Box Turtle Bulletin

New SurveyUSA poll good news for Referendum 74

Per SeattlePI

The poll found Referendum 74, which would make Washington the seventh state to enact marriage equality, leading by a 55-40 percent margin with just 6 percent undecided.

I find generally that with gay marriage polls, the support for equality generally is how the vote comes out with all the undecided votes going against us. So my best guestimate is that if the vote were today (and you can vote absentee today), the results would be close to 55-45 for Referendum 74 and equality would win.

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, October 6

“You Can’t Print It!” ONE magazine, October 1954.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
“Letters to ONE: From Fringe to Forefront”; ONE Magazine’s 60th Anniversary: Los Angeles, CA.  In 1952, several members of the Mattachine Society who were disappointed with the growing conservative, non-activist stance of some of the newer members, decided to get together to start a separate organization for the purpose of publishing a national magazine for the “homophile” movement. ONE, Inc. was founded in the fall of 1952 and ONE Magazine — its name came from a quote by Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle: “A mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one” — made its debut the following January. Despite the fact that the magazine carried no racy photos and its fiction didn’t come anywhere close to being explicit or “pornographic,” its unabashed defense of gay people made it a target of postal authorities, who confiscated the October 1954 issue (ironically, the one with “You Can’t Print That!” on the cover) ONE sued, and the case ended up going all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court cited a different case involving free speech and the delivery of publication in the mails and refused to take the ONE case. But by refusing to take the case and explaining why, ONE Inc. v. Olesen became the first pro-gay ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1958.

While ONE made legal history, its most important contribution to the country’s LGBR people was simply in the monthly reminders which appeared in their mailboxes that they weren’t alone. Billy Gover, who worked at ONE from 1959 until the organization’s acrimonious split in 1965, recalls that there were two popular sections of ONE which everyone read. One was a monthly column called “Tangents” which rounded up LGBT-related news from around the country (and which has been an invaluable resource for many of the history posts you read in the Daily Agenda), and the letters to the editor section, which included letters like these:

Sirs: The reason that I’m interested in subscribing to ONE is that I believe I am homosexually inclined. I feel that your magazine will give me guidance and enlightenment that I need. Just knowing that I am now writing to youlets me know that I am not alone with my problem. You are to be commended very highly for the step you are taking. I know that many others are grateful just as I am.

EAST POINT, GEORGIA m

Gentlemen: The June issue just recently received is one of the best since your beginning.While one may not agree with all the philosophical conclusions reached by the various writers in this issue, you are certainly to be commended for presenting these views, thus giving us the incentive to re-think our patterns. We are on the march against ignorance, prejudice and all the other black sins that curse the “realm of Christianity”-so-called. ONE can be proud that they have lead the way.

–A MINISTER

Dear Sirs;You’re doing, basically, a good job — though I’d like a little more fiction and a little less esoteric hogwash. My wife and I enjoy reading ONE, and we’re only sorry we can’t leave the magazine out in plain sight in the apartment.

— NEW YORK. N .Y

The most poignant letters letters were often not letters that were written to the editor, but letters that readers wrote to each other through the Letters to the Editor section:

Dear Mr. E.

I read your letter in ONE. The Society we  are in is a most lonely one. A homosexual has  a most difficult time, as you, I and others  know and have experienced. Loneliness is  found in all walks of life. I’m in my early  twenties and often find life depressing and lonely. I understand how hard it is to accept this, but who knows what will happen in the future? There is always a future. I do hope this note will be of some small comfort. You aren’t alone when it comes to feeling loneliness. There are hundreds of us in the same predicament. Keeping busy is a help.

Mr. B.

Hartford, Conn.

To celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of ONE’s founding, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives will hold a reading tonight of “Letters to ONE: From Fringe to Forefront,” featuring “star studded dramatic readings of heartfelt, poignant, and deeply personal letters sent to the editors of ONE Magazine.” The evening will also mark the opening of the exhibition “Meeting in the Margins: 60 Years of Queer Organizations” in the Archive, which will include an examination of the history of LGBTQ organizations in Los Angeles “through an extensive range of materials – documents, photographs, publications, video, T-shirts, banners, signs, ephemera and artworks – all from the collections at ONE Archives.” It all begins this evening, with a reception from 5:00 p.m. to 6 p.m., and the performance from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. tonight at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives,  909 West Adams Boulevard, in Los Angeles. Check out the web page for tickets and more information.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Asheville, NC; Baltimore, MD (Black Pride); Bangor, Wales, UK; Belgrade, Serbia (Cancelled!); Dallas, TX (Black Pride); Ft. Worth, TX; Johannesburg, South Africa; Memphis, TN; Miami Beach, FL (Hispanic Pride); Orlando, FL.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX.

Other Events This Weekend: Gay Days, Anaheim, CA; Alaska Pride Conference, Anchorage, AK; Floatilla, Hong Kong, China; Key West Bear Fest, Key West, FL; Black and Blue Festival, Montreal, QC; OctoBEARfest, New York, NY; Chéries-Chéris Film Festival, Paris, France; Rainbow Festival, Phoenix, AZ.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Miami Mayor: “Deviates Are Leaving The City”: 1954. Miami’s ongoing hysteria over discovering the presence of gay people in their midsts (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 and Sep 19) appeared to be on the wane, with Mayor Abe Aronovitz telling The Miami News that the city’s highly publicized raids on gay bars and beaches were finally having their effect:

Mayor Claims Deviates Are Leaving City

Miami is the cleanest town in the area so far as homosexuals go, it was claimed by Mayor Abe Aronovitz, who said, “but we are not solving it from a humanitarian standpoint because we are only clearing it up as far as Miami is concerned.”

“There is no solution from a humanitarian standpoint, however, because I have received complaints from both Broward County on the north and Monroe County on the south that the homosexuals are just drifting out of Miami.”

The City Commission later today is expected to pass on second reading an ordinance aimed at controlling homosexuals and also jeopardizing liquor licenses of establishments serving people known to have homosexual tendencies.

It was passed on the first reading two weeks ago.

And that is why there are no homosexuals in Miami any more.

Matthew Shepard Assaulted: 1998. At around 6:30 PM, Aaron Kreifels was riding his bicycle on Snowy Mountain View Road, just outside of Laramie, Wyoming, when he wiped out near the end of a rough buck-and-rail fence. In the fall, he severely damaged his front tire. Aaron got up to try to figure out how to get back into town when he was startled by what he thought was a scarecrow. He took a closer look and discovered that it wasn’t a scarecrow, but a 5-foot-2, 102 pound University of Wyoming student by the name of Matthew Shepard. Aaron was further surprised to see that the bloody figure was still alive, though barely. Matthew was comatose, breathing “as if his lungs are full of blood,” Aaron would later testify. It had been a very cold day that day with a 30-degree freezing wind the night before, and it was now evening again. Matthew had been there for more than 18 hours, laying on his back, head propped against the fence, his legs outstretched. His hands were tied behind him, and the rope was tied to a fence post just four inches off the ground. His shoes were missing.

Aaron, in a state of panic, ran to the nearby home of Charles Dolan. From there, they called 911, and then the both of them returned to Matthew to wait for the sheriff’s deputy to arrive. Deputy Reggie Fluty later testified that the only spots not covered in blood on Matt’s brutally disfigured face were tracks cleansed by his tears. She told the barely breathing victim, “Baby, I’m so sorry this happened.”

Matthew was rushed to Poudre Valley Hospital’s intensive care unit in critical condition. He suffered fractures from the back of his head to the front of his right ear from being pistol-whipped by a 357-Magnum more than twenty times. He had severe brain stem damage which affected his body’s ability to control heart rate, breathing, temperature, and other involuntary functions. There were lacerations around his head, face and neck. He had welts on his back and arm, and bruised knees and groin. He had also suffered from hypothermia. His injuries were too severe for doctors to operate. They did however insert a drain into Matthew’s skull to relieve the pressure on his brain.

By the end of the day, Matthew Shepard was laying quietly in a soft, warm bed with clean sheets after having spent eighteen hours in the freezing high plains of Wyoming tied to a fence post. He was breathing with the aid of a ventilator.

(You can read the entire series I wrote to commemorate the tenth anniversary of his brutal slaying here.)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Bruno Balz: 1902. He wrote some of Germany’s most famous songs for film despite his career being hampered by official persecution for his homosexuality. When Balz was arrested by Nazi authorities for violating Germany’s Paragraph 175 outlawing male homosexuality, he was released after several months’ imprisonment on the condition that his name not be mentioned in public. When he was arrested again in 1941 and tortured in Gestapo headquarters, his songwriting partner, Michael Jary, appealed to authorities to release him, saying that he could write songs to lift German morale as part of the war effort. He wrote two of his greatest hits just days after his release. And while his songs would be criticized later for aiding  the war effort, gays in Germany were buoyed by what they saw as double meanings in some of his songs. One song in particular, his 1938 classic “Kann denn Liebe Sunde sein?” (“Can Love Be a Sin?”), became something of an anthem for Germany’s underground gay community:

Every little Philistine makes my life miserable, for he’s always

talking about morality. And whatever he may think and do, you can

see that he just doesn’t want anyone to be happy…. Whatever

the world thinks of me, I don’t care, I’ll only be true to love.

Can love be a sin?

Can’t anybody know when you kiss,

When you forget everything out of happiness?

Balz’s troubles continued even after the war and the fall of Nazism. After all Paragraph 175 remained the law of the land until 1994 after Germany’s reunification, which meant that the strictures on him remained in effect preventing him from receiving his due credit for his music. Balz died in 1988. There is now a Bruno Balz theater named for him in Berlin.

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?

Off Topic: A Favor

I’m creating a video explaining the financial crisis, and I need recent quotes (within the past four years) from people saying the financial sector is overregulated, should be allowed to regulate itself, that we just need to get out of its way, etc.

I need these quotes to be original, not characterizations or interpretations of what other people have said. In other words, I don’t want Biden saying Romney will unchain Wall Street. I need quotes from the people who themselves favor the deregulation. And, of course, I need the sources so I can check them out.

Government officials, pundits, professors, major figures who are taken seriously on the national stage.That’d be great.

Anybody?

San Francisco’s new Catholic Archbishop snubs Episcopal bishop

The installation of Sal Cordilleone, the Catholic Church’s point-man on opposing marriage equality and other civil rights for gay people, as Archbishop of San Francisco did not go without hitch. From AP

Meanwhile, interfaith tensions over the marriage issue threatened to mar the Cordileone’s day. The Rev. Marc Andrus, the Episcopal bishop for Northern California and a strong same-sex marriage supporter, reported that he was snubbed when he showed up for the cathedral service, which came three days after Andrus had written an open letter offering a spiritual home to any Catholics who felt disowned by the archbishop’s views.

Andrus said he was taken to a basement room with other invited guests, then left waiting as ushers showed everyone but him to their seats in the sanctuary, Joseph Mathews, an Episcopal spokesman said. He was still waiting when the mass had started, so he left, Mathews said.

The Catholic Church blamed Bishop Andrus:

San Francisco Archdiocese spokesman George Wesolek chalked it up to a misunderstanding. Andrus had arrived late and missed the procession of interfaith clergy who were to be seated up front. Church staff were looking for an opportunity to bring the bishop in without disrupting the service, according to Wesolek. When they went to retrieve him, he had already left.

“We had no intention of excluding him at all,” Wesolek said. “If he felt like because of the wait that was insulting to him, we certainly will apologize.”

Rather than play along, Bishop Andrus decided to post a dispute to the Church’s accusations:

I was dropped off at the cathedral at 1:30PM by my assistant. After making my way around protestors and showing my invitation to security guards, I was in the lower level area to which I was directed by 1:40.

The instructions the Archdiocese had given my assistant were that I should be at St. Mary’s by 1:45. The service was scheduled to begin at 2.

I identified myself to an assistant to the archbishop, who spoke to someone through a headset, saying, “Bishop Andrus is here.”

I saw the Greek Metropolitan, a good colleague of mine, who was in the same room with me, several Greek Orthodox priests, archdiocesan employees and security guards. I greeted the metropolitan and we spoke briefly.

An archdiocesan employee attempted to escort me upstairs with the Greek Orthodox group, but was stopped from doing so by the employee to whom I had first identified myself. This person, who appeared to be in a superior role, instructed another employee to stand with me.

At this point no other guests remained in the downstairs area. The employee and I chatted while waiting. I began to wonder about the time holdup. I checked my phone; it was 1:50PM. I asked the employee standing with me if the service indeed started at 2, which she affirmed.

At 2PM, when the service was to begin, I said to the employee, “I think I understand, and feel I should leave.” Her response was, “Thank you for being understanding.” I quietly walked out the door. No one attempted to stop me. No attempt was ever made to explain the delay or any process for seating. I arrived early, before the time given my assistant, and waited to leave until after the service had begun.

This all seems rather easily proven and I hope the AP makes this a real story. One could simply interview the Metropolitan (the term for a Greek Orthodox Bishop) and Bishop Andrus’ assistant. Then ask why it is that the Catholic Church decided to snub the Bishop.

Cordileone may feel that the Vatican’s favor guarantees adoration from the public. But this level of arrogance and intentional rudeness will alienate not only Protestants, but some Catholics and many non-religious people who will extend respect for his office only so far as he respects that of others.

LifeSiteNews doesn’t like me

Sigh. The Catholic “news” site LifeSiteNews has blocked me from commenting. I can’t imagine why. I simply agreed with everything they said.

For example, when Mollysday said

It’s not that Obama’s gay. He isn’t. But he’s easily the most evil man ever to inhabit the White House.

I agreed:

Yes, very evil. We know that the homosexuals are Nazis and he supports the homosexuals. So Obama is a Nazi supporter.

and when Timmehh didn’t know of any of the “several indications” that Barack Obama “is a homosexual”, I merely provided one:

Well, for one thing, he’s a liberal. And all liberals deny God. And the Bible says in Romans that if you deny God he’ll turn you into a homosexual.

I didn’t say a word that they don’t believe. I can’t imagine why they blocked me.

Delgaudio has met the enemy and it is him

Please chip in

Any day now we should be getting an email telling us that the homosexual activists on the Louden County Board of Supervisors are persecuting poor Eugene Delgaudio (please chip in $10). Because the Board unanimously voted (including Eugene) to investigate charges that he used county staff for his anti-gay fundraising efforts (please chip in $10).

Of course, this could be a name-clearing project (please chip in what you can) rather than a real investigation (please chip in $15). We’ll have to wait and see, I guess (please prayerfully consider chipping in $20).

Delgaudio claims that he’s innocent (please chip in $20) and that the county was paying for an entirely different scam fundraising effort (please chip in $50, or whatever you can). (WaPo)

Delgaudio said Wednesday that he supported both motions by the board, but he vigorously defended himself against the accusations and reiterated his assertion that his fundraising efforts were for a youth football league.

“This is more than an attack on my simple methods at finding support for youth sports leagues, more than an attack on my non-controversial and straightforward record of winning four elections in Sterling,” he said. “There is a spot lamp on what I do and how I do it. That’s great. You won’t find anything.”

(Meanwhile please prayerfully consider chipping in your entire social security check.)

Jay Z for marriage

This matters. This matters very much. (TheFour)

Debate Primer: Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Freedom

Our opponents’ most prominent line of attack these days is that same-sex marriage is a threat to religious liberty. Here’s a primer suggesting ways to debate them. You can download it here and store it on your tablet or phone for quick reference.

Essential Points

Here are single-sentence points that you can get out in one breath (maybe two). The idea is create a flow:  Shift their objection from same-sex marriage to discrimination; point out their inconsistency on the issue, and question the integrity of their sources (e.g, National Organization for Marriage and its allies).

1. NOM’s alleged violations of religious liberty are usually about discrimination law, not same-sex marriage – in fact, many of their favorite examples come from states that haven’t legalized same-sex marriage.

2. The American people may be evenly divided on same-sex marriage, but they strongly oppose discrimination, as shown by poll after poll.

3. The same anti-discrimination laws that protect gays and lesbians also protect Christians and other religious people – in fact, religious people have more protection against discrimination than gays and lesbians.

4. Discrimination laws have existed a long time but our opponents never complained about the threat to religious liberty until gays came into the picture, making one wonder: is it really about religious freedom, or is it about the gays?

5. People who want to be exempted from discrimination law are really asking for special rights.

6. NOM has lied to its own supporters about the threat to religious freedom in order to get money from them.

Getting back on track

You’re unlikely to be able control the flow of the conversation, so here are some questions you can ask when things go awry, especially when they start citing examples of religious liberty violations: Read the rest of this entry »

Are People Who Oppose Gay Marriage Bigots?

Marriage is on the ballot in four states this year. Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will decide whether same-sex couples will be allowed to marry, while Minnesota voters will determine whether to write discrimination into their state’s constitution. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the Witherspoon Institute, and many, many other organizations are mobilizing their resources to push their anti-gay arguments.  Professor John Corvino is intimately familiar with those arguments, having just published a book with NOM’s co-founder Maggie Gallagher titled Debating Same-Sex Marriage, the only book ever endorsed both by Rick Santorum and Dan Savage. Corvino has also posted a valuable series of videos taking apart those arguements, one by one. You can see the entire series here.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, October 5

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Here is this week’s rundown of what’s happening with the four marriage ballot campaigns:

Maryland Question 6: If passed, Question 6 will provide marriage equality while guaranteeing that “each religious faith has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine regarding who may marry within that faith.” Marylanders for Marriage Equality is fighting for Question 6’s passage, and they had a pretty good week last week. One poll showed Marylanders supporting Q6 by 49% to 39%, with more than half of African-Americans supporting the measure, an increase from only 40% in March. Another poll found similar results, with Q6 up 51% to 43% with African-American support rising to 44% from 33% last January.

What you can do: You can volunteer for one of their Weekends of Action, sign up to work with their Get Out The Vote team, Volunteer to work with Marylanders for Marriage Equality on Election Day, or donate here.

Maine Marriage Initiative: A “Yes” vote on Question 1 will allow same-sex couples to marry in Maine. Mainers United for Marriage is the main campaign behind the initiative. This week, they released their third ad, and their list of coalition church partners continues to grow.  Meanwhile, the opposition continues to fumble, with NOM’s latest request to keep hiding its donor list rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, and Marriage Main’s Twitter account failing to tweet an actual functioning link for two weeks running.

What you can do: Ever wanted to see New England’s famed fall colors? You can do that when you sign up for a volunteer vacation or donate miles so someone else can travel. You can also sign up to volunteer (they even have volunteers signing up remotely from around the country), or you can donate here.

Minnesota Marriage Amendment: The ballot proposal to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage is known simply as “the marriage amendment.” Minnesotans United for All Families is the main group fighting against the amendment’s passage in November. This week, several newspapers and a couple more college faculties (including the faculty of Methodist-affiliated Hamline University) have come out against the Marriage Amendment, and their Veterans United coalition completed its first statewide tour.

What you can do: Login with your Facebook account and starting using the new kNOw Tool to help identify “no” voters that you know, you can sign up to volunteer, or simply donate here.

Washington Referendum 74: If Referendum 74 is approved, same-sex couples will be able to marry just like everone else in Washington state. Washington United for Marriage, which is working for R74’s passage, has broken an important record this week: it now holds the record for the largest number of grassroots donors to any initiative campaign in Washington state’s history. They’ve also launched two ads which are airing in Seattle and Yakima broadcast stations and cable channels statewide. And they’ve also launched Campus Week, with 24 university and college campus leadership teams to focus on voter registration, volunteer recruitment, outreach and get-out-the-vote activities. And what has the opposition done? Well, for starters, the’ve managed to garnering more Facebook fans from Thailand than Washington State.

What you can do: You create your own “Raising Millions for Marriage” page to encourage your family, freinds and neighbors to help support the fight for marriage equality, sign up for one of 50 weekly phone banks across Washington, or you can donate here.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Asheville, NC; Baltimore, MD (Black Pride); Belgrade, Serbia (Cancelled!); Cymru UK; Dallas, TX (Black Pride); Ft. Worth, TX; Johannesburg, South Africa; Memphis, TN; Miami Beach, FL (Hispanic Pride); Orlando, FL.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX.

Other Events This Weekend: Gay Days, Anaheim, CA; Alaska Pride Conference, Anchorage, AK; Floatilla, Hong Kong, China; Key West Bear Fest, Key West, FL; Black and Blue Festival, Montreal, QC; OctoBEARfest, New York, NY; Chéries-Chéris Film Festival, Paris, France; Rainbow Festival, Phoenix, AZ.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
California Studies Treatment for “Sex Deviants”: 1951. An item appeared in The Los Angeles Times describing efforts which promised “the eventual solution of one of California’s most difficult problems – the sex offender.” California had tried to “legislate sexual offenses out of existence” through more severe penalties, but lawmakers were “finally persuaded medical research might bring results,” and passed the Sexual Deviation Research Act in 1950. And with that, according to The Times, efforts were now fanning out to “several laboratories, schools, hospitals, and clinics throughout the State.”  The Dean of UCLA’s Medical School was already bragging of research breakthroughs. “It is now possible, he states, to predict with a fair degree of accuracy, through blood and urine tests, the onset of a sexually psychopathic ‘attack’.” What, exactly, was being studied was obviously very sensitive; it took eight paragraphs before the LA Times writer finally got around to describing what these “sexual deviations” might be:

Another study underway is concerned with diagnosis and treatment of homosexual males. The purpose of this research is twofold: (1) to make physical, psychiatric, glandular and mental studies of the types of homosexuals who affect feminine behavior and (2) to investigate such psychological factors in homosexuality as the personal, family, social and cultural histories of patients. Results of these studies, it. is felt, should greatly add to more accurate diagnosis of types of homosexuality and its treatment.

Research would continue for at least another thirty years in California and throughout the western world, all to no avail. When the American Psychiatric Association finally determined in 1973 that homosexuality was not a mental illness in need of a cure, efforts to change sexual orientation in the scientific community slowly began to wane over the course of the next decade — with the notable exception of a very tiny religiously-motivated dissident minority, and their efforts to change sexual orientation still come up short. California’s law mandating research into curing homosexuality remained on the books, ignored and forgotten, until it was finally repealed in 2010. Two years later (just last weekend, in fact), California began moving toward the opposite direction when Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation which prohibits licensed professionals from providing conversion therapy to minors.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
John Addington Symonds: 1840. He fulfilled the expectations of Victorian England by marryng and having a family, but the poet and literary critic was always conscious of “men constituted like me” and became an early proponent of what was then called “male love.” Symonds was among the first to publish works for general audiences with direct references to homosexuality. His 1876  Studies of the Greek Poets, Second Series, included praise for  Greek  “friendship,” which led to withering condemnation from critics. One critic decried Symond’s “phallic ecstasy” and his “palpitations at male beauty.”

While Symonds became more circumspect in identifying himself with “male love,” he nevertheless continued to explore the theme. Symonds’s 1878 translation of Michelangelo’s Sonnets corrected, for the first time, the proper male pronouns which had been rendered female by previous translators. And in that same year, he published his poem “The Meeting of David and Jonathan” (1878), where Jonathan, “In his arms of strength / Took David, and for some love found at length / Solace in speech, and pressure and breath / Wherewith the mouth of yearning winnoweth /Hearts overcharged for utterance. In that kiss / Soul into soul was knit and bliss to bliss.” Whew!

But Symonds kept most of his writings on homosexuality private, first in letters to Walt Whitman, Edmund Gosse, and Edward Carpenter, and later in privately-circulated works like Male Love: A Problem in Greek Ethics (1883) and  A Problem in Modern Ethics (1891), as well as his memoirs, which remained unpublished until 1984. In 1893, he began to publish more openly about homosexuality in Walt Whitman: A Study, and  he began a collaboration with Havelock Ellis, who was then embarking on his landmark study, Sexual Inversion. Symonds died in 1893, ten months into that collaboration. When Sexual Inversion made its English debut in 1897, Symonds was listed as co-author. But Symonds’s executor, scandalized at the association, prohibited his name from being further associated with the book. Symonds was credited as “Z” in the second 1897 printing, and his essay “A Problem in Greek Ethics” was deleted.  Interest in Symonds was revived in 1963 when Phyllis Grosskurth won the 1964 Canadian Governor General’s Award for John Addington Symonds: A Biography. Twenty years later, she would also bring The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds to print.

David Pallone: 1951. Major League Baseball umpires never become household names. But a few can somehow find ways to become memorable. That happened to Pallone on April 30, 1988, when he was umpiring at first base in Cincinnati when, in the ninth inning, he called New York Mets outfielder Mookie Wilson safe on a delayed call. That delay allowed another Mets runner to score the winning run. Reds’ manager Pete Rose rushed to Pallone to argue the call. Tempers escalated, one thing led to another, Pallone might have touched Rose, Rose definitely shoved Pallone, and Pallone immediately ejected him from the game. Fans showered the field with trash for the next fifteen minutes and Pallone had to be taken out of hte game to ease tension. Rose was suspended for 30 days and fined $10,000.

Later that year, Pallone was forced to resign when a New York Post article outed him as gay and claimed that he was part of a teenage sex ring. Those charges were later proven groundless, but Pallone says in his memoir Behind the Mask: My Double Life in Baseball that team owners were unimpressed and pressured baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti to fire him anyway. Or, more accurately, Pallone was paid to leave, and strongly encouraged to do so. Today, Pallone is a diversity trainer and motivational speaker based in Colorado.

Thomas Roberts: 1972. The former CNN Headline News anchor became the first national anchorman to come out as gay when, in 2006, he spoke at the annual convention of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association in Miami Florida during a panel discussion titled “Off Camera: The Challenge of LGBT TV Anchors.” Describing his appearance on that panel as the biggest step he had taken publicly to be out, he had been coming out at CNN over the past several years. But he found the tension between his public life and private life to be difficult to balance. “When you hold something back, that’s all everyone wants to know,” he told the gathering.

Roberts stayed at CNN until 2007, when he resigned to move to Washington, D.C. to pursue other opportunities. In late 2010, he began guest-anchoring for MSNBC, and became a full-time anchor in December. He now anchors MSNBC Live weekdays at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. He also fills in as host on MSNBC’s “First Look” and NBC’s “Today.” Last Saturday, Roberts married his longtime partner, Patrick Abner, in New York, making him the first national anchor to marry a same-sex partner. The happy couple will honeymoon in Rio later this month.

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?

Serbia Cancels Gay Pride Again

Serb Interior Ministry police surround the “Ecce Homo” exhibit following the announcement that gay pride activities have been banned in Belgrade.

For the second year in a row, Serbian authorities banned all gatherings planned for gay pride in Belgrade in Saturday. The announcement followed demands made earlier in the day by Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Irinej that the parade and an associated exhibit, “Ecce Hommo” be shut down by authorities. According to Belgrade radio B92:

Goran Miletić, one of the organizers, told B92 that they had received an explanation from the MUP (The Interior Ministry) “which said absolutely nothing except to quote a legal article which stated that it had been appraised that security could be jeopardized during the gathering”.

“If the state capitulated last year, this is an open coalition with hooligans considering that representatives of the executive branch of government completely adopted the arguments of extremist organizations, and even their demands,” said Miletić.

The order places Serbia in a  clearly awkward position in regard to its relationship with the European Union, which Serbia has been seeking to join. Serbian authorities took great pains to paint the decision in terms of public safety rather than an infringement human rights. Prime Minister Ivica Dačić told B92:

:First of all, this decision was made in order to protect the lives of citizens, including members of the police,” Dačić said and added that only for securing today’s exhibition, “which causes great distress to the public because in it Jesus Christ is mentioned in a provocative context”, at least 2,000 policemen must be engaged.

The prime minister added that at this moment, “the last thing Serbia needs are clashes and victims”, and concluded:

“It is very important for the credibility of Serbia to show the strength of the state. And this does not amount to any kind of capitulation before some who think they can use their paramilitary or any other threats to endanger the holding of public gatherings – it means that it has been assessed that, at this time, serious violations of public peace and order could occur, which would seriously jeopardize interests of the citizens and the state as a whole.”

Welcome out, Orlando Cruz

Boxer Orlando Cruz has announced that he’s gay: (espn)

“I’ve been fighting for more than 24 years and as I continue my ascendant career, I want to be true to myself,” Cruz said in a statement after taping a spot on a Telemundo show, which will air Monday. “I want to try to be the best role model I can be for kids who might look into boxing as a sport and a professional career. I have and will always be a proud Puerto Rican. I have always been and always will be a proud gay man.”

Five reasons why this is great:

1. Cruz is still competing in his sport. He has a fight on the 19th.

2. Cruz is no minor player. He was a 2000 Olympian (for Puerto Rico) and is currently WBO Latino featherweight champion.

3. Cruz’ official announcement will be Monday on Telemundo.

4. Cruz is doing this on his own accord and (as best I can tell) not as the result of some scandal.

5. If you have a problem with his orientation, that’s too bad. Cruz is tougher than you and can kick your ass.

Uganda TV Coverage of Martin “Eat Da Poo-Poo” Ssempa’s Conviction

Uganda’s pastor Martin Ssempa yesterday was without his usual strut and bravado as he learned that he and fellow pastors Solomon Male, Robert Kayiira amd Michael Kyazze were found guilty of falsely accusing a rival pastor of having sexual relationships with male members of his congregation. The guilty verdict stems from a May 2009 incident in which Ssempa and the others engaged in a conspiracy to coerce a church member at Robert Kayanja’s Rubaga Miracle Center Cathedral to claim that he had had sex with Kayanja.

The sentence imposed on Ssempa, Male and the others is light, but I suspect that the damage to their reputation may be significant. While Ssempa and Male may receive some support from the West, they have since 2009 seen many prominent Western pastors and organizations cut financial and other ties to them.

This is not the only case in which Ssempa is believed to be involved in launching public accusations against others. There is considerable evidence suggesting that Ssempa had close ties to the now-defunct Rolling Stone tabloid (no relation to the U.S. publication by the same name), which launched an infamous 2010 “Hang Them!” vigilante campaign which featured LGBT advocate David Kato on the front cover. Kato was brutally murdered just a few months later in January 2011.

Why Marriage? (Why not Civil Unions?)

Marriage is on the ballot in four states this year. Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will decide whether same-sex couples will be allowed to marry, while Minnesota voters will determine whether to write discrimination into their state’s constitution. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the Witherspoon Institute, and many, many other organizations are mobilizing their resources to push their anti-gay arguments.  Professor John Corvino is intimately familiar with those arguments, having just published a book with NOM’s co-founder Maggie Gallagher titled Debating Same-Sex Marriage, the only book ever endorsed both by Rick Santorum and Dan Savage. Corvino has also posted a valuable series of videos taking apart those arguements, one by one. You can see the entire series here.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, October 4

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Asheville, NC; Baltimore, MD (Black Pride); Belgrade, Serbia; Cymru UK; Dallas, TX (Black Pride); Ft. Worth, TX; Johannesburg, South Africa; Memphis, TN; Miami Beach, FL (Hispanic Pride); Orlando, FL.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX.

Other Events This Weekend: Gay Days, Anaheim, CA; Alaska Pride Conference, Anchorage, AK; Floatilla, Hong Kong, China; Key West Bear Fest, Key West, FL; Black and Blue Festival, Montreal, QC; OctoBEARfest, New York, NY; Chéries-Chéris Film Festival, Paris, France; Rainbow Festival, Phoenix, AZ.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Florida Hospital Dumps AIDS Patient: 1983. Twenty-seven-year-old Morgan MacDonald had been treated at Shands Hospital in Gainsville, Florida, since July for various opportunistic infections because of AIDS. When his state Medicaid benefits ran out, the private teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Florida ordered MacDonald out. Early on the morning of October 4, Shands hospital doctors stuffed $300 into his pocket, loaded him onto a Lear Jet with a doctor and a nurse, and shipped him off to San Francisco and dumped him at the offices of the city’s AIDS Foundation. The nurse and doctor walked out and left the volunteer staff to figure out what to do with him. He’s condition was so bad, he was unable to lift his head. The AIDS foundation was able to get MacDonald admitted to San Francisco’s General Hospital where his condition continued to worsen.

San Francisco General’s Dr. Mervyn Silverman was furious. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he told reporters. “It’s unconscionable to do this to a patient, especially a patient in serious condition.” A Shands spokeswoman claimed that MacDonald didn’t need hospital treatment, but outpatient treatment instead, and said that shipping him off to San Francisco — even though he came to them from Vero Beach, Florida — was “a real humanitarian thing to do.” They also claimed that MacDonald was ambulatory when he left Shands, and that he worsened sometime after leaving. “AIDS is a disease where your condition changes,” the Shands spokeswoman said. San Fransisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein denounced the dumping and demanded that Florida Gov. Bob Graham investigate. A Florida Health Department official would later admit, “We are having problems in Florida because medical professionals are reluctant to provide care because they know so little about AIDS. We are seeing people take any opportunity within the law to avoid providing care.” The state, however, found no evidence of legal wrongdoing. MacDonald died in San Francisco, a medical outcast, sixteen days later. San Francisco General sent Shands Hospital a bill for $6,627.12, which Shands refused to pay.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir: 1942. When she became Iceland’s first female Prime Minister in 2009 following more than a year of public protests over Iceland’s handling of the financial crisis, she broke yet another important barrier by becoming the world’s first open lesbian head of government. The LGBT community around the world cheered, but Sigurðardóttir had no time for celebrations. She had her hads full with the collapse of the island nation’s entire banking system and the stock exchange losing some 90% of its value. She renegotiated Iceland’s payment of bank deposits to holders in Netherlands and Britain — much to the outrage of Icelandic taxpayers — and her government launched several criminal investigations of the banking collapse. Under her stewardship, Iceland’s economic free-fall has been halted, and investors are beginning to return. Iceland has also been working on joining the E.U. since June 2009, which has also helped boost investor confidence.

Jóhanna has been in a Registered Partnership with Jónína Leósdóttir since 2002. When Iceland enacted its marriage equality law in 2010, Jóhanna and Jónína became among the first to convert their legal partnership into a marriage. Last week, Jóhanna announced that she will resign as chairperson of the Social Democratic Alliance at the end of the election term next spring and retire from politics.

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?