Box Turtle Bulletin

Northern Ireland votes no to equality

BBC

Assembly members have rejected a proposal that same-sex couples should have the right to marry.

The motion was proposed by the Green Party and Sinn Fein.

The DUP had tabled a petition of concern ensuring that the motion would have to command a cross-community majority to succeed.

While 45 assembly members voted to back the move, only three in favour were unionists – UUP MLAs Michael Copeland, Danny Kinahan and Basil McCrea.

Northern Ireland’s assembly has 108 members.

“Kirk’s Life Has Now Been Used For Good, to Help Save Lives of Kids ‘Just Like Him'”

Kirk Murphy at four years old, shortly before he entered sexual orientation change therapy at UCLA.

In 1970, the mother of four-year-old Kirk Murphy took her son to UCLA’s Gender Identity Clinic after seeing the clinic’s Dr. Richard Green on local television, advertising their services to “correct” effeminate little boys and prevent them from growing up to be homosexual. Kirk was treated by George Rekers, then a young grad student studying for his Ph.D. Kirk’s case, along with a few others, not only became a basis for Rekers’s dissertation, but also became the subject of some twenty papers, books and articles that Rekers wrote to claim that he had the secret to curing “pre-homosexuality” in young boys. But while Rekers was building his career on Kirk’s being not-gay, Kirk remained gay, and along with it, depressed, shamed, and broken, according to his family and friends. He killed himself in 2003 at the age of 38.

Rekers, who meanwhile went on to become a prominent figure in anti-gay politics and the ex-gay movement, was caught in 2010 returning from a European vacation in the company of a male escort.

But until last year, the only thing we knew about “Kraig,” Rekers’s pseudonym for Kirk, was what Rekers wrote. That changed when Kirk’s family shared their tragic story with me, and their revelations became the basis of our award-winning report, “What Are Little Boys Made Of?” Maris Ehlers, Kirk’s younger sister, described the process as “wrenching, life-changing and terrifying to feel so vulnerable and exposed, and to put ourselves and those we love out in public to be judged.” But today, she says that today is a day “sparkl(ing) with light ” because California Gov. Jerry Brown has just signed into law a bill which would prohibit any future four-year-old Kirk Murphys from suffering what Kirk went through:

So today, the sun is shining a bit brighter, the day is remarkable, and the light of hope and progress is there.  I can see it!

I’m sure so many of you have wondered why we would have come forward and share such a painful story about our family in such a public way. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t pleasant and it wasn’t easy.  It was gut wrenching, life-changing and terrifying to feel so vulnerable and exposed, and to put ourselves and those we love out in public to be judged. However, once we knew what had actually happened to our brother in those therapy rooms so long ago at UCLA, what had actually been done to the core of his soul, it was worse than when we actually lost him to suicide in 2003.  It was far worse, because once we knew, we realized why, and that was almost more than we could bear. We knew his story had to be told, even at the expense of our own “comfortable” lives, in the hopes that people would wake up and realize that the soul crushing things that had been done to him are still being done to children today, and he deserved to have us acknowledge what he endured, what was done, and how it affected his entire life.

Our dream was that reparative therapy would be banned, but it seemed impossible. Today, however, that dream became a reality, even if only in California, and it means that youth that identify as #LGBT have a layer of protection, in a world where they often have very little.  Our goal must be that this law spread to every state in the union and beyond.

Thank you to governor Jerry Brown, for signing the law and making it official. Thank you to Senator Ted Lieu for authoring the bill, and for telling Kirk’s story to the California senate…

Today is truly a day in which I feel that Kirk’s life not only lives on, but that his life has now been used for good, to help save the lives of kids “just like him”, instead of being used to torture, hurt and harm kids “just like him”.

Kirk’s story also became the subject of a four-part series by Anderson Cooper, which you can see here, here, here, and here. Maris also appeared on a Minneapolis radio station to talk about her brother, and you can hear that here. And of course, you can read our in-depth report on the story here.

NOM has 112 supporters

The National Organization for Marriage has launched a new website for the purpose of, well I have no idea what the purpose of this endeavor might be. They say that it has something to do with intimidation and threat and is the result of Dan Cathy being criticized for his vile comments:

Therefore, we seek the courageous affirmation of your beliefs regarding both marriage and liberty. With our signatures below and personal contributions to the National Organization for Marriage, we commit ourselves to stopping the downward spiral of intimidation and fear threatening hard-won American liberties and the institution of marriage. We hope our widening base of public and financial support will embolden many fellow Americans to join us in the campaign to preserve both our form of government and the institution of marriage.

For some reason they’ve decided on the rather awkward “Keep the Republic and Marriage” as the name of their latest endeavor. I wonder if they intentionally went with something that sounds like “keep the Republican marriage”? In any case, I think it’s an odd choice for an odd venture.

It’s a bit difficult to figure out just what they are trying to do here. I guess that having lost all attempts at keeping their donors hidden, they thought they’d try and confuse the fact that they are an organization almost entirely funded by a tiny handful of very wealthy donors. So they are encouraging people to “widen their base of financial support” in order to change the subject.

“Even though donors to NOM are not subject to public disclosure [a flatly false statement], a number of our donors wanted to show that they would not be bullied and were not afraid to publicly proclaim their support for NOM as a way of encouraging others to publicly stand up to support marriage,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s president. “These key donors were inspired by the courage of Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-Fil-A, who resolutely told Americans that he unabashedly believed in God’s design for marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

I doubt the wisdom in the decision to make this site a listing of their supporters (other than the ones whom they have been fighting tooth and toenail to hide). Their “dump” programs didn’t go so well, with neither boycott reaching 50,000. I can’t imagine that this one, requiring a donation, will do much better. And ultimately they will only succeed in putting an upper-end number on their total support base.

Right now, they’ve done nothing more with the site than give me the opportunity to note that NOM has 112 supporters.

No Supreme Court Action on Prop 8, DOMA Cases; NOM’s Finance Disclosure Appeal Denied (Again)

The orders page is out for today, with no mention of the Prop 8 case (Hollingsworth v. Perry) or the Defense of Marriage Act Challenge (Windsor v. US). Which means that the court has neither denied nor granted cert to review the cases. There is increasing speculation that the court may not take action on these cases until November when at least three more cases challenging DOMA will be available for review by the Justices.

There are two other LGBT related cases before the court. Diaz v. Brewer, challenging Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s attempt to withdraw domestic partner benefits from state employees. The court has taken no action on that case yet

But in National Organization for Marriage v. McKee, in which NOM is again trying to get the Supreme Court’s attention in its efforts to circumvent Maine’s finance disclosure laws, the supreme court denied NOM’s request for certiorari. The Supreme Court refused to hear an earlier similar challenge from NOM in February.

Restored Hope’s Andrew Comiskey Addresses Exodus Split

The Sacramento News & Review’s Kel Munger went to the inaugural conference of the Restored Hope ex-gay network in Sacramento on September 21-22. The Restored Hope Network is made up mostly of several ex-gay ministries that have broken away from Exodus International over Exodus president Alan Chambers’s statements acknowledging that “99.9%” of ex-gay ministry members “have not experienced a change in their orientation,” disavowing the particular form of sexual orientation change therapy known as Reparative Therapy, and recognizing that gay Christians may enter heaven.

You can read Munger’s report here, and an interview with Truth Wins Out’s Wayne Besen here. More interesting, I think, is her interview with Andrew Comiskey, who is the president of Restored Hope. He is also the director of Desert Stream Ministries, which had been one of largest ministries of the Exodus International. Comiskey, who had also served as Exodus president, was the first to publicly break with Exodus last spring over its change in direction, stating that “Alan’s comments about change unwittingly played into the enemy’s hands.” But in Comiskey’s talk with Munger, the “enemy” talk was dropped in favor of a somewhat lighter, more “reasonable” tone. On Restored Hope versus Exodus International, Comiskey said:

The unique aspect of Exodus is that it was founded on the hope that individuals who were Christian and who were motivated and who had good pastoral support could actually affect significant change in their sexual identity. So the term “change is possible” was a term that Exodus coined and that we all believed in and took heart in—and again, that being an increasingly counter-cultural point of view, we particularly needed each other to be on the same page.

The leader of Exodus, like a lot of us, having been under fire for a number of years, capitulated a bit, and basically has removed the “change” portion of the hope for people seeking Jesus Christ in light of their same-sex attractions. So having removed this dimension of change, the hope of change, was something that for many of us, including myself, runs contrary to our understanding of what Jesus Christ can effect in people’s lives, and it is a major reason and motivating factor for our gathering and seeking the Lord together.

So basically, Exodus stopped representing why we had bought in as a network in the first place. So it didn’t fundamentally change any of our individual ministries and their focus, but it did necessitate that we establish a new network around which we could find the solidarity to support each other in the belief that change is possible.

…This is not to denigrate Exodus in any way. It’s simply to say that Exodus as a network ceased to represent what we were about.

Munger also brought up California’s S.B. 1172, which would prohibit licensed therapists from providing Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) to minors. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law last Saturday, but at the time this interview took place it was still awaiting the governor’s signature. The bill only covers licensed professionals, which means that unlicensed counselors and ministries are unaffected by the bill. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), which bills itself as the professional, secular, and irreligious wing of the ex-gay movement, denounced the bill as “a not so subtle attack on religious liberty,” despite the fact that the new law only covers licensed professionals, which means that unlicensed counselors and ministries remain unaffected. Exodus, on the other hand, declined to oppose the bill. Comiskey appears to have staked out middle position, supporting SOCE, but declining to oppose the bill:

I’m aware, through my own study and so on, that there are different approaches psychologically to understanding and treating homosexuality. So I’m not inclined to either high-five or discount however this bill is understanding reparative therapy. I think the question of age is a factor; I think the question of motivation is a factor. I think psychotherapy is a soft social science, and so to approach it from the standpoint that everything objectively has to be in this hard-drive understanding of the impact of the “talking cure”—that is, the seeking of an advocate to achieve certain goals based on one’s conscience and ethical beliefs—I think to slam that or to illegalize on the basis that there is no hard evidence would actually call into question many forms of interventions for different kinds of psychological disorder.

So what I’m saying is I think there are good therapists who work with people based upon that person’s point of view, and I think that in a free society, there should be a freedom for a person to find a clinical advocate to pursue his or her ethical goals. If there is coercion, if there is manipulation, or if there is control—of course, it’s diabolical, regardless of your faith.

California’s Gov. Brown Signs Ex-Gay Therapy Restrictions Into Law

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed S.B. 1172, making the Golden State the first in the nation to prohibit licensed professionals in the state from providing Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) for minors. Therapists who violate the ban will be subject to discipline by the professional organization responsible for their licensing. In response to objections by various mental health licensing organizations, the earlier civil penalties were removed from the bill. The bill does not prohibit therapists from providing SOCE to adults, nor does it affect unlicensed counsellors, pastors, and other ex-gay therapy providers such as religious-based ex-gay ministries.

The law takes effect on January 1. NARTH and Liberty Counsel have vowed to challenge the law in court. Legislators in New Jersey and other states are considering similar measures.

Debunking the Regnerus Study

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.

BTB was the first to debunk Regnerus’s study. Our review came out just before news of the study broke in the Deseret News. Rob Tisinai’s reaction can be found here, here, and here; Timothy Kincaid’s here. Regnerus’s response to a BTB reader can be found here. You can follow everything we’ve written about the study by following this tag.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, October 1

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Will the U.S. Supreme Court Kill Prop 8 Today? That’s the question on everyone’s mind this morning. We do know that Hollingsworth v. Perry, which is the Federal case challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, was up for consideration for last week’s U.S. Supreme Court conference. And we know that the case did not appear on the list of cases which the Supreme Court has accepted to hear. Today, we will learn whether it will appear on another list of cases which the Supreme Court has decided not to accept. If it appears on that list, then that means that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s ruling which upheld the lower court’s striking down Prop 8 as unconstitutional will stand and gay couples in California will soon have their right to marriage restored. But if it doesn’t appear on today’s list, then that means that the Supreme Court is still weighing whether to hear the case or not. The court’s next conference to decide the cases to accept is Friday, October 5. There is some speculation that the court may refuse to hear the case due to the very narrow constitutional basis of the Ninth Circuit Court’s opinion. There is also speculation that the court may not decide to take any action on the case until after the November elections.

Edie Windsor

Another same-sex marriage case before the Supreme Court, Windsor v. USA, challenges the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. It was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Edie Windsor, who is required to pay $363,000 in federal estate taxes following the death of her legally-wedded wife in 2007. If she had been in an opposite-sex marriage, her estate tax bill would have been zero. The lower court ruled that, based on a rational basis review, Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional. While the case is being appealed to the Second District Court of Appeals, Windsor’s attorneys have filed a petition or certiorari directly to the Supreme Court asking for the cast to be reviewed without waiting for the Second Circuit’s review because of Windsor’s age (she is 83) and poor health. There are currently four other DOMA challenges making their way through the Appeals courts, and the U.S. Department of Justice has asked the Supreme Court to hear three of those cases along withWindsor for a more comprehensive look at DOMA’s constitutionality. Therefore it is likely that the Supreme Court may decide to delay acting on Windsor v USA until it can also hear one or more of the other cases as well.

NOM’s Brian Brown (left), Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (right)

There are two other LGBT related cases before the court. In Diaz v. Brewer, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer cannot withdraw domestic parner benefits from state employees without violating the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. And in National Organization for Marriage v. McKee, NOM is again trying to get the Supreme Court’s attention in its efforts to circumvent Maine’s finance disclosure laws. Neither case appeared on last week’s order papers for cases which the Supreme Court accepted, and like the others, we may learn today whether the court has decided to reject those appeals. The Supreme Court refused to hear an earlier similar challenge from NOM in February.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Denmark Begins Registering Partnerships: 1989. Axil and Eigil Axgil made world history when they became the first gay couple to enter into a Registered Partnership in Copenhagen, after 40 years together. The Axgils, who had been living under the same surname (an amalgamation of their given names) for 32 years, were among ten couples registered that day when Denmark became the first country in the world to provide legal recognition for same-sex couples.

While the new law provided many of the rights and obligations of marriage, Registered Partnerships remained a second class institution by omitting adoption rights, artificial insemination availability, or religious wedding ceremonies in state-run Lutheran Churches. In 1996, Registered Partnerships were extended to Greenland. Several bills which would provide full marriage equality have been debated in the Folketing over the past several years, with the most recent bill being rejected by the ruling coalition in June 2010, but the Folketing did decide to extend adoption rights to Registered Partnerships a month later.

In July of 2012, the Folketing approved a bill legalizing same-sex marriage by a vote of 85-24. The law took effect on July 15. Axil and Eigil didn’t live to see full marriage equality in Denmark; Eigel passed away in 1995 and Axel joined him in 2011.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
George Cecil Ives: 1867. The Sacred Band of Thebes, the army of ancient Thebans instituted in 387 B.C., was an elite force of 150 pairs of male lovers. The theory went that soldiers would fight harder and better if they were defending a lover. The Sacred Band met its end fifty years later when the rest of the Theban army fled the forces of Philip II of Macedonia at the battle of Chaeronea. The Sacred Band, instead of fleeing, fought to its death. And so when, in 1897, the German-English poet, writer, and early gay-rights campaigner decided to found a secret society for gay men, he named it the Order of Chaeronea in honor of the brave Sacred Band.

George Ives was already well connected with England’s gay scene, having probably had a brief fling with Oscar Wilde followed, later, with a brief affair with Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde’s sensational run-in with the law, which dominated the papers of London in 1895, undoubtedly had an affect on Ives. After Wilde was released from prison, he wrote Ives, that he believed that a more humanitarian climate may slowly emerge. “I have no doubt we shall win, but the road is long, and red with monstrous martyrdoms,” Wilde wrote. “Nothing but the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act would do any good.” Ives was ready to take on the work of changing society and laying the grounds for repeal, but he couldn’t convince Wilde to join him in what he called the “Cause.” Wilde, his health broken from two years at hard labor, had already given his measure of martyrdom. We don’t know how many other people Ives managed to enlist into the “Cause,” but we do know that some of the members included the Uranian poets Charles Kains Jackson and John Gambril Nicholson, the Rev. Samuel Elsworth Cottam (an Anglican priest who published a gay magazine called Chameleon), and the eccentric Catholic priest and occult expert Montague Summers.

Ives’s Order was influenced greatly by the Aesthetic movement — of which Wilde was but one very visible proponent — which mixed philosophy, idealism and art as part of what Wilde’s biographer, Neil McKenna, described as “a new gospel of Beauty.” Members of the Order of Chaeronea observed an elaborate system of rituals, ceremonies, seals, codes, passwords, and a calendar dating from the year of the Battle of Cheronea (1897 was written as C2235). New members swore that “you will never vex or persecute lovers,” and that “all real love shall be to you as sanctuary.”

In 1914, Ives co-founded the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology with Edward Carpenter and Magnus Hirschfeld, to promote the scientific study of sex and with it a more rational attitude toward sexual matters. Ives was very interested in the penal reform movement, and wrote several articles and lectures on the subject. When he died in 1950, he left behind a large archive covering his lfie and work, including 122 volumes of diaries 45 volumes of scrapbooks, the latter consisting of clippings on such topics as sensational crimes, penal methods, cross-dressing, homosexuality and cricket scores. His diaries have been a treasure trove of information for historians examining the early gay rights movement in England. His papers were purchased in 1977 by the Harry Ransom Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

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?

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, September 30

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Hong Kong, China.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Ann Arbor, MI; Chicago, IL; San Deigo, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Get Wet, Willemstad, Curaçao; Everybody’s Perfect LGBTIQ Film Festival, Geneva Switzerland.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Truman Capote: 1924. He taught himself to read and write before he entered his first year at school. When he was about ten years old, he submitted his first short story, “Old Mrs. Busybody,” to the Mobile Press Register for a children’s writing contest. Capote later remembered, “I began writing really sort of seriously when I was about 11. I say seriously in the sense that like other kids go home and practice the violin or the piano or whatever, I used to go home from school every day, and I would write for about three hours. I was obsessed by it.” He remained the lifelong friend of author Harper Lee, who was a neighbor in Monroeville, Alabama. “Her father was a lawyer,” he remembered, “and she and I used to go to trials all the time as children. We went to the trials instead of going to the movies.” Those trials not only influenced Lee’s book, To Kill a Mockingbird, but also helped lead to Capote’s greatest literary triumph, In Cold Blood.

Truman Capote in 1948, contemplating some outrage against conventional morality, no doubt.

His first novel however, was autobiographical; 1948’s Other Voices, Other Rooms told the story of a thirteen-year-old boy living in rural Alabama who was dealing with his emerging homosexuality. He described it as “an attempt to exorcise demons, an unconscious, altogether intuitive attempt, for I was not aware, except for a few incidents and descriptions, of its being in any serious degree autobiographical. Rereading it now, I find such self-deception unpardonable.” Other Voices, Other Rooms remained on The New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks. Everything about the novel was scandalous, including the Harold Halma photo of him on back of the dust jacket, which was considered rather homoerotic for 1948. The Los Angeles Times complained that he looked “as if he were dreamily contemplating some outrage against conventional morality.” Which he probably was. He relished the controversy.

He remained busy for the next decade, adapting novels for Broadway and churning out articles for The New Yorker. Then he struck gold again in 1958 with his collection, Breakfast at Tiffany’s: A Short Novel and Three Stories. The title tale introduced the character of Holly Golightly, who became one of Truman’s most beloved characters. But the real turning point came with his 1966 “nonfiction novel,” In Cold Blood. It took him four years to write the book about the murder of a wealthy farmer, his wife and two children in Holcomb, Kansas. The acclaimed book brought a new style of storytelling to true events, and it launched Capote to full-on celebrity status. That same year, he threw the Black and White Ball in New York, which has gone down as one of the most legendary parties of the twentieth century. While he was famous for being a literary genius, he was also, increasingly, famous for being famous and for being among the famous. He was a regular fixture at Studio 54 and on the talk show circuit.

He loved the limelight, although it did take its toll. In the 1970s, he sank into drug and alcohol abuse, which got in the way of working on his epic novel, Answered Prayers. He bragged about it often, but years went by without any sign of the work. He finally adapted portions of it for a series of short stories in Esquire. The second of those stories, “La Côte Basque 1965,” would make him personal non grata among the Jet Set, with its salacious details of the personal lives of William S. Paley and Babe Paley, who had been among his close society friends. It was seen as a betrayal of confidences among Capote’s friends, and two more short stories resulted in Capote’s being cut off from the high society he craved. He died in 1984 of liver cancer at the home of Joane Carson, the ex-wife of TV host Johnny Carson. His royalties continued to support his boyfriend Jack Dunphy until his death, and then went toward establishing a literary prize in honor of Newton Arvin, a former boyfriend, author and professor whose life was ruined when he was fired from Smith College for being gay.

The Velvet Voice

Johnny Mathis: 1935. Chances are the last time you heard one of his songs was on television or in film, where his music is capable of setting just the right mood or sense of nostalgia. While he is frequently described as a romantic singer, his first love was jazz. It was during a performance at The Blackhawk club in San Francisco that he caught the attention of Columbia Records’ jazz producer George Avakian, who sent a telegram to the head office, “Have found phenomenal 19-year-old boy who could go all the way. Send blank contracts.” While Mathis enjoyed singing, the opportunity posed something of a dilemma for the San Francisco State College student: the track and field star was about to try out for the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. He had to decide: the Olympics or a recording session. It was one or the other; it couldn’t be both. After consulting with his father, Mathis chose the recording career.

His first album Johnny Mathis: A New Sound In Popular Song, was a jazz album. It didn’t sell well. His second album, produced by Mitch Miller, focused on soft, romantic ballads backed by the Ray Conniff Orchestra. That would prove to be the signature Mathis sound. In Late 1956, he recorded his two most popular songs, “Wonderful! Wonderful!” and “It’s Not For Me To Say,” followed soon by “Chances Are,” which hit Number 1 on the Billboard chart. By by the end of the 1950s, hit singles were no longer his forte; his strength was as an album artist. Heavenly, released in1959, hit #1 in the Billboard album chart and went multi-platinum. A year earlier, he released Johnny’s Greatest Hits, the first ever Greatest Hits album in music history, spent 491 consecutive weeks on the Billboard top 100 album charts, earning him a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.. At one point, he had five albums on the Billboard charts simultaneously. His last #1 single was 1978’s “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late,” a duet he recorded with Deniece Williams.

Mathis, who never married, managed to keep his personal life out of the public eye. Maybe the fact that he had been an Olympic-calibre athlete helped to keep some of the rumors at bay. Nevertheless, the rumors were out there, which he acknowledged in a 1982 interview with Us Magazine, where he was quoted as saying “Homosexuality is a way of life that I’ve grown accustomed to.” But when he started receiving death threats because of that interview, he prevailed on Us Magazine to retract the statement. In 2006, Mathis again acknowledged his sexuality, saying that his reticence on the topic was “generational.”

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?

Email of the Day

Earlier this year, Eugene Delgaudio stole Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere’s engagement photo, altered it, and used it in mailers to target two legislators in Colorado. Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit on behalf of Edwards, Privitere and their photographer in Federal Court charging Delgaudio with misappropriating their likeness without permission and copyright infringement. That same day, the Washington Post revealed allegations that Delgaudio, Loudoun County, Virginia Supervisor, used county employees to perform work for his non-county related anti-gay political activities. He fired one for being “not political enough” and two others resigned. Delgaudio is feeling the heat:

Speaking of back-door tactics…

…You see, the SPLC and their allies in the Radical Homosexual Lobby are bankrolled to the tune of tens of millions of dollars by the Hollywood elite. And they know that Public Advocate doesn’t have the financial resources to go toe-to-toe with them in court. Since just fighting a legal battle — win or lose — will cost Public Advocate hundreds of thousands of dollars in court costs and legal fees, the Homosexual Lobby believes they’ve finally found the back-door tactic to shut Public Advocate down!

..Jim, as you know, Public Advocate is currently engaged in fierce battles against the Radical Homosexual Lobby on multiple fronts. And these fights aren’t cheap. That’s why I’m counting on pro-family folks like you to stand side-by-side with me in this fight.  So can I count on you to chip in $50, $25 – or even $10 – to help Public Advocate prepare for this looming legal battle?

Earlier this year, BTB’s Rob Tisinai reviewed Delgaudio’s IRS990 forms and found that out of a total of $1,276,232 raised in donations, Delgaudio paid himself $171,606 in “management fees” and other expenses. He also spent $849,691 for postage, printing, and computer and list maintenance to support his fundraising activities. Not one dime was spent for lobbying in 2009. But if there is any justice in the world, Edwards, Privitere, their photographer and a handful of Loudoun County employees will soon get their share of Delgaudio’s millions.

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, September 29

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Cumbria, UK; Gainesville, FL; Hong Kong, China; Moab, UT; Richmond, VA; Sedona/Cottonwood, AZ; Soweto, South Africa.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Ann Arbor, MI; Chicago, IL; Indianapolis, IN; Jackson, MI; San Deigo, CA; Wilmington/Rehoboth, DE.

Other Events This Weekend: Get Wet, Willemstad, Curaçao; Everybody’s Perfect LGBTIQ Film Festival, Geneva Switzerland; Queer Lisboa Film Festival, Lisbon, Portugal; Queer Fest 2012, St. Petersburg, Russia.

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?

Story of a porn Idol

In the early 1990’s, Ryan Idol was the king of gay porn. Idol Eyes, his 1990 debut video starring opposite Joey Stefano (another story, another time), was a huge success and promotion of Idol as the face of a higher quality, professionally filmed version of erotica made him a recognizable name. I have some vague recollection of being at some party about that time in which the dance floor was alive with the rumor that Ryan Idol had just arrived by helicopter.

Idol (real name Marc Anthony Donais) went on to star in Huge Video’s Idol Worship, Idol Thoughts, Idol Country, and Idol in the Sky, along with a few others which did not feature his name. Coming to the porn world fresh from a Playgirl centerfold, he claimed to make $50,000 per movie.

But by the late 1990’s, Idol’s career may have been suffering from overexposure and after 1996 he ceased working for Huge. While pursuing plans to produce his own video, Idol Gods, Idol turned to stage acting. The transition was not a large one. In 1997, Idol stepped in to star in Making Porn, Ronnie Lawsen’s play about an out-of-luck straight actor who ends up in the gay pornography business.

But Idol was still in the limelight. And he lived it up in the company of Windy City Times founder Jeff McCourt. (Chicagomag.com 2000)

… McCourt would drift into a number of brief relationships, the most notable of which was with Marc Anthony Donais, a man far better known in the gay community as the pornographic film star Ryan Idol.

“In some kind of fucked-up way, they cared about each other,” says Alter. “They were two highly narcissistic, very on-the-edge types of personalities who were using each other for image, for money, for drugs, for sex.” He adds, “In spite of all that—and I know how strange this sounds—I think there was something real there.”

Donais, who today lives in a small New England town, agrees. They met in the late 1990s, when Donais was in Chicago and attempting to launch a legitimate acting career by starring in a play in Bailiwick Repertory’s annual Pride Series. He and McCourt began a yearlong on-again, off-again relationship that was complicated by the fact that, for most of that time, Donais had a girlfriend. “He was somebody I’ll never forget,” Donais says. “He was really like a best friend, a big brother. He would have me in his office all the time to show off and stuff. And he would be wielding his power, and I identified with that.”

The staff remembers it somewhat differently. “We’d have editorial meetings where Jeff would be sitting there with white powder around his nose, drinking booze out of a bottle with Ryan Idol asleep on the couch,” says Weisberg. “At some point we just knew this wasn’t going to work—that this was no way to run a business.”

But life for Marc Anthony Donais was not all flashbulbs and applause. The glamorous life, with its abundance of chemical happiness, was difficult for him to handle. And his erratic behavior and fiery temper got in the way. One night after a performance he got angry, punched the playwright, and left in handcuffs.

While that put a temporary stop to the starring role, the worst was the night of March 20, 1998, when Donais took a leap out of the window of his girlfriend’s fourth floor apartment. A fortunate bounce off an awning saved his life leaving him with a shattered pelvis, mangled left arm, severe concussion and whiplash.

Without health insurance and resorting to on-line appeals for funds, Idol went back to the play in Miami Beach’s Colony Theater. He promised to be good. He lasted a month. On September 1, 1998 Idol showed up 45 minutes late. (Steve Rathous)

“His eyes were dilated, and he was extremely agitated, ” Hodgson said. “I told him he was in breach of contract for showing up late. His response to me: ‘Sue me. . . . F— you. . . . I’m not going on.’

“In his street clothes, he went center stage in front of the audience and said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the show has been canceled.’ He walked out through the front door and left.”

That was it for Making Porn, but Ryan continued his stage career with Scent Of Rain, a rural-set gay-man-finds-love story with lots of nudity. And, after a hiatus of about a decade, got a bit part in a revival of The Ritz (2007) and earned the right to say he played on Broadway. He even managed to get a one man show, Anatomy of an Idol, produced. But Idol Gods never materialized and Ryan Idol’s superstar days were long over. The public had no interest in an aging Marc Anthony Donais.

But three years ago, Donais returned to the public eye, though not in a way he would have preferred. That night he was upset over a recent breakup and went to visit the woman with whom he had been involved. (SacBee)

According to the victim’s testimony at trial, Donais entered the woman’s apartment the night of Sept. 5, 2009, and told her, “I came over here to kill you.”

The two had been involved in a relationship, but the woman – whose name is being withheld because she is a domestic violence victim – said she ended it when she caught him having sex with his male lover.

The woman said Donais stormed into her bathroom while she was taking a bath at her 48th Street residence and began to beat her with the porcelain lid.

He claimed to have beat her in self defense saying he thought she had a knife. The jury didn’t buy that one. On September 20, 2011 he was convicted of attempted murder.

When he went for sentencing, his attorney requested that he be removed. Donais then sought another trial, claiming inadequate council. His second trial didn’t fare better and yesterday Donais faced his sentence.

More than a year after his conviction, a one-time gay porn star who beat his former girlfriend over the head with a toilet tank lid has been sentenced to 12 years in state prison for attempted murder.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Troy L. Nunley imposed the term Wednesday on Marc Anthony Donais, 46, who established a reputation in the 1990s as one of the top stars in his genre under the name of Ryan Idol.

Which brings me to my Ryan Idol story. It’s not exactly that thrilling and doesn’t portray me in a particularly complimentary light, but here is how I recall it:

This was way back when, in the mid 90s just about the time that Ryan Idol was coming to recognize that in porn fresher is better. One of my clients, an HIV/AIDS service group, was the charity recipient of that year’s gay porn awards and the executive director asked me to join him at the event.

It was not nearly as risqué as it sounds. Because liquor was sold, there was no nudity and clips from the videos couldn’t be shown. Other than a couple “oh, I didn’t know you did porn” encounters, it was fairly boring and only one moment really stands out it my mind.

At the table next to our own was a still-recognizable face: Ryan Idol. He was easy to spot as he was the only man to bring a female date to the event, a woman he described as his fiancée.

And he was noticeably drunk. And obnoxious.

Now most people weren’t treating this in a very serious manner. After all, where exactly does one display the award for Best Bottom in a Three Way?

To my defense, I insist that we didn’t really start it. But we couldn’t help but notice that Idol has strong opinions about who should be receiving awards, opinions that he wasn’t exactly keeping to himself.

My client got a mischievous twinkle in his eye, and I played right along. We noticed that Ryan Idol was nominated for some award later in the program and decided to set the stage. We started a just-loud-enough-for-him-to-hear conversation about the role. Neither of us had seen his performance but we assured each other that it was a masterpiece and worthy of the highest praise.

“Oh my god, that was so hot! Amazing! And look at the competition. Did you see that one? Ugh, booooring, I fast forwarded!”

Perhaps a more sober or more astute man would have known that he was being egged on. And perhaps a less volitile actor would have politely applauded the winner when his name wasn’t called.

But I will forever remember Ryan Idol standing and screaming at the stage, “That’s bullsh!t! That’s fuc%ed up!”

In retrospect, I’m glad he never found out that he was set up. And that he didn’t have a handy toilet seat.

When Can We Say Someone Is Lying?

Earlier today I accused NOM of lying when they said recent attacks on churches were motivated by the churches’ opposition to marriage equality. There’s no evidence to prove such a motive, and there’s considerable evidence against it, evidence they ignored in their statement.

It’s been pointed out to me that NOM’s problem might not be dishonesty. It could be incompetent research skills or a psychological inability to see anything that contradicts their worldview.

It was also suggested that they might know what the Chief of Police said, but suspect it’s part of a liberal media conspiracy to cover up religious persecution. Regarding that alternative, I told my critic, “To present their suspicions as fact is still dishonesty.”

Later, the irony of that statement hit me, and I realized I should take my own advice: I suspect NOM is lying. I acknowledge they could merely be incompetent or blinded by their bias.

This raises an important question, though, and because we strive for accuracy here, I want to toss out a question for the Box Turtle Community.

When can we reasonably say someone is not merely wrong, but is lying — essentially, at what point do we stop giving them the benefit of the doubt?

To aid discussion, you might also want to check out this post, which alleges a number of NOM lies, and think about which ones can be considered, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be actual deceit, and which could plausibly be mere mistakes. With what criteria can we reliably separate one category from the other?

I almost posted this in the sidebar, but I’ll ask Jim’s indulgence and put it with the main articles. It’s a question we can’t afford to ignore.

NOM Bears False Witness

Just a quick one today. NOM reports that:

In Minnesota, the people’s continued success in fighting for marriage is provoking some among the opposition to vandalize churches. Yes, sad—but true, as the media reports: “Police are searching for the person responsible for vandalizing multiple churches in Buffalo, Minn., over the weekend.”

That link leads to a story about a man who vandalized churches and left messages depicting Jesus as gay. But NOM fails, of course, to tell its followers this statement from Chief of Police Mitchell Weinzetl:

“The suspect explained that he was motivated to commit these acts due to his anger with God over personal issues; there was no mention of, nor any indication of, political motivations to the suspect’s actions,” Weinzetl said Wednesday night. [NOM posted its message Friday afternoon.]

And also this:

Weinzetl declined to give specific examples of what the messages contained, other than to characterize them as “inflammatory” and add that “the word gay is mentioned, and there are other terms mentioned that would be derogatory to people of a homosexual nature. … And it probably doesn’t take a genius to figure out what those words may be.”

So a man who hates God attacked a bunch of churches for opposing gay marriage, even though he hates gays? How is NOM going to reconcile that contradiction to its readers?

Wait, I covered that above: NOM simply won’t tell them.

You might wonder why I keep debunking these. NOM lies so much, can’t we just take that for granted? No. Because every time NOM does this — every time it falsely claims religious persecution — they’re demonstrating their paucity of genuine evidence. Every time they do this, they prove that they are wrong.

And finally there’s this: the email version of their message contains two DONATE NOW buttons. At some point, perhaps, we can hold them accountable for repeatedly defrauding their donors.

Tasmania Defeats Same-Sex Marriage Bill

The first attempt at state-based marriage in Australia went down in defeat yesterday when the Legislative Council, Tasmania’s upper house, voted down a measure to provide marriage equality by a vote of  8-6, with one abstention in the 15-member chamber. The vote followed two days of debate. Premiere Lara Giddings vowed to keep the fight up:

“We will continue this. It’s not the end. It’s the beginning,” Ms Giddings said. “It took many times for us to get gay law reform through. It took many times and attempts to get anti-discrimination law reform through.”

Observers predicted that the bill would face its greatest difficulty in the Legislative Council after Tasmania’s lower house passed the measure 13-11. Uncommitted legislators fell back on Constitutional questions to vote against the bill:

Already struggling for numbers in the council, the Same Sex Marriage bill fell after key undeclared MPs raised constitutional doubts. Hobart independent, Jim Wilkinson, said he believed same sex law would continue to be argued. “But I believe it will come back in the Federal arena. In my mind that’s where it should be.”

Among backers of the bill, Devonport MP Mike Gaffney said he was not concerned that the bill might be legally challenged. “If the possibility of an invalid bill stopped us, very little reform would take place,” Mr Gaffney said.  “If we vote this bill down…the issue will not go away. Most importantly, the Australian community is alive to the issue of marriage equality.”

Marriage equality advocates take some consolation in how close they came. Tasmania was the last Australian state to decriminialize homosexuality in1997, and that took place only after the Federal government forced its hand.