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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Gay marriage boosts Pride turnout in Corvallis, Oregon

PHOTO: The back page (left) and front page (right) of a local newspaper's coverage of my small college town's gay pride celebration. Corvallis, Oregon has a population of 50,000 and is home to Oregon State University, located about 80 miles south of Portland and 40 miles north of Eugene. (See Canda Fuqua, "A dose of Pride: More Pride than ever, Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage helps bolster crowd at annual Corvallis Event," Corvallis Gazette-Times, Jun. 30, 2013, p. A1, A10)

UPDATE (7/3/13): See OSU student newspaper coverage by Emma-Kate Schaake, "Pride community celebrates in park," Barometer, July 3, 103, p. 1-2

My local newspaper also ran a national story by Lisa Leff, Associated Press, "Same-Sex marriage foes seek halt in California," Gazette-Times, p. A2, which ran in Oregonian, Jun. 30, 2013, p. A4 For more on this, see: Rex Wockner, "Prop 8 dies, plaintiff couples marry," wockner.blogspot.com posted Jun. 29, 2013, John Aravosis, "Religious right petitions Supreme Court to stop CA gay marriages," americablog.com posted Jun. 29, 2013, Jim Burroway, "Prop 8 Supporters Try Desperation Shot," boxturtlebulletin.com posted Jun. 29, 2013 and SCOTUS to ADF: Go Away, "SCOTUS to ADF: Go Away," boxturtlebulletin.com posted Jun. 30, 2013.

Jan. 9, 1976 feature article by Anne Wood, 'Gay women: Coming out of the closet in Corvallis, 'Now I want to marry this woman,' on p. 7-8 of Corvallis Gazette-Times

PHOTO: Jan. 9, 1976 feature article by Anne Wood, "Gay women: Coming out of the closet in Corvallis, 'Now I want to marry this woman,'" on p. 7-8 of Corvallis Gazette-Times.. See previous posts Gay 1976 newspaper controversy (5/3/06) and Supreme Court gay marriage decision vindicates Jack Baker and W. Dorr Legg 50 years later (7/27/13).

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Supreme Court gay marriage decision vindicates Jack Baker and W. Dorr Legg 50 years later

 June 26, 2013 Supreme Court TV coverage phone call from Obama to HRC head

PHOTO: The June 26, 2013 live over-the-air TV coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions on gay marriage as seen on (top) an ABC network TV broadcast network from a San Francisco pro-gay marriage event, which ironically was still waiting to hear the decision on CNN, which could be seen behind San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom while ABC was interviewing him about his reaction to the decision ABC had reported many minutes before CNN. When CNN finally reported the decision, the crowd applauded loudly, prompting the Major to explain the crowd's belated reaction as the fault of a network he would not name on ABC. Also (bottom) on MSNBC the head of the gay lobby Human rights Campaign jumped into the middle of two of an interview with the California Prop 8 plaintiffs to let them talk to President Barack Obama who was calling from Air Force One. They graciously thanked him for having changed his position and supporting their case. The HRC had shamefully refused to support gay marriage for many years claiming it would jeopardize their insider lobbying position in Washington, D.C.

Watching the TV news coverage this morning was fascinating because of how the mainstream press chose to tie gay marriage to the earlier sodomy decision by Justice Kennedy, while ignoring the story of the 1972 gay marriage Supreme Court case of Jack Backer and others who paved the way for gay marriage, such as the former Oregon State University Professor W. Dorr Legg.

My sister asked me why Baker's case was being ignored and I reminded her of the history of how Legg and Baker were angrily dismissed by fellow homophile and gay liberation activists in the 1950s and 1970s. Also, I reminded her how feminists denounced marriage as an obsolete institution they wanted to replace with free love, open marriage and sexual liberation. This jogged her own memory of having questioned whether or not she should get married in the 1970s and support an obsolete institution that had traditionally been used by men to oppress women. (P.S. my sister is still happily married to the same man.)

I was able to DVR multiple news channels and compare cable news channels Fox, CNN, MSNBC, along with the over-the-Air TV network ABC Good Morning America, which all carried live coverage of the Supreme Court's decision during the 7 AM Pacific Time West Coast edition of Good Morning America, (The Supreme Court's decision was announced at 10 AM East Coast time in Washington, D.C. that is 7 AM on the West Coast.)

Even though CNN belatedly reported the gay marriage decisions many minutes after ABC and MSBC, the FOX News network appeared to be spending all their time on blaming the Obama administration for the classified military leaks and other unrelated news. Finally, within the hour, FOX reported the gay marriage decision and spun it as being a victory for their state rights political ideology because the court had decided the California Prop 8 gay marriage case in a way that did not apply across America and it did not "create a new right for gay marriage in the Constitution." In a significant shift from the past, Fox News gave only some token time to the anti-gay right wing Christian republican political groups. Hopefully, this is a sign that the Republican Party believes public opinion is shifting in favor of gay marriage equality. Of course, the anti-gay marriage folks whined about how they are victims of the Supreme Court imposing gay marriage on religious folks, despite the fact the court did not such thing and nobody is advocating such a thing.

ONE Magazine Aug. 1953 'Homosexual marriage?' cover headline PHOTO: the research journal ONE was ahead of its time when in 1953 it mentioned the idea of "homosexual marriage" long before "gay marriage" or same-sex marriage had become the a cause of a few gay liberationists, such as Jack Baker. The former Oregon State University Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture W. Dorr Legg was one of the major contributors to the ONE homophile magazine and he was also a Christian conservative who probably saw gay marriage as being a conservative value whereas others didn't want gays obligated to get married like straight people were traditionally expected to do. (See James T. Sears, PhD, "1953: When ONE Magazine, Headlined 'Homosexual Marriage,'" GayToday.com posted Aug. 11, 2003 and my previous posts Gay marriage pioneer Jack Baker starts blog (confirmed) (4/4/12), OSU W. Dorr Legg homosexual marriage 1953 vs. CA Prop 8 2010 (8/22/10), Oregon same-sex marriage vote and Pope resigns hits front page (2/21/13), "Would former HP CEO have wanted voters to decide women's rights in the 1950's?" (3/22/13) and Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," outhistory.org posted April 30, 2010 for my history of OSU.

May 18, 1970 Michael McConnell and Jack Baker married by Hennepin County Minnesota Justice of the Peace

PHOTO: May 18, 1970 Michael McConnell and Jack Baker were married by Hennepin County Minnesota Justice of the Peace. As a law student, Baker brought his gay marriage case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Baker V. Nelson case, which was dismissed with a boiler plate ruling the court frequently used back then to avoid having to seriously decide a case. Jack Baker says, "In 1970, Minnesota laws did not forbid a marriage contract issued to a same-sex couple. A license lawfully obtained in Blue Earth County was signed by the Rev. Roger Lynn. The Grand Jury refused to approve the indictment requested by Hennepin County Attorney George M. Scott. No court has ever invalidated the contract. Even though courts refuse to 'recognize' what was issued by a Clerk of Court, the first legal gay marriage remains in effect." (Source: personal email communication dated May 31, 2013 and copied to me from Jack Baker to Don Jorovsky) See previous post Jack Baker says it would be unlawful if he married under new Minnesota gay marriage law (6/1/13)

See my previous posts and other related links:

UPDATE: June 29, 2013 both the Friday and Saturday morning network news cycles have been filled with stories about the gay marraige ruling and the unexpected court decision that allowed gay marriages to take place now instead of an indeterminate amount of time later. Here are are some interesting links I've read:

Friday, June 7, 2013

New queer studies professor, OSU Magnus Hirschfeld Fund and OutHistory mentioned in student paper

OSU

PHOTO: Oregon State University Queer studies Associate Professor Qwo-Li Driskill. See news story by James Day, "Building a new curriculum: Queer studies, Associate Professor Qwo-Li Driskill is launching a new degree program at OSU," gazettetimes.com posted June 4, 2013. Also, an OSU a student editorial commented, "A new program is scheduled to make its debut this summer: queer studies. Associate professor Qwo-Li Driskill has been creating the program from scratch. . . . Driskill is looking to make a pitch for queer studies to develop into a minor program at OSU, like the one offered at the University of Oregon. . . . Students can register now for QS 262-Introduction to Queer Studies for the summer and fall 2013 year. The course, which fills bacc core requirements for difference, power and discrimination, as well as writing, will educate students in a number of areas. Curriculum includes questioning the ideas surrounding sexuality and gender and analyzing relevant queer movements." (Quoted from Editorial Staff, "Queer studies: great addition to OSU," Barometer Wednesday, June 5, 2013, p. 3) See my previous posts OSU School of Language, Culture and Society is perfect for OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund (1/19/12) and OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund Agreement (1/4/12).

I recently sent an Oregon State University Student writer the links to my OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund and my gay OSU history: Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," OutHistory.org posted April 30, 2010 (See About OutHistory.org and previous post OSU gay history at OutHistory.org site (1/16/12))

Having been a student before, I am sympathetic to the fact that students rarely have the time or motivation to read about their own cultural history. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to see the following comments by Irene Drage, who was the student I had sent the above links to several months ago:

. . . the Stonewall riots sparked more than violence . . . The riots are the reason behind the United State's pride parades. Since 1970, the parades happen every year around the end of June, to commemorate the Stonewall riots.

The Stonewall riots are easily as influential to our society today as the race riots of Washington D.C. following Martin Luther King Jr.'s death on April 4, 1968, but many schools do not even mention it to their students. I, for instance, didn't even know what Stonewall meant -- other than a stone wall, or Stonewall Jackson from the Civil War -- until a few years ago.

President Obama mentioned Stonewall in his inaugural speech, right after Seneca Falls [women's rights] and Selma, Alabama [black rights]. I have never been so proud to be an American as at that moment, the one when the black president of a former slave nation, in which only white men were deemed equal, acknowledged the validity and legitimacy of the LGBTQ rights movement.

"Unlike other minorities, LGBTQQI people rarely have family members who can share the history of their minority group," Thomas Kraemer, an OSU alumnus, wrote in an email. "Many believe that this lack of cultural history worked against LGBT people for centuries, and still does in many instances." Kraemer, author of "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," is a Corvallis resident and was involved in the first officially recognized gay student group at OSU.

When I asked about the person who taught him about this unique disconnect in LGBTQ culture, Kraemer expanded on his earlier comment in a later email. "Historian Jonathan Ned Katz [the man behind OutHistory.org] is the man who taught me that people with a minority sexual orientation or gender identity rarely have a family member who can share their cultural history, unlike most minorities."

Kraemer is also the founder of the "OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund to support educational and research programs at OSU concerning people or animals of a minority sexual orientation or gender identity." The research fund, worth several million dollars, is currently earmarked for Kraemer's own research on gay science and history at OSU. Once Kramer and his partner die, the foundation has signed a contract with Kraemer to manage the fund.

OSU is actually a bigger part of LGBTQ rights history than I ever knew, before I realized how much I didn't know about the history of LGBTQ culture. Former OSU Professor W. Dorr Legg helped found the homophile movement predating the Stonewall riots, as well as the present-day Log Cabin Republicans Club.

Kraemer told me in an email that he was "arrogantly unaware of history when I was in college," and that made me realize that I was too. It is arrogant to believe that anything deemed not important enough to teach us in high school history survey courses must therefore not be important.

It's a trial to educate ourselves without the motivation of grades or tuition, especially when it's on top of school, work and other commitments. But, history is important. If we ignore something long enough, it's almost like it never happened -- it gets eased out of the history books and the news fades from active memory.

(Quoted from Irene Drage, "Rainbows, glitter, short-shorts in the pride parade," Barometer, Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - Irene Drage is a senior in English)

I can tell that Irene Drage is a smart student, but still innocent about the deeper issues of comparisons between race and sexual orientation or gender identity. I caution her to tread lightly in these areas, keep an open mind and avoid conflating the issues of different race and cultural groups, including females who represent the majority of Americans.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Jack Baker says it would be unlawful if he married under new Minnesota gay marriage law

May 18, 1970 Michael McConnell and Jack Baker married by Hennepin County Minnesota Justice of the Peace

PHOTO: May 18, 1970 Michael McConnell and Jack Baker were married by Hennepin County Minnesota Justice of the Peace. As a law student, Baker brought his gay marriage case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Baker V. Nelson case, which was dismissed with a boiler plate ruling the court frequently used back then to avoid having to seriously decide a case. Jack Baker says, "In 1970, Minnesota laws did not forbid a marriage contract issued to a same-sex couple. A license lawfully obtained in Blue Earth County was signed by the Rev. Roger Lynn. The Grand Jury refused to approve the indictment requested by Hennepin County Attorney George M. Scott. No court has ever invalidated the contract. Even though courts refuse to 'recognize' what was issued by a Clerk of Court, the first legal gay marriage remains in effect." (Source: personal email communication dated May 31, 2013 and copied to me from Jack Baker to Don Jorovsky) See my previous posts Supreme Court on Jack Baker's gay marriage case 42 years later (3/26/13) and Jack Nichols biography with blurb of my book review (2/17/13) about the editor of a Stonewall era gay newspaper and the articles I wrote for his Internet era newspaper shortly before he died: "Jack Baker & Michael McConnell: Lunatics or Geniuses?" gaytoday.com posted June 21, 2004. Also see my previous post Life Magazine gay marriage 1971 (11/20/08) about the national magazine coverage of gay marriage and the national magazine article by Jack Star, "The Homosexual Couple," LOOK, 26 January 1971, pp. 69-71 that reported Jack Baker and Mike McConnell's gay marriage.

Jack Nichols biography book cover PHOTO: cover of book by J. Louis (Jeter Louis) Campbell III (1946), "Jack Nichols, gay pioneer: 'have you heard my message?'" Harrington Park Press (Haworth Press), 2007 -- Oregon State University Valley Library OASIS card catalog number HQ75.8.N53 C36 2007 -- A Google searchable version is now available for the book by J. Louis Campbell, "Jack Nichols, Gay Pioneer: "Have You Heard My Message?" Routledge, 2006 (see "Thomas Kraemer" references on p. xiii and p. unnumbered) See previous post Jack Nichols biography with blurb of my book review (2/17/13), which also includes all of the Gay Today articles I wrote for his internet gay newspaper shortly before he died.

In a personal email communication dated May 31, 2013 and copied to me from Jack Baker to Don Jorovsky (see photo caption above for more quotes) was Baker's wry answer to Don's question, "are you planning on getting hitched?" (I assume Don's question was made in reference to the fact that Minnesota recently legalized gay marriage by repealing a recently enacted ban of it.) Jack answered simply, "No, that would be unlawful. In 1970, Minnesota laws did not forbid a marriage contract issued to a same-sex couple." Although Jack didn't spell it out, I guess he was ironically referring to the long-standing marriage laws that forbid marrying again without being legally divorced first.

Jack also quoted me in his email as having said, ". . . early "leaders" in New York City opposed gay marriage and referred to FREE members as "farmers in Minnesota". Their concerns "were mostly interested in sexual freedom and gay liberation." In the email, Jack added, "The American Civil Liberties Union was equally condescending." I would like to back up Jack's quote of mine with the source for my opinion and my qualifications for making it. (see the photo caption above detailing my involvement with the writing of the biography of Jack Nichols, who was the editor of one of the first gay newspapers in New York City and who I got to know quite well while writing articles for his gay online newspaper before he died.)

My original opinion about Jack Baker's marriage was formed firsthand after I had witnessed reactions to it while attending the University of Minnesota and I had the opportunity to see gay activist in New York City in 1971 when I visited my aunt, who had at the time had worked for decades in the New York City news and publishing business. As an innocent youth, who mostly wanted to get publicity for my animated film artwork, she taught me how influential New York City newspapers and TV networks were in spreading a story nationally and even internationally. I quickly discovered that except for a few sympathetic and closeted gay editors, the mainstream TV and newspaper editors in New York were very biased toward doing stories originating in New York City and Washington, D.C. because they could easily verify the story.

Despite the east coast bias of editors, in the 1970s a couple of stories about gay marriage, including photographs of Jack Baker's wedding and the religious gay weddings performed by Rev. Tory Perry, were published by New York editors in nationally distributed mass circulation magazines that were regularly read by both adults and school children as assigned reading. These gay marriage stories were an inspiration to me and motivated me to join Jack Baker's group that was fighting for gay rights at the University of Minnesota. (See previous post Life Magazine gay marriage 1971 (11/20/08) about the national magazine coverage of gay marriage and the national magazine article by Jack Star, "The Homosexual Couple," LOOK, 26 January 1971, pp. 69-71 that reported Jack Baker and Mike McConnell's gay marriage. Also see the article I wrote for an academic gay history site that included other references to the dream of gay marriages in the 1970s: Thomas Kraemer, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," outhistory.org posted April 30, 2010.

However, after the initial coverage of gay marriages in the 1970s, editors largely avoided the subject of gay marriage probably because of the angry reactions of both gay liberation leaders, who had goals of sexual freedom, and homophobic individuals, who wrote angry letters to the editor threatening to cancel magazine or newspaper subscriptions because they couldn't stand seeing something so "disgusting" as gay couples. Gay leaders at the time had rejected marriage because they had adopted the 1960s heterosexual idea of free love and the feminist ethic that marriage was an obsolete institution designed by heterosexual men in order to enslave women. (See previous post Gay 1976 newspaper controversy (5/3/06) for an example of the angry mob reaction to a 1976 newspaper story about gay activist women who loved each other so much they wanted to get married, but thought it was an impossible dream.)

Around 2005, my opinions were cemented by talking to a man who was the editor of one of the first nationally distributed gay newspapers from New York City in the 1970s, Jack Nichols, who had also participated in the earlier homophile movement predating Stonewall. By the time I talked to him in the 21st Century he had become a wise old man with the only agenda of asking me to help an author review his biography that was being written. (See photo above.) He freely acknowledged the biases of New York City activists as being toward the gay liberation ideas of free love and the rejection of marriage. Nichols seemed genuinely unbiased with no personal stake in defending any position. Instead of trying to defend the rejection of Jack Baker's marriage by 1970s gay activists, Nichols encouraged me to write an article for the internet newspaper he had founded and edited. (See "Jack Baker & Michael McConnell: Lunatics or Geniuses?" gaytoday.com posted June 21, 2004)

Something else Jack Nichols told me was his impression of why Jack Baker's gay marriage had not received more attention amongst scholars and others. He believed that until recently, Jack Baker had done little to promote his story to the New York and Hollywood media moguls who have the power and means to drive international attention to it. Secondly, he said the few interactions he and his acquaintances had had with Jack Baker in the 1970s saw him to be a very analytical engineer-like personality who wanted to focus on his law career and personal privacy. As a result, nobody was motivated to take the effort to know Jack Baker better, especially because he was thousands of miles from New York City. Nichols agreed in 2005 with my theory that back East bias of the media was not helping spread his story. (I recently experienced this bias several times when I've contacted New York producers of national TV programs with gay-friendly stories, but who were unwilling to correct their stories to include a mention of Jack Baker's gay marriage case as being the first one, instead of the gay marriages they had reported, which weren't even actual legal marriages. These producers refused to look at even photographs of law books showing Baker's Supreme Court case.)

Based on my experience in he 1970s with gay women wanting to get married and my later experience of living in San Francisco during the 1980s AIDS tragedy, which killed many gay men, I witnessed a shift in power from national gay rights leaders being dominated by men to being driven by lesbians. Out of respect for those who died of AIDS and the gay women who had a personal interest in legalizing gay marriage, I bet few people, other than anti-gay groups, would want to tie the ethnographic shift, from the sexual freedom to an ethic of gay marriage, on the failure of the gay liberation goals to be implemented without harm. Having studied history, I predict the ethic of sexual freedom and the rejection of marriage will surface again in the future, especially if medical technology and legal frameworks exist to better support such human social behavior in the future. After all, any student of history can tell you how the institution of marriage has changed over human history due to legal and social changes.

No matter what the future may bring with gay marriage as a social institution, I remain supportive of a world where marriage is a right that individuals are free to choose or not choose at their free will. I continue to oppose marriage being used as a tool of oppression by anybody. I also remain supportive of a world where individuals are free to choose who and how many people they wish to have sex with, but of course only with the restriction that they only have sex safely and responsibly as technology will allow (e.g. the invention of condoms allowed for sex with fewer pregnancies and less disease transmission). I envision a future where the only medical harm with having sex will be the possible financial and emotional harms associated with being intimate with another human.

Finally, based on my reading of the meta-history of the writing of history over time, I predict it will take a few more generations before mainstream historians will properly acknowledge the contribution of Jack Baker's gay marriage activism because only then will the current reasons for ignoring it be gone. I hope some historian will find this post and acknowledge my prediction in a piece he publishes on May 18, 2070! (If I'm still alive, I will promise not gloat and say I told you so!)