Box Turtle Bulletin

UCSF Apologizes for Misleading Statements on MRSA

The University of San Francisco has posted an apology on their web site:

Statement from UCSF Dept of Public Affairs regarding study on emergence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus clone USA300 in men who have sex with men

We regret that our recent news report (1-14-08) about an important population-based study on MRSA USA300 with public health implications contained some information that could be interpreted as misleading. We deplore negative targeting of specific populations in association with MRSA infections or other public health concerns, and we will be working to ensure that accurate information about the research is disseminated to the health community and the general public.

Update: This statement resulted from an inquiry from San Francisco activist Michael Petrelis. There’s more information at his web site, including a personal note from UCSF.

Is MRSA The New Gay Plague? Not According To The Medical Literature

A new study came out last week from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, which found a high rate of drug-resistant staph infection among “men who have sex with men” in San Francisco and Boston. The sensational reporting surrounding this report suggests that once this drug-resistant infection known as MRSA “reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable.” That line has probably become the most quoted line among our favorite anti-gay demagogues. Lead researcher Binh An Diep also told the San Francisco Chronicle:

We probably had it here first, and now it is spreading elsewhere… This is a national problem, and San Francisco is at the epicenter.

The Toronto Star said that this latest study “discover[ed] a new strain” of a super-bug “hitting gay men” Headlines in Britain screamed, “Flesh-eating bug strikes San Francisco’s gay community,” while Australians panicked over the more widespread, “Flesh-eating bug spreads among gays.”

But there’s a problem with all of this. None of it is true!

In our latest report, “Testing the Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague?”, we examine some of the medical research on MRSA over the past two decades — there are over 750 articles listed in the PubMed Database on community-acquired MRSA — and reach several conclusions which should be obvious to anyone familiar with the subject:

• San Francisco is not the epicenter of the new disease,
• this disease in fact is not new,
• and gay men are not spreading it into the “general population.”

The overwhelming medical evidence actually shows the opposite — it’s the “general population” that’s responsible for spreading MRSA into the gay community. In our report, we examine some of the communities that have been hardest hit by MRSA, including:

• Cities all across the U.S. and around the world.
• American Indians, rural Alaskans, Native Hawaiians, prisoners, and kids in day care;
• A religious community in upstate New York;
• Soldiers and sailors in the U.S. and on a ship at sea;
• And athletes. Lots of athletes. The USC Trojans, St. Louis Rams, Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins were all hit in recent years, as were other professional, college and high school programs around the country. (One study blamed “cosmetic body shaving and turf burns,” and the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine described MSRA as “the latest sports epidemic.”)

But for some reason, there has not been a hue and cry over a “flesh-eating jock staph” threatening the “general population.” In fact, none of this has anything to do with gay men. But that doesn’t keep the popular press and anti-gay demagogues from accusing disease-ridden gay men of spreading filthy diseases to an innocent, unsuspecting population. Sound familar?

In our latest report, you can:

• See the actual medical evidence — including direct links to the medical research so you don’t have to take our word for it;
• Examine the statements by lead researcher Binh Diep which helped to fuel the hysteria about the latest “gay plague”;
• Look at how the usual suspects have used the researcher’s comments to flame anti-gay bigotry;
• Learn what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention really say about MRSA and gay men.

You will find all of this in Testing the Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague?

A Gay Kenyan Caught Up In the Violence

Gay Nairobi Man’s blog has gone silent for the past three weeks, ever since Kenya erupted into ethnic violence following the December 27 presidential elections. He has now posted about the situation of a gay friend, a college student from Eldoret, a cosmopolitan university town where he mixed freely with members of other tribes as a gay man. But all that has changed:

When the post election violence broke out, a friend of his warned him the night before that their house and business were targeted for burning. He was personally being targeted because of how he looks and behaves.

His friend also warned him that he was due to be raped by a gang of warriors to be “taught how to be man”. Apparently amongst the people to attack them were a few friends who knew about his being gay. He managed to warn his family and they moved to a nearby police station for protection. As expected, the family lost everything they owned and are one of the many displaced Kenyans camping in Nakuru.

The Newport Sting

An interesting article provides the history of the first national gay sex scandal.

Before it ended, the scandal had blazed in headlines across America, embarrassed future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and led to FDR suing The Providence Journal.

It’s worth reading. The tactics employed in the sting were, shall we say, a bit unconventional.

Today In History: A Simple Technique To Cure Homosexuality

On January 18, 1964, the British Medical Journal published this article by R.J. McGuire and M. Vallance:

Aversion Therapy by Electric Shock: a Simple Technique

Aversion therapy has been used for many years in the treatment of alcoholism. Apomorphine and emetine are the usual drugs used as the unconditioned stimuli for nausea and vomiting, with alcohol as the conditioned stimulus. More recently the same procedure has been used in the treatment of sexual perversions — for example, fetishism, transvestism and homosexuality.

There are several disadvantages to the use of drugs in conditioning procedures. The time between the stimulus being presented and the nausea being produced is uncertain. The patient may not even feel nausea; and, further, the cerebral depressant effect of the drug may interfere with the patient’s ability to form conditioned responses. In addition, the treatment may have to be terminated prematurely because of its dangerous side-effects.

Alternative unpleasant responses can be used to produce aversion. In experimental psychology electric shock has been widely used both in animals and in humans. In clinical treatment, however, it has been less often used. The technique is simpler, more accurately controlled, and more certain in producing an unpleasant effect than drugs. This article describes a simple apparatus designed by one of us (R. J. McG.) and its use in the aversive treatment of sexual perversions, alcoholism, smoking, and neurotic symptoms.

Apparatus. — The components are cheap (under £1) and fit into a box approximately 6 in. (15 cm.) square and 2 in. (5 cm.) deep (Figs. 1 and 2). It is powered by a 9-volt battery and is therefore completely portable. The shock is administered through electrodes on a cuff around the patient’s forearm. To construct the apparatus requires no special skill, and the technical details are given at the end of the article.

This isn’t the first time a device for administering electric shock has been described in the medical literature for treating homosexuality. Electric Shock Aversion Therapy has been discussed since at least 1935. But as modern science entered the space age, at least a few therapists had managed to acquired the idea that there was a demand for an inexpensive home version. And so forty-four years ago, two researchers from Glasgow came to the rescue.

Maryland Marriage Poll

The Maryland legislature may find itself entering into the fray in the great marriage debate. And with that in mind, the Baltimore Sun thought they’d find out what the residents of the state think.

• 19% favor gay marriage
• 39% favor civil unions instead of marriage
• 31% oppose both
• 11% really couldn’t give a darn

Now I predict the anti-gays will claim “81% support a ban on gay marriage”, but interestingly, only about 15% of those polled were in favor of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

See also:
Blade Asks What Happened In Maryland
Maryland Passes Limited Rights for Gay Couples
Maryland Balances Budget by Taxing Gay Widows
Maryland Senator Muse Champions Bigotry
Maryland AG Endorses Marriage Equality
Maryland Legislator Calls Anti-Gay Bluff
Maryland Introduces Bill to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage – Are Democrats Committed to Equality?
Maryland Marriage Poll

Huckabee’s Unimaginative Bash

It looks like Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas Governor Mike Hickabee’s getting pretty tired with all the campaigning. When its time to bash the gays, he can barely work up the energy:

QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal.

Animal? Thats it? Just animal? Not a “barnyard animal”? No pigs or ducks or dogs? Not even a box turtle? If we’re going to elect someone who doesn’t like gay Americans, the least we could ask is that they show some imagination about it. Rev. Huckabee, we’ve been bashed by far better than that.

Paul Cameron at a Supermarket Checkout Near You

It looks as though anti-gay extremist and discredited “researcher” Paul Cameron hasn’t been able to get much attention lately. His “research” usually appears in the pay-to-publish vanity journal Psychological Reports, but he hasn’t made an appearance there since June, 2005. Last year he tried to pawn off a paper which he supposedly “presented” to the Eastern Psychological Association convention, but the president of the EPA said nope, it didn’t happen.

Then Cameron hit on the idea of starting an Internet-only “Journal” (what the rest of us would call a “web site”). But it looks like he hasn’t had much luck there. So far that web site, er, “journal” has only posted two papers, and the only author appearing in that web site “journal” (sorry!) is Paul Cameron.

And it looks like Cameron’s new web site isn’t garnering much attention. (I give up! It’s a web site.) According to Google, only four other unique web sites have bothered to link to Cameron’s new venture so far, and one of them did so only because Cameron paid for a press release with a link.

But don’t fret; Cameron’s publication woes are over. The National Examiner (that’s the National Enquirer’s dumber, louder sister) has cited Paul Cameron as an “expert” on gay serial killers, based on a Cameron source from 1983. Qouth the Examiner:

“A study of 518 sexually-tinged mass murders in the U.S. from 1966 to 1983 determined that 350 — or 68 percent — of the victims were killed by those who practiced homosexuality and that 19 of the 44 murderers were bisexuals or homosexuals,” writes Paul Cameron, Ph.D. in a report for the family Research Institute”.

The quote from the “report” was actually lifted nearly verbatim from this pamphlet, which in turn cites Cameron’s paper “Is homosexuality disproportionately associated with murder?” — a paper which he claims to have “presented” to the Midwestern Psychological Association back in 1983. Doesn’t that scenario sound familiar?

Well anyway, everyone here at Box Turtle Bulletin would like to congratulate Paul Cameron for finally finding a suitable publication outlet in the National Examiner.

Hat tip: Good As You

Defining “Conservative”

Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee are fighting for the evangelical conservative vote in South Carolina, the first southern state primary. They recently engaged in a little dispute over who is the real conservative.

While Huckabee is an ardent social conservative with close ties to the Christian Reconstructionist movement, and while he favors amending the Constitution to bring it into alignment with “God’s Standards“, other Republican nominees and conservative groups have noted that his positions on immigration, taxation, spending, crime, and free-market issues are not at all conservative.

The Wall Street Journal reported a bit about the exchange of words between Thompson and Huckabee.

Mr. Thompson, in a pitched competition with Mr. Huckabee for the evangelical vote in South Carolina, said he’s the one with consistent social conservative credentials. Of the former Arkansas governor’s record, “liberal would be the word I would apply to it,” he said.

Mr. Huckabee said it’s “ludicrous” to think he’s liberal and pointed out he favors a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and Mr. Thompson doesn’t.

And there you have it. In Rev. Huckabee’s mind, the difference between liberal and conservative is whether one favors a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The rest is all negotiable.

Guilty Verdict in Riga Feces-Throwing Incident

An assistant to a Latvian Parliament member was found guilty by a Riga court Tuesday of “gross public disorderliness” in connection with the feces-throwing incident at Riga Pride in July, 2006. Janis Dzelme, 32, was sentenced to 100 hours of “compulsory labor,” which is considered a harsher sentence than the fine recommended by the prosecutor.

Dzelme works in the Saeima (Parliament) for Dainis Turlais of the Latvia First Party, and is a member of Alexai Ledyaev’s New Generation Church. The Latvia First Party is closely connected with New Generation and Watchmen On the Walls, a millitant anti-gay organization. Dainis Turlais has a reputation for being among the most homophobic lawmakers in Parliament, calling gays “pigs” and “bacteria.” Ledyaev was in the court room to hear the verdict and sentence along with 20 members of New Generation.

Ledyaev is a co-founder of Watchmen On the Walls. Other prominent leaders include Americans Scott Lively, co-author of The Pink Swastika: Homosexuals and the Nazi Party, which claims that gays were fully responsible for the rise of the Nazi party and the resulting holocaust. Another co-founder is Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington. Last March, Hutcherson traveled to Riga, claiming that he was a special envoy of President Bush and was authorized to speak on behalf of the administration. When the White House strongly denied this, Hutcherson responed by saying he had video evidence. So far, that evidence hasn’t materialized.

Ledyayev will travel to the United States to speak at the Synergy Pastors Conference in Atlanta from January 29 and 31. Also appearing at that conference is David Sobrepeña of the Word of Hope Ministries in Manila, the Phillipines. Sobrepeña also spoke at the Watchmen’s conference in Riga.

The Florida Miracle?

Just a month ago gay Floridians were gearing up to face yet another anti-gay marriage amendment. Supporters of constitutional discrimination had cheered the meeting of their signature collection goal and disassembled their signature teams. They had met the magic number of 611,009.

But the most peculiar thing has happened. The petition collectors seem not to have kept their own count, relying on the state. And the state made an error by double counting signatures taken before a certain date from a certain county.

And the petition stands 22,000 signatures short. Now the anti-marriage efforts must start anew and get those signatures collected and validated before February 1.

If the tables were turned, we all know that Pat Robertson and company would be declaring this to be the glorious intervention of God. He had befuddled the minds of the enemy and confused their nefarious homosexual agenda.

But I’m not going to make such claims.

Activists on both sides of the issue predicted the shortfall will be overcome in time, though.

Florida4Marriage.org blasted an urgent e-mail to supporters Tuesday announcing the crisis and urging them to “pull out all stops” in collecting signatures during the next two weeks.

But if by some chance they are not able to get their signatures… well, I may be willing to see the hand of the divine.

Huckabee: Amend Constitution to “God’s Standards”

It’s unclear whether Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee actually agrees with the strict Christian Reconstructionist views of many of his associates (there’s a lot of end-times theological differences that Baptists usually don’t go for), but there’s more evidence that his C.R. friends are at least influencing his political thoughts. Take this, for example, from a speech in Michigan yesterday:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

That strange quote even raised some eyebrows at Christianity Today:

A provocative statement, certainly. But what does “amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards” mean? Does it mean that the Constitution does not measure up to God’s standards? Is the Constitution anti-God? Would the addition of a human life amendment and a federal marriage amendment would make it measure up to God’s standards? And is Huckabee suggesting that those who oppose these amendments, say, because of their views on federalism, are trying “to change God’s standards”?

I can see how support for a human life amendment and a federal marriage amendment can win votes among some politically conservative evangelicals. But honestly, I’m thinking that this quote probably cost Huckabee more evangelical votes than it won him.

Video: Inside “Love Won Out”

Today’s videos focus on Joseph Nicolosi, who until recently always delivered Love Won Out’s opening session on “The Condition of Male Homosexuality.” In the first video Jim recalls an encounter with a greiving father attending LWO. Jim believes the message of LWO is serving to keep a relational wedge between the father and his son. In the second video Jim discusses Joseph Nicolosi’s acknowledgment that one of his former patients, Daniel Gonzales, is outside the church conference protesting.

Driving A Wedge Between Father And Son

Nicolosi Acknowledges Former Patient Now Protesting

It’s in the Blood

A reader drew my attention to a study released last month that did not get much press (if any). Using a sample of over 7,000 participants, sociologists at Minot State University in North Dakota identified a correlation between sexual orientation and both blood type and Rh factor.

Heterosexual males and females exhibited statistically identical frequencies of the A blood type, while gay men exhibited a relatively low incidence and lesbians had a relatively high incidence (p < .05). In the case of the Rh factor, unusually high proportions of homosexuals of both sexes were Rh- when compared to heterosexuals (p < .06). The findings suggest that a connection may exist between sexual orientation and genes both on chromosome 9 (where blood type is determined) and on chromosome 1 (where the Rh factor is regulated).

This study adds to the now convincing argument that the bases of orientation lie at least in part in biology. Someone needs to tell Dr. Dobson that regardless of the amount of time a father spends doting on his son, it isn’t going to affect his blood type or his Rh factor.

Today In History: ONE Magazine versus the U.S. Post Office

Today marks a very important milestone in LGBT history. Fifty years ago today, on January 13, 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its first ever pro-gay ruling in ONE Inc. v. Olesen, a landmark decision that allowed a magazine for gays and lesbians to be sent through the U.S. mail.

ONE, Inc. was founded by several members of the Los Angeles Mattachine Society who felt that a strong nationwide voice for education and advocacy was desperately needed. According to ONE, Inc.’s articles of incorporation, “…the specific and primary purposes … are to publish and disseminate a magazine dealing primarily with homosexuality from the scientific, historical and critical point of view, and to aid in the social integration and rehabilitation of the sexual variant.” But this wasn’t going to be just any magazine. Under the inaugural editorial leadership of Martin Block, Dale Jennings, Don Slater and Donald Webster Cory, ONE magazine was to be a first class product, a dramatic departure from the typewritten and mimeographed sheets which were more common at the time.

So when ONE debuted in January 1953, it sported a very sophisticated look, with bold graphics and professional typset and design. ONE’s slick offering quickly caught the attention gays and lesbians across the country, and circulation jumped to nearly 2,000 within a few months — with most subscribers paying extra to have their magazine delivered in an unmarked wrapper. Even still, ONE’s survival depended on the day jobs of its few contributors who typically worked under multiple pen names to make the staff appear larger to readers — and sometimes to protect their own identities.

By today’s standards, an early edition of ONE might look rather tame. There were no racy pictures, and even its fiction was mostly limited to depictions of longing and desire. There was rarely any evidence of physical contact in its pages. But what the magazine lacked in raciness, it made up for in audacity. ONE’s editorial tone was bold and unapologetic, covering politics, civil rights, legal issues, police harassment (which was particularly harsh in ONE’s home city of Los Angeles), employment and familial problems, and other social, philosophical, historical and psychological topics. And most importantly, ONE quickly became a voice for thousands of silent gays and lesbians across the U.S., many of whom wrote letters of deep gratitude to ONE’s editors. But in a sign of those times, all letters to the editor were published anonymously — from “m” in Winston-Salem, North Carolina or from “f” in Beaumont, Texas.

ONE filled a very critical role for gays and lesbians during a very dark time. ONE’s debut coincided with a major push to rid the U.S. civil service of homosexuals. President Dwight D. Eisenhower would sign Executive Order 10450 in April of that year, which barred gays and lesbians from federal employment with its “sexual perversion” clause. This followed a highly-publicized purge of more than 400 gays and lesbians from the civil service some three years earlier. Homosexuality was criminalized in every states, and it was stigmatized as a mental illness by the psychiatric profession. Gays were not only denounced as security risks, but risks to the very moral fiber of the nation. Homosexuals were treated as subversives, on par with the “Communist menace” on which leading politicians were staking their career. The FBI had launched a major crackdown on homosexuality across the U.S., with many gays and lesbians losing their jobs for merely receiving homophile publications in the mail. And vice squads everywhere were setting up entrapment stings in bars and other meeting places, where a simple proposition or touch could lead to arrest and public exposure.

So when ONE caught the eye of the FBI, they immediately launched an investigation to try to shut it down. They went so far as to write to the employers of ONE’s editors and writers (they all depended on their day jobs for income), saying that their employees were “deviants” and “security risks.” Fortunately, no one lost their jobs, the FBI decided it wasn’t worth their time, and ONE continued publishing.

The job of shutting down ONE then fell to the U.S. Post Office. Since its inception, Los Angeles postal authorities vetted each issue before deciding whether it was legal to ship under the Post Office’s stringent anti-obscenity standards. And since homosexuality was illegal in most states, ONE had the added problem of possibly being guilty of promoting criminal activity. The Post Office finally acted in August 1953, holding up that month’s issue for three weeks while deciding if it violated federal laws. (Ironically, the cover story for that issue was on “homosexual marriage,” an issue that is still contentious more than fifty years later.) Finally, officials in Washington decided the magazine didn’t violate federal laws and ordered the LA Post Office to release it for shipment.

ONE, true to its aggressive stance, reacted defiantly to that move in its October issue by proclaiming in an editorial printed on the cover, “ONE is not grateful”:

Your August issue is late because the postal authorities in Washington and Los Angeles had it under a microscope. They studied it carefully from the 2nd until the 18th of September and finally decided that there was nothing obscene, lewd or lascivious in it. They allowed it to continue on its way. We have been found suitable for mailing.

…But one point must be made very clear. ONE is not grateful. ONE thanks no one for this reluctant acceptance. It is true that this decision is historic. Never before has a governmental agency of this size admitted that homosexuals not only have legal rights but might have respectable motives as well. The admission is welcome, but it’s tardy and far from enough. As we sit around quietly like nice little ladies and gentlemen gradually educating the public and the courts at our leisure, thousands of homosexuals are being unjustly arrested, blackmailed, fined, jailed, intimidated, beaten, ruined and murdered. ONE’s victory might seem big and historic as you read of it in the comfort of your home (locked in the bathroom? hidden under a stack of other magazines? sealed first class?). But the deviate hearing of our late August issue through jail bars will not be overly impressed.

ONE’s editors knew they weren’t in the clear, but they didn’t know where their next threat would come from. That threat, it appears, may have come from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Alexander Wiley (R-WI), who wrote a letter of protest to U.S. Postmaster General Aurthur Summerfield. Having run across the March 1954 issue (the cover story was “The Importance of Being Different”) Sen. Wiley registered a “vigorous protest against the use of the United States mails to transmit a so-called ‘magazine’ devoted to the advancement of sexual perversions.” Allowing a homosexual magazine to operate, he wrote, “(a) runs utterly contrary to every moral principle, (b) runs utterly contrary to our intentions to safeguard our nation’s youngsters, (c) likewise, it is the very opposite of the entire purpose of our governmental security program…”

The particulars of this action wasn’t known by ONE’s editors. But as defiant as ONE was in the October 1953 issue, they knew that the threat of closure due to censorship still loomed large — that is, if finances and distribution problems didn’t get to them first. Financial pressures forced them to skip the August and September 1954 issues and they had to extend everyone’s subscriptions by two months. To try to avoid future legal problems, ONE’s editors asked Eric Julber, their young straight lawyer fresh out of law school, to write a set of rules for the staff to follow in the hopes of staying out of trouble. When readers began to complain that ONE was too tame, the editors asked Julber to print his rules in the returning October 1954 issue with a cover declaring, “You Can’t Print It!” Those rules prohibited:

(1) Lonely hearts ads, seeking pen pals or meetings.

(2) “Cheesecake” art or photos. To readers who ask, “But how about all the girlie magazines?” I can only reply that in our society, visual stimulation of man by woman is tolerated to a far greater extent than attempted visual stimulation of man by man, for what is in law a criminal purpose.

(3) Descriptions of sexual acts, or the preliminaries thereto. Again here, what is permissible in heterosexual literature is not permissible in ONE’s context.

(4) Descriptions of experiences which become too explicit. I.e., permissible: “John was my friend for a year.” Not permissible: “That night we made mad love.”

(5) Descriptions of homosexuality as a practice which the author encourages in others, or waxes too enthusiastic about.

(6) Fiction with too much physical contact between the characters. I.e., characters cannot rub knees, feel thighs, hold hands, soap backs, or undress before one another. (All examples taken from recent contributions).

Julber also insisted that he review each issue before it was sent to the publisher. But all this failed to keep ONE out of trouble — maybe because Julber didn’t strictly enforce his own rules, allowing the October 1954 issue to be arguably the raciest to date. The very same issue which ran Julber’s rules also featured a fictional short story called “Sappho Remembered,” in which two young lovers touched four times, declared their love for each other, and the story had a happy ending. Another feature, a poem, made light of the arrest of several British public figures (including actor John Gielgfud) on “morals” charges (“Lord Samuel is a legal peer / (While real are Monty’s curls!) / Some peers are seers but some are queers / And some boys WILL be girls.”). And there were two ads — one for a Swedish magazine (which, postal officials charged, meant that ONE was advertising “obscene materials”) and another for men’s pajamas and intimate wear.

That was enough for the Los Angeles Post Office to seize that issue — the one with “You Can’t Print It!” on the cover — and charge the editors with violating the 1873 Comstock Act, which prohibited sending “obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious” material through the mail.

The editors were eager to sue the Post Office, but ONE’s financial condition was so perilous that they held off for nearly a year. Julber took the case for free and looked for help from the ACLU, but they wouldn’t touch it — the ACLU was still defending anti-sodomy laws at the time. Finally it was up to young Julber alone to argue ONE’s case in federal district court that the magazine was educational and not pornographic. It didn’t go well. The judge ruled for the Post Office in March 1956, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in February 1957, calling ONE “morally depraving and debasing” and saying that the magazine “has a primary purpose of exciting lust, lewd and lascivious thoughts and sensual desires in the minds of persons reading it.”

ONE then took its case to the U.S. Supreme Court. To everyone’s surprise, the Court agreed to take the case, its first ever dealing with homosexuality. Even more surprising, the Supreme Court issued its short, one-sentence decision on January 13, 1958 without hearing oral arguments. That decision not only overturned the two lower courts, but the Court expanded the First Amendment’s free speech and press freedoms by effectively limiting the power of the Comstock Act to interfere with the written word. As a result, lesbian and gay publications could be mailed without legal repercussions, though many continued to experience harassment from the Post Office and U.S. Customs.

Editor Don Slater celebrated the ONE decision in the February 1958 issue:

By winning this decision ONE Magazine has made not only history but law as well and has changed the future for all U. S. homosexuals. Never before have homosexuals claimed their right as citizens. Not even the Berdache, nor the Greeks, nor the Napoleonic Code, nor Wolfenden “recommendations,” nor The American Law Institute “recommendations” have managed to mean so much to so many. ONE Magazine no longer asks for the right to be heard; it now exercises that right. It further requires that homosexuals be treated as a proper part of society free to discuss and educate and propagandize their beliefs with no greater limitations than for any other group.

…The New York Times has this to say about the decision: “The court today reversed a post office ban on a magazine, One, which deals with homosexuality. The petition for review filed by the lawyer, Eric Julber of Los Angeles, had apparently raised only one question: was the magazine ‘obscene’ within the statute banning importation of obscene matter? The court’s order appeared to answer: No.”

True to its educational mission, ONE, Inc founded the One Institute as an educational arm in 1956. In 1958, the ONE Institute Quarterly became the first academic journal on gay and lesbian studies in America. ONE magazine’s last issue was in 1967 following a very long and acrimonious split in ONE, Inc.’s governing board. Today, the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives houses the world’s largest research library on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,and Transgender history near the main campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Sources: Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court, by Joyce Murdoch & Deb Price.

ONE magazine, October 1953, October 1954, February, 1958.