Uganda's New Anti-Gay Law: "Where Are We Supposed to Go?"

On Monday, Uganda's president signed into law a new anti-gay bill, a modified version of a bill that was passed in 2014 but struck down by the country's Supreme Court on a technicality.  NBC News reports: 

 

Last month, Rachel Maddow reported on the U. S. evangelists who have for years been encouraging anti-gay legislation in various African states:

 

The way things are going just now in states like Texas, Arizona, and Florida, who knows whether such a law might be attempted over here one day. If so, I hope I don't live to see it.

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Queers, Fears, and Crocodile Tears

Taking care to speak out of both sides of his mouth at once, His Grace the Most Reverend and Right Honourable The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, Primate of All England and Metropolitan, has appeared on British television to say "how sorry I am for the hurt and pain, in the past and present, the Church has caused" to gays and lesbians. 

This after chairing a meeting last week of the Primates of the Anglican Communion that effectively suspended The Episcopal Church in the United States of America from the high councils of the Anglican Communion for the next three years.  Full text of the official communiqué is here. 

Why?  Because the Episcopal Church loves teh gayz so much they even marry them!  Horrors!  What terrible wickedness!  It's just the worst thing in the world!  Isn't it?

Meanwhile, the heads of the backwoods Anglican churches in Africa, South America, and other places are shouting hallelujah at this blow they have given - with Welby's help - to the "evil of homosexuality."  Some of those archbishops have outspokenly pushed for things like the infamous Kill-the-Gays bill in Uganda, and similar measures elsewhere.

All this is the latest chapter in the slow-motion breakup of the Anglican Communion - all on account of the filthy, nasty, perverted, unnatural gays, like you and me - a pity in one sense, but if the Archbishop of Canterbury wants to end up as merely the tool and titular head of a bunch of howling, foaming, murderous homophobes, that's his lookout.

The American church, of course, has been entirely independent of the Church of England since 1776, and will keep right on loving the gays, as newly installed Presiding Bishop Michael Curry says, more charitably than your Head Trucker is able to do:

Wikipedia map of the Anglican Communion,
comprising 38 provinces and 85 million members,
the third-largest Christian denomination in the world, after
the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
Click to enlarge.  For legend, click here.

Uniquely Nasty

A new documentary film from Yahoo News:

Yahoo News presents a groundbreaking documentary "Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government's War on Gays." The film is a historical investigation into a dark, and little known, chapter of America's recent past, including new details about J. Edgar Hoover's "sex deviates" program and a blackmail threat that led to the suicide of a U.S. senator - an event that haunted a generation of gays in politics.

Ugandan Anti-Gay Law Overturned

The Constitutional Court of Uganda in session

The New York Times reports:

A Ugandan court on Friday struck down a punitive anti-gay law that has strained Uganda’s relations with the West, but the court ruled on narrow technical grounds, preserving the possibility that the measure could be revived.

In front of an overflowing courtroom, a panel of five judges announced that the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which punishes some gay behavior with life in prison, was invalid because it had been passed by Parliament without a proper quorum.

“We’re very happy,” said Sylvia Tamale, a Ugandan law professor who has supported gay rights despite constant threats and harassment. “But it’s unfortunate that the court did not deal with the substantive issues that violate our rights.”

Uganda’s government, which is tightly controlled by President Yoweri Museveni, a former guerrilla fighter who has ruled for 28 years, did not immediately indicate if it was going to appeal.

Uganda’s vehement anti-gay movement began in 2009 after American preachers came to Uganda and worked closely with Ugandan legislators to draft a bill that called for putting gay people to death.

After an international outcry, with several Western countries threatening to cut aid, the Ugandan government modified the bill to make “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by life in prison. The bill was passed by Parliament in December, with advocates calling it an “early Christmas gift.” Mr. Museveni publicly signed it into law in February.

In June, the Obama administration announced it was cutting back on aid, imposing visa restrictions and canceling a regional military exercise as a message to “reinforce our support for human rights of all Ugandans, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.” Several other countries also suspended assistance to Uganda.

Proponents plan to appeal the ruling, however.

Dale Hansen is Ticked Off

Find out why in this clip of the famed Dallas sportscaster defending Michael Sam - even if, like me, you don't care anything about football, this is a three-snap putdown not to be missed.




And some poignant thoughts emailed to me over the weekend by my best friend and fellow Pork Boy, M.P., with permission:

Yes it's all so amazing, that what we never dreamed in our wildest we would see in this world . . . no one may understand what its like to be hated and still be invisible. Hated because you are just who you are, and invisible because you need to stay that way at least for your own safety, out of fear, to gain respect, even pretend to get love, but also for the pathetic reason that you can pretend that way that you are not hated, and move through day after day trying to eke out a life that seems to have no meaning in this world. That you will never be "as human" as real people, able to love and live happily as real people, to have jobs and bank accounts and normal lives like real people. Never be, especially in the eyes of God, as good as "real people" - in fact, you are hated and absolutely bound to hell, and would surely ruin all the world and those around you, bring them to hell with you, if you don't remain invisible. . . .

Today being a gay man means I'm a man like any other, and that a man who is Gay (and black even) can celebrate that he's an outstanding athlete, and kiss his boyfriend to show his excitement, and the world sees him as he's not invisible. And they celebrate his good fortune, even his kiss on national, even international TV. Today I can be a gay man and celebrate that I am a good cook and artist, love beauty, create beauty, love music, dance, poetry, philosophy, and those gifts are celebrated in me because of the fact that I'm GAY. and so I write these words to you my friend because no one but us who have been invisible get it. That all may become EX-Invisibles, and that children in the future who are like us never feel the need to be unseen, unheard, unloved - for them and for us is why tears run down my face as I write this, why tears ran down Michael Sam's face, and mine then as I watched him.

You Disgusting Homo

Photo:  the Gaily Grind.

The President of Uganda doesn't like you one little bit, you dirty queer, because he has proof from Uganda's top scientists that you weren't born gay - you just choose to be a nasty faggot.  He says so in an interview with CNN's Zain Verjee (watch the whole interview at the link):

After signing the bill that made some homosexual acts punishable by life in prison, Museveni told CNN's Zain Verjee that, in his view, being homosexual is "unnatural" and not a human right.

"They're disgusting. What sort of people are they?" he said. "I never knew what they were doing. I've been told recently that what they do is terrible. Disgusting. But I was ready to ignore that if there was proof that that's how he is born, abnormal. But now the proof is not there."

Museveni had commissioned a group of Ugandan government scientists to study whether homosexuality is "learned," concluding that it is a matter of choice.

"I was regarding it as an inborn problem," he said. "Genetic distortion -- that was my argument. But now our scientists have knocked this one out."

Yesterday, President Museveni signed into law the Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014, which means life in prison for homosex, or even getting married to a person of the same sex. So can anyone found to be "promoting" homosexuality in any way.  Ugandans living abroad can also be extradited home for punishment for any offense named in the law. The bill originally specified the death sentence, but the penalty was reduced to life imprisonment in the final version.

Ugandan newspaper front page from 2010; gay activist David Kato was subsequently beaten to death in his home.

The Ugandan tabloid Red Pepper today printed a list of 200 homosexuals. When signing the law, Museveni told the assembled crowd: "One of the cultures that we detest is oral sex. The mouth is for picking food, not for sex. We know the address for sex. That address [the mouth] is not for sex. It is not healthy." 

A similar bill was enacted in Nigeria last month, where judges have sentenced offenders in the Muslim northern part of the country to be whipped, while crowds have rioted in the streets protesting such judicial leniency, and threatened to burn down the courthouse - the frenzied crowds want to exercise their god-given right to stone the devilish homos to death, as prescribed by sharia law.

Thus begins a new Holocaust, which is largely due to the work of American evangelists like Scott Lively, who have spread their message of hate and murder to Uganda, Nigeria, Russia, and other parts of the world. Lively is currently facing a charge of crimes against humanity, but your Head Trucker doesn't think it will stick.

Here's the text of the bill. Read it. Keep our Ugandan brothers and and sisters in your thoughts and prayers, and never forget that this is exactly what the Christianists would do to us right here in the USA - if only they could.

Official trailer for the 2013 documentary God Loves Uganda, detailing the extensive antigay influence of American evangelicals:



New York Times op-doc, The Gospel of Intolerance, using footage from God Loves Uganda:

Married in Salt Lake City

Newlyweds:  Michael Ferguson and Seth Anderson tweeted out this photo with the caption, "Me and my new husband!  My polygamous Mormon great-grandparents would be so proud!"

My stars, yesterday New Mexico, today Utah - when it rains, it pours.  The Salt Lake Tribune reports on today's breathtaking development in the Beehive State, the heart of Mormonism:

A federal judge in Utah Friday struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process.

"The state’s current laws deny its gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry and, in so doing, demean the dignity of these same-sex couples for no rational reason," wrote U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Shelby. "Accordingly, the court finds that these laws are unconstitutional."

Ryan Bruckman, spokesman for the Utah Attorney General’s Office, said its attorneys plan to appeal the decision and were currently drafting a motion to seek a stay of the ruling "as quickly as we can get it taken care of."

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert issued this statement late Friday afternoon: "I am very disappointed an activist federal judge is attempting to override the will of the people of Utah. I am working with my legal counsel and the acting Attorney General to determine the best course to defend traditional marriage within the borders of Utah."

Several hundred people descended on the Salt Lake County Clerk’s Office Friday afternoon to get licenses.

The decision in full:

Utah Marriage Decision by joenyc

However, on the other side of the world, the Parliament of Uganda today passed a bill imposing life in prison for "aggravated homosexuality"; citizens who fail to snitch on their gay relatives or neighbors can be imprisoned as well.


Update, 7:55 a.m., 12/21: Utah has filed an emergency request for a stay of the District Court's ruling with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

From Russia with Love

 

 

 

Okay, this story and these pictures just made your Head Trucker lose it, totally. Groups of gays and lesbians and the rest of the LGBT community gathered quietly all across the vast extent of Russia yesterday, from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, to take pictures and thank the world for its moral support as the Putin government grinds down upon them. Stop whatever you are doing right now and go scroll down the page at Americablog, and look at those signs and those faces.

Event coordinator Natalia Tsymbalova explains in a Facebook message:

We, Russian LGBT people and their allies, would like to thank all the people around the world who support us and express their concern about the events in our country in hope of making a difference and pulling Russia out of a tightening medieval darkness.

To show that global support and solidarity are very important for all of us, we organized in response an acknowledgment action "From Russia with Love."

We did not plan this flashmob as an action to attract public attention. It was a friendly get-together to make a photo-shoot in the open. Our posters did not carry political information: we just wrote words of gratitude without even indicating to whom and for what: those who we are sending our smiles and thanks to, will understand it anyway.

Despite police’s nervous attention and a few attempts to disrupt us, we are glad that we were able to finish our action and send our friends abroad our deepest gratitude – this is the least we can do now. Thank you for your support and solidarity! Spasibo!

A tightening medieval darkness, exactly. And all of our gay brothers and sisters there are trapped like rats - as surely as the Jews were in Nazi Germany. 

The Jews in Germany and other Western countries at that time had enjoyed full civil rights and political equality for a century or more - but nobody went to war to save the Jews, or lifted a finger to stop the persecution of them.  Most countries, including our own, even refused to take as refugees the few Jews who could get out of Germany before the war started.

And nobody will go to war to save the gays, if it comes to that. No, they are trapped and completely at the mercy of their own dictatorial government and fanatical neighbors - whipped into a frenzy of hate by American evangelists who have toured around Russia, spreading every possible lie and stirring up violence.

You can protest and boycott all you want - but what concrete good will any of it do, really?   History, including our own recent American history, has shown time after time that governments set upon a certain course of action simply don't care what happens in piddling little demonstrations in other lands, or even in their own, which are easily enough dispersed and ignored.

What terrible things may befall our gay brothers and sisters as the shadows fall, I can hardly bear to think. It breaks my heart.  And yet there they are in these lovely snapshots, framed forever in sunlight and tranquility, smiling at us, heads yet held high with hope - bearing witness to the world.

God bless them.

For the Record

Unknown male couple from the late 1800's
seem to peer at us through the mists of time;
found at Antique Erotic.

Your Head Trucker just wants to say a thing or two for the benefit of any posterity who may read these lines, years distant from now. Not that I really expect anyone to do so; I write simply for my own pleasure, without trying to be any sort of noteworthy author - that I leave to the big dogs who have more ambition, more energy, and more finances than I do.

First, there was a country song popular about twenty years ago with a title and chorus of "one step forward and two steps back" - which certainly seems to describe the progress of equal rights for gays and the rest of the unpronounceable alphabet. While we are still basking in the happy glow of last month's Supreme Court rulings, it seems the antigay forces have quickened their step and gotten even more vicious and violent. Your Head Trucker is aware of the utterly horrible things that have been happening in recent days in Russia, Cameroon, Haiti, Jamaica, and in other parts of the world, and even in some of our own big cities. But for reasons of my own personal equanimity, I just don't have the heart to write about all that - the links to news stories in the sidebar will give you all the updates you fellas can stand on those terrible things.

Which just goes to show that merely gaining all the legal victories we deserve to establish our civil rights and equal dignity before the law does not mean that hate and contempt will melt away in a puff of green smoke, like the Wicked Witch of the West. A change in the laws does lead over time to greater acceptance by the majority of decent folks, perhaps, as happened in the formerly segregated South - but even now, fifty years after the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement, there remains among a certain percentage of the population - and not only in Dixie, mind you - a residuum of bigotry and disdain for blacks. As well as for women, Latinos, Asians, and all the other minorities you care to name.   The bitterness of hatred and resentment is such an addictive bone to chew: always tasty but never satisfying.

Rogers and Hammerstein wrote the famous song that says "you've got to be carefully taught" - to hate. But your Head Trucker wonders if they didn't get that backwards. It seems to me that fear, contempt, and hatred of the Other is the default attitude of human nature, perhaps an atavistic reaction to the presence of strangers not of "our tribe," and henceforth dangerous and not to be trusted: certainly not one of Us. In my view, it takes careful education and good upbringing - the achievement of an enlightened mind, which does not come without effort - to have a truly broad, tolerant outlook on humanity and its manifold variations.

Your Head Trucker is also aware, but likewise not minded to write about, the rash of lawsuits now breaking out across the country, seeking to overturn state marriage laws and constitutional amendments. Some of these seem premature and ill-advised to me, jumping the gun a bit, but I'm no lawyer, so I really can't say for sure. But I did note what one of the lawyers still trying to keep Prop 8 valid in California said the other day: something to the effect that liberals should be wary of state officials picking and choosing which laws they will defend, or exercising their individual judgment on constitutionality, because one day the tables may be turned, and it will be officials upholding some conservative measure against the will of the majority. Which is a point worth thinking about. There's a right and a wrong way to do everything, you know? But someone else can run with that ball, I just note my concern about sensible strategy and proper procedures for the record here.

But in any case, it will not do to think that because we have won a couple of great victories that the war is over, and only blue skies and pink clouds lie before us. Your Head Trucker recalls the case of the Jews in Europe, who were continually harassed, persecuted, and driven out of one country or another for the better part of two thousand years. Not until the French Revolution were Jews accorded civil rights in France and its territories, and fifty years or more later in the rest of Europe. All well and good.

But the deep roots of contempt and hatred - as deep and ancient in Christendom as those against homosexuals - remained, though the trunk and branches had been lopped off by law. And then it all burst out again, magnified and barbaric, in the Holocaust. Who can say that such a thing can never happen to the gay community? History takes strange turnings and windings as mankind lurches and stumbles along. Many nations in Africa and in what used to be called the Soviet Bloc are already unleashing a sort of gay Holocaust, it seems - spurred on by the devilish propaganda of American evangelists.

Don't think it can never happen here. Anything can happen, anywhere, anytime, under the right conditions. But as your Head Trucker will likely have been gathered to his ancestors by that time, if ever it does happen, he leaves the question to be considered by another generation.

But one thing is certain, and that is the continuing responsibility to do as you would be done by, which is incumbent upon all civilized people. This is what it means to be fully human, exercising freedom in accordance with reason and with brotherly love; to do less is to sink to the level of the beasts, a waste of the human potential for good.

Liberty is a fine thing, but it is not license. Freedom is not permission to run wild and say or do anything that pops into your head without considering the consequences for yourself and others: that is merely puerile ego let loose, and is unworthy of civilized men and women.

Apart from the moral considerations, it is also eminently practical - because of course, what goes around comes around, and that is just as true for the gays, individually and collectively, as it is for everybody else. For one thing, violence in any form is completely unacceptable: there was an incident a week or two ago at the Pride parade in Seattle, I think it was, where a group of lesbians for some reason beat a lone antigay protestor (a man) to the ground - I saw a short clip of it, and it seemed that he was just holding a sign and was attacked by the women, not the other way around.

I haven't followed up on the story, but not only is it revolting to witness public violence, started by whichever side, but it's also very stupid: we gays are only 3 or 4 percent of the population, and 99 percent of us have probably never been in any kind of fight since kindergarten. What do you think the repercussions would be on individual gays around the country if the lower sort of bigots got the idea that we were prone to violence? We are already seeing a surge in the number of antigay assaults and beatings and hate crimes around the country - if we start beating up on people, it will only add gasoline to the flames. A very, very stupid idea.

For another thing, in his final remarks in the House of Lords over the eminent, unstoppable passage of the same-sex marriage bill last week, Conservative peer Lord Cormack - the very picture of an English gentleman - made a rather moving plea against a spirit of triumphalism among the gays - which Baroness Barker, a lesbian and Liberal Democrat, agreed would be highly inappropriate, although the happiness of the event was something to be celebrated. This courtly exchange is wisdom, for those who have ears to hear.

And for the record, your Head Trucker wants to say that some of the well-known gay bloggers and perennial "spokesmen" for gay rights who are often seen on TV or quoted in print simply do not represent me. I could give a long, long list of examples here, but I think just one will suffice: this week, the articulate but foul-mouthed and arrogant Dan Savage, on the Bill Maher show, during an exchange about marriage and procreation, said the biological arguments were irrelevant to him, for he was going to "keep on inseminating my boyfriend and hope for the best" - i.e., a baby. Which visibly shocked one of the conservative panelists. This sort of deliberate rudeness does not win us any friends; it just feeds their loathing for the "filthy queers." And this kind of prickish disrespect of opponents, even when they are in the wrong, will not escape a payback in the scheme of things. Again, a word to the wise is sufficient.

Finally, I just want to say, when future generations try to penetrate the great cloud of chatter and squawking and theorizing and bitching that envelops all questions of gay rights like a thick fog, that what the big-city folks and the hipsters and the radicals and the cool people, and all their ilk, have to say is, a great deal of it, irrelevant to me. What I am all about is very simple: My Story is linked in the sidebar, for those who care to know where I am coming from. And where I have always been headed is exemplified in the photograph at the top of this post: just the simple, homely fact of two men loving each other, happy together, unscorned, untrammeled, undespised. Which is to say, just the same sort of simple hope that every straight couple has for love and happiness and a quiet place in the sun.

That's all I really have to say, and all I ever really wanted. All the rest is just vanitas.  Life is so short in this cramped, confused, and often brutal world - in the end, love is all that really matters, and all that remains of us beyond the grave.

The Game of the States

I always wanted to have that board game as a kid, but never got it.  Anyway, here's the latest marriage map of the country, courtesy of Freedom to Marry:

Note that same-sex marriage is not effective in Minnesota and Rhode Island until August 1st.

BTW, the latest USA Today poll shows a record high of 55%-40% nationwide in favor of same-sex marriage. The only groups with majorities not in favor are, as you might expect, Republicans, Southerners, and the over-65's.

Having said that, it's rather amazing how closely their views align with those of Russian President Putin, who has just signed a law banning all gay pride rallies and any other public form of support - "to protect the children," of course. American conservatives have in fact already been sidling up to the formerly dreaded Ruskies, and the notorious Scott Lively, who got Ugandan politicians all fired up to pass the "Kill the Gays" bill a few years back, has just finished a 50-city speaking tour in Russia. He boasts that the new law substantially follows recommendations he made.

May he rot in hell, is what your Head Trucker says. Meanwhile, a small contingent of pride demonstrators was beaten and arrested in Moscow this weekend. This is exactly what them good ol' boy, Bible-believing, God-fearing American patriots want to see happen here - and worse, and would do in a heartbeat to you and me, if only they could.



And in St. Petersburg, antigay thugs broke through police protection to beat up the gays:




Bottom line: While we're all deservedly a bit giddy over the Supreme Court rulings here, give a thought to our persecuted brothers and sisters in other lands.  And don't bitch so much about life in America, Miss Thing. You could living be in a much worse place.

Obama Holds Pride Reception at the White House

Your tax dollars at work in a fabulous way yesterday; transcript here.



The Secretary of State also gave a shout-out for Pride:



As did - OMG - the Secretary of Defense. Just pretty damn amazing to me, boys.



I remember when times were very, very different. As in this trailer for a new documentary in the works, The Lavender Scare - which you should read up on if you don't already know about.



You can read more about the book and about the movie, slated for release this fall.

The important thing is to forgive - but never forget that the witch hunts happened. And could happen again. History shows that the path to the future often takes some strange twists and turns, boys. So never be complacent about your freedom and your civil rights.

Or anybody else's.  If "liberty and justice for all" means anything, it means as Americans, we're all in this together.

Newsbites


At the moment it's actually 99 degrees here in Texas, which feels like one big toaster oven.  Don't feel like writing much today, so you guys can go read these stories if you want to:

Ghana Regional Minister Orders All Gays Arrested

--Both Christian and Muslim groups rejoice, now that God's wrath has been averted; an MP looks forward to lynching parties.

Senate Confirms First Openly Gay Man as Federal Judge, 80-13
 
--A surprising yawn.  Even major homophobes like John Cornyn (R-TX) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) didn't bat an eye while voting for J. Paul Oetken's lifetime appointment to the Manhattan bench.  Go figure.

15 Years after DOMA, Hearing Reveals a Nation Transformed

--This last article gives a good recap of pre-DOMA attempts to win marriage recognition, and profiles two early leaders in the marriage fight:  Evan Wolfson and Andrew Sullivan.

Boehner Says No House Vote on DOMA Repeal

--The Republican Speaker of the House will not allow a vote on DOMA, regardless of the Senate hearings on this topic.

DOMA Repeal and the Truth about Full Faith & Credit

--Gay law professor and activist gives a very detailed explanation of why repealing DOMA won't force all states to recognize same-sex marriages.

Photo:  Honk to Shawn Stingel.

The Lavender Scare

Your Head Trucker believes it to be very important that we remember the past and deeply consider where we were just a few years ago, only half a lifetime.  People who don't remember the past are liable to be sucked under the wheels of the ever-turning hate machine that is always, always in the midst of the human race - and always in the human heart - let's not let that happen.

It was a time when a federal agency could send a memo like this to an employee - just before firing him, with no recourse, no appeal:

We have received a report concerning you. It has been reported that you had permitted a man to perform a homosexual act (fellatio) on you. Also, that you related that you find members of the male sex attractive; that you have been in bed with men; and that you have enjoyed embracing them. Is this report true?

New film:



And do take time to listen to the story of our grand old man, Frank Kameny, the first who ever took the government to court over gay rights, and the guy who invented the phrase "Gay is Good" (we should bring that back and use it more often):



You have to remember it was a very different period; kids and adults alike had it drilled into their heads that the homos were an active, terrifying danger to society, as this warning film from 1961 shows:



And so gays and lesbians were spied on, sent to reform school, expelled from college, fired from their jobs, beaten, arrested, imprisoned, confined in mental wards, lobotomized, and hounded to death for being evil queers: go read up on the Boise witch hunt in Idaho or the Johns Committee in Florida. To name but two.

All our gains have been very hard-won.  There are many among us who remember those days; and many an unknown soul, isolated and afraid, who did not survive the hatred and persecution.  Don't forget, is all I'm saying. 

Never forget.

More striking in his correspondence, however, is an almost magisterial serenity. He exhibits an unshakable and unmistakably American confidence that all the great and mighty, no matter their number or power, must bow to one weak man who has the Founders' promise on his side. "We are honorable people who deal with others honorably and in good faith," he insisted to the Un-American Activities Committee. "We expect to be dealt with in the same fashion -- especially by our governmental officials." There you hear the pipsqueak, indomitable voice of equality.

For Kameny's papers to join Thurgood Marshall's and Daniel Patrick Moynihan's, and for his signs to join Jefferson's writing desk and Lincoln's inkwell, seems fitting. All of those men understood that the words of 1776 set in motion a moral engine unlike any the world had ever seen; and all understood that the logic of equality could be delayed but not denied. Kameny, like them, believed that the Declaration of Independence means exactly what it says, and like them he made its promise his purpose.

My partner, Michael, and I are among the millions who owe some large measure of our happiness to Kameny's pursuits. This Thanksgiving found me grateful that one pariah fought back, never imagining he could fail; even more grateful to live in a country with a conscience; most grateful of all to know that there are generations of Franklin Kamenys yet to be born.

--Jonathan Rauch, 2006

Was Ex-Gay, Now Ex-Mormon

You have to watch this terrific video by Steve, who tells it like it is:




And this one by Chad, who was excommunicated for publishing the Men on a Mission calendar. Then a week after graduation, Brigham Young University actually revoked his college degree.

Homosexuality in America - 1964

Decoy officer and partner lead handcuffed homosexual away in Hollywood.  When arrested for soliciting, he burst into tears. 

--Life magazine, June 26, 1964


Found this over on Box Turtle Bulletin, a link to the 1964 Life magazine article "Homosexuality in America."  While we are celebrating Pride and enjoying the afterglow of victory for equal marriage in New York, it's important to remember just how far we've come. 

Do the homosexuals, like the Communists, intend to bury us?  Yes indeed, suggested a startling front-page story in the New York Times and other newspapers last month.  A committee of the highly respected New York Academy of Medicine had come to the conclusion that American homosexuals want far more than to be merely tolerated and even more than to be grudgingly accepted.  Their true goal, said an Academy report, is to convince the world that homosexuality is a "desirable, noble, preferable way of life" - the secret of the greatness of Ancient Greece and "a perfect answer to the problem of the population explosion."

To its credit, Life did try to dispel the outright hysteria:

The Academy committee was dead wrong.  Only a tiny minority of U.S. homosexuals would ever beat the drums so sensationally for their way of life.

But then, as was usual in that pre-Stonewall period, the article went on to dwell relentlessly on the hopelessness of those sick, pathetic, messed-up homos:

Far more of them regard their homosexuality as an affliction.  The lot of the homosexual, as the photographs and article on the preceding pages have shown, is often furtive, hazardous and lonely.  Many homosexuals have gone to psychiatrists begging desperately for help in escaping a life that they had decided was utterly intolerable.

Notice the effect of the subordinate clause here:  they had decided.  Like some confused, childish soul who tries this and tries that, and dislikes all the choices, for no good reason.

But hell, who wouldn't feel that life was intolerable, being labeled night and day not only insane, but also a criminal, and a literally god-damned, hellbound sinner?  Because that is exactly the way it was, living back then in the good old Mayberry days.  I know.  I was there.

So it's somewhat startling to be reminded by this article that notwithstanding all the hatred and hysteria, some big cities had very lively gay communities - with all the very same types of people we still have:  drag queens, leathermen, preppies, long-term couples, hustlers, activists, and so on.  Plus ca change . . . .

But sometimes things do change, for real.  In the context of the above committee report, it's ironic that 47 years later, the American Medical Association has come out for marriage equality.

Then again, some Barneys are stuck back in the kitchen with Aunt Bea:




Bonus: Joe.My.God. has posted the original 1969 report by the New York Daily News on the Stonewall riots. This long, thoroughly homophobic article, titled "HOMO NEST RAIDED - QUEEN BEES ARE STINGING MAD," drips with mockery and sneering condescension at the girly guys who made trouble for the police one hot night in the Village. The unwittingly ironic kicker comes at the very end, though:

The men of the First Division were unable to find any humor in the situation, despite the comical overtones of the raid.

"They were throwing more than lace hankies," one inspector said. "I was almost decapitated by a slab of thick glass. It was thrown like a discus and just missed my throat by inches. The beer can didn't miss, though, it hit me right above the temple." . . .

The police are sure of one thing. They haven't heard the last from the Girls of Christopher Street.

As Joe says, they sure fucking haven't.

God Still Hates You, Faggot

From an October 20 interview with Cardinal-designate Raymond Burke, telling Catholics they are obliged to vote in accordance with the teachings of their faith - and against all those intrinsically evil homos like you and me, bud:



And via David Mixner, from the I'm From Driftwood blog, here's the result of this kind of oh-so-holy teaching - decide for yourself who's being truly evil:





Also, listen to Dan Savage's description of the horrific beating his first boyfriend got as a young teen when he came out to his ultra-religious father, beginning at the 2:50 mark:



My late husband's first partner was likewise thrown out of his parents' house at age 16 and walked or hitchhiked all the way from northern Oklahoma to the home of a kindly aunt in New Orleans, with no money and his few belongings in a plastic garbage bag.

And these religious motherfuckers have the gall to say WE are intrincially evil?  What's wrong with this picture, I ask you.

It's not that religion is necessarily a bad thing - it's the monstrous, ignorant, self-righteous misuse of religion as a weapon of control that is evil.  Which human beings are awfully good at.


FYI, there was just as much discussion over the "naturalness" of homosex back among the ancient Greeks and Romans as there is today - the difference being, nobody back then had a Bible to beat people over the head with, so most folks just shrugged and minded their own business.

Until the Christians came to power.  One of these days, I'm going to write a nice big post about all that, but in the meantime I highly recommend Louis Crompton's monumental historical survey Homosexuality and Civilization, among others.

No More Debate: John Shelby Spong

A manifesto by the retired Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Newark, John Shelby Spong, a longtime advocate for LGBT people:

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant." I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement.

I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

Continued after the jump . . .

Last of the Pink Triangles

Via Joe.My.God.:  Rudolf Brazda, last known gay survivor of the Republican Teabagger Fox News Christianist Nazi concentration camps, tells his story:



If you've not seen it already, your Head Trucker highly recommends watching Paragraph 175, which contains interviews and stories of many pink-triangle survivors, and some who didn't survive.  Unlike the interview above, it's done mainly in English.  This is essential knowledge of our history, boys - see the full video, and don't look away. 

The title refers to the section of the German law code that outlawed all homosexual activity.

White House Denounces Malawi Gay Verdict

Following the State Department's similar statement, the Obama Administration sharply condemned the sentencing of two gay men in Malawi to 14 years at hard labor - for holding an engagement ceremony:

The United States strongly condemns the conviction and harsh sentencing of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga in Malawi. The criminalization of sexual orientation and gender identity is unconscionable, and this case mars the human rights record of Malawi. We urge Malawi and all countries to stop using sexual orientation or gender identity as the basis for arrest, detention, or execution.

Thank you, Mr. President and Madam Secretary.

Last week, British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell received this communication from Chimbalanga:

I love Steven so much. If people or the the world cannot give me the chance and freedom to continue living with him as my lover, then I am better off here in prison. Freedom without him is useless and meaningless.

Bless them.

Andrew Sullivan:

The whole thing is a reminder to me of the scale of oppression that the overwhelming majority of gay people still experience on this planet. In the West, we have great arguments about what equality means, priorities among reforms, what the limits of outing are, and the complex nature of human sexuality. For many gay people elsewhere, it is a triumph to stay alive, just as it has been for centuries, let alone find a love that can sustain you through your life.

(Link to Wikipedia article and map added by me.)

WTF: Uganda Protects Polygamy

How.Very.Interesting.  I had no idea.  Honk to Box Turtle Bulletin for this gem from the Ugandan newspaper Daily Monitor:  "Government Asks Court to Protect Polygamy."  Spelling as given in the original:

The state on Thursday moved to protect the principal that a man can have more than one wife.  The Attorney General’s office has responded to a petition seeking to nullify the practice of polygamy by arguing that polgymay is protected by the Constitution under Article 37.

The Attorney General’s defence of the practice that allows a man to marry more than one wife follows a petitioned filed by human rights group, Mifumi Uganda Ltd, on February 8, 2010 asking the Constitutional Court to declare that the practice violated the right to equality between men and women and therefore was unconstitutional.

But Attonery General Khiddu Makubuya stated in his response to the petition, that the law does not stop two consenting adults to choose the marriage of their choice.  He said polygamy was protected under Article 37 of the Constitution which gives everyone the right “to belong, practice, enjoy, profess and promote any culture, tradition and religion of his or her own choice.”

The utter and obvious absurdity here, in a country considering a law to execute gays and lesbians even for merely talking about their sexuality, is so great that anything I could say would seem superfluous.