Queers in History

Friday, 30 March 2012

March 30th in Queer History

Born this day

Paul Verlaine (1844 - 1896)French

Poet associated with the Symbolist movement, and considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.

In 1872 he left his wife for what became a stormy relationship with Arthur Rimbaud.

Countee Cullen (1903 - 1946 ) US
Poet

Leen Jongewaard (1927 –  1996)  Dutch
Actor / Singer / Comedian

Jean-Claude Brialy (1933 –   2007) French
Actor / Director

Gerrit Komrij (1944 – ) Dutch
Author / Poet / Playwright / Critic

Cydney Bernard (1953 – )  US
Producer

Tracy Chapman (1964 – ) US
Singer / Songwriter / Musician

Richard Bluestein (1967 – )  US
Entertainer

Gerald McCullouch (1967 – )  US
Actor / Singer / Screenwriter / Director / Boxer

Died this day

Gaetan Dugas (1953 – 1984 ) Canadian
Flight Attendant [Alleged to be Patient Zero in the AIDS epidemic]

Arnie Zane (1988 – 1947) US
Photographer / Dancer / Choreographer

Nick Enright (1950 – 2003) Australian

Playwright / Author

Michael Jeter (1952 - 2003) US
Actor – Born 26th August

Rupesh Mandal (? - 2006) Nepalese Hate Crime Victim

Sodomy in history, March 30th

1867 — Alaska is purchased from Russia. All Russian law had been abrogated there five years earlier, and Congress passes no criminal code for it, meaning that sodomy is legal.

1911 — Missouri amends its sodomy law to include oral sex.

1922 — The Michigan Supreme Court rules that indictments under the "gross indecency" law do not have to be specific.

1961 — The New York Court of Appeals rules that the state’s sodomy law applies only to the partner who is "active" in fucking. This decision is overturned by legislation.

1964 — The Louisiana Supreme Court upholds that state’s sodomy law against a vagueness challenge.

1966 — The Oregon Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of two lovers, one of whom has cross-dressed.

Sources:

Thursday, 29 March 2012

Cardinal Carlo Carafa, gay cardinal.

b. 29 March 1517

d. 6 March 1561

Born in Naples, Carafa was the younger son in a powerful noble family. He became a soldier and for seventeen years took part in the bloody wars which ravaged Italy, first on the side of the Habsburg imperial armies, afterwards with French troops.

His uncle, Gian Piero Carafa was elected pope, with the name of Paul VI, and made Carlo a cardinal in 1555.

He had a long and dubious career as a mercenary soldier in Italy and Germany. He was exiled from Naples for murder and banditry and was alleged to have perpetrated the massacre of Spanish soldiers as they recuperated in a hospital in Corsica. His tenure as Cardinal Nephew was not a great success as he and Paul IV brought the Papacy to a humiliating defeat against the Spanish that nearly resulted in another Sack of Rome. Carlo's government was unpopular in Rome and he developed a reputation for avarice, cruelty and licentiousness, as well as for sodomy.

For instance the cardinal Charles de Lorraine asked the French ambassador in Rome to report to the pope scandals concerning his nephews. In his letter he stated that the courtiers had been scandalized by what they had witnessed, "and among the culprits were openly numbered, those who were closest in blood relations to our Holy Father the pope" had engaged in "that sin so loathsome in which there is no longer a distinction between the male and the female sex."

These rumors cannot be explained away as political slander. Already the poet Joachim du Bellay who was then in Rome, wrote a sonnet mentioning one Ascanio as the beloved of Carlo Carafa. At first the pope refused to believe the numerous and varied accusations, but he was finally convinced of their veracity.

and replaced Carlo as Cardinal Nephew with Carlo's own nephew Alfonso Carafa.

With the death of Paul IV, who had already limited a part of his power, he was imprisoned and judged by the new pope, Pius IV , for a lengthy series of crimes ranging from homicide to heresy, which also included sodomy. Carlo was condemned and executed.

March 29th in Queer History

Born this day

Cardinal Carlo Carafa  (1517 - 1561),
Catholic cardinal, who was appointed by his uncle, Paul IV, who protected him from assorted accusations of  avarice, cruelty and licentiousness, as well as for sodomy. In January 1559, Paul IV finally accepted the accuracy of the accusations made and exiled Carlo from Rome.
After thedeath of Paul IV he was imprisoned and judged by the new pope, Pius IV , for a lengthy series of crimes ranging from homicide to heresy, which also included sodomy, for which. Carlo was condemned and executed.

Dora Carrington (1893 - 1932) UK
Dora de Houghton Carrington, known generally as simply "Carrington", was a British painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially the writer Lytton Strachey. Distinguished by her cropped pageboy hair style (before it was fashionable) and somewhat androgynous appearance, she was troubled by her sexuality; she is known to have had at least one lesbian affair (with Henrietta Bingham). She also had a significant relationship with the writer Gerald Brenan.

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (1936 – )  UK
Composer

John Laird (1950 – ) US
Politician / Activist

Victor Salva (1958 – )  US
Director

Paddy Chew (1960 –1999 ) Singaporean
Choreographer / Actor / Activist

Matt McCoy (1966 – )  US
Politician

Thomas Bickman [aka Tomboy] (1975 – )  Danish
Reality TV [Big Brother] / Presenter / Singer

Jay Brannan (1982 – ) US
Actor / Singer / Songwriter

Died this day

Karl Meier (1897 - 1974 ) Swiss

Entertainer / Director / Editor

Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers, The Singing Nun (1933 - 1985) Belgian
Nun / Singer

Antony Hamilton (1952 -1995) Australian
Actor / Model / Dancer – Born 4th May

Hollis Sigler (1948 – 2001), US
Chicago-based openly lesbian artist whose paintings addressed her life with breast cancer.

Sodomy in history, March

1951 — Arizona raises the penalty for sodomy from 1-5 years to 5-20 years.

1962 — Kentucky outlaws "indecent conduct" with a person over 15, which probably covers oral sex.

1967 — Nevada lowers its penalty for the "crime against nature" from 1 year-life to 1-6 years.

1979 — A California appellate court upholds the right of the state to prosecute consensual sexual relations of prisoners even though non-prisoners have the right to consensual sex.

1995 — Pennsylvania repeals its court-voided sodomy law 15 years after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck it down.

Sources:

Wednesday, 28 March 2012

March 28th in Queer History

Born this day

Sir Dirk Bogarde (1921 – 1999), UK
Actor

Jane Rule (1931 - 2007 ) Canadian.

Writer of lesbian-themed novels and non-fiction. She claimed she was a tomboy growing up and felt like an outsider for reaching six feet tall and being dyslexic. When she was 15 she read The Well of Loneliness and wrote later, "suddenly discovered that I was a freak."

In 1964, Rule published "Desert of the Heart", which featured two women who fall in love with each other and caused Rule to receive a flood of letters from "very unhappy, even desperate" women who felt they were alone and would be miserable. The novel caused her to be sought out by Canadian media, and Rule later wrote, "I became, for the media, the only lesbian in Canada. A role I gradually and very reluctantly accepted and used to educate people as I could."

The book was later made into a movie by Donna Deitch, released as "Desert Hearts" , which quickly became a lesbian classic. The Globe and Mail said of it, "the film is one of the first and most highly regarded works in which a lesbian relationship is depicted favourably."

James Bidgood (1933 – ) US
Artist / Photographer

James E West (1951 –  2006) US
Army / Politician

Alexandra Billings (1962 – )  US
Actress

Faith Soloway (1964 – )  US
Singer / Songwriter / Musician / Comedian

Scott Mills (1974 – ) UK
Presenter

Angelo Garcia (1976 – ) US
Singer / Songwriter

Lady Gaga (1986 – ) US
Singer / Songwriter / Musician

Died this day

Katharine Lee Bates (1859 - 1929) US
Author

Karol Szymanowski (1882 - 1937) Polish
Composer / Pianist

Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) UK
Author

Sodomy in history, March

1954 — The Sydney Morning Herald editorializes in favor of decriminalization of sodomy in Australia.

1960 — A New Jersey appellate court upholds the conviction of an attorney (and McCarthy backer) for engaging in fellatio with numerous teenage males.

1972 — The Michigan Court of Appeals again rejects the contention that heterosexuals are exempt from the "crime against nature."

1973 — North Dakota, in passing a new criminal code, becomes the eighth state to repeal its sodomy law.

1973 — The North Carolina Court of Appeals upholds the "crime against nature" law against a vagueness challenge.

1977 — Arkansas reinstates its sodomy law as a misdemeanor and applicable only to people of the same sex. Although the vote is overwhelming (66-2 in the House and 25-0 in the Senate), one-third of the 100-member House and 35-member Senate fail to vote.

Sources:

Tuesday, 27 March 2012

March 27th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – Japan acknowledges its nationals same-sex marriages to foreigners from countries or states where same-sex marriages are legal
2010 – First ever Exeter Pride, Devon, UK

Born this day

Denton Welch (1915 - 1948 ) UK

English-American writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions.

Frank O’Hara (1926 – )  US
Poet

Maria Schneider (1952 – 2011)French
Actress, best known for playing Jeanne, opposite Marlon Brando, in the 1972 film Last Tango in Paris.

Reed Gusciora (1960 – ) US
Politician

Johannes Kerkorrel (1960 – 2002) South African
Born Ralph John Rabie, Kerkorrel was a South African singer-songwriter, journalist and playwright who worked as a journalist on the Afrikaans-language, government supporting weekly newspaper Rapport. Later, he performed politically-themed cabaret, then became a full-time musician and performer under the name Johannes Kerkorrel ("John Church Organ"), and exposed divergent political views to a new generation of Afrikaners.

Renato Russo (1960 – 1996)Brazilian
Singer and songwriter, who aged 18 outed himself as bisexual to his mother, and in 1988 he made it public by writing the song "Meninos e Meninas" ("Boys n' Girls") with the chorus stating, in English, "I like St. Paulo, I like St. João, I like St. Francisco and St. Sebastião, and I like boys and girls."
His death in 1996 was due to complications caused by AIDS

Dave Koz (1963 – )  US
Musician / Presenter

Stacy Ann Ferguson [Fergie] (1975 – )  US
Singer / Songwriter / Rapper / Model / Actress

Sanne van Kerkhof (1987 – ) Dutch
Speed Skater

Died this day

James I (1566 - 1625)  English
Monarch

Gordon Merrick (1916 -1988 )  US
Actor / Author

Ed Savitz (1942 - 1993)  US
Businessman

Sodomy in history, March

1874 — Illinois reduces the penalty for sodomy from life to a maximum of 10 years in prison.

1958 — A New York court decides that loitering for sodomy is legal if there is no attempt to breach the peace.

1959 — A California appellate court upholds the revocation of the license of a Turkish bath for allowing sex on the premises. The Court ridicules the defense of privacy and says that morality is more important.

1972 — Idaho reenacts its entire pre-1971 criminal code, reinstating common-law crimes and the sodomy law with a penalty of up to life imprisonment.

1976 — Wisconsin repeals its law prohibiting the publicizing of the names of victims of sexual crimes, including sodomy.

Sources:

Monday, 26 March 2012

Tennessee Williams Playwright

b. March 26, 1911

d. February 25, 1983

"To me, it was providential to be an artist, a great act of providence that I was able to turn my borderline psychosis into creativity."

Tennessee Williams was one of the most influential American playwrights. He transformed the darkest aspects of human existence into poetic theater.

Born Thomas Lanier Williams, he was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his B.A. from the University of Iowa in 1938. He later changed his name to Tennessee, after his father’s birth state.

While a scriptwriter at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Williams wrote an original screenplay the company rejected. It was reworked into a play. "The Glass Menagerie" (1945) earned the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and launched Williams’s playwriting career.

Often set in the South and featuring characters seeking salvation and meaningful human connections, his plays were infused with aspects of Williams’s personal struggles. He sparked controversy by including gay characters.

His award-winning plays include "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1947), "The Rose Tattoo" (1951), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1955) and "The Night of the Iguana" (1961). "A Streetcar Named Desire," "The Rose Tattoo" and "The Night of the Iguana" were adapted into Oscar-winning movies. Actors starring in his works included Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Jessica Tandy and Vivien Leigh.

Williams and his partner, Frank Marlo, were together for more than 10 years. Their relationship ended when Marlo died of cancer in 1963.

Williams received two Pulitzer Prizes, four Drama Critics’ Circle Awards, and a Tony Award for Best Play.

Bibliography

Gussow, Mel. “Tennessee Williams is Dead at 71.” The New York Times. February 26, 1983
Hopwood, Jon C. “Tennessee Williams – Biography.” The Internet Movie Database. June 17, 2008
Kakutani, Michiko. “The Legacy of Tennessee Williams.” The New York Times. March 6, 1983
“Times Topics: Tennessee Williams.” The New York Times.

Books

Tennessee Williams Memoirs (With an Introduction By John Waters)(1975)

Films

March 26th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – Lawmakers in Serbia give final approval to ban discrimination whether based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender or other factors
2009 – New Hampshire House votes for same-sex marriage (after first voting against it) (USA)

Born this day

A. E. Housman (1859 – 1936) UK Poet

Tennessee Williams (1911 - 1983), US

Writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater, but also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs. Williams won a Tony Award for best play for The Rose Tattoo (1951) and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). He is today acknowledged as one of the most accomplished playwrights in the history of English speaking theater.

After some early attempts at heterosexual relationships, by the late 1930s Williams had accepted his homosexuality. However, he wrote directly about homosexuality only in his short stories, his poetry, and his late plays.

Billy Lyall ( ?? - 1953) UK

A keyboard player and vocalist with Pilot, and an early member of the Bay City Rollers. He also contributed to The Alan Parsons Project with fellow Pilot members, and released a solo album, Solo Casting in 1976.

Lyall died of AIDS-related causes in 1989, aged 36.

1936 – James L White – US Poet / Editor / Teacher – Died ?? July 1981

Dorothy Porter (1954 - 2008 ) Australian

Poet / Librettist / Author

Leigh Bowery (1961 - 1994) Australian
Performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model and fashion designer, based in London.

Paul de Leeuw (1962 – ) Dutch
Comedian / Actor / Singer / Presenter

Bonnie Curtis (1966 – ) US
Producer

Rennae Stubbs (1971 – ) Australian
Tennis

T. R. Knight (1973 – ) US
Actor

Daniel Boys (1979 – ) UK
Actor / Singer / Reality TV

Jonathan Groff (1985 – ) US
Actor / Singer / Songwriter

Died this day

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892 ) US
Poet / Author / Journalist

Cecil Rhodes (1853 - 1902 ) South African
Politician

Sarah Bernhardt (1844 - 1923) Dutch / French
Stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas. She developed a reputation as a serious dramatic actress, earning the nickname "The Divine Sarah".

Sir Noel Coward (1899 – 1973) UK

Playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".

Coward was knighted in 1969 and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement. The Noël Coward Theatre in St Martin's Lane, originally opened in 1903 as the New Theatre and later called the Albery, was renamed in his honour.

Coward was homosexual but, following the convention of his times, this was never publicly mentioned. Coward firmly believed his private business was not for public discussion, considering "any sexual activities when over-advertised" to be tasteless.[104] Even in the 1960s, Coward refused to acknowledge his sexual orientation publicly, wryly observing, "There are still a few old ladies in Worthing who don't know."

Beauford Delaney (1901 – 1979) US

Modernist painter. In Greenwich Village, where his studio was, Delaney became part of a gay bohemian circle of mainly white friends; but he was furtive and rarely comfortable with his sexuality.

Anthony Blunt (1907 - 1983)  UK
Spy / Historian / Professor

Halston (1932 - 1990)  US
Fashion Designer

Anselmo Feleppa (1956 - 1993)  Brazilian
Fashion Designer

Marshall Herff Applewhite (1931 - 1997) US
Cult Leader

Sodomy in history, March

1796 — New York reduces the penalty for sodomy from death to ten years in prison.

1892 — Iowa outlaws sodomy, leaving it legal only in the District of Columbia. The law states that it will become effective upon publication in the two Des Moines newspapers, giving the papers a veto power over the law if they fail to print it. Both print it without delay.

1926 — The Puerto Rico Supreme Court rules that the "crime against nature" does not have to be only between persons of the same sex.

1991 — Montana enacts a law stating that a person’s seeking treatment for HIV-related disease can not have that fact used as a basis for initiating a sodomy conviction.

Sources:

Sunday, 25 March 2012

Grand Prince Vasily III of Moscow (149 - 1533), Russian Prince

b. 25 March, 1479

d. 3 Dec, 1533

r. 1505 to 1533

Grand Prince Vasily III(also spelled Basil) Ivanovich, Ivan III's son, came to the Russian throne in 1505, and greatly strengthened the monarchy, consolidatingd the numerous independent Russian principalities into a united Muscovite state by annexing Pskov (1510), Smolensk (1514) in a war with Sigismund I of Poland and Lithuania, Ryazan (1517), Starodub and Novgorod-Seversk by 1523.

Vasily was homosexual throughout his life. He went to the extent of announcing this fact to other gay men of his time by shaving off his beard when his twenty-year marriage to his first wife was terminated--being beardless was a sort of gay password at the time.

During Vasily's second marriage, he was able to perform his conjugal duties only when an officer of his guard joined him and his wife in bed in the nude.

After his death in 1533, he was succeeded by his better known son, Ivan III, who is also of queer interest, for his fondness for close male friends in female dress.

Related Posts:

Right Royal Queens

Vasily III (Matt & Andrej Komasky)

March 25th in Queer History

Born this day

Grand Prince Vasily III of Moscow, (1479 - 1533)
Prince and military general. Vasily was homosexual throughout his life. He went to the extent of announcing this fact to other gay men of his time by shaving off his beard when his twenty-year marriage to his first wife was terminated--being beardless was a sort of gay password at the time.

During Vasily's second marriage, he was able to perform his conjugal duties only when an officer of his guard joined him and his wife in bed in the nude

Tobias Schneebaum (1922 – 2005) US
Artist, anthropologist, and AIDS activist. He is best known for his experiences living, and traveling among the Harakmbut people of Peru, and the Asmat people of Papua, Western New Guinea

Cecil Taylor (1929 – ) US
Pianist and poet.Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz.

Bernard King (1934 - 2002 ) Australian

Stage actor, celebrity chef, and television personality.

Elton John (1947 – ) UK
Singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor.With his civil partner David Furnish he is well a known champion for LGBT social movements.

Susie Bright (1958 – ) US
Author / Presenter / Activist

John Maybury (1958 – ) UK
Director / Screenwriter

Thom Bierdz (1962 – ) US
Actor / Author / Painter

Sheryl Swoopes (1971 – ) US
Professional basketball player with the Houston Comets in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She is called "the female Michael Jordan."

Ramon te Wake (1976 – ) New Zealand
Presenter / Singer / Songwriter

Daniel Vosovic (1981 – ) US
Reality TV [Project: Runway] / Fashion Designer

Andrew Goldstein (1983 – ) US
Lacrosse

Died this day

Roland Barthes ( 1915 – 1980 ) French.

Literary Critic, Philosopher

Robert Joffrey (1928/30 – 1988) US
Dancer, teacher, producer and choreographer, known for his highly imaginative modern ballets for his company, the Joffrey Ballet. Joffrey died on March 25, 1988 of AIDS at the age of 57. In 2000, Joffrey was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame.

Joop Admiraal (1937 - 2006) Dutch
Actor

Sodomy in history, March 25th

1734 — A Georgia man receives 300 lashes for sodomy in a religious colony. No law authorizes the penalty.

1938 — A California appellate court overturns a sodomy conviction based on hearsay evidence. The "evidence" was merely that the defendant owned a Turkish bath where sodomy was presumed to take place.

1940 — The Indiana Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction after the trial judge refused to allow all of the defendant’s character witnesses to testify.

1953 — The Oklahoma Court of Appeals rules that the state’s lewdness law covers same-sex activity.

1963 — New Mexico passes a new criminal code, but does not repeal its sodomy law. The sentence is set at 2-10 years and/or $5,000.

1993 — Idaho enacts a sex offender registration law that includes consensual sodomy.

Sources:

Saturday, 24 March 2012

Colonel Margarethe (Greta) Cammermeyer

b. 24 March, 1942

Born in Nazi-occupied Oslo, Norway, Greta moved with her family to the US in the early 1950s, and became a US citizen in 1960. After completing collegeat the University of Maryland, in 1963, she went on to active duty in the US Army, taking up nursing as a career (chief nurse of the Washington State National Guard). Colonel Cammermeyer had a long, distinguished and impeccable career. National Guard officer, Vietnam veteran, she earned the Bronze Star for her US military service as well as several citations.

In 1968, having married and had children, the military regulations required that she leave the army, although after a change in the regulations, in 1972 she resumed active duty in the Reserves, serving initially in Seattle, Washington. In 1980 Greta, mother of four sons, divorced her husband.

In 1985 she was named Nurse of the Year by the Veteran Administration, and in 1987 she was promoted to full colonel. In 1988 she met Diane Divelbess, the woman who was to become her long-term partner.

During an interview for a security clearance in 1989, she honestly acknowledged that she is a lesbian. Greta was fired in 1992, with a dishonorable discharge from the armed forces - she has been the highest ranking officer in the US military to contest its anti-gay policies.

The Federal District Court in Seattle in 1994 ruled in her favor and she was reinstated in the military.

Greta served for three more years and then retired in 1997. She took up residence in Washington with her partner, Diane, and continues her close relationship with her children and five grandchildren. In 1994 she published her story, Serving In Silence, which became a television movie. In 1997 she ran a Democratic campaign for Congress that, even though unsuccessful, garnered much grassroots support. She is writing a second book about her career as an activist, and hosts a talk-radio show. She has been awarded NOW's Women of Power award, among many other honors.

Sources:

glbtq.com on-line encyclopedia

Matt & Andrej Komasky

Aldrich and Wotherspoon,Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day (Who'swho)

March 24th in Queer History

Born this day

Kenneth Nelson (1930 – 1993) US
Actor,who appeared in several television series in the late 1940s, Captain Video and His Video Rangers and The Aldrich Family among them. In 1968, Nelson accepted the lead in the controversial and groundbreaking off-Broadway production of The Boys in the Band, the first play to explore the milieu of gay life in New York City in a graphically frank manner. He and the rest of the cast went on to appear in the 1970 film version directed by William Friedkin.

Lanford Wilson (1937 – 2011) US
Playwright

Margarethe Cammermeyer (1942 – ) Norwegian / US
Colonel Cammermeyer had a long, distinguished and impeccable nursing career as a National Guard officer and Vietnam veteran, who earned the Bronze Star for her US military service as well as several citations.
During an interview for a security clearance in 1989, she honestly acknowledged that she is a lesbian. Greta was fired in 1992, with a dishonorable discharge from the armed forces, becoming the highest ranking officer in the US military to contest its anti-gay policies.

Jose Perez Ocana (1947 – 1983) Spanish
Spanish anarchist, LGBT activist, drag artist and painter José Ángel Pérez Ocaña was a fixture of the counter-cultural scene in Barcelona in the 1970s. He was the subject of a milestone film in Spanish cinema, Ocaña, retrat intermitent, by gay director Ventura Pons.

Andrea Goldsmith (1950 – ) Australian
Writer and novelist.
Goldsmith lived with her partner, the poet Dorothy Porter, in Melbourne's inner suburbs until Porter's death in 2008.

Grayson Perry (1960 – ) UK
Ceramic Artist

Ivo Chundro (1976 – ) Dutch
Singer, dancer and actor in musicals.

Died this day

Bob Mellors (1950 - 1996) UK
British gay rights activist, associated with the Gay Liberation Front. In 1994 he moved to Warsaw, where in 1996 he was stabbed to death in a burglary at his flat.

Dominic Agostino (1959 - 2004) Canadian
Politician who represented the riding of Hamilton East for the Liberal Party in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Sodomy in history, March 24th

1882 — West Virginia passes a law to raise the penalties for various consensual sexual activities, claiming that the penalties are not severe enough to deter immorality. Sodomy is one of the few crimes for which the penalty is not changed.

1911 — California forbids the conviction of any person based on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, a law that benefits Gay men and Lesbians prosecuted for private, consensual sodomy.

1939 — Georgia bans probation for sodomy.

1953 — A California appellate court upholds a conviction for assault to commit oral copulation. A hitchhiker was picked up and solicited, but he refused and was let out of the car.

1989 — Montana enacts a sex offender registration law that covers consensual sodomy and gives a judge the power to limit the employment opportunities of those subject to the law

Sources:

Friday, 23 March 2012

Who Was The First Pope?

It's probably not who you think.

From the book Saints and Sinners, by Eamon Duffy, a Catholic and professor of history at the University of Cambridge, and from other reading, I have known for some time that the version of early Church history held by secular historians, who derive their conclusions from historical research and evidence, differs somewhat from that of Vatican histories, which are based primarily on church tradition. When Chris placed a post yesterday on the death of Pope Shenouda III (the Coptic Pope), I placed this comment, working initially from memory:

Trying to do a little fact -checking, I came up against a surprise:

The first record in history of the term "pope" is assigned to Pope Heraclas of Alexandria in a letter written by the bishop of Rome, Dionysius, to Philemon:

τοῦτον ἐγὼ τὸν κανόνα καὶ τὸν τύπον παρὰ τοῦ μακαρίου πάπα ἡμῶν Ἡρακλᾶ παρέλαβον.^[13]

Which translates into:

I received this rule and ordinance from our blessed pope, Heracla

-Wikipedia

(The reference quoted in this extract as "13" is to Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica Book VII, chapter 7.7)

March 23rd in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – Vermont Senate passes a bill legalising same-sex marriages (USA)

Born this day

J. C. Leyendecker (1874 –  1951) German / US
Illustrator

George Hopkins (1896 - 1985 ) US
Set Designer

Jimmy Edwards  (1920 – 1988)  UK
Actor / Scriptwriter / Musician

Diane Sands (1947 – ) US
Politician

Bruce Bastion (1948 – )  US
Computer Programmer / Businessman / Activist

Jac Goderic (1951 – ) Dutch
Presenter / Columnist

Steven Saylor (1956 – )  US
Author

Pekka Haavisto (1958 – )  Finnish
Politician

Terry Sweeney (1960 – )  US
Actor / Comedian / Screenwriter

George Weber (1961 – ) US
Presenter / Murder Victim – Died 20th March 2009

Marc Cherry (1962 – ) US
Producer / Screenwriter

Mitch Cullin (1968 – ) US
Author

Erki Pehk (1968 – ) Estonian
Conductor

Perez Hilton   (1978 – )  US Blogger / Cultural Commentator

Died this day

Julius III (1487 - 1555) Italian
Pope

Cristobal Balenciaga (1895 - 1972) Spanish
Fashion Designer

Shaun McGill (1961 - 1992) Canadian
Figure Skater

Benno Premsela (1920 – 1997) Dutch
Interior designer, who was a pioneer activist in the cause of gay emancipation. He was one of the first people in the Netherlands to come out publicly, and as early as 1947 was speaking out for equality. In 1964 he was the first homosexual to appear on Dutch television without having his features distorted. From 1962 to 1971 he chaired the gay rights group COC, and in 1995 he was given the prestigious Silver Carnation award, for his contribution to both arts administration and gay emancipation.

Eloy de la Iglesia (1944 – 2006) Spanish

Director

Shaun Fitzpatrick (? - 2008) UK
Hate Crime Victim

Sodomy in history, March

1653 — In New Haven Colony, six teenage males are sentenced to be flogged for "wickedness in a filthy corrupting way with one another."

1661 — Virginia adopts all English laws explicitly, thus making sodomy clearly illegal.

1819 — Illinois enacts its own sodomy law, providing for a fine and imprisonment, and retaining the flogging provision it had received from Indiana.

1921 — The Hawaii Supreme Court rules that emission is not necessary for the completion of an act of sodomy.

1927 — A California appellate court upholds the constitutionality of the 1921 law banning oral sex.

1951 — Nevada establishes a minimum penalty for the crime against nature of one year, but retains the maximum of life imprisonment.

1953 — The Arizona Supreme Court rules that fellatio can not be prosecuted under the crime against nature law, but must be prosecuted under the unnatural and lascivious acts law.

1964 — The Colorado Supreme Court rules that sodomy convictions can be based on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice.

1995 — The Montana Senate votes 50-0 to delete a provision from a sex offender registration bill for consensual sodomy to be included, after overwhelming public opposition. Sponsor Senator Al Bishop (R-Billings) calls consensual homosexual activity worse than rape.

Sources:

Thursday, 22 March 2012

March 22nd in Queer History

Born this day

Wilfrid Brambell (1912 - 1985) UK

Actor

Stephen Sondheim (1930 – ) US
Composer

Robert Chesley (1943 - 1990 ) US.

Playwright / Composer / Theatre Critic / Teacher

Ilana Kloss (1956 – ) South African
Tennis

Antonia San Juan (1961 – ) Spanish
Actress / Director / Screenwriter

Meghan Chevalier (1969 – ) US
Actress / Author / Singer

Guillermo Diaz (1971 – ) US
Actor

Died this day

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 – 1687) French

Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style.

He was known to be a libertine. Although his life is full of meteoric heights, his love affairs with men and women also brought him down in scandal several times at the great displeasure of Louis XIV.

Dan Hartman (1994 - 1950 ) US

American singer, songwriter and record producer, who died of an AIDS-related brain tumor three and a half months past his 43rd birthday .

Ian Stephens (?? - 1996) Canadian
Poet / Journalist / Musician – Born

Sodomy in history, March

1909 — Washington passes a new criminal code and broadens its sodomy law to cover oral sex, prohibits newspaper description of crimes of sodomy, and repeals its slander law cover accusations of sodomy.

1929 — Nebraska outlaws assault to commit sodomy, with a penalty of 2-15 years.

Sources:

Wednesday, 21 March 2012

March 21st in Queer History

Born this day

Frank Sargeson (1903 - 1982) New Zealand
Author

Ruth Anderson (1928 – )  US
Composer / Flautist

James Coco (1930 - 1987), US
Character actor, who won awards for his work on Broadway, television and film

Hubert Fichte (1935 - 1986) German
Novelist, who died of AIDS-related illness in 1986.

Gaye Adegbalola (1944 –)   US
Singer / Musician / Photographer

Zackie Achmat (1962 – ) South African
HIV?AIDS Activist / Author / Director

Rosie O’Donnell (1962 – ) US
Actress / Presenter

Perry Dossett (1966 – )  Dutch
Singer / Dancer / Choreographer

Jaye Davidson (1968 – ) UK / US
Actor

Died this day

Lilyan Tashman (1896 - 1934) US

Actress

Newton Arvin (1900 - 1963) US
Author

Candy Darling (1944 – 1974) US. Actress

American actress, best known as a Warhol Superstar. A MTF transsexual, she starred in Andy Warhol's films Flesh and Women in Revolt, and was a muse of the protopunk band The Velvet Underground.

Born James Lawrence Slattery in Queens, NY, she changed her name to Hope Slattery in 1963/1964 after she started going to gay bars in Manhattan and making visits to a doctor on Fifth Avenue for hormone injections. Later, she changed her name again, eventually settling on Candy Darling. After appearing in Warhol's films, she appeared in further independent films, and on stage.

Michael Redgrave (1908 – 1985) UK
Actor / Author / Director

Dack Rambo (1941 – 1994), US.

Actor

Melissa “Mo” Green ( ? - 2006) US
Murder Victim – Born

Sodomy in history, March

1801 — New York raises the maximum penalty for sodomy from 10 years to life imprisonment.

1804 — The Code Napoléon is introduced in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Monaco, maintaining the "hands-off" attitude of the government toward private, consensual sexual relations.

1806 — Pennsylvania denies bail to accused sodomites.

1893 — English Member of Parliament Edward Cobain is convicted of gross indecency and is sentenced to 12 months at hard labor.

1969 — The District of Columbia Court of Appeals upholds the trial without a jury of solicitation to commit fellatio.

Sources:

Tuesday, 20 March 2012

John Boswell (1947 - 1994), Historian and gay Catholic activist

b. March 20, 1947
d. December 24, 1994

John Boswell was an esteemed historian who argued that homosexuality has always existed, that it has at times enjoyed wide social acceptance, and that the Church historically allowed same-sex unions.

"It is possible to change ecclesiastical attitudes toward gay people and their sexuality because the objections to homosexuality are not biblical, they are not consistent, they are not part of Jesus' teaching; and they are not even fundamentally Christian."

John Boswell was a gifted medieval philologist who read more than fifteen ancient and modern languages. After receiving his PhD from Harvard in 1975, he joined the history faculty at Yale University. Boswell was an authority on the history of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in medieval Spain. He helped to found the Lesbian and Gay Studies Center at Yale in 1987. In 1990 he was named the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History.

In 1980 Boswell published the book for which he is best known: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. In this groundbreaking study, Boswell argued against "the common idea that religious belief-Christian or other-has been the cause of intolerance in regard to gay people." The book was named one of the New York Times ten best books of 1980 and received both the American Book Award and the Stonewall Book Award in 1981.

Boswell's second book on homosexuality in history was The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, published in 1994. In it he argues that the Christian ritual of adelphopoiia ("brother-making") is evidence that prior to the Middle Ages, the Church recognized same-sex relationships. Boswell's thesis has been embraced by proponents of same-sex unions, although it remains controversial among scholars.

John Boswell converted to Roman Catholicism as an undergraduate at the College of William and Mary, and remained a devout Catholic for the rest of his life. He was an effective teacher and popular lecturer on several topics, including his life journey as an openly gay Christian man.

Boswell died of AIDS-related illness on Christmas Eve in 1994 at age 47.

Bibliography:

Selected works by John Boswell:

March 20th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – Adoption by same-sex couples legalised in Denmark

Born this day

Edmund Goulding (1891 - 1959) US

Film writer and director.

Eyre de Lanux (1894 –  1996)  US
Author / Artist

Michael Redgrave (1908 –  1985) UK
Actor / Author / Director

Sviatoslav Richter (1915 –  1997) Soviet
Pianist

Ernst van Heerden (1916 – 1997)  South African
Poet

Anthony Blond   (1928 - 2008) UK
British publisher and author. Blond, who was openly bisexual, was twice married, and also had a long relationship with Andrew McCall.

Coos Huijsen (1939 – ) Dutch
Politician

Jaime Chavarri (1943 – ) Spanish
Actor / Director / Screenwriter

John Boswell (1947 - 1994 ) US

Prominent historian and a professor at Yale University. Many of Boswell's studies focused on the issue of homosexuality and religion, specifically homosexuality and Christianity.

Sue Sanders (1947 – )  UK
Activist / Teacher

Paula Aboud (1950 – ) US
Politician

Alexandra Potvin (1966 – )  Belgian
Presenter

Cathy DeBuono (1970 – ) US
Actress

Declan Bennett (1981 – )  UK
Singer

Ruby Rose (1986 – )  Australian
Model / Presenter

Xavier Dolan (1989 – ) Canadian
Actor / Director

Died this day

Lord Alfred Douglas (1870 - 1945) UK Author / Poet / Translator

British writer and poet and lover of Oscar Wilde. Bosie, as he was known to his friends, married Olive Cunstance in 1902 and they had a son, Raymond, that same year. The 1997 film 'Wilde' tells the story about his relationship with Oscar Wilde.

Brendan Behan (1923 – 1964) Irish
Poet / Author / Playwright

Agustin Gomez-Arcos (1939 – 1998) Spanish

Author

George Weber (1961 - 2009) US
Presenter / Murder Victim

Sodomy in history, March

1835 — Missouri outlaws consensual sodomy by statute, with a penalty of not less than 10 years and no maximum stated.

1858 — Tennessee adopts a new criminal code and changes the wording of its sodomy law, but leaves the penalty as 5-15 years.

1905 — Delaware eliminates the pillory as a punishment for crime. Since 1852, those convicted of sodomy have been required to stand in the pillory for one hour prior to imprisonment.

1924 — Virginia, responding to the Virginia Supreme Court decision of the preceding year, amends its oral sex provision of the sodomy law to include people of the opposite sex as well.

1957 — The Illinois Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of an optometrist with a male patient after very conflicting witness testimony.

1979 — The North Carolina Court of Appeals rules that the "crime against nature" law applies to heterosexuals.

Sources:

Monday, 19 March 2012

March 19th in Queer History

Born this day

Jackie “Moms” Mabley   (1894 –  1975) US
Comedian

Randy Steven Kraft (1945 – )  US
Serial Killer

Ricky Wilson (1953 –  1985) US
Musician / Singer

Diane Anderson-Minshall (1968 – ) US
Journalist

Died this day

Arthur C Clarke (1917 – 2008) UK

Science fiction author, inventor,and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them "2001: A Space Odyssey", and as a host and commentator in the British television series ""Mysterious World". For many years, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction.

Sodomy in history, March

1860 — Virginia’s new sodomy law eliminates death for slaves, equalizing the penalty for all persons.

1895 — North Dakota becomes the eighth state to amend its sodomy law explicitly to cover oral sex.

1925 — The Virginia Supreme Court reverses the sodomy conviction of a man who had been found drunk in bed with his head on another man’s stomach and with the other man’s penis in his hand.

1929 — The Florida Supreme Court rules that emission is not needed to complete sodomy.

1973 — The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that the state’s sodomy law can not be enforced against married couples, even though the statute does not exempt them.

1981 — A Massachusetts appellate court dismisses a newspaper’s suit to allow reporters to witness restroom arrests.

Sources:

Sunday, 18 March 2012

March 18th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

Born this day

LGBT people born 18th March:
1790 – Marquis de Custine – French Author – Died 18th October 1857
1893 – Wilfred Owen – UK Poet / Soldier – Died 4th November 1918
1910 – Pepi Lederer – US Actress / Author – Died 11th June 1935
1927 – John Kander – US Composer / Songwriter
1928 – Charlotte von Mahlsdorf – German Museum Founder – Died 30th April 2002
1931 – John Fraser – UK Actor
1939 – Michael Kirby – Australian Judge
1943 – Jaime Chavarri – Spanish Actor / Director / Screenwriter [or 20th March 1943]
1951 – Tret Fure – US Singer / Songwriter
1961 – Grant Hart – US Musician
1966 – Anne Will – German Presenter
1973 – Patrick Harvie – UK Politician
1974 – Kent Larson – US Porn [or 19th March 1974]
1979 – Brandon Lee – US Navy / Composer / Actor / Porn / Hate Crime Victim
1983 – Corbin Michaels – US Porn
1987 – Gari McDonald – Bahaman Beauty Queen / Model
And those who died:
1980 – Tamara de Lempicka – Polish Artist – Born 16th May 1898
2003 – Karl Gorath – German Imprisoned for homosexuality – Born 12thDecember 1912
2008 – Hazel Barnes – US Philosopher / Author – Born 16th December 1915

Died this day

Sodomy in history, March 18th

1796 — New Jersey passes its first sodomy law in nearly a century and eliminates the death penalty. The maximum sentence is set at 21 years at solitary and hard labor. The law still applies only to males.

1916 — Virginia outlaws oral sex between persons of the same sex only, while retaining anal sex as a crime between persons regardless of sex.

1941 — A California appellate court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man. The corroborative evidence was a tube of vaseline "similar" to the one his partner claimed was used.

1964 — Georgia allows the reduction of felony sentences for sodomy to a misdemeanor.

1971 — Idaho adopts a new criminal code, repealing its sodomy law and abrogating common-law crimes. The repeal doesn’t last long due to religious opposition.

1994 — A Florida appellate court overturns a sex conviction for acts in closed restroom stalls, finding a right to privacy therein.

Sources: