Box Turtle Bulletin

France’s New Year’s Baby Born to Lesbian Couple

This is a popular story this time of year: cities, states and countries all over scour the area hospitals to herald the arrival of the first newborn for the new year. In France, where the country is in the midst of a debate over marriage equality, the first newborn has a particular relevance. Sacha was born at a minute past midnight at a hospital in Moulins as the proud son of two moms. The couple underwent artificial insemination in Belgium because French law currently bars the procedure to same-sex couples, even though the couple have been in a civil pact since 2010. They plan to marry as soon as marriage equality becomes legal in France.

Illinois Marriage Vote May Reach Senate Today

In a surprising move, the bill allowing marriage equality in Illinois has been shelved — because it’s not needed. Instead, it is being attached as an amendment to a car rental bill:

Illinois Senators will no longer be voting on the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, a bill that LGBT leaders had been working for months to gain support on. Instead, the legalization of gay marriage had been added as a Senate amendment to HB4963, a bill that deals with automobile rentals and the Collateral Recovery Act, according to Equality Illinois CEO Bernard Cherkasov.

The move comes after Senate Democrats failed to secure enough votes to waive a 24-hour rule on the posting of the bill Wednesday night. That could have delayed a vote on marriage a day or more.

Gov. Brown Appeals Injunction Against California Conversion Therapy Law

California Gov. Jerry Brown announced that he would appeal a court injunction barring the enforcement of California’s new law which places restrictions on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) provided by licensed therapists:

The notice of appeal was filed on behalf of Brown and the Medical Board of California by state Atty.  Gen. Kamala Harris with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which decided Dec. 21 to block the law that took effect Jan. 1 pending a decision on its constitutionality.

The Ninth Circuit Court issued its injunction following conflicting rulings from two lower courts earlier in December.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, January 3

THE AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Arisa Gay Ski Week, Arosa, Switzerland.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR:
Jan 7: Court Hearing In Lawsuit Against Scott Lively. Uganda Transgender advocate Pepe Julian Onziema passes along this reminder:

TWITTER ACTION: On Jan 7, 2013 take to Twitter to show your support for our corageous plaintiffs from Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and Pam Spees of The Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) who will be arguing the case. @theCCR will be providing live updates of the hearing, the rally and press conference using the hashtag #StoptheHate. Also follow @SMUG2004 @onziema @frankmugisha for updates.

Scott Lively is being sued in Federal District Court by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of Ugandan advocates for for his role in “the decade-long campaign he has waged, in coordination with his Ugandan counterparts, to persecute persons on the basis of their gender and/or sexual orientation and gender identity.” He is being sued under the Alien Tort Statute, which provides federal jurisdiction for “any civil action by an alien, for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Oral arguments on Lively’s motion to dismiss are set for Monday at the Federal Courthouse in Springfield, Massachusetts.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Dorothy Arzner: 1897. Hollywood was a man’s world, but Dorothy Arzner managed to become a director despite the obstacles. When she first decided that her future lay in motion pictures after serving in the ambulance corps during World War I, she was hired right away by Paramount. As as stenographer. But she used that position to move on to script writer, then film editor. That’s where her work in the 1922 classic Blood and Sand starring Rudolph Valentino won her praise for her editing style.

When Paramount refused to promote her to director, she threatened to move to Columbia Studios. Paramount relented and named her director for the successful silent comedy Fashions for Women. She directed the first talkie for “The It Girl,” Clara Bow, in The Wild Party (1929). Arzner showed considerable ingenuity in making the film: She invented the boom mike when she had the sound crew suspend a microphone from a fishing rod so Bow could move uninhibited around the set. The Wild Party, set in a women’s college, introduced coded references to lesbian themes. Similar themes would emerge in Anybody’s Woman (1930) and Working Girls (1931). Arzner launched the careers of Katherine Hepburn in Christopher Strong (1933), Rosalind Russell in Craig’s Wife (1936), and Lucille Ball in Dance, Girl, Dance (1940). For that last film, Arzner collaborated with choreographer Marion Morgan, who had been Arzner’s partner for at least ten years and would remain so until Morgan’s death in 1971.

Dorothy Arzner and Joan Crawford

When World War II came along, Arzner directed several army training films. By 1943, Arzner stopped directing major studio feature films due to an illness. When she was ready to return after the war, she found that the workplace had grown impatient with women holding on to “men’s” jobs now that men were returning from fighting overseas. Arzner turned to teaching instead, first at the Pasadena Playhouse and then at the newly-established film school at UCLA, where Francis Ford Coppola was one of her students. Meanwhile, her old friend (and rumored paramour) Joan Crawford, who had married the chairman of Pepsico, got Arzner hired to make more than 50 television commercials in the 1950s. In 1975, Aarzner was recognized with a special tribute by the Directors Guild of America, after having become the guild’s first female member in 1936. She continued teaching until her death in 1979 at the age of 82.

Here are a couple of clips from The Wild Party:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ZOGBj3cMM

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Have Evangelicals stepped out of the marriage battle?

Google news for “Catholic” and “gay marriage” in just the past week you will have hundreds of unique articles. Google “Southern Baptist” and “gay marriage” over the same period and you will get:

1 article about the Metropolitan Community Church (132 hits)
3 articles recapping top stories from 2012
1 article about gay athletes
1 article about abortion

In response to legislation which will likely result in two more equality states this month, the Southern Baptists have no comment. Sure, Rhode Island and Illinois are not SBC strongholds, but still… nothing?

And this is not a fluke.

Over the last year or so I’ve noticed that while the debate over marriage equality has intensified and while the news surrounding marriage equality has been non-stop, one voice has been increasingly silent. The conservative evangelical Christian community has been nearly mum on the subject. Baptists, Missouri Synod Lutherans, Pentecostals, conservative Methodists and Presbyterians, and the dozens of Reformed, Brethren, Campbellites, and other denominations barely muttered a peep. Even in battle states, evangelicals have – at most – stood in the background while Catholic Bishops have become the voice and face of anti-gay efforts.

This is not to suggest that they have changed their theology, though I do think it has softened. Nor does it suggest that Alabama is going to willingly reverse their Constitutional ban. But it is a fascinating phenomenon which gives me a great deal of hope for change in the near future.

It could be that we are beginning to convince evangelical lay people that allowing gay people to marry at the courthouse or at some other church does not threaten their right to believe and live as they choose. This would explain the shift in support. Evangelicals, being grass-roots driven, are more susceptible to changes in the perceptions and beliefs of their congregants while Catholics, being hierarchal, can hold to positions that are shared by few in the pews but appeal to a handful of old men in Rome.

Gravity light

We seldom venture far from stories with some relevance to the gay community. But sometimes you run across something that seems to bring tremendous advantage to a huge number of people and is so obvious that you wonder why its not been thought of before. So, from that perspective, I want to pass on an idea that combines LED technology with grandfather clock mechanics and results in gravity powered light that can replace dangerous and hazardous kerosene or other fuel-based lighting for the roughly 1.5 billion people who do not have electricity, the GravityLight.

The developers are giving the initial 1,000 unit production to African villages in 2013 and are seeking R&D funds to make a cheaper model which they hope could be purchased by villagers in Africa for less than $5. So for about the cost of three months worth of fuel, they could get a long-life, maintenance-cost-free alternative to the kerosene lamp.

Obama endorses Illinois marriage bill

This came out between Christmas and New Years, but it’s well worth reporting, even if a bit late: (Sun-Tribune)

President Barack Obama is urging the Illinois General Assembly to legalize gay marriage in his home state as lawmakers are poised to take up the measure as early as this week in Springfield.

“While the president does not weigh in on every measure being considered by state legislatures, he believes in treating everyone fairly and equally, with dignity and respect,” White House spokesman Shin Inouye told the Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday.

This sort of endorsement is powerful and effective.

Pat Brady lobbies for marriage equality

The effort to pass marriage equality in Illinois has a valuable new ally, Pat Brady. He has pulled out his phone and started calling legislators to encourage support for the bill.

Though you probably haven’t heard of Brady, he has a rolodex to envy. It’s not from his years with high power law and accounting firms, nor his work with the state attorney’s office or the Department of Justice.

No, Pat Brady has the ear of a number of legislators in the state for another reason. He’s the Chairman of the Illinois Republican Party. (Daily Herald)

Brady said he was making the calls as a citizen, outside of his official role with the Illinois Republican Party.

“I think it’s time for people to support this,” Brady said.

2013 is already turning out to be very interesting.

UPDATE: Brady’s efforts are extremely important, as vote count by conservative site Illinois Review suggest that the bill cannot pass without some Republican support. The sponsor of the bill, Senator Heather Steans, says she has the votes, “if everyone shows up”.

British Pro-Gay Gay Producer’s Charges Dismissed By Uganda Court

David Cecil at a court appearance in September

Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) Executive Director Frank Mugisha tweets the happy news. David Cecil was arrested in September after successfully staging the play, “The River and the Mountain” in a couple of small Kampala-area theaters. He staged the play, about a gay businessman and his mother who tries various schemes to make him straight, after the Uganda Media Council banned the play’s performance at the National Theatre. He was subsequently arrested for staging the play “against lawful orders,” but Ugandan court today has dismissed those charges.

David Cecil shared the following statement on his Facebook page from his lawyer:

A win for freedom in Uganda! A case against a British script producer, David Cecil (accused of staging a “homosexual play”-The Mountain and the River and disobeying “lawful” orders) has been dismissed for lack of evidence by the Magistrates Court at Makindye. We can now sue the State for the malicious prosecution. This is the type of work I’m willing to do for the rest of my life. No man should be arrested, detained, charged and imprisoned arbitrarily for expressing himself. Rights and Freedoms are inherent and not granted by cultural and religious beliefs/institutions, families, parents, the Government or the State.

This win is only the latest court victory for LGBT people and their allies in Uganda. In 2011, the High Court ruled in favor of LGBT advocate David Kato and two other LGBT advocates who had sued the tabloid Rolling Stone (no relation to the U.S. publication by the same name) after its notorious outing campaigns. (Three weeks later, Kato was found murdered in his home.) Ugandan LGBT advocates are currently suing Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo, a defrocked former Catholic priest, who led raids against two conferences on human rights for LGBT people.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, January 2

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Governor vows to rid islands of homosexuals: 1963. The following item appeared below the fold of the front page of the Virgin Islands Daily News:

Action to Rid Here of Deviates Begins

Governor Paiewonsky today declared that his Administration has no intention of permitting the Virgin Islands to become a haven for homosexuals in which to spread their peculiar perversions.

To this end he has directed Commissioner of Public Safety, Otis L. Felix to undertake an immediate investigation into the extent of the problem in the Virgin Islands simultaneous with an all out drive against offenders.

If existing law is inadequate, says the Governor, the Attorney General will prepare legislation designed to eliminate this offensive activity in the Islands.

Noting that a large number of such persons are reported to have come to the Virgin Islands from other places, the Governor stated that the public interest required that our children be protected from the spread of homosexual practices.

The U.S. Virgin Islands repealed its sodomy law on October 18, 1984, with repeal going into effect on January 16, 1985.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
William “Billy” Haines: 1900. Throughout his life, Haines refused to deny his homosexuality. At the age of 14, he ran way from home with his boyfriend. Five years later he became a top model, and from 1924 through 1930, he was one of Hollywood’s most dashing leading men during the Silent era. He was already starting to successfully transition to talkies when he picked up a sailor in Los Angeles’s Pershing Square and took him to a room at the YMCA. The police raided the Y and Haines was arrested. MGM head Louis B. Mayer demanded that Haines enter into a sham marriage to salvage his career, but Haines refused to leave his longtime lover Jimmie Shields. Haines was fired and his name was entered into the so-called Doom Book, the blacklist maintained by Hays Commission.

Haines and Sheilds turned their attentions to each other and to interior design. Their design business took off quickly, thanks to Haines’s connections in Hollywood which allowed them to become the designers to the stars. Clients included Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Carole Lombard, George Cukor, Betsy Bloomingdale, the Annenbergs and the Reagans. Haines and Shields remained together for nearly fifty years, prompting their friend Joan Crawford to dub them the “the happiest married couple in Hollywood.” Gloria Swanson tried to get Haines back into the movie studio for Sunset Boulevard in 1950, but Haines declined. Haines died on December 26, 1973 of cancer. Soon after, Jimmie Shields put on Haines’s pajamas, crawled into their bed, and took an overdose of pills. They are buried together at Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery. In 1999, Haines was the subject of a biography, Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Star, by William J. Mann. You can see examples of Haines’s interior design work here.

Michael Tippett: 1905. Britain, in some respects, is a small island, very nearly not quite big enough to simultaneously host two acclaimed openly gay classical composers who were pacifists during WWII. And so Michael Tippett has often been overshadowed by his contemporary, Benjamin Britten (see Nov 22). Tippett was imprisoned as a conscientious objector (Britten avoided imprisonment), and that, with his broader interest in humanitarian work, often influenced his music. His wartime premiere of his pacifist oratorio, A Child of our Time, (with Britten’s partner, Peter Pears, cast as soloist) received wide acclaim. The Times of London called it “strikingly original in conception and execution,” and The Observer hailed it as “The most moving and important work by an English composer for many years.”

The premier of his First Symphony, Third Quartet, and Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli — one of his most popular and frequently performed works — soon followed. But audiences and performers alike found his 1955 opera The Midsummer Marriage confusing. Modeled after Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Tippett’s work recast it as a Jungian manifesto where, as he put it, “a warm and soft young man was being rebuffed by a cold and hard young woman to such a degree that the collective, magical archetypes take charge.” The music, however, was well received, and he re-used the Four Ritual Dances from the opera as a separate concert work. Controversy surrounded premieres of two following works, the Piano Concerto (1955, its first appointed soloist backed out after declaring it unplayable), and the Second Symphony (1957). During the symphony’s premiere, the BBC Symphony orchestra actually broke down live on air a few minutes into the first movement and had to be restarted.

In 1965, Tippet visited America for the first time, and that experience marked a major turning point as he began incorporating jazz and blues into his music. His third opera The Knot Garden not only explored the complex themes of the Sexual Revolution, but also incorporated electric guitar and a drum set in the orchestra. His Third Symphony (1973) also was influenced by American blues, with the solo soprano’s part becoming a tribute to the late blues singer Bessie Smith. But his fourth opera The Ice Break was roundly criticized for its hackneyed use of American slang and the inclusion of race riots and a psychedelic trip giving what The Telegraph calls “toe-curling results.” Nevertheless, Tippett’s popularity grew through the 1970s and 1980s. He died in 1998, just six days after his ninety-third birthday.

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?

Uganda LGBT Advocate Arrested for “Recruiting Into Homosexuality”

According to information provided in a couple of Facebook postings and confirmed by Ugandan LGBT advocates, Kaweesi Joseph, a founding member of the Ugandan LGBT advocacy and support group Youth on Rock Foundation was arrested on December 30 for what is described as “acts of homosexuality and recruiting juveniles.” The circumstances behind his arrest remain unclear. Kenyan activist Denis Nzioka has confirmed that Kaweesi has been arrested by police and is in custody at Kawempe police station in a suburb north of Kampala.

The charges against Kaweesi remain unclear. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda, with punishment ranging from twenty years to life, depending on how prosecutors chose to apply the law. Because other reports appear to allude to “unnatural offences,” it appears that police are looking to charge Kaweesi under Section 145 of Uganda’s Penal Code, which reads:

Any person who— (a) has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature; (b) has carnal knowledge of an animal; or (c) permits a male person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature, commits an offence and is liable to imprisonment for life.

But as legal observers point out, there is no law barring “recruiting,” although the term has two distinct but often conflated meanings in the Ugandan context. Anti-gay rhetoric in Uganda has it that the only way people become gay is that they are “recruited” into homosexuality, either through “defilement” or by otherwise providing support for LGBT youth and adults. “Defilement,” which refers to rape or sexual abuse, is obviously against the law. But the fact that the term “defilement” is not being used here seems to indicate that police are using the term “recruiting” to mean providing support or services for gay people. Aside from the sheer impossibility of “recruiting” anyone into being gay, Ugandan law currently does not prohibit advocacy or providing support services for LGBT people, although the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill would outlaw all such support.

According to Deniz Nzioka at Identity Kenya:

Local activists confirmed the incident and were looking into ways to secure the release of Kaweesi. Additionally, TRF updated on their Facebook page on the same and urged members to be exercise caution.

A lawyer was in touch with Kaweesi and it was expected that he would post bail to ensure he is released.

In a more recent Facebook posting, it is reported that Kaweesi is still in police custody and will be spending his third night in jail. Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) Executive Director Frank Mugisha confirms via Facebook:

Today at Police they pulled up one of the ugandan gay facebook pages as evidence,against a ugandan gay guy who has been arrested,please be careful with what you post on fb esp people in the closet.

Last week, the offices of Sexual Minorities Uganda were broken into, and several computers with their hard drives were stolen. It is not known what information was contained in those hard drives or whether that theft has led to this arrest.

Uganda’s Parliament is currently on break for the Christmas holidays. It may take up debate on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill when it resumes in February. Several prominent pastors, including the new Anglican Archbishop Stanley Ntagali, have called for the bill’s passage in their New Year’s addresses earlier today “to avert the recruitment of youngsters to adopt the same-sex behaviour.”

Illinois may vote on marriage this week

According to Windy City

The Senate will be in session Wednesday afternoon, and LGBT leaders say that a vote on a bill seeking gay marriage is likely to come sooner rather than later.

Sen. Heather Steans tells Windy City Times that she wants to see a vote on Thursday.

Looks to be a very exciting January.

Rhode Island to introduce marriage bill

Providence Journal

Legislation allowing gay couples to marry in Rhode Island will be introduced on Thursday, the bill’s longtime sponsor, state Rep. Arthur Handy, said Tuesday, the opening day of the 2013 General Assembly session.

The Daily Agenda for New Year’s Day

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Same-Sex Marriages Begin: Maryland. Last November, Maryland voters approved Question 6 which ratifies a law passed by the legislature earlier this year to provide marriage equality. On December 6, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) formally signed a proclamation certifying the election results, allowing the law to go into effect today. The state Attorney General authorized (but did not require) individual counties to begin issuing post-dated marriage licenses so that couples could begin marrying today after having already gotten the mandatory 48-hour waiting period out of the way. For those living in counties which didn’t issue post-dated licenses — that’s probably fewer than a third of the counties — they can legally obtain licenses beginning today or whenever those county offices open following the holiday. They will be able to marry by the weekend.

Because today is a holiday, most city and county offices will be closed, but Baltimore’s Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake opened City Hall at 12:30 a.m., so that seven couples could marry. The first couple to marry will be the mayor’s aide and his partner of 35 years.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
English Criminal Law Amendment Act Takes Effect: 1885. English law had long held that homosexuality was an “abominable crime” punishable with death by hanging, but in 1861, the law was modified to provide imprisonment from ten years to life instead. But crime of sodomy was always difficult to prosecute because it required a witness and evidence that the sexual act had been fully consummated, complete with penetration and what we would call a happy ending. Obviously, that made convictions rare.

That changed in 1885, although the change may have been somewhat unintentional. During the middle of the nineteenth century, there was a growing concern over the dangers suffered by England’s daughters over the “gross indecencies” imposed upon them. But again, convictions were rare because the statute required that the sexual assault take place in a “public place.” And so on January 1, 1885, a revision to the criminal code raised the age of consent for girls from thirteen to sixteen, and it made “gross indecencies” punishable regardless of age and place a misdemeanor, punishable with up to two years imprisonment. It didn’t take long for “gross indecency” to be interpreted by the courts to include homosexuality. In fact, it would be under this statute that Oscar Wilde would be convicted and sentenced to the maximum two year term ten years later.

San Francisco Police Raid New Year’s Day Ball: 1965. Early San Fransisco LGBT-rights advocates had long recognized that much of the opposition to homosexuality rested on religious objections, and that if any progress was to be made, it was necessary to foster links between the gay community and the bay area’s religious leaders — at least those leaders who might be inclined to be supportive, whether publicly or privately. Earlier in 1964, Daughters of Bilitis founders Phyllis Lyon (see Nov 10) and Del Martin (see May 5), together with Glide Memorial Methodist Church, formed the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. CRH was notable for two reasons: not only was it the first organization in the U.S. to incorporate the word “Homosexual” in its name, but it was also the first organization to bring straight and gay people together to minister to the gay community.

And that opportunity for those early straight allies to get a first-hand taste of what gay people routinely experienced came on New Year’s Day of 1965, when CHR held a New Years Mardi Gras as a fundraiser at California Hall. When the ministers informed the San Francisco Police Department on December 23 of their planned costume party, the police tried to coerce the hall’s owners into cancelling the rental. Organizers again met with police on December 29, for negotiations which the ministers described “strained.” SFPD officials couldn’t understand why these ministers were arguing on behalf of gay people. Observing the wedding bands on the ministers’ fingers, one officer reportedly said, “We see you’re married. How do your wives accept this?” Their wives, the ministers explained, would be at the ball also, along with other members of their congretations. Police tried to question them on theology and warned them that they were being “used” by local homophile organizations, but the ministers persisted. Finally, the two parties reached a deal where police promised not to arrest anyone in costume, including those in drag.

A couple walks past police officers to attend the New Year’s Mardi Gras ball.

Those promises quickly proved empty. As guests began arriving at 9:00 p.m. on New Year’s Day, they encountered police officers snapping photographs of everyone as they entered the building. The obvious attempt at intimidation deterred many — organizers expected 1500 to show up but only about 500 actually attended. Later that evening, police demanded entry into the building. Three CRH lawyers explained that the party was a private party under California law and that police could not enter without buying tickets or showing a warrent. The lawyers were arrested, along with a ticket-taker, and charged with obstructing an officer. Two other gay men were arrested for “disorderly conduct” after one of them tripped over a chair; police accused him of trying to kiss another man and both were hauled in.

Throughout the night, police repeatedly entered the hall to conduct “fire code inspections.”  The ball was scheduled to end at midnight, but organizers decided to end the ball an hour earlier. Their next job was get get their guests safely out of the building. One minister was threatened with arrest while escorting two guests to their cars.

Police photographer snaps photos of everyone as they enter California Hall.

For many of the straight attendees, this was their first exposure to routine police intimidation tactics against the gay community. Del Martin said, “This is the type of police activity that homosexuals know well, but heretofore the police had never played their hand before Mr. Average Citizen … It was always the testimony of the police officer versus the homosexual, and the homosexual, fearing publicity and knowing the odds were against him, succumbed. But in this instance the police overplay their part.”

The following morning seven of the ministers who had attended the party held a press conference where they described the pre-event negotiations and the resulting “intimidation, broken promises and obvious hostility” of the San Francisco Police. The American Civil Liberties Union agreed to represent those under arrest.

The New Year’s Mardi Gras party, occurring as it did some five years before Stonewall, proved to be a turning point for gay rights in San Francisco. As the Mattachine Society’s Hal Call (see Sep 20) recalled, “That was when we got newspapers, TV, and radio on our side. The police were so brutal. And with some respectable clergymen on our side, that was a turning point.” Phyllis Lyon said that it was “our first step into some kind of connectedness with the rest of the city.” City officials, embarrassed by the obvious police misconduct, responded by designating officer Elliot Blackstone as the first liaison between the department and the LGBT community. (At his retirement dinner in 1975, Blackstone was saluted by LGBT community leaders for his ensuing twenty years of advocacy and support.)

When the three lawyers’ trial began in February, the police department were still trying to figure out the legal basis for their actions. When asked why police were taking pictures of guests arriving at the ball even though no crime had occurred, one official replied that police “wanted pictures of these people because some of them might be connected to national security.” He also said that the contingent of more than a dozen officers and two photographers were needed because “we went just to inspect the premises.” After four days of prosecution testimony and before the defense could begin presenting their case, the judge ordered a directed verdict of “not guilty” after four days of prosecution testimony. One of the lawyers who had been arrested and charged, Herb Donaldson, would go on to become San Francisco’s first openly gay judge.

A documentary, “The Last Dance Raid,” is currently in production with a targeted release sometime in 2013. The documentary will include eyewitness interviews and vintage photos. Donations for the project are being accepted here. Here is the film’s trailer:

[Other sources: Kay Tobin. “After the ball…” The Ladder 9, no. 5 (February 1965): 4-5.

Unsigned. “Cross currents.” The Ladder 9, no. 9 (June 1965): 14-16.

Edward Alwood. Straight News: Gays, Lesbians and the News Media (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996): 40.

Marcia M. Gallo. Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement(Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2007): 105-108.

LGBT Religious Archives Network. “Raid at New Year’s Day Ball at California Hall.”]

Los Angeles Gay Bar Raided: 1967. It all was sparked by the temerity of a kiss, when a small group of gay men at Silverlake’s Black Cat bar, upon the countdown to midnight on New Years’ Eve, had the gall to kiss each other “on the mouth for three to five seconds” in the presence of about six undercover policemen who had infiltrated the gay bar. As soon as the pecks on the lips began, police identified themselves and began viciously beating and arresting the kissing offenders. As the melee widened, several people tried to escape to the New Faces bar across the street. Undercover officers followed and raided that bar as well. One of the New Faces workers was beaten so badly by police that they cracked a rib, fractured his skull and ruptured his spleen. Six Black Cat kissers were tried and convicted of “lewd or dissolute conduct” in a public place — legaleese for, in this instance, hugging and kissing.

Just as with the New Year’s Mardi Gras raid in San Francisco two years earlier, the Black Cat raid had the effect of galvanizing the gay community in Los Angeles. Gays turned out for protests and demonstrations in the months that followed, and they began to pass a newsletter around which would eventually morph into The Advocate. By the time a similar police raid took place in a dive bar in Greenwich Village two years later, the ground was well prepared for gays to come out nationally to declare their presence in society. In 2008, the Black Cat bar was declared a historical-cultural landmark by the city of Los Angeles, in a move that was partly inspired by the story of the Black Cat bar posted on BTB in 2006.

Homosexuality decriminalized: The first day of the year often marks the day in which new state laws take effect, which explains why on this day in history, a number of states officially decriminalized homosexuality effective January 1. Among the states that I know of in which laws prohibiting same-sex relations include: Arizona (1980), California (1975), Colorado (1971), Hawaii (1972), Illinois (1962), Iowa (1976), New Mexico (1975), North Dakota (1978). Ohio (1974),  Oregon (1971) and Vermont (1977). If you know of any others, please let me know in the comments below.

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?

Happy New Year