Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, February 28

Pioneering gay rights activists Phyllis Lyon (right, 83) and Del Martin (left, 87) married in San Francisco in 2008, just a few months before voters approved Proposition 8.

DAILY AGENDA:
Prop 8 Amicus Briefs Due: Washington, D.C. Today and tomorrow are important days for marriage equality at the Supreme Court. Today is the deadline for filing Amicus briefs for those who support the challenge to Califoria’s Proposition 8 in the case of Hollingswoth v. Perry. (The deadline for those who want to Supreme Court to uphold Prop 8 was January 29.) We should expect a flurry of Amicus briefs being filed today. One big question is whether President Barack Obama will file a brief. On the one hand, it could be argued that because Prop 8 is a state issue, it’s not something that the administration would necessarily have a say in. But given Obama’s recent evolution on same-sex marriage, LGBT advocates hope that he will take the opportunity to stake a position on the right of gay people to marry, particularly after his stirring “Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall” callout during his second inaugural address.

The Obama administration did file an Amicus brief last week arguing that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act should be declared unconstitutional, saying that DOMA punishes same-sex couples with “a harsh form of discrimination that bears no relation to their ability to contribute to society.” That brief was filed for the case of Windsor v. U.S., which challenges the constitutionality of DOMA Section 3. The deadline for Amicus briefs for Windsor is tomorrow.

Events This Weekend: National Student Pride, Brighton, UK; Belgian Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Cape Town Pride, Cape Town, South Africa; Telluride Gay Ski Week, Mountain Village, CO; Sydney Mardis Gras, Sydney, NSW.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
State Department Reported Firing 91 Homosexuals Over Previous Two Years: 1950. In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Deputy undersecretary of State John E. Peurifoy said that the State Department had gotten rid of 202 employees over the past two years who were considered “poor security risks.” One person was fired and the rest were allowed to resign. According to Peurifoy, 91 of those let go were separated because they were suspected of being gay.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Karl-Maria Kertbeny: 1824. Born in Vienna, the family moved to Budapest when he was a child. When he was fourteen, a friend killed himself after being blackmailed by an extortionist for his homosexuality. Kertbeny, who had what he called “an instinctive drive to take issue with every injustice,” took up the cause of writing in support of “the rights of man,” against Prussian and German anti-sodomy laws. Kertbeny proposed what would be called “the medical model” of homosexuality: that it was inborn and not the result of mere wickedness. But to talk about homosexual people, he needed a new word: the very word “homosexual” hadn’t been coined yet. Instead, the words “sodomite” and “pederast” were more commonly used in the German speaking world. In a letter he wrote to German gay-rights advocate Karl Heinrich Ulrich in 1868, Kertbeny used the word Homosexualität, which for the first time separated of the object of sexual or romantic desire from the gender role of the subject. This eventually allowed for the discussion of what we now know as butch gay men and lipstick lesbians because then, the idea that a gay man could be masculine was nearly impossible to imagine. The word later appeared in pamphlets and other writings, and made its English-language debut at around 1894 (see May 6), when Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis was translated into English. Kertbeny insisted that he was not among the homosexuals he defended, but when he died in Budapest in 1882 at the age of 58, he was still unmarried.

Pedro Zamora: 1972 (Feb 29). When MTV debuted The Real World in 1992, it quite literally invented so-called reality television — so-called because it’s hard to see how putting eight attractive young people in a hip loft-like apartment with television crews, hidden cameras, and make-work jobs could be considered “reality.” But in 1994, things really did start getting real when Pedro Zamora, the Cuban-American gay man revealed that he was HIV positive to his housemates by showing them his scrapbook of his four years as an AIDS educator and advocate. In fact, it was this vocation which inspired him to audition for The Real World’s third season. As the season progressed, housemates (and viewers) became more aware of the myths surrounding HIV and AIDS, attended some of Pedro’s AIDS education lectures, celebrated with him as he and his partner exchanged vows during a commitment ceremony, and watched as he dealt with his own deteriorating health as the season progressed.

Taping ended in June 19, 1994 and the first episodes aired a week later. As the season aired, Pedro’s declining health prevented him from participating in any publicity appearances. In August, he checked into St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York. There he was diagnosed with toxoplasmosis, one of the many opportunistic infections that many people with AIDS suffered, which causes fatigue, headaches and confusion. After three weeks, he was flown home to Miami to be with his family. He died on November 11, 1994, a day after the final episode of The Real World aired. President Bill Clinton praised Pedro, saying that because of his example, “no one in America can say they’ve never known someone who is living with AIDS.”

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?

300 Employers Urge SCOTUS to Declare DOMA Unconstitutional

More than 200 businesses, a couple score of law firms, sixteen civic, professional and trade groups, seventeen cities and counties and the United States Conference of mayors — the short list of signatories runs six pages alone — have signed on to an Amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. The brief, filed in support of Edith Windsor in Windsor v. U.S. (which is now available online), argues that DOMA “impairs employer/employee relations and other business interests”:

Federal law provides to the working family many benefits and protections relating to health care, pro-tected leave, and retirement. These protections provide security and support to an employee grappling with sickness, disability, childcare, family crisis, or retirement, allowing the employee to devote more focus and attention to his work.

DOMA thwarts these employee expectations, to the direct detriment of some married employees of amici , and, by extension, of amici ourselves. As set forth below, DOMA forces amici to consider the gender of the spouses of our lawfully married employees when determining the scope and manner of benefits that may be extended to those spouses (and the chil-dren of those spouses). DOMA enforces discriminatory tax treatment of spousal retirement and health care benefits. In many other benefit-related matters,amici may incur the cost and administrative burden of “workarounds” (employer-created benefit structures attempting to compensate for the discriminatory effects of DOMA), or leave the married workforce in separate castes.

Having states recognizing same-sex marriages while the Federal government willfully ignores those legal marriage produces a costly burden to employers:

These dual regimes have spawned an industry of costly compliance specialists. Some amici have had to pay vendors to reprogram benefits and payroll systems, to add coding to reconcile different tax and benefit treatments, to reconfigure at every benefit and coverage level, and to revisit all of these modifications with every change in tax or ERISA laws for potential DOMA impact. Attorneys and ERISA advisors must be consulted. Human resources, benefits,and payroll personnel must be trained and retrained as tax or ERISA laws change. Plan documents, enrollment forms, and administrative procedures must be scoured for the word “spouse,” and amendments and disclosures drafted to try to explain the numerous implications and consequences of a given benefits decision on the personal tax situation of an employee with a same-sex spouse. Enrollment systems must be reprogrammed to account for different spousal circumstances, and linked to provider records to ensure the providers extend appropriate coverage. Benefits and human resources departments, facing questions from employees with same-sex spouses regarding workplace benefit selections and coverage, must be adequately trained and prepared to explain the disparate treatment to employees who may later realize (perhaps too late) that their benefits choices and decisions carried unanticipated and significant financial implications. The complexity and uncertainty saps critical time, focus, and energy from the human resources and benefits administration function.

The second part of the brief goes the heart of the matter, that DOMA forces employers to “become the face of its mandate that two separate castes of married persons be identified and separately treated.”:

In the modern workplace, the employer becomes the face of DOMA’s discriminatory treatment, and is placed in the role of intrusive inquisitor, imputer of taxable income, and withholder of benefits. The employer is thus forced by DOMA to participate in the injury of its own workforce morale. Yale University’s error in administering DOMA, and its implementation of unexpected tax withholding against employees married to same-sex spouses in 2011, cast the university as the antagonist to its own employees. Many amici, as employers, provide certain workarounds that attempt to address some of the disparate treatment of same-sex couples that DOMA requires. Many amici that are cities and counties have gone even farther, making substantial efforts to prevent discrimination against same-sex couples, up to and including passing anti-discrimination ordinances and amending city charters to outlaw discrimination against same-sex couples. Administering and implementing DOMA subverts efforts to eliminate obstacles to full legal recognition for employees who have lawfully entered into committed relationships with persons of the same sex.

…For many employers, DOMA does violence to the morale of the institution itself. Like other persons, legal and natural, amici are motivated by core principles. As of December 2012, 88% of Fortune 500 companies provided nondiscrimination protection for their gay and lesbian employees. …These principles spring from hard experience. Our organizations are engaged in national and international competition — for talent, customers, and business. That competition demands teamwork, and teamwork thrives when the organization minimizes distracting differences, and focuses on a common mission. DOMA’s core mandate — that we single out some of our married colleagues and treat them as a lesser class — upsets this imperative.

Our principles are not platitudes. Our mission statements are not simply plaques in the lobby. Statements of principle are our agenda for success: born of experience, tested in laboratory, factory, and office, attuned to competition. Our principles reflect, in the truest sense, our business judgment. By force of law, DOMA rescinds that judgment and directs that we renounce these principles or, worse yet, betray them.

Earlier today, it was announced that more than sixty businesses have submitted a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court urging it to declare California’s Prop 8 unconstitutional. While I haven’t been able to find the full text of that brief, it appears that at least some of the arguments made there are repeated here. That brief argued that Prop 8 “leave(s) companies in the untenable position of being compelled implicitly to endorse the second-class status to which their gay and lesbian employees, clients, customers, and business associates are relegated. …Until the law no longer relegates same-sex couples to second-class status as inferior “domestic partnerships,” our adherence to the law compels us to abide by a distinction that stigmatizes and dehumanizes gay men and lesbians.”

Signatories to the Windsor brief includes many of America’s top companies and brands, including Aetna, Alaska Airlines, Amazon.com, AIG, Apple, A|X Armani Exchange, BNY Mellon, Bankers Trust, BlackRock, Caesars Entertainment, CBS, Cisco, Citigroup, The Corcoran Group, Coupons.com, Deutche Bank, eBay, Earnst & Young, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Google, Horizon Air, Intel, Intuit, JetBlue, the Jim Henson Company, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Liberty Mutual, Marriot International, Mars, McGraw-Hill, Microsoft, Moody’s, Morgan Stanley, New York Life, Nike, Oracle, Orbitz, Pfizer, Qualcomm, REI, salesforce.com, Starbucks, Thomson Reuters, Twitter, Viacom, Walt Disney, and Xerox. That is just a short list of the big names. There are about 300 more. I look forward to the American Family Association’s next boycott announcement.

Dear Dr. Regnerus…

I’ve sent this message to Mark Regnerus. I’ll let you know whether I hear back.

Dear Dr. Regnerus,

I write to inform you of an urgent problem: The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is misrepresenting your research for its political campaign. As a serious scholar, you will surely want to ask them to correct this misuse of your work.

NOM’s “Rhode Island for Marriage” website* is telling people that according to your recent study:

• Adults who were raised by a mother and a father are almost twice as likely to be employed full time compared to adults who were raised by a lesbian couple.

• Adults who were raised by a lesbian couple are nearly 4 times as likely to be on public assistance compared to adults who were raised by a mother and a father.

Of course, your study says nothing of the sort. As you’re well aware, these are not the outcomes for children raised by lesbian couples, but for children whose mothers had a same-sex relationship at some point in their lives. Far from being the result of same-sex parenting, these disadvantaged children were mostly the products of broken heterosexual relationships. Only a small fraction of them spent even as little as three years being raised by same-sex parents.

More to the point: Your paper did not isolate outcomes for children of same-sex parents, so NOM is wrong to draw any numerical conclusions for that family structure from it.

You can see why I’ve alerted you to this problem. NOM is violating the integrity of your work.Your quick action would benefit not just the cause of civil discourse and effective public policy, but would help NOM itself. At this point, the Southern Poverty Law Center does not list NOM as a hate group, because the SPLC doesn’t designate an organization as such merely for opposing same-sex marriage. According the SPLC’s website:

“Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling.”

NOM, obviously, is now straying into this area with its clear misrepresentation of your work and is putting itself at risk of being designated a hate group. It’s possible that NOM is merely in error, that it is not propagating a known falsehood, and that it has simply misread your work. You could assist them greatly by pointing this out to them.

I look forward to your response.

With much appreciation,
Rob Tisinai

*http://www.riformarriage.com/site/607

Minnesota GOP leaders fall on either side of marriage debate

This week has seen a number of prominent Republicans speak out in favor of equality. But not all GOP members are signed on for a new perspective on marriage or ready to apply laws equally to all of a state’s citizens. Some Republican legislators in Minnesota rallied today to announce their opposition to that state’s move towards allowing same sex couples the same access to marriage law as heterosexual couples. (CBS)

The gay marriage bill was unveiled Wednesday at the Capitol. Its backers say last fall’s defeat of a constitutional gay marriage ban shows the state is ready for gay marriages.

But Republicans say voters only rejected putting the ban in the constitution, and that it shouldn’t be seen as an endorsement of gay marriage. About 15 GOP lawmakers gathered for a press conference against the bill.

Meanwhile one more prominent Minnesota Republican has added her voice in support. Patricia Anderson served as Minnesota State Auditor from 2003-07 and as Republican National Committeewoman from 2011-12. She has also run as a Republican candidate for governor and currently serves as the chair of the Fourth Congressional District Republicans. (Pioneer Press)

If we are truly the party of freedom and limited government, what justification is there to use the power of government to restrict people’s lives?

Overwhelmingly, younger generations support marriage for same-sex couples, and I agree with Sen. Petersen that it is inevitable. As a mother of generally Republican-leaning children in high school and college, it was difficult to explain to them why our party took the position it did. The philosophical double standard was troublesome, to say the least.

I believe it is time for Minnesota state law to finally reflect the fact that marriage is about the love, commitment and responsibility that two people share. Marriage is good for children, and it strengthens families and communities. If we truly believe these things, I cannot think of any valid reason for our state to continue to exclude same-sex couples from having the opportunity to marry and pursue happiness like anyone else.

See also a Minnesota Post interview.

David Frum’s reversal

Why David Frum signed the amicus brief (Daily Beast):

As a conservative concerned with stabilizing families to rely less on government aid, I have been convinced: I’ve been worrying about the wrong thing. Stopping same-sex marriages does nothing to support families battered by economic adversity. Instead, it excludes and punishes people who seek only to live as conservatives would urge them to live. Treating same-sex partnerships differently from husband-wife marriages only serves to divide and antagonize those who ought to be working together.

Like many signatories of the amicus brief, my thinking has been influenced by the fine example of the many committed, devoted same-sex couples I know. At least as much, however, I have also been swayed by an intensifying awareness of the harm culture-war politics has done to my party. Culture-war politics have isolated the GOP from the America of the present and future, fastening it to politics of nostalgia for a (mis)remembered past. Culture-war politics have substituted for relevant cultural policies aimed at encouraging the raising of children within married families. Worst of all, culture-war politics has taught the GOP to talk to America as if the nation were split into hostile halves, as if more separates Americans than unites them.

Meg Whitman’s reversal

In 2009 Meg Whitman expressed her opposition to marriage equality:

“So as you know I am pro-civil union and not for gay marriage. And just for me, that term marriage, for me needs to be between a man and a woman…I do not feel it is a slap in the face. I had a terrific record at eBay, an excellent work environment for people of all different backgrounds and all walks of life. And as I said I am pro-civil union.”

In August 2010, Federal Judge Vaughn Walker found Proposition 8 to be a violation of the US Constitution. The campaign office for Meg Whitman, then the Republican nominee for California Governor, released a statement:

Meg supported Proposition 8 and believes marriage is between a man and a woman. Meg also strongly supports California’s civil union laws. Today’s ruling is the first step in a process that will continue.

And when Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Brown declined to defend the amendment, Whitman said that were it her decision, she would choose to allow it to go forward.

“I think the governor of California and the attorney general today have to defend the Constitution and have to enable the judicial process to go along … and an appeal to go through,” Whitman said. “So if I was governor, I would give that ruling standing to be able to appeal to the circuit court.”

Well, the appeal did go through and the ruling was in ‘a process that continued’. So, it appears, was Meg’s thinking on the issue.

Yesterday we told you that her name was among those who have signed an amicus brief in favor of overturning Proposition 8 on constitutional grounds. Today she explained how her views came to evolve on this issue and why she now believes that marriage equality is good for society.

Marriage is the fundamental institution that unites a society. It is the single greatest contributor to the well-being of adults and children because it promotes eternal principles like commitment, fidelity and stability. It makes no difference whether the marriage is between a man and woman or a woman and woman. Marriage makes society better.

…we now know that children who grow up in intact, married families are much more likely to do well in school, achieve professional success and enjoy the benefits of stable, adult family lives.

In contrast, children who live with unmarried, cohabitating partners encounter significant challenges in their lives due to the higher separation rates of their parents and lower household incomes. Laws like California’s Proposition 8 do not fortify traditional marriage, they merely prevent hundreds of thousands of children of same-sex couples from enjoying the benefits that accrue from marriage.

At it’s core, it’s a conservative argument. And let’s hope it is as effective on Kennedy and Roberts (and possibly even Alito or Thomas) as it was on Whitman.

Too Good To Be True: Muscrave “Befuddled” Over Report She Opposes Prop 8

After The New York Times wrote that former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave had signed on to an Amicus brief ugring the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down California’s Proposition 8, Musgrave went to Denver’s Fox31 asking, “What in the world?”:

I’m very befuddled by this story,” Musgrave told FOX31 Denver. “There’s absolutely no truth to that. I’m reading it thinking, ‘what in the world?’

“I wasn’t even aware of it. I have not changed my position. I’m trying to imagine where anyone would get that information and I can’t figure it out.”

The brief, organized by former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, who is openly gay, urges the Supreme Court to declare that gay and lesbian couples have a Constitutional right to marry.

Musgrave is cited in the lede paragraph of a story by the New York Times’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg as part of a growing group of conservative Republicans supporting Mehlman’s brief.

Stolberg told FOX31 that Musgrave’s name was actually on the brief she was shown for the story.

“I got my information from those collecting the signatures,” she told FOX31 Denver.

I was looking forward to hearing from her about her transition from being the Rick Santorum of the House to calling on SCOTUS to strike down Prop 8. I guess it’s going to be a very long wait.

Marilyn Musgrave Now Opposes Prop 8 (UPDATED)

This is huge. In case you’ve forgotten who former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) is, here’s a reminder:

Ms. Musgrave, who lost her bid for a fourth term in 2008, was an unsuccessful sponsor of a constitutional amendment to bar same-sex couples from marrying; she once warned that if gay couples were allowed to wed, “the next step is polygamy or group marriage.”

The New York Times is kindly soft-peddalling it a bit. Musgrave was very nearly a single-issue anti-gay politician for much of her time in Congress from 2003 to 2009. She drafted and introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment into both the 108th and 109th Congresses. In a speech at the Family “Research” Council’s “Values Voters Summit,” she said that permanently banning same-sex marriage was top of her agenda — above abortion and home-schooling, both of which were also very near to her heart. “As we face the issues that we are facing today, I don’t think there’s anything more important out there than the marriage issue,” she said. She cited the rabidly anti-gay dominionist pastor D. James Kennedy, founder of Coral Ridge Ministries, as her inspiration for entering politics. He gave her a “Distinguished Christian Statesman Award” in 2005. The American Conservative Union gave her a 99% lifetime rating, ranking her as the most conservative member of the House. The Christian Coalition scored her at 100%.

Also added to the list is Beth Myers, who ran Gov. Mitt Romney’s 2008 GOP presidential campaign and was a senior adviser during the 2012 campaign. The name count of Republicans now urging the Supreme Court to declare Prop 8 unconstitutional now stands at more than 100.

Update: It turns out it was all too good to be true.

Update from Timothy: The New York Times has issued a correction:

Correction: February 27, 2013

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that former Representative Marilyn Musgrave, Republican of Colorado, had signed on to the brief. The brief was signed by Ms. Musgrave’s former district director, for herself.

Not quite “Dewey Wins”, but significantly embarrassing.

More Than Sixty Companies Urge SCOTUS To Knock Down Prop 8

News reports are emerging that more than sixty major companies, including Apple, Alcoa, Facebook, eBay, Intel, Morgan Stanley, and Nike, will sign on to an Amicus Brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Prop 8 unconstitutional:

According to a draft copy obtained by Fortune, the companies argue that such laws “send an unmistakeable signal that same-sex couples are in some way inferior to opposite-sex couples, a proposition that is anathema to amici’s commitment to equality and fair treatment to all.”

At least 60 companies had committed to signing the brief as of Tuesday evening, according to Joshua Rosenkranz, who is counsel of record on the brief and head of the Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. That number is expected to rise by Thursday, however, according to Rosenkranz. Others who have already committed to sign include AIG, Becton Dickinson, Cisco, Cummins, Kimpton, Levi Strauss, McGraw Hill, NCR, Nike, Office Depot, Oracle, Panasonic, Qualcomm, and Xerox. (Update: Verizon and Cablevision have now joined.)

The companies’ brief says that “”recognizing the rights of same-sex couples to marry is more than a constitutional issue. It is a business imperative.”

“By singling out a group for less favorable treatment, Proposition 8 impedes businesses from achieving the market’s ideal of efficient operations — particularly in recruiting, hiring, and retaining talented people who are in the best position to operate at their highest capacity. Amici are competing domestically and internationally with companies inside and outside the United States in places where all couples, regardless of whether they are of the same sex, are afforded equal access to marriage.”

…Laws like Prop 8 “leave companies in the untenable position of being compelled implicitly to endorse the second-class status to which their gay and lesbian employees, clients, customers, and business associates are relegated,” the brief argues. “Until the law no longer relegates same-sex couples to second-class status as inferior “domestic partnerships,” our adherence to the law compels us to abide by a distinction that stigmatizes and dehumanizes gay men and lesbians.”

Illinois Marriage Equality Bill Passes House Committee

In a very late-night committee hearing after a session of the full House went way past its bedtime, the House Executive Committee passed  Senate Bill 10, the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, which would grant marriage equality to same-sex couples. The vote was 6-5, with six Democrats (Daniel Burke, Robert Rita, Greg Harris, Toni Berrios, Keith Farnham and Luis Arroyo) voting yeas, and four Republicans (Mike Bost, Renee Kosel, Joe Sosnowski, Michael Tryon) and one Democrat  (Rep. Eddie Lee Jackson, Sr.) voting no. The vote was very close:

Arroyo, a Democrat, said he did not want to be an obstacle for the bill getting to floor but that he opposed it due to religious objections and his constituent desires. He said he would vote it out of committee, but would vote “no” later.

The bill now goes on to the House floor, where its passage is expected to be difficult. It was already passed in the Senate on Valentine’s day, and Gov. Pat Quinn (D) has already said he would sign it if it reaches his desk.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, February 27

DAILY AGENDA:
Minnesota Legislators To Announce Marriage Equality Legislation: St. Paul, MN. This morning, Minnesota legislative leaders will hold a press conference to announce the introduction of a bill to provide marriage equality to same-sex couples. Speakers include bill authors include Sen. Scott Dibble (DFL-61) and Reps. Karen Clark (DFL-62A) and Steve Simon (DFL-46B), United Church of Christ Minnesota Conference Minister Reverend Karen Smith Sellers, and Rabbi Michael Latz of Shir Tikvah Congregation. The bill will be introduced with bipartisan support, with Sen. Branden Petersen (R-36) signed on as co-sponsor. In retaliation, the National Organization for Marriage has pledged to raise $500,000 to defeat him in the next election cycle. The prospects for the bill in the legislature are unclear, but Gov. Mark Dayton (DFL) has announced the he would sign the bill if it reaches his desk. The bill will be formally introduced on Thursday. The press conference will take place this morning at 10:00 a.m. in Room 125 of the Minnesota State Capitol.

Events This Weekend: National Student Pride, Brighton, UK; Belgian Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium; Cape Town Pride, Cape Town, South Africa; Telluride Gay Ski Week, Mountain Village, CO; Sydney Mardis Gras, Sydney, NSW.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
A Minneapolis Father Discovers Homosexuality: 1955. Cedric Adams was perhaps the most popular radio personality in the upper Midwest throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He was the newscaster for WCCO in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and he hosted several other popular music and talent programs. In the 1950s, he made his transition to WCCO television as its newscaster. Pilots claimed that they could see lights go out each night after Adams signed off his 10:00 p.m. newscast. He also write a daily column for The Minneapolis Star titled, “In This Corner.” On Sunday, February 27, he devoted that day’s column to a letter that he received from a Minneapolis father:

APPALLING INDEED was the story this last week of the 36 shoplifters — 31 girls, 5 boys, all in their teens. Tomorrow the youngsters and their parents will traipse to the police department, loot will be piled up, department store representatives will be on hand to identify the merchandise that has been pilfered. A pretty shocking situation. What the spotlight of public attention turned on the ugly picture will do is conjecture. Will the punishment fit the crime? It’s a good question. We have another situation fully as alarming and as demanding of investigation as the shoplifting spree of the 36 …

I don’t have the answer, but I do have the initial warning that should alert every last one of us to a social danger in our midst. It happened to a father right here in Minneapolis. He was courageous enough to act. He was also astute enough to sense the evil. I hope you will read his letter. It’s one of those that obviously comes from within — shocking it is, and yet so vital. If publishing the letter does nothing more than point a finger at the condition, it will then have served its purpose. Here is the letter exactly as I received it:

“DEAR CEDRIC: My wife and I have two sons and a daughter approximately the ages of your children. We have considered ours a typical American family. The daughter is in high school, the two boys attend college. Very recently I was shocked to learn of a well-established vice condition flourishing and allowed to continue right in our city of Minneapolis. The police so far have done nothing to stop it. Maybe they can do nothing…

“This condition seriously affected the life of my younger son — and perhaps the lives of many other young sons. Because of the distasteful nature of the condition, I am not going to reveal our names. But something corrective should be done…

“Our younger son (we’ll call him Jack) is 20 years old. Until the last few months he has been a regular boy. He has a fine appearance, was a high school athlete, was interested in all sports, even took an active interest in church affairs…

“Recently we noticed Jack had dropped his girl friend as well as his former school and church friends. He began an association with a strange group of fellows. They appeared decent enough outwardly, yet we could detect something that gave the impression they were a totally ‘wrong’ group. Jack spent fewer evenings and week-ends at home. His college studies suffered. In the past, Jack had always brought his problems to the family. Suddenly he had grown apart from us. We felt he was hiding something of which he was ashamed…

“My wife and I were concerned, yet we were determined to let Jack bring his problem to us. He failed to do it. Finally I decided to talk to him. I got nowhere. I suspected Jack had joined a group of dope addicts…

“I hired a reliable private detective in desperation. As a matter of fact, my family physician advised it. I was amazed at the findings of the detective. Jack had not become a dope addict, but instead had falling in with a large group of active homosexuals frequenting several Minneapolis public bars and so-called supper clubs. The detective pointed out that there were police officers in two of the bars during one of his visits. Moreover, he said most of the clubs were operating almost exclusively for homosexuals with just a sprinkling of on-lookers present…

“My wife and I were greatly concerned, as you might well imagine. We wondered if we failed in the proper upbringing of our son. I confronted Jack with the findings and, at the request of our family physician again, we sent our son to a psychiatrist, with whom I visited myself. The psychiatrist informed me that Jack had not been an active homosexual The doctor said Jack’s upbringing had been normal and that it was his opinion he had simply fallen in with the wrong group…

“This group had interested Jack as it had interested many other young sons. These boys were actually ‘taught’ homosexuality just as one learns to become a dope addict, the doctor informed me…

“Jack told us this had been his first experience. He had been introduced to it through another university student. Now Jack is completely ashamed of his venture, he’s proud of his parents once again and has left the group completely. We’re proud of him and happy, of course, to have him back with his family and his former friends…

“But how many other Jacks are there or will there be if this sort of thing is permitted to operate and grow? The detective admitted that these practices had been increasing greatly here within the last few years, that certain bars and clubs are exclusive hangouts for homosexuals, that no curb whatsoever has been placed on them. He supplied me with a list of the places he knew that had been encouraging that kind of patronage. That list I have sent to Mayor Hoyer…

“Our son has been salvaged. It’s my earnest hope that others — all of them — may be, too. I hope you will be fearless enough to do something to bring the whole situation to the attention of both the public and our authorities. Here is a force as deadly in its operation as anything in the world. Something should be done. Can’t you spearhead the drive with publicity at least?”

Signed — A MINNEAPOLIS FATHER.

Remember where things stood in 1955. The Lavender Scare was, by then, five years old, and public attitudes towards gay people had not measurably improved since then. Gays and lesbians were prohibited from federal employment, and were routinely fired from their jobs whenever their sexuality became known. Police departments across the country routinely raided gay bars and even private homes, charging their prey with a patchwork of “lewd vagrancy,” “moral deviancy” and even felony sodomy laws. All, more or less, with the generous backing of the general public.

And so this column posed the danger of unleashing a witch hunt in the Twin Cities similar to anti-gay crack downs in other cities. But for some reason, things were different in Minneapolis. Over the next few days, a remarkable dialogue — remarkable for 1955 at least — took place on the pages of The Minneapolis Star. Check back on March 1 for the next installment of that conversation.

[Source: “In This Corner, with Cedric Adams.” Minneapolis Star (February 27, 1955). As reprinted in ONE magazine, 3, no. 4 (April 1955): 18-23.]

Miami’s Witch Hunt Resumes: 1956. Miami’s longstanding anti-gay witch hunt of 1954 (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) appeared to have been dying down, at least according to the papers, which hadn’t had much to report on in, gosh, over a year now, leading The Miami News, the city’s biggest cheerleader for past anti-gay campaigns, to worry that the word had gone out that the “heat’s off”:

Homosexuals Return, Find Heat’s Off Again
Homosexuals are appearing openly again in Greater Miami and making money for the operators of clubs which cater to them.

Several hundred — possibly more than 1,000 — are here this winter and have found that the heat is off from a public protest campaign less than two years ago.

Word now is going back up north that Miami has lifted the barriers once more.

A three-week survey by The Miami News showed that the pervert colony is flocking back in the same places raided consistently during the “purge” of 1954.”

The News then listed five bars “where a News reporter was actually approached,” with at least one with drag performances which some Miami citizens apparently decided was more entertaining than dangerous. “Female impersonators also are an important part of the act at the Club Benni, which draws many non-deviates as well. The News also said that “open homosexuality also was found in several other places” in Miami Beach around 22nd Street with “as many as 100 or more obvious deviates at one time.”

But if the heat was really off, then it’s hard to explain another article which appeared that same day in the same paper:

4 Fined $900 in Roundup of Deviates Here
Four of 15 men arrested in a four-day pervert round-up by Miami police were fined a total of $900 in City Court today.

The roundup, first in Miami this season, started after Miami News reporters began checking known hangouts here and asked police for comments on the situation.

…Police arrested 15 adults and issued two juvenile citations in the pervert probe between Thursday and Saturday last week. Most of the other cases will come up soon in City Court, according to Sgt. R.H. Kellum.

Cracker Barrel Backtracks on Gay Employees: 1991. Earlier in January, it had been revealed that the down-home country-style restaurant chain had fired eleven gay employees after issuing a policy statement saying it “is perceived to be inconsistent with our customer base to continue to employ individuals… whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values which have been the foundation of families in our society.” A manager of a Georgia restaurant fired one of his employees by telling him that the company had adopted a policy of not employing “homosexuals or men who had feminine traits.”

Once gay rights groups learned of the firings, the Lebanon, Tennessee-based company’s chairman Dan W. Evans tried to backtrack in late February, telling The Tennessean newspaper that “a written policy got out that should not have gotten out. We told the gay community that was a mistake, we apologized, (and) rescinded it. As of now, we have no policy regarding gays and lesbians.” But he then went on to contradict his non-policy when he said that openly gay or lesbian applicants wold not be employed in some rural communities where their presence would be perceived as a “disruption.” The company’s vice president also said that the fired employees would not be rehired because they” were a disruption to the store,” and issued a second statement saying, “it only makes good business sense to continue to employ folks who will provide the quality of service our customers have come to expect from us.”

The Tennessee Gay and Lesbian Alliance and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force were not at all satisfied with the response, and called a boycott of the fast-growing chain. Two New York pension funds added to the pressure by refusing to vote to re-elect any of the company’s board of directors in 1992, and shareholders waged a battle over nondiscrimination policies through much of the 1990s. In 2002, the Cracker Barrel board finally added sexual orientation to the company’s non-discrimination policy, and therefore ending the boycott. However, Cracker Barrel continued to get into hot water over other areas of discrimination, including charges in 2002 that restaurants had been segregating African-American customers in smoking sections and denying them service. The Justice Department in 2004 found that Cracker Barrel had violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and and the company agreed to a settlement which, among other things, required the company to hire outside auditors to ensure compliance with the law.

In 2010, Cracker Barrel earned a spot (barely) on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index for implementing nondiscrimination policies and diversity training that includes sexual orientation for all of its employees. Cracker Barrel earned a score of 15 points out of a possible 100, a score that has risen to only 35 for 2013.

Pat Buchanan Again Calls AIDS “Nature’s Retribution”: 1992. Presidential nomination races seem to bring out the worst in candidates, and when that candidate is Pat Buchanan his worst can be pretty bad. When he brought his campaign to Georgia, he appeared on conservative talk radio to talk about the topics that were near and dear to his heart: abortion, pornography, and the gay “lifestyle.” In response to a question about AIDS, Buchanan responded, “AIDS is nature’s retribution for violating the laws of nature in many ways. I think the promiscuous homosexual lifestyle is not only wrong, but it is medically ruinous. And I think it is socially destructive.” With this statement, Buchanan picked up a theme that he had been using since at least 1983, when he wrote an op-ed for the New York Post saying that gay people “have declared war upon nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution.” (see May 24) One thing that can be said for the man: he certainly has the virtue of consistency.

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?

Latino leaders support Illinois marriage bill

From the Christian Post

The letter, which was reportedly signed by 23 Latino leaders, including Miguel Del Valle, a former City Clerk of Chicago; Jesse H. Ruiz, Vice President of the Chicago Board of Education; and Sylvia Puente, Executive Director of the Latino Policy Forum, urges lawmakers to approve the gay marriage bill, claiming “no member of anyone’s family, whether they’re gay or straight, should face discrimination when they hope to marry the person they love.”

UPDATED: Prominent Republicans file amicus brief in Prop8 case

New York Times

Among them are Meg Whitman, who supported Proposition 8 when she ran for California governor; Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Richard Hanna of New York; Stephen J. Hadley, a Bush national security adviser; Carlos Gutierrez, a commerce secretary to Mr. Bush; James B. Comey, a top Bush Justice Department official; David A. Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s first budget director; and Deborah Pryce, a former member of the House Republican leadership from Ohio who is retired from Congress.

They are supporting equality. So far there are 75 names attached to the brief, which will be filed this week.

UPDATE: Here’s the list – so far:

Ken Mehlman, Chairman, Republican National Committee, 2005-2007

Dan Zwonitzer, Wyoming State Representative, 2005-present

The New York Times is suggesting that this sort of amicus brief – along with the level of signatories – might be very influential in the swing-votes on the Supreme Court.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, February 26

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Illinois House Committee To Hear Marriage Equality Bill: Springfield, IL. Less than two weeks after the state Senate approved a bill to provide marriage equality for same-sex couples, the House is now taking its first steps toward approving the measure. Today, Senate Bill 10, or the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, will be heard before the House Executive Committee. The committee will meet this afternoon at 3:00 p.m. in Room 114 of the Capitol Building. With seven Democrats and four Republicans on the committee, the bill is expected to pass and be sent to the House floor.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Chemical Castration for Homosexuality: 1955. In the 1950s, endocrinologists were just beginning to understand the many valuable benefits of hormone therapy to treat a large number of conditions. They also found that hormones could also have lasting, damaging effects on the body. Those effects were put to use in attempts to control the sexual behavior of gay men as doctors, often under court order, began prescribing Stilboestrol, a synthetic estrogen, in order to produce a chemical castration. In an article which appeared in the British Medical Journal, Dr. Robert E. Hemphill, the medical superintendent at the Bristol Mental Hospital, described the effects of hormone therapy for a number of different conditions, including the following:

Homosexuality and Excessive Sexuality. — The direction of homosexual or heterosexual drives cannot be altered with sex hormones; but the force of sexual drive in males can be reduced by treatment with female sex hormones. There are a number of papers on the subject, and all the authors are in general agreement about the indications and the rationale. Treatment with female sex hormones reduces the production of gonadotrophic hormones, producing a secondary effect on testicular function and secretion. The reduction of sex drive is comparable to that achieved by surgical castration, although some authors claim that endocrine treatment is more effective (Hamilton, 1943). Stilboestrol is the usual preparation, administered in increasing doses until the nipples become pigmented and the breasts sore; an alternative is ethynol oestradiol, 0.5 or 1 mg. daily. Eventually almost complete testicular atrophy will be produced, but not necessarily a total suppression of the abnormal sex drives. It is interesting that notice has been taken of this treatment at the recent trial of an extreme and persistent homosexual offender, in whom abnormal behaviour had continued in spite of the production of almost complete atrophy of the testes by stilboestrol. The judge took into consideration that the offender had therefore done everything possible that medical treatment could offer, although in his case it had not been completely successful. Persistent homosexual offenders should therefore be encouraged to persevere with this treatment, although in some cases a satisfactory control of sexual behaviour may not necessarily be achieved.

In 1952, famed mathematician Alan Turing (see Jun 23) was arrested for homosexuality and given the choice between prison and chemical castration through hormone therapy. Turing was given  Stilboestrol for a year, whereupon he became impotent and experienced the side effects of breast enlargement and general bloating in his body. He also lost his security clearance. Stilboestrol, also known in the U.S. as Diethylstilbestrol (DES), would later be linked to depression and severe birth defects when given to pregnant women. Turing committed suicide in 1954.

[Source: R.E. Hemphill. “Endocrine treatment in psychiatry.” British Medical Journal 1, no. 4912 (February 26, 1955): 501-504. Full text available online here.]

Barney Frank and “Gay Power”: 1973. Newsweek provided a quick update to the beginnings of what would become a growing political movement in a small article titled “Gay Power”:

The time is probably not at hand when Chicago’s Mayor Richard J. Daley will don black tie and hie himself off to an annual dinner of the Chicago Gay Alliance — just another politician seeking votes among just another group of citizens. Nor has Richard Nixon yet expressed his hopes for a brighter future for America’s homosexuals. But in recent years, in the backwash of political organizational efforts by migrant workers, welfare mothers and other once formless and powerless groups, the nations homosexuals have begun taking a few assertive steps of their own — and finding to their not inconsiderable surprise that the politicians can be made to pay attention.

Newsweek wrote that progress, so far, had been measured “mostly by symbol and gesture” and was limited to major cities and college campuses. San Francisco, Los Angeles were mentioned, but Newsweek was more impressed with the activity taking place in the Northeast, where gay advocates worked to overturn anti-sodomy laws (43 states still had them in 1973), enact equal rights protections, ensure child visitation rights in custody battles, and even fight on behalf of gay taxi drivers in New York City who required medical certifications of sanity before they were allowed to drive cabs. Gays were visible as never before except for one young legislator who, while not yet out, may have dared reporters to ask:

In Boston earlier this month, freshman State Rep. Barney Frank caused a small sensation when he told his colleagues that he had routinely used gays as campaign workers last year, among ordinary citizens as well as among other homosexuals — “and as all of you know, campaigning is a peculiarly personal kind of thing.”

But nobody asked, and Frank didn’t tell. It wouldn’t be until 1974 when Massachusetts (and the nation) would see its first openly gay state legislator (see Nov 5). Frank came out on his own initiative in 1987 (see May 29).

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?

U.K.’s Top Cardinal Resigns Amid Sexual Harassment Complaints From Priests

On Saturday, the U.K.’s Observer reported that three priests and one former priest came forward to accuse Britain’s most senior Archbishop, Keith Cardinal O’Brien of Scotland, of “inappropriate behavior” spanning thirty years. O’Brien denied the allegations, but then the church released a statement this morning saying that O’Brien resigned a week ago on February 18.

Yeah right. How much you wanna bet that resignation was back-dated?

On Saturday, the Observer reported:

It is understood that the first allegation against the cardinal dates back to 1980. The complainant, who is now married, was then a 20-year-old seminarian at St Andrew’s College, Drygrange, where O’Brien was his “spiritual director”. The Observer understands that the statement claims O’Brien made an inappropriate approach after night prayers.

The seminarian says he was too frightened to report the incident, but says his personality changed afterwards, and his teachers regularly noted that he seemed depressed. He was ordained, but he told the nuncio in his statement that he resigned when O’Brien was promoted to bishop. “I knew then he would always have power over me. It was assumed I left the priesthood to get married. I did not. I left to preserve my integrity.”

In a second statement, “Priest A” describes being happily settled in a parish when he claims he was visited by O’Brien and inappropriate contact between the two took place.

In a third statement, “Priest B” claims that he was starting his ministry in the 1980s when he was invited to spend a week “getting to know” O’Brien at the archbishop’s residence. His statement alleges that he found himself dealing with what he describes as unwanted behaviour by the cardinal after a late-night drinking session.

“Priest C” was a young priest the cardinal was counselling over personal problems. Priest C’s statement claims that O’Brien used night prayers as an excuse for inappropriate contact.

The cardinal maintained contact with Priest C over a period of time, and the statement to the nuncio’s office alleges that he engineered at least one other intimate situation. O’Brien is, says Priest C, very charismatic, and being sought out by the superior who was supposed to be guiding him was both troubling and flattering.

The four submitted their complaints to the papal nuncio in Britain, Antonio Mennini, a week before Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation. As Cardinal, O’Brien was preparing to fly to Rome to participate in the conclave to elect a new pope. Observers note that he skipped the celebration of mass at  St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh on Sunday.

Last year, Cardinal O’Brien stirred controversy over an op-ed published in The Telegraph in which he described the proposal to implement marriage equality a “a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right” and compared same-sex marriage to slavery:

Disingenuously, the Government has suggested that same-sex marriage wouldn’t be compulsory and churches could choose to opt out. This is staggeringly arrogant.

No Government has the moral authority to dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage.

Imagine for a moment that the Government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that “no one will be forced to keep a slave”.

Would such worthless assurances calm our fury? Would they justify dismantling a fundamental human right? Or would they simply amount to weasel words masking a great wrong?

Soon after, in an interview with BBC Radio 4, O’Brien defended those remarks, saying “I think it’s a very, very good example of what might happen on our own country in the present time.” In November, U.K.’s gay rights group Stonewall awarded O’Brien with the Bigot of the Year Award.