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: