In 1962, the Mansfield (Ohio) Police Department stationed officers armed with a movie camera behind a two-way mirror in a public restroom known for its "cruisy" atmosphere. With the help of the footage shot, dozens of men were arrested, prosecuted, and convicted on
sodomy charges, which at the time carried mandatory minimum sentences of a year in prison. In 2007, the original surveillance footage was obtained by filmmaker
William E.
Jones. He's screened the unedited 56 minute film as
Tearoom at festivals and museums the world over, providing a clandestine look at the scrutiny small-town Midwestern gay men faced in the 1960's. [
warning:
explicit,
NSFW material lies beyond most links]
[more inside]
posted by item
on Feb 9, 2012 -
82 comments
The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government.
- Justice Anthony Kennedy
John Geddes Lawrence, the defendant in
the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that declared sodomy laws unconstitutional across the country, died on Nov. 20, according to
an obituary posted by R.S. Farmer Funeral Home in Silsbee, Texas. He was 68.
[more inside]
posted by rtha
on Dec 28, 2011 -
33 comments
Someone claiming to be an attorney is attempting to scrub the Internet of
"private, obscene, lewd and pornographic photographs" of Colton Haynes, the star of MTV's new series
Teen Wolf. Turns out, however, that the photos are neither private, nor obscene, nor porographic: they were part of a playful photo-spread published by
XY Magazine in March of 2006. Or as Queerty so elegantly puts it, "
XY Boytoy All Grown Up & Having Legal Regrets Now That He's On MTV." Markedly different, they point out, than when
Real World star Dustin Zito tried to
scrub out his gay porn past.
posted by hermitosis
on Sep 7, 2011 -
35 comments
Fans know him as Tonéx. His eccentric style and vertiginous high notes helped make him one of the most acclaimed praise singers of the past decade, and, for a time, one of the most successful. ... This past September, the television host known as Lexi broadcast an interview [Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3] with Tonéx on the Word Network, a gospel channel, in which he made his clearest public statements about his sexual orientation. He is, within the church world, the first high-profile gospel singer in history to come out of the closet. Within hours, he started to realize what he had done. His relationship with the mainstream gospel industry was effectively over.
From a fascinating
article in the most recent New Yorker [abstract only].
This podcast [freely accessible] with the author of the article, Kelefah Sanneh, delves into the
rarely discussed "secret" in the black church that many gospel musicians have been and are gay. Sanneh touches on the stories of both
James Cleveland, the creator of the modern gospel sound who died of AIDS in 1991, and one of his backup singers, Carl Bean, who became famous for the 70s disco hit
"I Was Born This Way." One contemporary preacher and gospel singer that Sanneh discusses in relation to Tonéx is
Donnie McClurkin, a man made infamous during the Obama campaign for railing against homosexuals in Southern Black churches. McClurkin has admitted to
engaging in homosexual acts for 20 years but does not identify as gay and believes a strong Christian faith can deliver a person from the "sin" of homosexuality. He recently delivered a sermon directed at young black homosexuals in the church, specifically calling out Tonéx. [McClurkin sermon
Part 1 /
Part 2 /
Part 3]
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates
on Feb 2, 2010 -
44 comments
1969: The Year of Gay Liberation is an online exhibit of the New York Public Library focusing on the radical gay rights movements of the late sixties and early seventies, focusing on the organizations The Mattachine Society of New York, Daughters of Bilitis, Gay News, Gay Liberation Front, Radicalesbians, Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries and the Gay Activists Alliance, and the events of the Stonewall Riot and Christopher Street Liberation Day. This is but one part of the NYPL's fine
LGBT collection, which includes, among other things,
resources for teens,
AIDS/HIV collections, and digital collections on
ACT UP,
Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen,
Bessie Bonehill,
Gertrude Stein,
Gran Fury,
Julian Eltinge,
Richard Wandel and
Walt Whitman.
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 1, 2009 -
14 comments
Saturday, Aug 1, a gunman walked into a gay youth club in Tel Aviv at app. 22:40 pm and
started firing a gun indiscriminately at the teenagers who were there. Twelve were injured, four of them in critical condition, and two were instantly killed.
[more inside]
posted by alona
on Aug 3, 2009 -
49 comments
An ancient tradition or despicable exploitation? As in ancient Greece and Shakespeare's theatre,
boys dress as women to entertain men. A hint of Afghan homosexuality was included in the movie
The Kite Runner. An Uzbekistan theatre group is presenting
two plays on this theme in Seattle this month. The homosexual element of Afghan culture has waxed and waned depending on who is invading their country at the time.
posted by binturong
on Apr 1, 2008 -
109 comments
People with a History is "an online guide to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans history." Ranging from
the first stirrings of civilization to the modern day, People with a History gathers together original sources and academic articles dealing with queerness throughout history. To give you a feel for the wealth of material on the site, here are a few pages that caught my interest:
The Vikings and Homosexuality,
Coptic Spell: Spell for a Man to Obtain a Male Lover,
an acount of a gay marriage ceremony described by Michel de Montaigne,
But Among Our Own Selves (an 18th Century gay ballad),
a chapter from The Life of St. Theodore of Sykeon, a 7th Century Byzantine monk and bishop, which mentions
adelphopoiesis, or the
rite of brothermaking,
Wu Tsao, 19th Century Chinese lesbian poet, and finally
Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men.
posted by Kattullus
on Feb 2, 2008 -
15 comments
In 1955, at least twelve men in Boise, Idaho were arrested for
"infamous crimes against nature.". In the resulting dragnet, the vice president of the Idaho First National Bank was
sentenced to seven years in prison, while national magazines fomented a McCarthyite
Lavender Scare with headlines such as
Male Pervert Ring Seduces 1,000 Boys. This dark chapter in
Idaho gay history was documented in both John Gerassi's 1966 book,
The Boys of Boise and the recent film,
The Fall of '55, by documentarian
Seth Randal, but neither Gerassi nor Randal could identify
The Queen, a closeted but politically connected homosexual who allegedly used his massive clout to stop the witch hunt.
posted by jonp72
on Aug 28, 2007 -
45 comments
Is Your Baby Gay? Southern Baptist theologian Albert Mohler has come out to support stem cell research:
If a biological basis [for homosexuality] is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.
posted by parmanparman
on Mar 8, 2007 -
121 comments
A multimedia exhibit on the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, Wikipedia on gays under the Nazis,
Paragraph 175 - a documentary profiling gay survivors of Nazi era policies, and
memorials of the gay Holocaust. A few Nazi-era gay and lesbian figures of note:
- A Berlin intellectual and pioneer in sexuality research, and an early advocate for gay rights, (controversial in part for his early support of
outing)
Magnus Herschfeld died in exile after Nazis destroyed his Institute of Sexual Science.
- The butch orchestra conductor
Frieda Belinfante and gay artist
William Arondeus were part of the same resistance group that first falsified papers for Dutch Jews, and then when Nazi's began to compare these falsified papers with city records, set fire to the Amsterdam Registry building.
-
Lily Wust, the wife of a German soldier, fell for a Jewish woman at the wrong time. Their story became the subject of a book and
film.
posted by serazin
on Dec 15, 2006 -
26 comments
Kissing is terrorist behavior now? From the article: 'Shortly after takeoff, Varnier nodded off, leaning his head on Tsikhiseli. A stewardess came over to their row. “The purser wants you to stop that,” she said...The captain told Tsikhiseli that if they didn’t stop arguing with the crew he would divert the plane.'
posted by Poagao
on Sep 20, 2006 -
166 comments
