Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMarch 11th, 2013
The Colorado House of Representatives gave its initial approval to a procedural motion via a voice vote today for Senate Bill 11, which will allow same-sex couples in the state to enter into Civil Unions. The voice vote occurred after an apparently acrimonious debate in which House Republicans tried to add an amendment which would turn the question over to voters. House Speaker Mark Ferrandino, who is openly gay, rejected that proposal, saying, “I don’t ask to put your relationships up to a vote of the people.”
Another proposed amendment would have extended broad “religious liberties” exemptions (particularly for adoption agencies). The failure of that amendment was particularly ironic because that very provision was part of a previous bill which Republican lawmakers dramatically killed in last year’s regular session, and again during a special session two weeks later, when they still controlled the House with a 33-32 edge. This year, the House is solidly in Democratic hands, with a 37-28 margin, including five openly gay House members.
A formal vote will take place tomorrow, where it is expected to pass easily. The Senate already approved the measure last month. Gov. John Hickenlooper is expected to sign the bill when it reaches his desk. it would go into effect May 1.
March 11th, 2013
Mark’s Regnerus’ study on same-sex parenting was never meant to study same-sex parenting, and the agreement that funded it did not specify that he should make any effort to do so.
That’s a shocker. Even if you’ve been following this from the beginning…that’s a shocker.
The University of Texas has begun releasing documents concerning the study and the agreement for its funding. Here’s a screen-grab from Appendix A of that agreement, specifying which three groups the study should focus on:
Click to enlarge
Having trouble reading it? These are the three groups [emphasis added]:
Do you see what’s missing from that list? Children who were raised by same-sex parents. This study on same-parenting never required Regnerus to find — or even look for — children raised by same-sex parents.
This is enormous. Both Regnerus and a slew of anti-groups have presented his work as a revelation in the study of same-sex parenting. The National Organization for Marriage lies about this consistently, and Regnerus talked about his results this way in an interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez at the National Review:
LOPEZ: What is the reigning academic view of children in same-sex families? How does this study depart from that view? Do you anticipate engagement from academia?
REGNERUS: No substantive differences, on things that matter. That’s been the emergent view. This study definitely affirms that there is a gold standard [of a married mom and dad].
However, we’ve known from the beginning that Regnerus didn’t report outcomes for same-sex parenting, but for kids with a parent who at some point had a same-sex relationship. Only a small fraction of these kids spent even as little as three years being raised by same-sex parents.
And when Regnerus is asked why he didn’t find more stable, same-sex parenting families he responds, “Well, they just were not that common in the nationally representative population.” But it would have been more honest for him to say, “Reporting stable same-sex parents? Oh, that was never something we planned to do.”
Meanwhile, keep in mind that this is part of the agreement for the study:
Moreover, because there have been no large-scale studies of young adults who have spent time in households with two parents of the same sex, the NFSS seeks to field exactly such a study.
But — and let say this one more time, because it bears repeating and repeating:
Regnerus says he couldn’t report on stable same-sex parented families because he couldn’t find enough, but in fact, from the very beginning, the study never mandated that he even look for them. The parameters for this study on same-sex parenting explicitly state it does not matter whether the children were raised by same-sex parents.
And in case you think I’m being unfair, remember that the study specified exactly three groups to focus on:
So now we know: no matter how Regnerus tried to spin his work after its release, this alleged study on same-sex parenting never required that same-sex parents even be located, much less studied. This is damning. Note that I’m not throwing an ad hominem attack at the researchers, the funding sources, or the publicists. None of those people matter to the validity of this critique. No, this is a case of the study damning itself, not in its conclusion or its implementation, but much earlier than that. The study damns itself from the beginning, in the tainted agreement that kicked the whole thing off.
March 11th, 2013
Last summer’s study in the previously obscure journal Social Science Research by Mark Regnerus claiming to demonstrate that children of gay and lesbian parents fare much worse than children of heterosexual parents raised quite a number of eyebrows, beginning with the bizarre apples-to-elephants comparison he had to contort his data into performing in order to attempt such a claim. While the logical fallacy was, appropriately, the main focus of criticisms of his so-called study, it was noted that the expensive study was paid for largely by $700,000 in grants from the staunchly anti-gay Witherspoon Institute, giving Regnerus a level of funding that few researchers — and, let’s say it, none with his previously unknown stature — would even dare to dream of. This guy was entrusted with a hell of a lot of money, and if it’s not plainly obviously by now, someone managed to grease the skids at the middling-ranked Social Science Research to give the study preferential treatment so that it could be fast tracked to publication. The paper itself was withheld for as long as possible from those whom might give it a critical eye in an attempt to make sure that the first press reports were favorable.
Earlier this month, the University of Texas, Regmerus’s employer, began releasing documents and emails related to the study in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The American Independent. At least some of those documents are now posted online. The American Independent’s Sofia Resnick went through those documents and found that the Witherspoon Institute, which provided three-quarters of the study’s overall funding, communicated its expectations of the study’s results ahead of time, and even provided an analyst to help manipulate the data to generate the foregone conclusion:
Records show that an academic consultant hired by UT to conduct data analysis for the project was a longtime fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, which shelled out about $700,000 for the research. Documentation about University of Virginia associate sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox’s dual roles contradict Regnerus’ assertions that the think tank wasn’t involved with how the study was designed or carried out.
The records also confirm what I noticed last June: the “expediency” with which the study was conducted and published. And what what the driving force for that “expediency”? Why, the Supreme Court, of course:
In the early stages of the New Family Structures Study – before data was collected and long before any results were known – the Witherspoon Institute’s president, Luis Tellez, made it clear to Regnerus that expediency was paramount.
“Naturally we would like to move along as expeditiously as possible but experience suggests we ought not to get hung up with deadlines, do what is right and best, move on it, don’t dilly dolly, etc.,” Tellez wrote in a Sept. 22, 2010 email. “It would be great to have this before major decisions of the Supreme Court but that is secondary to the need to do this and do it well. I would like you to take ownership and think of how would you want it done, rather than someone like me dictating parameters but of course, here to help.”
…”As you know, the future of the institution of marriage at this moment is very uncertain,” Tellez wrote in the letter, dated April 5, 2011. “It is essential that the necessary data be gathered to settle the question in the forum of public debate about what kinds of family arrangement are best for society. That is what the NFSS is designed to do. Our first goal is to seek the truth, whatever that may turn out to be. Nevertheless, we are confident that the traditional understanding of marriage will be vindicated by this study as long as it is done honestly and well.”
The study’s purpose, as you can see, wasn’t to advance science, but to influence the Supreme Court. Also, those last two sentences can be seen as a classic cover-my-ass statement from Witherspoon, because, of course, we know that the study was certainly not done “honestly and well.” In fact, as I noticed when the study first came out, “If one wanted to intentionally create Lesbian Mothers and Gay Fathers groups which were least likely to look like an intact biological family, I can’t imagine a better way to do so than to take the steps Regnerus has taken here.” And if there is any question about whether Witherspoon was communicating its expectations about the study’s outcomes before it was even conducted, consider this fundraising plea from Witherspoon to the Bradley Foundation, which ended up kicking in $200,000 for the study before it was even launched:
“The [University of Texas at Austin’s Population Research] Center has requested that The Witherspoon Institute work with it in raising the necessary funds, and given the importance of the project, the Institute has committed to doing so, with Dr. Mark Regnerus’ assistance,” Tellez wrote, “We are quite sure that if we do not intervene, the project will not be funded in a timely fashion. And this is a project where time is of the essence.”
Tellez went on to explain that the crux of the New Family Structures Study – whether kids raised by gay parents fare as well as those raised by straight parents – “is the question that must now be answered – in a scientifically serious way – by those who are in favor of traditional marriage.”
On June 15 of last year, I noticed that the Regnerus paper was rushed to print in an unusually expedited manner. In fact, the paper itself, it turns out, was submitted before the study was even completed. And as I noted before, the study’s data was withheld from those who might give the report a critical eye:
Michael Rosenfeld, a social demographer who teaches at Stanford University, said the journal had asked him to write a commentary of the paper but gave him a two-week deadline – a time frame Rosenfeld said is unusually short in the academic world. Rosenfeld told The American Independent that he still doesn’t know why Regnerus’ paper was seemingly rushed.
“One of the things about academic publishing is that it’s not in a hurry,” Rosenfeld said. “It’s more important to get it right than to rush it into print. So, I was sort of perplexed as to what the hurry was about.”
Rosenfeld said he agreed to review the paper on the condition that he could see the data. But Regnerus’ team refused.
“I’m a data-analysis person,” Rosenfeld said. “So, for me I wasn’t going to have anything to say about Regnerus’ paper until I could actually see the data and figure out for myself whether what he had done was reasonable or not. And I didn’t want to have a debate with him about the data when he could see the data and I couldn’t. That didn’t seem like it was going to go very far.”
Regnerus originally invited Rosenfeld to participate in the study, but Rosenfeld declined, citing “he unusual way the project is funded.” The journal’s editor, James D. Wright, continues to deny that Regnerus’s paper received special treatment, despite an independent audit criticizing the journal for overlooking serious flaws and Wright’s own admission that he was enticed, at least partly, by the opportunity to raise his journal’s relatively low Impact Factor.
Resnick’s full report is required reading and provides essential information describing how the study came into being and the alarm bells it raised among those who came to understand its origins long before it was published.
March 11th, 2013
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
The Delivery of “Safe” Electric Shock for Psychological Treatments: 1935. Two years earlier in April 1933, the New York Branch of the American Psychological Association decided to form the Committee on the Use of Electric Shock in Psychological Experimentation. The committee was formed to “exchange views regarding some of the difficulties involved in electrical stimulation,” namely the delivery of powerful electric shock in aversion therapy as part of the popular new therapeutic craze known as Behavioral Therapy. The electric shock had to be powerful enough to serve as a negative reinforcement against undesired thoughts, feelings or behaviors, but not so strong that it would prove lethal. That was not a small issue in the 1930s. Electrical executions had been by then well on their way to replacing the hangman’s noose and the firing squad as more “humane” ways of imposing the death penalty on criminals. To avoid the same fate for psychiatric patients, research was needed to invent “safer” devices and institute safety standards so that clinicians could begin shocking their patients into conformity.
In a paper published in the March 1935 edition of Psychological Bulletin, New York University’s Louis William Max came to the rescue with a nine page thesis, describing his research into the problem. He had experimented with three types of protective devises: fuses, mechanical relays, and vacuum tube-based devices:
The ideal protective device must meet three requirements: (1) it must operate smoothly and unfailingly at the pre-determined cut-off current; (2) this operation must be sufficiently rapid, since the duration factor is an important one in lethal shock; and (3) the cut-off action must never occur below the prearranged maximum, as this would interfere with experimentation. Since the quantitative evidence thus far available is of a more or less anecdotal nature, and the physiologically safe limits both as to time and intensity have not yet been satisfactorily determined, we recommend as provisional maxima 12 m.a. and 8 sigma (½ cycle of 60 cycle A.C), these values being subject to subsequent increase when justified by further experimentation. This means that an adequate safety device must eliminate all currents above 12 m.a., and that this elimination must take place within 8 sigma after the onset of the stimulus. The 8 sigma limit is but a small fraction of the threshold shock-duration reported by Duchosal as producing ventricular fibrillation in the animal heart, and thus affords a good margin of safety; as ½ cycle A.C. it also provides a convenient electrical parameter for specifying and checking the speed of A.C. protective devices.
While his study of the three types of devices was still ongoing, his investigation into the use of fuses and mechanical relays didn’t appear promising. Instead, he recommended a “vacuum-tube protective device for A.C. shock with adjustable cut-off,” complete with crude hand-drawn schematics. He had been using a version of his device using D.C. electric shocks on human subjects for the previous two years, but D.C. shocks were unsatisfying; A.C. was what delivered the best jolt (electric chairs, for this reason, used A.C., not D.C.):
Schematic diagram of Louis William Max’s device for inducing a powerful electric shock. (Click to enlarge.)
Of the vacuum-tube devices investigated, the one which best meets our requirements is that of Fig. 2. As regards expense, a complete stimulator circuit built around this device would cost less than present electrostimulators. Its chief disadvantage is that its underlying circuit is more complicated than a fuse or relay circuit would be. But the manipulative adjustments required are rather simple, and could easily be made even by a non-electrically minded experimenter, by following a set of operating instructions.
…Regardless of which protective device proves most adequate, the design of shock apparatus needs improvement. All live and exposed connections with which an operator may come in contact or which may be short-circuited by an accidentally dropped screwdriver or metal pencil should be eliminated. Experimenters, for example, have reported unpleasant shocks from exposed studs and tap switches…
Even the most ideal of protective devices cannot substitute for the exercise of care in the use of shock apparatus. For the operator’s protection, it is recommended that only one hand be employed in the manipulation of the controls in present high-voltage apparatus. In locating the shocking electrodes on the subject, avoid all contralateral leads {i.e., from one side of the body to the other), or ipselateral leads above and below the heart (such as right hand to right foot). Where possible, electrodes should be firmly fastened to the subject, especially when intense shocks are contemplated, as the subject’s “startle” responses may dislodge an electrode and throw it into contact with a body part to be avoided. The subject might well be insulated from the ground, by means of a rubber mat or glass casters, particularly where the floor is of cement or composition. Finally, every experimenter using shock apparatus on human subjects should learn the Shaefer method of resuscitation.
Six months later, Max would present a paper before the 43rd annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Ann Arbor, Michigan (See Sept 6) describing the use of his new invention in an attempt at “breaking up” a “homosexual neurosis in a young man.”
[Source: Louis W. Max. “Protective devices and precautions against lethal shock” Psychological Bulletin 32, no. 3 (March 1935): 203-211.]
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
David LaChapelle: 1963. When the kid from Connecticut move to New York City and started hanging out at Studio 54, he met Andy Warhol who hired the aspiring young photographer to work for Interview magazine. He would go on become a fashion photographer for Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone. GQ, Vogue, and Photo. He depicted David Duchovney in Lycra bondage pants, Chris Rock in a Blaxploitation fantasy, Kanye West as an African-American Jesus, Michael Jackson as an archangel, Jason Priestly as Elvis, Eminem naked, Elizabeth Taylor in a shocking pink turban, Lady Gaga as, well, Lady Gaga, and Dolly Parton’s breasts as a mountainous backdrop for Dollywood. His 1995 photo of the “kissing sailors” ad for Diesel was one of the first public ads showing a gay couple kissing. It was extremely controversial, landing in the glossy mags fresh off of the debate over Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He also branched out into videos, working for Elton John, Moby, Enrique Iglesias, Macy Gray, Amy Winehouse, and many others. In 2004, he produced a documentary about the South Central L.A. dance style know as “krumping.”
LaChapelle’s color-saturated, provocative and surreal images have been in high demand in the fashion and music world, both for his photography and his videos, and the workaholic put in grinding hours getting each painstaking detail just right. It took him fourteen years, he says, before he finally learned how to say no. That came when Madonna was haranguing him about a video the two were planning. LaChapelle had enough, pulled the cell phone away from his ear, and snapped it shut. That’s right. He hung up on Madonna. He’s still working, but at his own pace and on his own terms. He no longer feels he has to say yes to everyone, which now leaves artists scrambling for substitutes when he turns them down. In 2011, LaChapelle accused Rihanna of copying his imagery for her video “S&M.” The two settled out of court just as the case was about to go to trial.
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?
March 10th, 2013
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Ft. Lauderdale Pride, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; AIDS Walk, Houston, TX; Lake Tahoe Winterfest, Lake Tahoe, NV; SWING Gay Ski Week, Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
Gen. George Washington’s General Orders for March 14, 1776, available online at the Library of Congress’s American Memory Project.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Court-Martial of Lt. Frederick Gotthold Enslin: 1778. Gen. George Washington’s general orders for March 14, 1776 at Valley Forge, PA., included the following description of a court martial that occurred on the 10th:
At a General Court Martial whereof Colo Tupper was President (10th March 1778) Lieutt. Enslin of Colo. Malcom’s Regiment tried for attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier; Secondly For Perjury in swearing to false Accounts, found guilty of the charges exhibited against him being breaches of 5th. Article 18th. Section of the Articles of War and do sentence him to be dismiss’d the service with Infamy. His Excellency the Commander in Chief approves the sentence and with Abhorrence and Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Lieutt. Enslin to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning [March 15] by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return; the Drummer and Fifers to attend on the Grand Parade at Guard mounting for that Purpose.
This case began in late February with the court-martial of Ensign Anthony Maxwell, who was charged with “propagating a scandalous report prejudicial to the character of Lieut. Enslin.” Maxwell, who had accused Enslin of “attempted sodomy with a private,” was acquitted. Whatever he said, the court-martial found that it wasn’t “prejudicial to the Character of Lieutt. Enslin further than the strict lien of his duty required.” If Maxwell didn’t slander Enslin as the court found, then that evidently meant that Enslin was guilty. Enslin was quickly court-martialed, and is believed to be the first person to be forced out of the forerunner of the U.S. Army on charges of homosexual behavior.
[Source: General George Washington, March 14, 1776, General Orders. Library of Congress’s American Memory Project. Available online here.]
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?
March 9th, 2013
Bigot. Bigot, bigot, bigot, bigot, bigot.
If you say (or type, or read, or hear) bigot enough, it turns into a meaningless collection of sounds. And sadly, that’s where the word is headed in our national discourse.
But I want it to mean something when I call Matt Barber or Jennifer Roback Morse a bigot. And if they retaliate by calling me an anti-Christian bigot, I want understand exactly what they’re saying. I want them to understand it, too. I want bigot to remain a powerful statement, rich, like loam and manure, not some watery hackword people toss around as an excuse not to think
We need bigot, but we’ll lose it if we abuse it. We have to distinguish between error, bigotry, and bigots. I’d like to explore that — and by explore I mean think about it aloud, offer up something as a starting point, not a conclusion, and see where it goes. Specifically, I want to explore that bit I wrote a few weeks ago (in Bigotry, Part 1) where I made a distinction…
…between an intolerant bigot and a person who hold an intolerant, bigoted belief. I think there’s a difference. No one achieves moral perfection, and it’s insidious — corrupting, even — to act as if there’s no middle ground between perfection and damnation.
I think everybody has bigotry in them. Certainly we all make generalizations. Humans couldn’t use language — nouns, verbs, adjectives — if we didn’t generalize easily and automatically, at levels below the conscious mind. We can’t root out every misguided association and emotional reaction, if only because life isn’t long enough to manage it. And even then, we’re making new unconscious associations every day.
But everyone having bigotry doesn’t mean everyone is the same. It’s like the difference between ignorance and ignoramus. We all have ignorance, but ignoramus is best reserved for someone whose ignorance has risen to a character trait, an approach to life. If they gave up their ignorance, we couldn’t imagine who’d they be. And a bigot is someone who, if they gave up their bigotry, we couldn’t imagine who’d they’d be.
This distinction, then, is crucial. If you decide everyone with bigotry is a bigot…then everyone’s a bigot. The word becomes an empty label with no meaning, no power. It’s even corrupting: Oh hell, if everyone’s a bigot — if there’s no middle ground between perfection and damnation — then why try to change. That presents a question, then: what is this difference? What distinguishes error from bigotry from bigots?
I started out trying something simple: just a basic gradation of faulty belief, going from innocent mistake to hateful zealotry. That was too simple. I ended thinking about bigotry in two dimensions, two crucial factors: sweep and fervor. And because I’m like that, I made a diagram: Read the rest of this entry »
March 9th, 2013
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Belgian Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Ft. Lauderdale Pride, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; AIDS Walk, Houston, TX; Lake Tahoe Winterfest, Lake Tahoe, NV; SWING Gay Ski Week, Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
ONE Magazine, March 1955.
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
Miami Bar Posts House Rules: 1955. Gallows humor, or at the least, sardonic humor, has long been a valuable coping mechanism whenever things haven’t been going well. And things hadn’t been going well for Miami’s gay community, which had experienced wave after wave of police raids, arbitrary arrests, and general persecution over the previous year (see Aug 3, Aug 11, Aug 12, Aug 13 (twice that day), Aug 14, Aug 26, Aug 31, Sep 1, Sep 2, Sep 7, Sep 15, Sep 19, Oct 6, Oct 20, Nov 12 and Dec 16). According to ONE Magazine, an un-named Miami-area bar tried to make light of the situation by posting the following set of rules for its patrons to follow:
Rules and Regulations Covering the Behavior of Our Customers
First of all-remember that the customer is never right.
Before drinking each beer customer is to repeat six times “Customer is never right.”
When customer wishes to go to the restroom–please raise hand and barmaid will direct you to proper door.
Mother and daughter customers are not allowed to hold hands, kiss or pat each other on back. On week-ends they are not allowed to even talk to each other.
No after-shave lotion or talcum powder allowed on men customers.
Women must wear make-up-false eyelashes and beauty marks will be provided at the bar for those women customers who have just come from the beach and don’t have their make-up kits with them.
Men may wear only stiff shirts and tails.
Any male customer caught buying a beer for another male customer will have to buy a beer for the barmaid too so that the management will know that the man customer is of high moral character and not one of those characters.
Female customers may not talk at all–they are required to walk around the bar at least once every five minutes, dropping handkerchiefs and swooning at the far turn.
Male customers ‘may NOT wave at friends or relatives passing by in the street because we’ll have none of those gestures in this place, my dear.
Lady customers may smoke only if male customer lights cigarette for them.
Lady customers may smoke only cigarettes with ivory tips, jewelled pipes or Between the Acts cigars.
Male customers must have hair on the chest–if you have none–please bring along another chest with the required hair on it. (We will gladly refrigerate it for you while you’re here).
Male customers are required to spit periodically. Since we have no spittoons please use the guy next to you.
Please do not be offended if we do not serve you. Here are but a few of the people we could not serve if they were able to patronize us : Socrates, Wilde, Proust, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Queen Christina, Amy Lowell, Lord Tennyson, etc., etc. and far on into the night.
The bar also posted a detailed “Questionnaire to be filled in by prospective customer before selling 15¢ beer”, which asked for name, address, phone number, boss’s phone number, parents’ names and three references. Also, and presumably to make the police’s job of notifying everyone possible if you were arrested, it asked for “names and addresses of five business or personal friends of your parents and their wives or husbands.”
[Source: J.K. “Letter from Miami.” ONE Magazine 3, no. 3 (March 1955): 44.]
TODAY’s BIRTHDAYS:
Will Geer: 1902. He was Grampa Walton on screen, and a social activist off. He had been a member of the Communist Party in 1934, where he met Harry Hay (see Apr 7) who would go on to co-found the Mattachine Foundation (which later became the Mattachine Society) in 1950. Geer and Hay briefly became lovers while working on union organizing in Los Angeles and San Francisco. But they soon parted ways when Geer married his wife, actress and fellow political activist Herta Ware. Geer went on to work with folk singers Burle Ives and Woodie Guthrie in advocating for migrant farm workers and organized labor. He also found time to do some acting, mostly on the stage, often Shakespeare. Between 1948 and 1951, he was also in more than a dozen movies, but he was soon blacklisted for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
With the blacklist in force, Geer fell back on his training as a botanist (he had a master’s degree from the University of Chicago) and founded the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon near Santa Monica, California, with his wife. They would divorce in 1954, but they remained very close friends thereafter. Together, they turned Theatricum Botanicum into an artists colony, with an outdoor summer theater and Woody Guthrie living in a small shack.
By the late 1950s, Geer was back on Broadway, and in 1964 he was nominated for a Tony for his role in the musical 110 in the Shade. His career in film resumed in 1963 with a minor part in Advise and Consent, and in 1967 he played the prosecutor in the film adaptation of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. When he died after completing the sixth season of The Waltons in 1978, his remains were cremated and his ashes burried at his beloved Theatricum Botanicum, which continues to host performances and youth acting workshops.
Samuel Barber: 1910. He was apparently a very precocious child. In a very anxious letter at the tender age of nine, he came out to his mother — as a composer:
Dear Mother: I have written this to tell you my worrying secret. Now don’t cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now without any nonsense. To begin with I was not meant to be an athlet [sic]. I was meant to be a composer, and will be I’m sure. I’ll ask you one more thing .—Don’t ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football.—Please—Sometimes I’ve been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad (not very).
He wrote his first musical at seven, tried his first opera at 10, became an organist at 12, and began studying piano, voice and composition at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia at 14. That’s where he met his lover, partner and musical collaborator Gian Carlo “Johnny” Menotti, and they would remain together for the next forty years. By Barber’s twenties, his compositions were commissioned or debuted by Vladimir Horowitz, Leontyne Price, Arturo Toscanini, among others. He won the Pulitzer Prize for music for his 1957 opera Vanessa, and for his 1962 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. But his 1966 opera Antony and Cleopatra was a dud, and he spent his remaining years in isolation and depression, while Menotti, a successful composer in his own right, indulged in dalliances with a string of much younger men. Barber died in 1981, Menotti in 2007, and it is Barber’s work that is better remembered.
By the way, one of our BTB readers is an opera fanatic, and he kicked off an awesome discussion on this post last year.
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?
March 8th, 2013
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Belgian Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Ft. Lauderdale Pride, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; AIDS Walk, Houston, TX; Lake Tahoe Winterfest, Lake Tahoe, NV; SWING Gay Ski Week, Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
First Post-WWII Gay Organization Formed: 1948. The Veterans Benevolent Association had been meeting in New York City since 1945, serving as a social club for 75-100 regular members. Four honorably discharged veterans founded the group, and the VBA became an important resource for those who needed assistance with a nasty employer or with legal problems. On March 9, the New York State Department issued a Certificate of Incorporation for the group. Its purpose was described this way:
To unite socially and fraternally, all veterans and their friends, of good and moral character, over the age of twenty years. To foster, create, promote, and maintain the spirit of social, fraternal, and benevolent feeling among the members and all those connected by any means and ties. To enhance the mutual welfare of its members. To promote and advance good fellowship, mutuality, and friendship, and to promote the best idealism and interests of its members. To advance the social and economic interests of its members; to provide suitable places for meeting of members and the establishment of facilities for social, fraternal, benevolent, and economic activities and functions.
Of course missing from that description is any reference to homosexuality.
As time went on, a split developed within the group between those who wanted the VBA to become more politically active and others who wanted the group to remain a social organization. The conflicts grew until the group was finally disbanded in 1954.
Philadelphia Police Raid Rusty’s Bar: 1968. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo had developed a fearsome reputation in the city’s African-American community, anti-war demonstrators, radicals, hippies, students, and anyone else who ran afoul of his law-and-order regimen. He is reported to have said about one group of demonstrators, “When I’m finished with them, I’ll make Attila the Hun look like a fag.” In 1968, Philly police turned their attention not to fags, but dykes, with a raid on a popular downtown lesbian bar called Rusty’s. When police descended on the bar, they unplugged the jukebox, turned on the house lights, and, as gay rights advocate Ada Bello recalled, “the small posse of trench coat clad figures slowly moved form table to table.”
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “It was alleged (in graphic language) that several women had been making love on the floor, that others were drunk and disorderly, and that some had resisted arrest.” Byrna Aronson was there, and she didn’t see the police when they arrived. “I leaned down to kiss my girlfriend on the cheek, and Captain Clarence Ferguson, in a pork-pie hat, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘You’re under arrest.’ and I said, ‘What for?’ He said, ‘Sodomy.’ I just started to laugh. Police arrested a dozen women, including Aronson, charged them with disorderly conduct, held them overnight, and brought them before a magistrate in the morning, when all charges were dropped.
Bello, who was a member of the local chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis that had formed a year earlier, remembered that raid on Rusty’s as an important turning point for the group. “The Philadelphia police made a very valuable contribution. Maybe it was the mood prevailing in the country at that time. Maybe it was because there is such a thing as the last straw. But out of that incident… our group got the first clear sense of direction. Some of the women came to us and demanded action. …. Several women joined that chapter, among them Byrna Aronson.”
The challenge before the DOB was, as one member put it, “were we really going to try and change the world or were we going to talk among ourselves about how the world ought to change?” The DOB’s bylaws were clear: all protests had to be approved by the national board. But as Bello said, “It was difficult to get authorization from the administration of DOB. We couldn’t find the president — remember, this was before cell phones and e-mail — and we felt that it was hampering our ability to react.” In the end, local DOB leaders decided they were more interested in action than social gatherings. “So we thought, ‘why not start another organization — one whose middle name is Action!'”
In August of that year, the local DOB chapter voted to dissolve and regroup as the Homophile Action League (HAL) as an organization of both lesbians and gay men. Pioneering gay rights activist Barbara Gittings (see Jul 31), who two years earlier been relieved of her duties as editor of the DOB’s newsletter The Ladder over her participation at a pro-gay picket at Independence Hall (see Jul 4), also joined HAL. “There hadn’t been any really concerted effort on the political scene until HAL was organized and began to attract some men.” The DOB had been open only to women, but Philadelphia’s lesbian leaders felt that it was time to make common cause with gay men. With HAL, local gay rights activists found the freedom they needed to respond to local provocations.
The disbanding of the local DOB chapter was an important milestone in the eventual downfall of the Daughters of Bilitis as a national organization. That year, national DOB president Shirley Willer (see Sep 27) tried to reform and decentralize the DOB in response to the Philadelphia action, and she wound up resigning in disgust when her efforts failed. The national organization finally disbanded in 1970.
New York Police Raid the Snake Pit: 1970. It may come as a surprise to those who are not of a certain age, but raids on gay bars by the New York police department didn’t end with the Stonewall uprising in the summer of 1969. In fact, raids continued, virtually uninterrupted. At about 5:00 a.m. of March 8, 1970, New York police descended on the Snake Pit, an after-hours unlicensed bar in Greenwich Village. Deputy Inspector Seymore Pine showed up with a fleet of police wagons, and without bothering to sort out the owners from the clientele, arrested all 167 customers and took them to the station house, an act which violated police policy. One patron, Diego Vinales, panicked. An immigrant from Argentina who was in the country illegally, he feared what would happen to him in the police station and tried to escape by jumping out a second story window. He landed on a fence below, its 14-inch spikes piercing his leg and pelvis. He was not only critically wounded, but was also charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. As paramedics attended to Vinales, a cop told a fireman, “You don’t have to hurry, he’s dead, and if he’s not, he’s not going to live long,” sparking a false rumor that Vinales had died.
Following on that rumor, the Gay Activist Alliance immediately organized a protest for later that night. A pamphlet publicizing the protest read, “Any way you look at it, Diego Vinales was pushed. We are all being pushed. A march on the Sixth Precinct will take place tonight, March 8, at 9pm, gathering at Sheridan Square. Anyone who calls himself a human being, who has the guts to stand up to this horror, join us. A silent vigil will occur immediately following the demonstration.” Nearly 500 people showed up for the protest. After Rep. Edward Koch accused New York City Police Commissioner Howard Leary of green-lighting the resumption of raids and illegal illegal arrests on the gay community, Leary resigned and Pine was reassigned to Flatbush in Brooklyn. And the gay community, which had already witnessed a burst of organizing activity since the Stonewall uprising nine months earlier, became even more politically and socially active, setting the stage for a very successful Christopher Street commemoration later that Summer for the first anniversary of Stonewall.
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March 7th, 2013
AP is reporting:
Nine of 17 members of the House Civil Law Committee tell The Associated Press they’ll vote yes at a hearing Tuesday. That’s enough to move the bill to the House floor and a vote by all 134 representatives.
Passage by the Senate Judiciary Committee also looks likely. Four of eight members say they’ll vote yes, and a fifth says she supports gay marriage but wouldn’t reveal her vote.
Over at NOMblog, they are reporting crickets.
March 7th, 2013
Today U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman heard arguments from the couple who want to adopt each other’s children as to how the Michigan marriage laws unfairly discriminate against them. But while Judge Friedman noted that their argument was compelling, he’s delaying his decision.
Friedman said he would benefit from seeing how the U.S. Supreme Court handles cases involving a gay marriage ban in California as well as the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Arguments are scheduled later this month in Washington.
An immediate ruling in Michigan “would not be fair to either side,” Friedman said while holding court in front of students at Wayne State University law school.
“They’re going to give us something to hang our hat on,” he said of the Supreme Court.
Which, disappointing as it is, may be the most logical decision.
March 7th, 2013
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Belgian Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Ft. Lauderdale Pride, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; AIDS Walk, Houston, TX; Lake Tahoe Winterfest, Lake Tahoe, NV; SWING Gay Ski Week, Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
Mike Wallace, host of “The Homosexuals.”
TODAY IN HISTORY:
CBS Airs “The Homosexuals”: 1967. Described as “the single most destructive hour of anti-gay propaganda in our nation’s history,” the special was produced by the prestigious CBS Reports, an award-winning series that grew out of the game show scandals of the 1950s. CBS Reports was set up to use its hour-long format to delve into subjects which were deemed too controversial for other programs, and “The Homosexuals,” which took three years to complete, would be the first nationally-broadcast program introducing the American audience to gay people.
After completing a rough cut, the producers approached CBS correspondent Mike Wallace. At first, Wallace declined, saying that he wanted no part in a program that would “pity the poor homosexual.” But after seeing the rough cut, which portrayed gay people in a relatively neutral light, he agreed to host the special. But higher ups at CBS were skittish about letting it go on the air. At one point, the special was killed, and all of the positive footage from interviews gathered in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Charlotte, and New York City was axed along with it. When CBS decided to revive it in 1965, the producers started over. This time, they found gay people to interview on the East Coast: Lars Larson in New York, and Washington, D.C., gay rights activists Frank Kameny and Jack Nichols. Nichols appeared under the pseudonym of Warren Adkins because his real name was identical to his father’s, who worked at the FBI. Nichols later recalled:
Jack Nichols as “Warren Atkins.”
After we finished and the camera was turned off, Mike Wallace sat down with me and talked for about half an hour. He said, “You know, you answered all of my questions capably, but I have a feeling you don’t really believe that homosexuality is as acceptable as you make it sound.” I asked him why he would say that. “Because,” he said, “In your heart I think you know it’s wrong.” It was infuriating. I told him I thought being gay was fine, but that in his heart he thought it was wrong.
At ten o’clock on Tuesday night, not long after the closing credits of Petticoat Junction, viewers across American watched as Mike Wallace declared:
The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested or capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life, his love life, consists of a series of one–chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits. And even on the streets of the city — the pick-up, the one night stand, these are characteristics of the homosexual relationship. And the homosexual prostitute has become a fixture in the downtown streets at night. On street corners, at subway exits, these young men signal their availability for pay.
Charles Socarides
The documentary featured psychotherapist Charles Socarides, who would go on to become an outspoken critic of the APA’s decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973. He would also help to co-found the National Association for Research and Treatment (later Therapy) of Homosexuality (NARTH). His appearance was filmed in a classroom at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, set up as though he was taking spontaneous questions from a group of psychiatric residents. One woman was shown asking if there were any “happy homosexuals.” Socarides responded, “The fact that somebody’s homosexual — a true obligatory homosexual — automatically rules out the possibility that he will remain happy for long, in my opinion.” He characterized happiness among gay people as “a mythology.” Irving Bieber, who was among the forefront of psycholanalysts claiming high success rates in “curing” gay people, blamed homosexuality on parents. “I do not believe it is possible to produce a homosexual if the father is a warm, good, supportive, constructive father to his son.” Missing from the program was any mental health professional to disagree or counter Socarides or Bieber, leaving the impression that the entirety of psychology stood behind these two men.
Albert Goldman
The documentary traded in a number of other stereotypes. One portion examined whether a “homosexual mafia” existed in the creative arts. Gore Vidal appeared on camera to denounce the stereotype as “nonsense,” but of course he would say that; he’s one of them. Columbia University Professor Albert Goldman provided the “straight” rebuttal, contending that homosexuals were responsible for distorting the theater, art, and fashion as a way of striking back at the heterosexual majority. (Two decades later, Goldman would gain notoriety for publishing a biography of John Lennon, claiming that the former Beatle was “a violent, schizophrenic drug addict.”)
But it was a fourth gay man, a closeted homosexual whose early appearance in the program, his face obscured by a potted plant casting a dark shadow across his face, made the most memorable appearance in the film. He was described as being twenty-seven years old and college educated, and “unable to hold a job because of his inability to contain his homosexual inclinations. Wallace said that he had been in jail three times “for committing homosexual acts. If he is arrested once more, he faces the possibility of life in prison. He is now on probation and in psychotherapy.” The young man described himself this way:
The man behind the potted palm.
I felt as though I had license to satisfy every need, every desire, every tension… animal sexual gratification… I use the word “sick” — I’m not taking a pot shot, I’m not attempting to judge homoseuxals. I’m not a judge. I know that inside, now, that I am sick. I’m not sick just sexually, I’m sick in a lot of ways …. immature, childlike, and the sex part of it is a symptom like a stomach ache is a symptom of who knows what.”
That man’s appearance was so memorable that today it is often mistakenly said that all of the gay men in the program were similarly photographed.
Wallace closed the program with an interview with another anonymous hidden gay man who was married with two children, and who described his life as one of unrelenting tension and hardship. Wallace then wound up the program saying
The dilemma of the homosexual: told by the medical profession he is sick; by the law that he’s a criminal; shunned by employers; rejected by heterosexual society. Incapable of a fulfilling relationship with a woman, or for that matter with a man. At the center of his life he remains anonymous. A displaced person. An outsider.
In the program’s aftermath, Nichols, despite appearing under an assumed name, was fired from his job the day after the program aired. Larson filed a formal complain and withdrew his signed release, saying that his interview had been edited to make him seem unhappy about being gay. As for Wallace, he would later regret participating in the episode. In 1996, he said, “That is — God help us — what our understanding was of the homosexual lifestyle a mere twenty-five years ago because nobody was out of the closet and because that’s what we heard from doctors — that’s what Socarides told us, it was a matter of shame.”
Here is an nine minute edited version from the original episode. The entire episode can be seen here.
[Sources: Edward Alwood. Straight News: Gays, Lesbians and the News Media
Lawrence Laurent. “CBS studies homosexuals.” The Washington Post (March 9, 1967): D23.]
First US Municipal Anti-Discrimination Ordinance: 1972. The very first municipal ordinance providing anti-discrimination protections in employment for gays and lesbians became law not in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco, but in East Lansing, Michigan. In early 1970, the Gay Liberation Movement had formed at the Michigan State University’s East Lansing campus, where they found fertile ground on a campus which was regarded as one of the most progressive in the nation. In 1970, MSU’s new president became the first African-American to lead a major university, and MSU students were especially active in anti-war protests. The politics of MSU extended into the community, where GLM worked for nearly a year carefully lobbying for an ordinance prohibiting local employers from firing gays and lesbians because of their sexual orientation. The work paid off, with the city council approving the measure 4-1 over the objections of the mayor. Shortly after the vote, GLM founder Don Gaudard boasted, “Not everything happens in San Francisco.”
California Voters Pass Prop 22: 2000. When Prop 22 came before California voters, state law already defined marriage as “a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman.” But California’s law also said that a “marriage contracted outside this state that would be valid by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the marriage was contracted is valid in this state,” which anti-gay activists saw as a loophole. Although no state yet offered marriage equality (Vermont was still debating a civil unions bill in early 2000), anti-gay activists feared that same-sex marriage was legalized elsewhere, Californians would flock to that state to get married, and expect those marriages to be recognized back home. Why of all the nerve! Prop 22 added a provision to the California marriage code saying that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” It passed during the March primary by a 61% to 39% margin.
Over the next decade, several challenges to Prop 22 were launched in the courts and the legislature. In 2006, the California Supreme Court agreed to review all of the court cases that challenged state law, and heard oral arguments in March 2008. Six weeks later, the Supreme Court ruled that Prop 22 violated the state constitution and was therefore invalid. By then, anti-gay activists had already begun the process of bringing Prop 8 to the November 2008 ballot, and when the first same-sex marriages were solemnized in July, the campaigns for and against Prop 8 were already well underway. Prop 8 passed in November 2008, but this time by only 52% to 48%. While the ground had shifed by nine percentage points in eight years, it wasn’t enough to prevent same-sex marriages from coming to a halt. A legal challenge to Prop 8’s constitutionality is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments on March 26.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Alan Sues: 1926. Campy. Flamboyant. Wacky. And he loved his tinkle. Nobody said “gay,” but that would have described him as accurately as any of the other abjectives attached to his characters in NBC’s hit sketch comedy series Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. During his run from 1968 to 1972, Sues played several recurring characters, including the memorable and effeminate sportscaster Big Al, who’d punctuate his sportscasts by rinning a small brass bell and exclaim how much he loved that “tinkle.” He also played the perpetually hung-over Uncle Al the Kiddies’ Pal in a series of sketches designed to parody childrens programs, and once appeared in a drag imitation of fellow cast member Jo Anne Worley. As over the top his perfirmances were, he didn’t disclose publicly that he was gay. Michael Michaud, a friend and administrator for Sues when he died in 2011, told The New York Times, “It wasn’t because he was ashamed of being gay; it was because he was surviving as a performer … He had a ton of gay fans. Many gay men came up to him and said how important he was when they were young because he was the only gay man they could see on television.” Well, maybe not the only gay man — Paul Lynde was also plying much the same shtick for laughs. But the point is taken: forty years ago, there were almost no identifiable gay characters on television.
Seus was born in Ross, California, and he served in the Army in Europe during World War II. When he came home, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill to take acting lessons at the Passadena Playhouse. In 1953, he made his Broadway debute in Elia Kazan’s “Tea and Sympathy.” He married, and he and his wife started a vaudevillian-style nightclub act, where he developed some of the characters that would later appear in “Laugh-In.” After he and his wife divorced in the late 1950s, Seus moved to California where he appeared in The Wild Wild West and in a memorable episode of The Twilight Zone. By the late sixties, he was still known as a dramatic actor, but when he joined Jo Ann Worley in an Off Broadway musical comedy, they both caught the attention of producer George Schlatter, who cast them both in Laugh-In.
From then on he became known as something of a manic comedic actor, which reflected his off-camera personality pretty well. Fellow Laugh-In cast member Ruth Buzzi said “Alan Sues was one of those guys even funnier in person than on camera.” Schlatter recalled, “He was a delight. He was an upper. He waked on the stage and everybody just felt happy.” Seus also brought his antics and happy attitude to his role as commercial spokesman for, appropriately, Peter Pan peanut butter. But serious acting roles didn’t dry up completely. In 1975, he plained Moriarity in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Broadway production of “Sherlock Holmes,” a role he cherished for the rest of his life. He died in 2011 of a sudden heart attack at the age of 85.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOBBPoODZFY
Wanda Sykes: 1964. The comedian and actress began her professional life in the unlikeliest of places, as a procurement officer for the National Security Agency (NSA). She worked there for five years after college (she has a bachelor’s degree in marketing), while moonlighting at verious standup venues in the Washington, D.C., area. In 1992, she quit her job and moved to New York, working as a book editor for a publishing house. Her big break was when she opened for Chris Rock at a New York comedy club, which led to a job as a writer for The Chris Rock Show. She made seveveral appearances on The Chris Rock Show, Curb Your Enthuseasm, and her own short-lived Fox show Wanda at Large. Other credits include HBO’s Inside the NFL, Comedy Central’s Premium Blend, The New Adventures of Old Christine and Will & Grace. In 2007, her HBO comedy special, Wanda Sykes: Sick and Tired was nominated for an emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special. In November, 2008, she publicly came out during a rally in Las Vegas protesting the passage of California’s Proposition 8. Since then she has worked with GLSEN on anti-bullying videos, and has hosted fundraisers for marriage equality.
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March 6th, 2013
… but only if you are Odawa. (Petoskynews)
The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians inched closer to becoming the third tribe in the nation to legally recognize gay marriage Sunday.
A 5-4 tribal council vote Sunday passed an amended statute allowing same-sex couples to wed and be recognized by the tribal government, according to draft tribal minutes released Tuesday afternoon.
The statute now goes to the tribal chairman, who can either sign the statute into law, or veto the proposed changes.
Two other native tribes recognize same sex marriages, the Coquille in Oregon and the Suquamish in Washington.
March 6th, 2013
My first response to this article was “that’s vaguely interesting”: (sfgate)
The two-term chairman of the Minnesota College Republicans on Wednesday became the latest from his party to support legalizing gay marriage in the state.
Ryan Lyk told The Associated Press he wants people to know that not just Democrats support gay marriage. He released a statement of support in conjunction with Minnesotans United, the political group pursuing a gay marriage bill that could get a vote later this spring at the Capitol.
But on second thought, this may be a story that has more importance than attention. Lyk’s opinion, as just some college kid, is fairly inconsequential. But as the head of an organization that liaises between Republican legislators and the youth vote, that brings speakers to campus, that facilitates and mans the get-out-the-vote and other precinct walking endeavors, his opinion matters a great deal.
And in today’s political climate, in which Republicans are desperately looking for youth to point at as evidence that they are not becoming irrelevant, someone like Lyk probably has greater access and influence than has most often been the case.
So perhaps it is worth noting that the chairman of the Minnesota College Republicans has come out for equality.
March 6th, 2013
All year it’s been up in the air which state would be the tenth state to achieve marriage equality. The most likely have been Illinois and Minnesota, but Hawaii and Rhode Island have teased us. Even Wyoming briefly toyed with the idea. But now a dark horse is making strides.
You may recall back in August 2012 when two lesbians seeking to adopt each other’s children were told they had the wrong complaint. The judge in the case told them that their problem wasn’t adoption law, but marriage law. It is perfectly reasonable (from a legal perspective) for a state to decide to restrict joint adoption to those people who were sufficiently committed to each other to get married. The discrimination in this case wasn’t in adoption, it was in that they couldn’t marry.
So the ladies refiled their challenge as a marriage discrimination complaint. They had to; they have kids they need to look out for.
And now the judge is ready to rule. (ABC)
U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman will hear arguments in the case Thursday at a Detroit law school, although he hasn’t indicated when he’ll make a ruling. If he concludes the amendment violates the U.S. Constitution, gay-marriage supporters say same-sex couples would immediately be allowed to wed and adopt children.
Friedman was appointed by President Reagan.
March 6th, 2013
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Frat Boys Don Drag for Anti-Bullying Awareness: Washington, D.C. Twenty Greek chapters are joining Allied in Pride, George Washington University’s largest LGBT organization, for a drag contest. The goal, in addition to being a fundraiser for The Trevor Project and its work in preventing LGBT youth suicide, is to send the message that it is possible for students to be gay and Greek. “It’s to support, whether they’re out or not, the LGBT members of our community,” Interfraternity Council President Casey Wood said. “And I think it’s a great way to embrace that no matter where you come from or who you are, there’s always a place in Greek life for you.” Pi Kappa Phi president Trey O’Callaghan said, “Our participation in the Allied in Pride event is our way of demonstrating that GW Greek life stands behind the LGBT community.” Contestants from eleven fraternities will strut their straight-boy frat drag stuff at 7:00 p.m. this evening at Lisner Auditorium. I expect to see photos on Tumblr by ten.
Events This Weekend: Belgian Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Ft. Lauderdale Pride, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; AIDS Walk, Houston, TX; Lake Tahoe Winterfest, Lake Tahoe, NV; SWING Gay Ski Week, Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
“Lewd Behavior Upon a Bed”: 1649. Court records from Puritan colonies indicate that authorities appeared to have been reluctant to prosecute crimes based on homosexuality, if the scarcity of such records is any indication. But court records also show that Plymouth Colony was considerably less reluctant, given that its court records report quite a handful of cases (for example, see Aug 6, Mar 1). The colony’s statute called for the death penalty for “buggery” and “sodomy,” which had the effect of only outlawing male homosexuality. As in England, female homosexuality was unmentioned. But that didn’t prevent the Plymouth Colony from prosecuting one case of lesbian behavior. The court records for Plymouth Colony recorded a very brief notation for March 6, 1649:
We present the wife of Hugh Norman, and Mary Hammon, both of Yarmouth, for lewd behavior each with the other upon a bed.
According to Jonathan Ned Katz’s Gay/Lesbian Almanac:
Recent research by J.R. Roberts in the Plymouth manuscript records provides background information on Norman and Hammon. At the time of the above charges Mary Hammon was fifteen years old, and recently married. Sara Norman’s age is unknown, but she was apparently somewhat older, as he had been married in 1639. About the time of the court’s first charge, 1649, Hugh Norman, Sara’s husband, deserted his wife and children.
A marginal note in the Plymouth court record of March 6, 1649 reported that Mary Hammond was “cleared with admonition” — perhaps because of her youth. Sara Normon’s case was evidentially held over for later judgment.
…Patriarchal custom was evident in the fact that court records in this case referred to the “wife of Hugh Norman”; although Sara Norman was publicly charged with a serious crime, her whole name was used only once in the documents
On October 2, 1650, the court rendered its judgement and sentence on Sara Norman:
Whereas the wife of Hugh Norman, of Yarmouth, hath stood presented [in] divers Courts for misdemeanor and lewd behavior with Mary Hammon upon a bed, with divers lascivious speeches by her also spoken, but she could not appear by reason of some hindrances unto this Court, the said Court have therefore sentenced her, the said wife of Hugh Norman, for her wild behavior in the aforesaid particulars, to make a public acknowledgment, so far as conveniently may be, of her unchaste behavior, and have also warned her to take heed of such carriages for the future, lest her former carriage come in remembrance against her to make her punishment the greater.
[Source: Jonathan Ned Katz. Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary (New York: Harper & Row, 1983): 92-93.]
Rudolph Schildkraut, who played the father in “God of Vengeance,” 1923.
Theater Owner, Producer, Cast of “God of Vengeance” Arrested: 1923. Yiddish theater was a lively component of New York’s cultural life in the first part of the twentieth century, even if it did mostly fly mostly under the radar of the city’s cognoscenti. Maybe that’s why the 1907 production of Sholem Asch’s Got Fun Nekome, with its story line about a family who lived above a brothel owned by the father and the budding lesbian relationship between his daughter and one of the prostitutes, managed to go off without a hitch. Not that there was no controversy. The Yiddish press was greatly concerned that the play’s “immoral” content would trigger an anti-Semitic backlash if its plot line was noticed by the wider English-speaking city. But no backlash materialized, and the play was a huge success. It went on to be translated into several languages and was well received throughout much of Europe over the next decade.
Sixteen years after its Yiddish premiere, the play returned to New York in an English translation of God of Vengeance. When it made its Broadway debut at the Apollo Theater, it featured the first lesbian love scene on the Great White Way. This time, it was noticed. A month later, detectives showed up backstage during a performance to inform the theater’s manager and producer that they and the entire cast had been indicted for presenting an obscene and immoral play. The complaint wasn’t that the play had a lesbian them — at least, not directly — but that the lesbian theme in a Jewish play libeled the Jewish religion and was anti-Semitic. The Judge agreed, calling the play a “desecration of the sacred scrolls of the Torah,” in reference to the scrolls the father in the play commissioned, in vain, to protect the purity of his daughter. The entire cast was found guilty, but only the Harry Weinberger, the producer, and Rudolph Schildkraut, who played the father, were fined $200 each. Everyone else was let go. The play, which had closed on the night of the indictment, has been revived several times over the years, mostly by Jewish and other repertory companies.
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Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
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