Box Turtle Bulletin

Times Are Changing, Even In Red States

Pam Spaulding is passing on some very good news this morning. She learned that the Alabama House of Representatives passed the Hate Crimes Bill by a vote of 46 to 44, mostly along party lines. Similar legislation was defeated last year. Also passed unanimously was an anti-bullying measure.

The ultimate fate of these two bills remains uncertain as they now go to the Senate. But as Pam notes, this is huge progress.

Lawyer Blames School for King’s Shooting

Deputy Public Defender William Quest is something else. Quest is the lawyer for 14-year-old Brandon McInerney, the teen accused of shooting Lawrence King point blank in the head at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California February 12. Last April, Quest blamed King’s death on King himself. Today, he’s decided that it’s the school system’s fault:

Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys, which began when King openly flirted with McInerney, said Deputy Public Defender William Quest. Instead, administrators were so intent on nurturing King as he explored his sexuality, allowing him to come to school wearing feminine makeup and accessories, that they downplayed the turmoil that his behavior was causing on campus, Quest said.

Pot, Meet Kettle

Those so-called “professional journalists” at Focus On the Family’s CitizenLink are repeating that tired old theme again — that the “homosexual lobby” is so incredibly well-funded that its a miracle that anti-gay activists can get a word in edgewise. If only it were true.

This time, they’re upset over the Human Rights Campaign’s “Year to Win” initiative, specifically HRC’s plan to train 1,500 advocates in thirteen cities to participate in the upcoming elections.

Wow. Thirteen cities. Imagine that.

CitizenLink then enlisted Matt Barber to complain:

“Their main purpose for existence is to influence public policy and politics, and to get people elected to office who are going to push their militant homosexual agenda,” said Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues at Concerned Women for America.

Of course, nobody at Focus and none of the Concerned Women are at all interested in public policy, politics or getting people elected.

Oh, wait a minute. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that the world held its collective breath wondering who Dobson would endorse for the GOP primaries?

And isn’t Focus On the Family in its third year of flogging its own so-called “Truth Project”, a series of regional and local training sessions they’ve been putting on across the country? And what about Dobson’s radio program and Focus’ own “Family News In Focus” program, both going out daily to hundreds of radio stations across the country — all of it to push their militant anti-gay agenda?

But then, HRC does have a weekly radio program on XM Satellite, or so I hear. I don’t get satellite radio.

But that’s not the only thing that CitizenLink is worried about. They’re terribly upset over HRC’s massive bankroll:

Brad Miller, director of the Family Policy Council department at Focus on the Family Action, said family advocates could face an uphill battle. HRC has an annual budget of more than $50 million.

True, when you add up the revenues of the Human Rights Campaign, Inc and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, you end up with a figure of about $50 million.

But go to GuideStar and look up the financial statements from Focus On the Family and Focus On the Family Action. Add those figures together and you’ll end up with revenues in 2006 of some $157 million.

That’s more than three times the size of HRC’s combined budget.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe two will help.

I think Focus On the Family should spend some of their money on math lessons.

Internet Radio Appearance Tonight

I will be a guest this evening on Peter Godbold’s “Strictly Confidential,” an LGBT internet radio talk show on the Head-On Radio Network. Sorry, I can’t help but be reminded of that “Head-On” pain relief commercial. Hopefully this will be much more entertaining. I expect to be on the air (or whatever the internet streaming equivalent is) at about 9:30 EDT / 6:30 PDT. See you there.

Michigan Court Rules Against Health Care Benefits

We’ve heard this over and over again: opponents to same-sex marriage don’t want to go after our domestic partnership benefits. We heard it most recently here in Arizona just a few weeks ago when opponents to same-sex marriage accuse LGBT advocates of “dragging in other issues” when they warn about the potential dangers of these anti-marriage amendments.

Michigan now provides a perfect object lesson:

An amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 2004 to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman also prohibits public employers from providing health care and other benefits to the same sex partners of employees, a divided Michigan Supreme Court ruled today.

When anti-marriage activists tell you that their proposals have nothing to do with domestic partnerships, don’t believe it. They said that in Michigan also.

Defending Homophobic Violence

On April 12, University of Illinois student Steven Velasquez became the recipient of some hater’s violence. While there are two sides to every story, some facts are not in dispute:

Velasquez was walking with friends at 1:00 am. Another young man, Brett Vanasdlen, saw him and made a bigoted remark.

According to Velasquez, he responded, “How ignorant was that?” and kept walking. According to Vanasdlen, Velasquez grabbed him and started screaming, “What did you say” in his face.

In both stories, Vanasdlen threw Velasquez to the ground where he was knocked out, suffered head trauma, and was taken to the hospital. He was released the next day and is fine.

Vanasdlen was arrested and charged with a hate crime. He’s been released until his trial.

It is likely that this will be a very straightforward case. There were witnesses who can make their argument and a judge or jury will either convict or acquit Vanasdlen of assault.

But the story does not stop there.

David Duke, onetime Louisiana legislator and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, has a website where like-minded individuals proclaim their beliefs. They rant about the corrupting influence of Jews, how civil rights laws lead to black men raping white women, how European countries need to keep their ethnic identity free from the dilution of immigration, and radical hispanics want to return the Southwest to Mexico. Rev. Ted Pike is a regular writer who specializes in anti-Semitic screeds (he loves Jews in the same way that LaBarbara love gays).

On Duke’s website, Rev. Ted Pike tells a version of the story provided by Vanasdlen’s mother. He claims that Vanasdlen is only being tried because “The police department of Champaign, Illinois is reported to be under pressure from higher authorities to increase its quota of hate crimes convictions.”

Pike encourages his readers to protest Vanasdlen’s arraignment before the facts are presented at trial. And it appears that one of his peers is taking up the cause.

Peter LaBarbera, an anti-gay activist better known for his extensive collection of gay porn and his video-taping of leather and other fetish events, is now meeting the challenge on Duke’s website. In case some of his readers are not also readers of Duke’s racist website, LaBarbera invites them to join the campaigners (LaBarbera downplays the racist and anti-Semitic connection, calling Pike a “pro-family advocate”).

TAKE ACTION: 1) Urge Champaign County, Illinois State’s Attorney Julia Rietz (phone: (217) 384-3733) to drop the government’s one-sided felony “hate crimes” prosecution against 18-year-old student-athlete Brett VanAsdlen — based on the inconsistent and likely exaggerated claims of Steven Velasquez, a homosexual University of Illinois (U of I) student who may have initiated physical contact with VanAsdlen. Already, Brett is being smeared as violent “gay-basher” by Velasquez and pro-homosexual activists in the media. Pray for Brett and his family.

Now it may be that the truth is different than what Velasquez has reported. In fact, a trial might find that he was the instigater and at fault. That’s what the jurisprudence system is set up to do.

But I do know that some – David Duke, Ted Pike, Peter LaBarbera, and those who share their views – have decided that Vanasdlen should not have to account for his actions that night. They believe that good Christian “strapping, clean-cut, All-American looking young man” should be able to send a gay kid with a name like Valasquez to the hospital without question.

I think that attitude is evil.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Doesn’t Defend DADT

One of the defenses made in support of continuing the military’s anti-gay Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell policy is that senior military strategists oppose gay soldiers from serving openly. Well, it doesn’t get more senior than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Speaking at West Point this weekend, Admiral Michael Mullen was asked his opinion about the impact if the incoming administration were to be supportive of gay servicemembers. According to PinkNews,

Speaking to graduating cadets at West Point military academy on Sunday, Admiral Mike Mullen said that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy enacted by Congress in 1993 is a law that the Armed Forces follow.

“Should the law change, the military will carry that out too,” he said.

This is the second time that Mullen has appeared unfazed by the notion of openly gay soldiers. During his confirmation he told the Senate,

“I really think it is for the American people to come forward, really through this body, to both debate that policy and make changes, if that’s appropriate.

“I’d love to have Congress make its own decisions with respect to considering repeal.”

Without the public support of military leaders or prominant politicians, it is surely only a short time before this misguided policy is scrapped for good.

Cayman Kissing Story Gets Significant Attention

The Caymanian Compass is getting a great deal of attention from their reporting of the police response to Aaron Chandler kissing his partner.

Cayman Free Press Web Development Manager Bronwyn Robbins said statistics showed 662,991 hits Monday.

“However, our engineers note that this is a huge under–estimate of the amount of traffic due to server overload and eventual outage due to the inability to cope with so much traffic,” she said. “The engineer’s estimation of unrecorded traffic due to the server meltdown was well over 1 million hits, possibly two.”

Most of this traffic is driven by American bloggers that find the behavior of the authorities to be objectionable and offensive. Reports are placing the islands in a very negative light.

However, the tourism officials are in an difficult position. While potential visitors are wary of traveling to a tourism destination that may arrest them for kissing, Caymanians are supportive of this threatening response.

“The web traffic today is substantially greater than normal,” said Ms Robbins. “The [DoT apologises to gay kisser] story has received over 500 views already and it’s only 10.20am,” she said.

While the majority of letters to the editor were in support of the RCIP officer and against the DoT’s apology to Mr. Chandler, the blog and forums had more balanced debate.

This necessity of appealing to two vastly different audience may be what is driving the multiple and conflicting messages from the tourism board. On the one hand, those responsible for keeping money flowing in want to appear welcoming to potential guests, but they also have to appease those elements in their society who embrace hostility.

Which brings me to my question: While I know that Jamaica is a place I cannot visit, will I be protected in the Cayman Islands?

Cayman Islands Apology Called Into Question

That apology issued by the Cayman Islands tourism director to a gay American tourist who was detained by police after kissing his partner at a dance club has been called into question by the island’s Minister of Tourism.

Minister Charles Clifford was asked about the incident in which 22-year-old Aaron Chandler was detained by the Royal Cayman Islands Police for kissing his partner several times on a dance floor. Clifford responded:

“All of us in this room and most people in Cayman would agree that what happened in that incident at Royal Palms was offensive to most people in Cayman,” Mr. Clifford told an audience of about 25 people at the Webster United Church Hall in Bodden Town.

This appears to contradict an apology made by the Department of Tourism director Pilar Bush, whose apology to Chandler read, “What happened to you was an isolated incident and is not representative of Cayman.” Whether it is representative of Cayman or not may be questionable, but it appears to be representative of the very person in charge of Cayman’s tourist industry.

The RCIP has an internal investigation into the incident underway, and is seeking independent witnesses to the events at the Royal Palms night club. But since so far it appears that no local laws were broken, it’s unclear what information these witnesses could add to the investigation. This leaves the impression that this investigation is aimed more at digging up dirt on Chandler and his partner rather than the inappropriate actions of a police officer who had no grounds to detain Chandler.

[Hat tip: Stefano]

Cayman Island Director of Tourism Apologizes

The American tourist who was detained by Royal Cayman Islands Police for kissing his partner on a dancefloor received a sent a letter of apology from Director of Tourism Pilar Bush. Bush responded on Friday to a letter of complaint written by 23-year-old Massachusetts resident Aaron Chandler on Thursday, the day after the incident took place at the Royal Palms:

“On behalf of the entire Department of Tourism, I apologise for your upsetting experience and want to assure you that the Cayman Islands is a welcoming jurisdiction to all people,” Ms. Bush wrote to Mr. Chandler. “What happened to you was an isolated incident, and is not representative of Cayman. We know that thousands of gay and lesbian visitors travel to the Cayman Islands every year and enjoy their vacation.”

Chandler told a Cayman Islands newspaper that he appreciated the response:

“I should say that, yes, her prompt decision did ease the anger for me a bit,” Mr. Chandler said in an email written from back home in the United States.

“In addition, it’s just good business sense for Ms Bush to have apologised to me. The [Department] of Tourism surely doesn’t want to have someone leave the Cayman Islands not wanting to come back.”

Chandler also said that he hasn’t received any response from a complaint lodged against the RCIP.

“Day Of Silence” Events Staged In Russia

From UK Gay News comes word of the first Day of Silence held last weekend in three cities across Russia. Day of Silence events were held on Saturday in St. Petersburg, Novokuznetsk and Yaroslavl. Two participants in St. Petersburg were assaulted following a rally and skinheads attacked participants in Novokuznetsk. Nevertheless, organizers counted the events a rousing success.

St. Petersburg officials had initially given permission for a public Day of Silence demonstration, but this permission was rescinded a few days before the event. In response, the organizers scaled back their plans and staged individual protests in St. Petersburg’s Chrenyshevskiy Park since individual demonstrations don’t require approval by authorities. For two hours, the participants stood silently with a banner that read, “I am silent to be heard.” Their mouths were taped shut as they handed out flyers to passersby.

According to one report, the Day of Silence participants were guarded by ten policemen during the demonstration. The rally in the park went off without incident, but two of the participants were attacked afterwards by three assailants as they made their way to a nearby café. Igor Petrov, one of the Day of Silence organizers, and Ignat Fialkovskiy, the press secretary of the International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Side by Side, suffered kicks and bruises requiring medical treatment. Formal complaints have been filed with the police.

In Novokuznetsk in central Russia, twenty volunteers responded to a “flash mob” appeal sent through social networks. Despite the bad weather, organizers were pleased with the response. However a group of skinheads attacked several participants, injuring one young man.

The organizer of the group from Yaroslavl, 160 miles northeast of Moscow reported that nine people took part in their “flash mob.” No problems were reported there.

Despite the problems encountered in Novokuznetsk and St. Petersburg, Russian Day of Silence organizers consider the actions a rousing success:

We were able to achieve the most important thing — the word about the problem of emotional harassment and violence, discrimination and intolerance based on sexual orientation and gender identity reached many people, while the attacks on the participants of the event in St. Petersburg and Novokuznetsk confirmed the relevance of the problem.

Hat tip: UK Gay News

Today In History: The Love That Dares Not Speak Its Name Gets A Name

One hundred and forty years ago today, on May 6, 1868, the word homosexuality was invented.

Before then, there were very few value-neutral words to describe people who experienced romantic or sexual attractions toward others of the same sex. Pejoratives such as “bugger,” “molly,” “sodomite,” or “pederast” were common, words loaded with condemnation and shame. But as the budding science of sexology began to grow, and as same-sex loving defenders began to speak out about what same-sex love was all about, their first problem was with how to name it. “Abominable vice” wouldn’t do. A new word was desperately needed to describe their lives and feelings.

The love that dared not speak its name couldn’t. It didn’t have one.

The first to try to name this love was the German gay-rights advocate Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. In the 1860’s, he described the urning as a “male-bodied person with a female psyche,” who is sexually attracted to men and not women. An Urningin was a “female-bodied person with a male psyche,” and Urningthum came to mean homosexuality itself. Ulrichs devised an entire system of classification based on different combinations of attractions and gender roles. Some of these words gained usage in English, although the less foreign-sounding sexual inversion and inverts to describe homosexuality and homosexuals respectively fell more naturally to English ears. But in a few short years, those words would become obsolete, replaced by the creation of an aspiring Hungarian writer.

Karl-Maria Kertbeny (or Károly Mária Kertbeny) was an Austrian-born Hungarian journalist, memoirist and human rights campaigner. Kertbeny reportedly became interested in homosexuality when a close friend committed suicide after being blackmailed by an extortionist. Kertbeny later said that this, combined with his “instinctive drive to take issue with every injustice” — as a Hungarian, he knew what it was to be a minority in Vienna — drove him to advocate for civil rights for gay people.

Kertbeny’s own sexuality remains unclear however: He described himself as “normally sexed,” but his diaries reportedly document his appreciation for the male form. When he moved to Berlin in 1868 at the age of 44, he was still unmarried. It was at around this time that Kertbeny coined the word Homosexualität — “of the same sex” — from the Greek prefix homo- (same) and the Latin root sexualis (sex). His first known usage of this word is documented in a letter he wrote to Ulrichs on May 6, 1868.

Homosexualität made its first known public appearance the following year, when Kertbeny anonymously published the pamphlet Paragraph 143 of the Prussian Penal Code and Its Maintenance as Paragraph 152 of the Draft of a Penal Code for the North German Confederation. This pamphlet advocated for the repeal of Prussia’s sodomy laws, saying that private consensual sex acts shouldn’t be subject to criminal penalties.

Homosexualität gained usage as other German advocates began putting forth the idea that homosexuality was inborn, a “medical problem” which placed homosexuality as a form of pathology or illness. Today of course we recoil at the abuses which arose from this “homosexuality as pathology” mindset, but in the nineteenth century this “medical model” represented a significant improvement in attitudes to homosexuality. Before Ulrichs and Kertbeny, homosexuality was viewed as a mere wickedness or moral degeneracy to be severely punished — often by pillory or death.

But Kertbeny appeared to understand the dangers behind the “medical model.” He not only saw that the “innate” argument was potentially dangerous, but that it was also irrelevant. In that vein, his advocacy for gay civil liberties was remarkably modern:

To prove innateness … is a dangerous double edged weapon. Let this riddle of nature be very interesting from the anthropological point of view. Legislation is not concerned whether this inclination is innate or not, legislation is only interested in the personal and social dangers associated with it … Therefore we would not win anything by proving innateness beyond a shadow of doubt. Instead we should convince our opponents — with precisely the same legal notions used by them — that they do not have anything at all to do with this inclination, be it innate or intentional, since the state does not have the right to intervene in anything that occurs between two consenting persons older than fourteen, which does not affect the public sphere, nor the rights of a third party.”

Kertbeny had another thoroughly modern idea about homosexuality, and this one is probably the most salient for understanding homosexualität’s triumph over urning and invert. The word homosexual doesn’t refer to any assumptions about gender roles or attributes. An urning, remember, was a “male-bodied person with a female psyche.” This of course bore a direct reference to effeminacy, a presumed hallmark of all gay men. And urningin, a “female-bodied person with a male psyche,” referred to lesbians’ perceived innate masculinity. (The English term invert carried with it similar assumptions of “inverse” gender characteristics.) But in writing about homosexuality, Kertbeny pointedly noted that homosexual men were not necessarily effeminate, citing several heroic historical figures as examples.

In 1880, Gustav Jäger used Kertbeny’s homosexualität in his book Discovery of the Soul. That book also included Kertbeny’s other useful word heterosexualität. Then the German sex researcher Richard von Krafft-Ebing borrowed those terms for his highly influential 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis. Homosexuality appears to have entered the English language at about 1895, which is when Charles Gilbert Chaddock translated Psychopathia Sexualis into English. And when Sigmund Freud used it in his books and lectures, he propelled its use among psychologists and psychoanalysts as well as in popular culture.

But admiration for the new word wasn’t universal. English sexologist Havelock Ellis, whose 1897 work Sexual Inversion became one of the first widely published English texts to deal with homosexuality, hated its bastardization of Greek and Latin. “‘Homosexual’ is a barbarously hybrid word,” Ellis wrote in a footnote. “It is, however, convenient, and now widely used. ‘Homogenic’ has been suggested as a substitute.”

Homogenic never caught on, and Ellis ended up using the word homosexual himself more often in his text than the terminology found in his volume’s title. By the 1930’s the homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual had almost completely erased the Urning and the invert for describing an individual’s sexual orientation.

Kertbeny however didn’t live to see his Homosexualität in widespread use. He died of a stroke in Budapest in 1882 at the age of 58, still unmarried. He was buried in Budapest’s Kerepesi Cemetery. In 2002, members of Budapest’s gay community placed a new tombstone over his rediscovered grave, where it is now customary to lay a wreath during Hungarian gay festivals.

Whatever Happened to Zach?

He’s back, and he talked to Morgan Jon Fox for his forthcoming documentary, “This Is What Love In Action Looks Like.”

Zach was the sixteen-year-old gay teen who, in 2005, gained worldwide attention when he wrote on his MySpace blog about coming out to his parents. They quickly shipped him off to Love Won Out’s Refuge program for teens. But before entering the program, Zach posted Love In Action’s rules online for everyone to see, and those rules provide a very revealing glimpse into the very strange world of Love In Action. After weeks of protest and worldwide condemnation, the Refuge program was finally shut down. But Love In Action remains active, a dark stain on an ex-gay movement running amok with no oversight or accountability.

Here’s an extended opening sequence for the documentary, which is set to for an official release later this summer. Zach’s post-LIA appearance at the seven minute mark represents a small glimpse of a full-length exclusive interview.

ABC 7 News Buys into Mass Resistance’s Hype

The wacktivist anti-gay group Mass Resistance has been pushing the writing effots of Ryan Sorba, a young political activist. They play host to the first draft of his book, The Born Gay Hoax, and have been trying to raise his profile in the conservative movement.

Until recently they were having little success. This is probably due to the sensationalistic tone and wildly inaccurate statements that Sorba relies on. Few conservatives will argue with a straight face that “Reparative therapy is a proven success” and one can only read the term “pro-sodomy activists” so many times before recognizing that Sorba’s animus far outweighs his scholarly instincts.

Firebrands and kool-aid drinkers will nod their heads along to his proclamations, but most folk will not find him any more readable than they do Mass Resistance’s website. Which is probably why they are the ones who are encouraging his efforts. Kooks tend to attract kooks.

But all that changed last week when a group of lesbians disrupted a talk that Sorba was giving to the Conservative Club at Smith College. Now, having been shouted down, young Ryan has become a bonafide martyr, an example of how badly the evil homosexuals treat good Christians.

Naturally, the less credible of Christian news sources could hardly withhold their glee at reporting this travesty of justice and thrashing of the First Amendment (conveniently forgetting that free speech goes both ways). But more responsible Christian press – and, of course, the secular press – hardly considered this story of rude behavior by some lesbians on a college campus to be newsworthy.

Well, until WJLA, ABC 7, a DC area television outlet, got wind of it. They breathlessly declared

The idea that a person can change their sexual preference is beginning to become a major debate with gay activists because of an upcoming book, “The Born Gay Hoax”.

The Born Gay Hoax is driving debate? Oh yeah. Sure. Except no one has heard of it and no one cares.

If this wasn’t truly pathetic journalism, it would be laughable. But on they go about “militant gay activists hijack[ing] public debate” and ex-gays fearful to give their name lest they be harassed.

The entire article is an embarrasment on the news department at ABC 7, and perhaps even a sad endictment of the quality of “news” that reaches the consumers of press-release based journalism. The station manager would do well to find whichever anti-gay staff member introduced this piece of foolishness into their newsroom and remind them that a reporters job is reporting, not advocacy for religous extremism.

Mildred Loving, Rest in Peace

“We are not marrying the state. The law should allow a person to marry anyone he wants.”

These were the words that Mildred Jeter Loving told The Washington Evening Star in 1965. At that time she was in exile of her native state, Virginia, which had convicted her of the crime of marrying the man she loved, Richard Loving, seven years prior.

On June 12, 1967 the Supreme Court of the United States of America agreed with Mr. and Mrs. Loving that there is no valid state’s interest in denying them the right to marry each other.

There are those who loudly proclaim the morality of the civil rights efforts that were fought over the freedom and equality under law for persons of African descent yet who actively oppose those same freedoms and equalities for gay people. They “take great umbrage” at the notion that the struggle for equality for gay folks is in any way similar to that of black folk.

Mildred Loving was not such a person. Mildred never set out to be a champion for African-American rights or for mixed-race relationship rights. She just wanted to love and be left alone.

And perhaps it is this heart-based agenda that allowed Mrs. Loving to see her own plight mirrored in the lives of same-sex partners who are denied the same happinesses that she had been denied. On June 12, 2007, fourty years after she won the right to be married to Richard Loving in every state in the Union, Mildred Loving released a statement supporting the struggle of gay men and women to be married. It concludes as follows:

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

Mildred passed away on Friday. We wish her family much love and peace during their time of grief. And we join them in honoring and missing an amazing woman. She was a hero to the end.