota a bunch of money,” said Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson. “I think that impact is going to be significant. If I’m wrong, so be it.”

So that’s why they oppose equality. Not because it is gay people we are talking about, but because treating all of the state’s citizens equally would increase the annual state budget by 0.0018 percent.

As a fiscal conservative – and an accountant – this argument is far far more offensive than worries about The Children, or the Traditional Definition of Marriage, or even The End of Civilization As We Know It.

This is an acknowledgment that gay citizens are treated unequally. This is a calculation of the cost to the gay and lesbian citizens of Minnesota that they unfairly pay. And the argument is that although gays and lesbians receive $600,000 less in state services – services freely given to straight state employees but for which gay state employees have to reach in their own pocket – this discrimination should continue because equality would increase the budget by about 1.8 thousands of a percent.

As an argument for tossing the right to a citizen’s self determination out the window, this is about as offensive and stupid as it gets.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, March 14

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: European Gay Ski Week, Alpe d’Huez, France; AIDS Walk South Dallas, Dallas, TX; Texas Bear Roundup, Dallas, TX; BFI London Lesbian and Gay film Festival, London, UK; Camp Laurel Foundation Marathon, Los Angeles, CA; Elevation: Mammoth Gay Ski Week, Mammoth Mountain, CA; Texas Tradition Gay Rodeo, Pasadena, TX.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 
McCarthy Adds Names to His Famous List: 1950. In February, Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s national profile went through the roof when, during a speech at the Republican Women’s Club if Wheeling, West Virginia, he announced, “I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” He never did make that list public, but on this date in history he submitted 25 more names of State Department employees that he said should be investigated to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee. He also claimed, according to press reports, “that a homosexual had been hired by the Central Intelligence Agency after the State Department allowed him to resign. He did not name the man, but said his perversion made him a bad security risk.” And thus, the Lavender Scare was born.

“1,112 and Counting…”: 1983. More than a year had passed since playwright Larry Kramer helped to found the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (see Jan 12) to provide the kind of social services to gay men with AIDS that New York’s public health agencies were loathe to address. In the succeeding fourteen months, the death toll continued to rise and the paralysis which had struck local public health officials seemed no closet to abating. Kramer, who was never known for squelching his anger whenever or wherever it arose, took his frustrations out in an essay, titled “1,112 and Counting…,” which appeared in the March 14, 1983 edition of The New York Native, which at that time was just about the only source the gay community could turn to for the latest news (and obituaries) on the epidemic. It began:

If this article doesn’t scare the shit out of you, we’re in real trouble. If this article doesn’t rouse you to anger, fury, rage, and action, gay men may have no future on this earth. Our continued existence depends on just how angry you can get.

I am writing this as Larry Kramer, and I am speaking for myself, and my views are not to be attributed to Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

I repeat: Our continued existence as gay men upon the face of this earth is at stake. Unless we fight for our lives, we shall die. In all the history of homosexuality we have never before been so close to death and extinction. Many of us are dying or already dead.

Before I tell you what we must do, let me tell you what is happening to us.

There are now 1,112 cases of serious Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. When we first became worried, there were only 41. In only twenty-eight days, from January 13th to February 9th [1983], there were 164 new cases – and 73 more dead. The total death tally is now 418. Twenty percent of all cases were registered this January alone. There have been 195 dead in New York City from among 526 victims. Of all serious AIDS cases, 47.3 percent are in the New York metropolitan area.

These are the serious cases of AIDS, which means Kaposi’s sarcoma, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, and other deadly infections. These numbers do not include the thousands of us walking around with what is also being called AIDS: various forms of swollen lymph glands and fatigues that doctors don’t know what to label or what they might portend.

When Kramer wrote his essay, the announcement of the discovery of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was sill two months away (see May 20):

And, for the first time in this epidemic, leading doctors and researchers are finally admitting they don’t know what’s going on. I find this terrifying too – as terrifying as the alarming rise in numbers. For the first time, doctors are saying out loud and up front, “I don’t know.”

For two years they weren’t talking like this. For two years we’ve heard a different theory every few weeks. We grasped at the straws of possible cause: promiscuity, poppers, back rooms, the baths, rimming, fisting, anal intercourse, urine, semen, shit, saliva, sweat, blood, blacks, a single virus, a new virus, repeated exposure to a virus, amoebas carrying a virus, drugs, Haiti, voodoo, Flagyl, constant bouts of amebiasis, hepatitis A and B, syphilis, gonorrhea.

I have talked with the leading doctors treating us. One said to me, “If I knew in 1981 what I know now, I would never have become involved with this disease.” Another said, “The thing that upsets me the most in all of this is that at any given moment one of my patients is in the hospital and something is going on with him that I don’t understand. And it’s destroying me because there’s some craziness going on in him that’s destroying him.” A third said to me, “I’m very depressed. A doctor’s job is to make patients well. And I can’t. Too many of my patients die.”

Not that finally knowing that a virus was causing this mayhem was going to ease the sense of panic among those who saw the devastating effects first hand. Whatever panic Kramer experienced, he channeled it towards anger. He lashed out at the National Institutes of Health for its delays in grant funding, at The New York Times for its lack of coverage, at city Health Commissioner David Spencer for the “appalling” lack of health education, at the publishers of medical journals for the excruciatingly slow pace of the peer review process which had the effect of withholding vital information — sometimes by as much as a year — from doctors on the front lines, at The Advocate for soft-peddling the growing epidemic, and at the gay community itself:

If all of this had been happening to any other community for two long years, there would have been, long ago, such an outcry from that community and all its members that the government of this city and this country would not know what had hit them.

Why isn’t every gay man in this city so scared shitless that he is screaming for action? Does every gay man in New York want to die?

But his sharpest barbs were reserved for the (barely) closeted New York Mayor Ed Koch:

Our mayor, Ed Koch, appears to have chosen, for whatever reason, not to allow himself to be perceived by the non-gay world as visibly helping us in this emergency. Repeated requests to meet with him have been denied us. Repeated attempts to have him make a very necessary public announcement about this crisis and public health emergency have been refused by his staff. I sometimes think he doesn’t know what’s going on. I sometimes think that, like some king who has been so long on his throne he’s lost touch with his people, Koch is so protected and isolated by his staff that he is unaware of what fear and pain we’re in. No human being could otherwise continue to be so useless to his suffering constituents. When I was allowed a few moments with him at a party for outgoing Cultural Affairs Commissioner (and Gay Men’s Health Crisis Advisory Board member) Henry Geldzahler, I could tell from his responses that mayor Koch had not been well briefed on AIDS or what is happening in his city. When I started to fill him in, I was pulled away by an aide, who said, “Your time is up.” … One can only surmise that our mayor wants us treated this way.

Kramer closed by listing his friends who had died of AIDS, twenty-one names long, “and one more, who will be dead by the time these words appear in print. If we don’t act immediately, then we face our approaching doom.” The article also included a call to direct action. In doing so, it forever changed the way AIDS was discussed in the gay community. Randy Shilts, writing in And the Band Played On, called Kramer’s essay “inarguably one of the most influential works of advocacy journalism of the decade. ‘1,1112 and Counting…’ swiftly crystallized the epidemic into a political movement for the gay community at the same time it set off a maelstrom of controversy that polarized gay leaders.”

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?

Breaking: The Vatican Blows Smoke (UPDATED)

We’ll habemus a Papam soon, although I hear Karl Rove is throwing a fit because the votes from Cincinnati’s suburbs still haven’t come in.

His Holiness Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God.

Update: The new head of the Roman Catholic Church is His Holiness, Pope Francis, the former Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina. This sets several precedents: He’s the first non-European Pope in many centuries (some early popes were north African), he’s the first Jesuit pope, and he’s the first to be named Francis. The regnal name is chosen with care, and is intended to signal the kind of papacy the pope intends to pursue. In this case, it’s unclear whether this one intends to follow the path of St. Francis of Assisi, or perhaps, St. Francis Xavier, a co-founder of the Jesuits.

Nevertheless, the speed with which two-thirds of the 115 Cardinals settled on Bergolgio can only be seen as a stunning rebuke of the back-stabbing, infighting, scandal-plagued Roman Curia, which is badly in need of a complete reboot. While Bergolgio is a theological conservative, he can be somewhat more “left” leaning on economic and (non-sexual) social issues, for whatever meanings those labels may carry within Catholicism. (He’s no Paul Ryan, at any rate.)  The National Catholic Reporter has a very good rundown on his background here: 

Bergoglio has supported the social justice ethos of Latin American Catholicism, including a robust defense of the poor.

“We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least,” Bergoglio said during a gathering of Latin American bishops in 2007. “The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers.”

At the same time, he has generally tended to accent growth in personal holiness over efforts for structural reform.

…Bergoglio may be basically conservative on many issues, but he’s no defender of clerical privilege, or insensitive to pastoral realities. In September 2012, he delivered a blistering attack on priests who refuse to baptize children born out of wedlock, calling it a form of “rigorous and hypocritical neo-clericalism.”

Among the issues that Bergolgio was “basically conservative” on was homosexuality. He first crossed our radar in 2010, as he was campaigning against a proposal to bring marriage equality to Argentina’s same-sex couples:

“Let’s not be naive, we’re not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God,” writes Bergoglio in a letter sent to the monasteries of Buenos Aires, where he is archbishop. “We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

According to Wikipedia:

He has affirmed church teaching on homosexuality, though he teaches the importance of respecting individuals who are gay. He strongly opposed legislation introduced in 2010 by the Argentine Government to allow same-sex marriage. In a letter to the monasteries of Buenos Aires, he wrote: “Let’s not be naive, we’re not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.” He has also insisted that adoption by gays and lesbians is a form of discrimination against children. This position received a rebuke from Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who said the church’s tone was reminiscent of “medieval times and the Inquisition”  [By the way, the page was changed moments ago to replace every instance of “gay” to “homosexual”]

New Zealand Moves Close To Marriage Equality

The New Zealand Parliament approved a marriage equality bill 77-44 in the second of three votes yesterday:

Labour MP Louisa Wall’s bill passed by 77 votes to 44 votes late last night in front of a near-full public gallery, a drop in support of 3 votes from the first reading. Cabinet ministers Gerry Brownlee, Jonathan Coleman and Murray McCully and National MP Ian McKelvie voted against after initially supporting the bill. An attempt by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters to delay the law change until a referendum could be held at the 2014 general election was voted down by a margin of 83 votes to 33.

The debate surrounding the bill apparently has been acrimonious:

National MP Chester Borrows, who described himself as a conservative Christian, slammed the “abhorrent” way that various groups – including churches – had conducted themselves in the debate. Mr Borrows opposed the bill because he did not believe that changing the definition of marriage helped achieve equality in long-term relationships. But he stressed that the discussion had brought out the worst in Christian communities, saying that some colleagues had changed their opposing vote because of the hatred expressed by some opponents.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, March 13

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: European Gay Ski Week, Alpe d’Huez, France; AIDS Walk South Dallas, Dallas, TX; Texas Bear Roundup, Dallas, TX; BFI London Lesbian and Gay film Festival, London, UK; Camp Laurel Foundation Marathon, Los Angeles, CA; Elevation: Mammoth Gay Ski Week, Mammoth Mountain, CA; Texas Tradition Gay Rodeo, Pasadena, TX.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 
Michigan Man Commits Suicide Ahead of Sentencing: 1960. The crackdown against homosexuality being waged by Ann Arbor police and officials at the University of Michigan (see yesterday) took a tragic turn when one man who was due in court for sentencing was found dead in a hotel in St. Louis.

James P. Wiles had been found guilting of “attempting to procure an act of gross indecency” on March 7.  The judge in the case set sentencing for March 15, while Wiles’s lawyer announced that he would appeal the case to the Michigan Supreme Court, contending that Wiles had been the victim of police entrapment. But two days before that sentencing date, the 53-year-old Detroit resident’s body was discovered by a hotel clerk at the Melbourne Hotel when the clerk called to check in on the man after he failed to answer his phone. He had checked into the hotel under an assumed name on Thursday, March 10, three days after his conviction, and on the same day when he was reported missing from his home.

[Source: “Michigan Campus Purge Felt with Added Fury.” Mattachine Review 6, no. 5 (May 1960): 10, 21.]

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?

Reconstructionist Judaism selects gay leader

As best I can tell, this is a really really big deal. (Haaretz)

The newly elected leader of the Reconstructionist movement’s rabbinic association will be the first openly gay man to lead a national rabbinic association in the United States.

Rabbi Jason Klein, a Hillel rabbi at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, was elected to lead the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association at the group’s annual meeting taking place this week in New Orleans.

There have been gay and lesbian priests and pastors and rabbis and even bishops, and of course the Metropolitan Community Church was founded by a gay man, but I don’t think there has ever been a major denomination of any faith – in the US – headed by an openly gay individual.

The Second Most Powerful Testimony in Favor of Equality (UPDATED)

Timothy presented the most powerful testimony from a hearing held by a Minnesota House Committee. For your consideration, I present the second most powerful testimony from the same venue for our side — which just happens to be Mike Frey testifying for their side.

By the way, a Minnesota Senate committee was also holding hearings today on a bill to provide marriage equality to same-sex couples. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill in a 5-3 party-line vote, and it will now go on to the full Senate. Marriage supporters believed that the Senate committee posed a higher hurdle than the House committee, which is expecte to vote later this evening. Full floor votes will likely be weeks or months away, as legislative leaders vow to press on with budget bills before taking up the measure.

Update: The House Civil Law Committee passed the bill this evening on a 10-7 party-line vote. The bill now advances to the full House, but is not expected to be voted on until much later in the legislative session.

For another day the world remains popeless

It seems that discernment is not a straightforward thing and that God is working in very very mysterious ways today. (Times)

The cardinals of the Catholic Church held their first ballot on Tuesday to elect a pope, with black smoke signaling no winner on the first day of their conclave inside the Sistine Chapel.

Civil Unions pass in Colorado

The Civil Unions bill in Colorado has passed. The bipartisan vote in the House was 39 to 26 and, having already cleared the Senate, it goes to Governor John Hickenlooper for his expected signature.

Rep. Cheri Gerou, R-Evergreen, and Rep. Carole Murray, R-Castle Rock, joined all 37 Democrats to advance equality.

A Modest Proposal (by Peter Barber Gallagher-Sprigg)

With the Supreme Court case looming, it’s good to get multiple perspectives on marriage, so here’s a guest column from  Peter Barber Gallagher-Sprigg. It was originally published elsewhere a couple years ago, but it remains relevant today, and he’s kindly granted us permission to reprint it.

A Modest Proposal
by Peter Barber Gallagher-Sprigg

Children have a right to a mother and a father.

That’s uncontroversial, right?  Any opposite-sex couple, no matter how callous, abusive, or drunken, will make better parents than any same-sex couple.  Protectors of traditional marriage have made this point so often that it must feel truthy by now.

The problem is this:  they don’t go far enough.  If every child has this right, and if parenting is about the needs of the child, not the wishes of the adult, then let’s take the next logical step.  And so, full of courage, I modestly propose the following law:

The federal government will strip widows of their children.

That’s right.  Take them away and give them to women who had enough sense to keep their husbands.  Does this need explanation?  Is it not obvious?  Truthfully, how many of you are smacking your head right now, saying, “D’Oh!  Of course!”  But for those of you who have no respect for the traditional family, let me anticipate your objections.

Why only widows?  Why not divorcees? That’s easy.  A child of divorced parents still has a mother and father.  Even in unbroken homes, the mother and father are often in different rooms — it’s the same for divorced parents, except the rooms are really far apart.  That’s why we focus on making “gay” marriage illegal even as we ourselves are remarrying and remarrying and remarrying.

Why only widows?  Why not widowers? This is a really stupid question, one that only a liberal could ask.  We spit on you, stupid liberals!  But we’ll answer your question.  As our anti-homo colleagues have pointed out, mothers and fathers are different:  two fathers could never raise a child because children need a mother’s nurturing instinct, the kind you see in a mama grizzly or a good retriever bitch.  Obviously, then, a single dad — good lord! — will quickly abandon his kids, dumping them by the side of the road along with the family cat and any dog not used for hunting.   Once the children are safely deposited on a random street corner, we can be sure someone will see to their well-being.  A single mother, though, will cling to her children (that’s how boys become homosexuals).  So we must take them away.

What if the widow promises to remarry? Read the rest of this entry »

The most powerful testimony in favor of equality

Today, former GOP Representative Lynne Osterman testified in favor of marriage equality. Her testimony is, in my opinion, the most powerful argument that can be made for why you must do what is right.

If you watch no other testimony on marriage, watch this.

NARTH Loses Tax Exempt Status

Warren Throckmorton reports that the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) has had its tax exempt status revoked by the Internal Revenue Service after failing to file IRS-990 forms for the last three consecutive years. Throckmorton discovered the notice on the IRS web site, which truncates NARTH’s name but identifies NARTH by its Employer Identification Number, which matches the number NARTH listed on its 2009 filing.

NARTH’s most recent IRS-990 form for 2009 (via guidestar.org, registration required) indicates that the organization’s total revenue was $137,143, and expenses were $166,835. It closed the year with a loss of $29,692 and net assets of only $25,852. Only one person, vice president of operations David Pruden, is listed as drawing a salary of $16,500 for 15 hours per week of work, plus $900 in expenses. When I attended the NARTH convention in Phoenix in 2011, the organization’s dire financial situation was a major topic of conversation, particularly when discussing limitations on current projects and ideas for future ones.

Which I think is an important takeaway here, and it’s one that I’ve repeated often. A lot of people dismiss anti-gay activists by saying that if the “cash cow” dies, then they will move on to something else more lucrative. It’s my observation however that this misconception couldn’t be further from the truth. These people are true believers, and they will do what they’re doing even if it doesn’t earn them a red cent. NARTH is Exhibit A, but they are far from being the only example, or even a rare one.

By the way, good luck trying to figure out whether NARTH is a tax exempt organization. Its donation page is silent on the issue, but Throckmorton found this membership page which suggests donations are tax deductible.

Brady survives ouster attempt

When Pat Brady, the chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, endorsed marriage equality earlier this year, many thought it would end his influence and position in the party. But instead it seems to have highlighted a decline in the sway of social conservatives. Moderates – and those who don’t much care one way or the other – appear to no longer be giving the far right control over social issues; or at least not in this matter.

Sources within the GOP state central committee said the group of committee members seeking Brady’s ouster had been having difficulty coming up with the required 60 percent of the weighted vote to remove the state chairman. Questions also were raised over whether such action could be taken during a special meeting under the state GOP’s rules.

The states other party power players, including the House GOP leader and Sen. Mark Kirk, have sided with Brady.

While this does not suggest that Republicans as a whole are going to do an about face on marriage, it does portend that there are going to be some political fireworks ahead.

My apologies

I know that I’ve not contributed much at Box Turtle Bulletin recently. I’ve wanted to and there have been some stories to discuss, but I have been crazy busy at work lately. I hope to get a chance to start back up again soon.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, March 12

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Colorado House to Vote On Civil Unions: Denver, CO. Today promises to be a historic day, as the Colorado House conducts its final vote on SB-11, which will provide Civil Unions for the state’s same-sex couples. The bill is expected to easily sail through in a House in which Democrats hold a 37-28 majority. At least two Republicans — Cheri Gerou of Evergreen and Carole Murray of Castle Rock — are also on board as supporters. The Senate already approved SB-11 in February. Once the House approves the measure, it then goes on to Gov. John Hickenloope for his signature. Civil Unions will then become available May 1. The House will begin its session today at 9:00, with SB-11 as the second item on the agenda.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Nine Plead Guilty To “Gross Indecency” In Ann Arbor, MI: 1960. The city of Ann Arbor, Michigan is sometimes called the Berkeley of the Midwest for its reputation for progressive politics. In 1974, Ann Arbor voters elected the nation’s first openly lesbian candidate to its city council (See Apr 1). But in 1960, things weren’t so comfortable for gay people. Earlier in the year, Ann Arbor and University of Michigan police had embarked on a series of raids around campus which needed at least 34 arrests, and they were scheduled to appear in court on March 12. The arrests were generally involving homosexuality in some respects, including “acts of gross indecency and attempting to procure between males.”

On March 12, attorneys for nine of the men asked for jury trials, whereupon Judge James R. Breakey, Jr., announced that if the defendants insisted on wasting his “valuable time” and the jury found them guilty, he would sentence them to six months in Southern Michigan Prison in Jackson, and add increased fines for good measure. But if the defendants change their plea to guilty and “throw themselves on the mercy of the court,” they would be sentenced to thirty days in jail, a $250 fine plus court costs, and five years’ probation. All nine took the “bargain” and changed their pleas to guilty.

[Source: “Michigan Campus Purge Felt with Added Fury.” Mattachine Review 6, no. 5 (May 1960): 10.]

New York Times Magazine’s “Homosexuality On Campus”: 1978. In February of 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court, in declining to review a lower court ruling, let stand a decision requiring the University of Missouri to recognize a gay student group as an official campus organization. That ruling became the backdrop for journalists Grace and Fred Hechinger’s profile on the state of homosexuality on the nation’s campuses for the New York Times Magazine. The Hechingers traveled to six campuses — Yale, Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, Northwestern, Missouri, and Hood College (a small women’s college in Frederick, Maryland) — to explore the extent to which attitudes had changed on campus toward gay people, and the growing visibility of gays themselves. There were inevitable conflicts, but the journalists focused less on overt displays of homophobia and concentrated instead on the interpersonal challenges:

For many members of the homosexual minority, being homosexual is still almost as much a disadvantage as it was 30 years ago. As freshmen, they enter into a peer culture that, for the first time, is free of most parental and general adult restraints. A new world of experimentation opens up. The homosexuals — many of them for the first time confronting, or perhaps merely suspecting, their homosexuality — are thrown into a world in which they must function without feeling fully part of it. It is a world dominated by powerful traditional and communal mores and symbols. All around them, heterosexual preoccupations with dating and mating are at a peak. Sex looms large among student concerns and conversation. The basic difference in interest is bound to erect a barrier between homosexual and heterosexual roommates….

An editor of an undergraduate daily admitted that he felt a certain sickness about homosexuals,” but on the political level I’m supportive.” As a junior he had picked a homosexual roommate from a choice of two. The heterosexual candidate was addicted to loud music; the homosexual one had a lot of books, was interested in history. “On a conscious level,” the editor, now a senior, said, “there was no problem. But still I didn’t get to be good pals with him. His life outside school was different from mine. There was a gap. I feel like the white liberal kid talking about a black roommate.”

But most of the article focused on gay students themselves, mainly on issues surrounding how and whether to come out on campus and with their families. Some campuses had responded with group programs to aide in navigating the complex waters:

At Northwestern, James E. Avery, the university’s young and articulate chaplain, arranged for us to meet with a group of homosexual students and Samuel Todes, the associate professor of philosophy, who is one of the rare species of homosexual faculty members willing to “come out.” Professor Todes reported that every Wednesday evening a discussion group is held, attended by some 40 students, most of whom are in the process of “coming out.” The discussion group, said Professor Todes, “is a small breathing hole in what is still a pretty airtight closet.”

…At Standord, we joined The Bridge, a peer-counseling group, in an informal afternoon discussion. Sitting in a circle, cross-legged on pillows, the group of young men and women looked like any other college rap session. Although we had been told that at least half of those present were homosexual, it would have been impossible to tag them, confirming our observation that on campuses, as elsewhere, only a small number of homosexuals matched popular stereotypes.

In sharing the emotional strain of many of their follow students, these young people underscored the tough side effects of coming out, even the tentative declarations to a few friends. One heterosexual student described her reaction when a member of the group had told her he was homosexual. “What was I supposed to say? You can’t just reply, ‘That’s interesting, what else is new?’ ”

…”Coming out,” said Dave, a peer counselor as well as a leader in the Gay People’s Union, “is a very liberating experience, but you have to be awfully sure of yourself to handle negative attitudes.”

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Edward Albee: 1928. The playwright best known for The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), Albee was adopted just a few weeks after he was born by a wealthy theatrical management family involved with the Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit in New York. His parents gave him all of the advantages of wealth, but he never felt close to them. He figured out he was gay when he was twelve and away at boarding school. He never really came out to his parents — “There were many things they never discussed with me – that being one of them – but I didn’t feel close enough to them to impose on them to discuss anything, not that I felt I needed any discussion about it.”

Friends and collaborators describe him as crusty and curmudgeonly. Writers, when writing about him, find it impossible to resist titling their efforts, “Who’s Afraid of Edward Albee?” His reaction to being labelled a “gay writer” illustrates this trait. When he was given the Pioneer Award at the 2011 Lambda Literary Awards, he said, “A writer who happens to be gay or lesbian must be able to transcend self. I am not a gay writer. I am a writer who happens to be gay. Any definition which limits us is deplorable.” Many artists in attendance took offense at that remark, but Albee stuck to his guns, explaining to NPR “Who goes around talking about abstract expressionist painters and making a definition or a distinction between those of them that were straight and those of them who were or are gay? Nobody does it. People only do it with writers and I find that so ridiculous.” But that doesn’t mean he’s a fan of assimilation:

Why do all gay people wish to vanish into this society? Is it self-protection? I don’t know. I just don’t want us to be forced to think that we must imitate other people and behave the way they do in order to become invisible.

I had a 35-year relationship. Were we married? Yeah, I guess we were. We certainly felt that we were. We certainly treated each other like we were married to each other. Did we ever feel the need to get a marriage license? No, of course not. We knew we were married to each other. All this legality that people seem so involved with nowadays, it troubles me just a little bit. I understand all the problems to come with wills and families denying access to the loved one and all of that, but come on, do we really want to be exactly like straight people?

Albee has received three Pulitzer Prizes, for A Delicate Balance (1967), Seascape (1975), and Three Tall Women (1994). The Pulitzer’s drama jury selected Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf for the 1963 prize, but the jury was overruled by the advisory committee which decided not to give a drama award for that year.

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