Tag Archives: DADT

Black History Month: Forgotten Gay Hero Perry Watkins – Watkins vs. The United States Army (1982)

Perry Watkins was an African-American gay man, and one of the first service members to challenge the ban against homosexuals in the United States military. Watkins was also the only person ordered reinstated to active military duty by a court after being dismissed for gay.

The United States Army drafted Perry Watkins in 1968.  Watkins, an openly gay African American male, was proud to serve and  stated honestly that he was homosexual when military officials asked him and admitted him at a time when it was forbidden for openly gay men to serve. But the Army needed men to fight at a time when American citizens were becoming wary of the war machine.

During Watkins’ initial three-year tour of military duty, he served in the United States and Korea as a chaplain’s assistant, personnel specialist, and company clerk.

A year after his induction, in 1968, Watkins signed an affidavit stating that he had been a homosexual from the age of 13 and that, since his enlistment, he had engaged in sodomy with two other servicemen, a crime under military law.

When his first enlistment period expired in 1970, Watkins received an honorable discharge, but his reenlistment eligibility code was listed as “unknown.” In 1971, Watkins requested correction of the reenlistment designation and the Army corrected the code to category 1, “eligible for reentry on active duty.”  Shortly thereafter, he reenlisted for a second three-year term. In 1972, Watkins was denied a security clearance because of his homosexuality, and the Army again investigated him for allegedly committing sodomy and again terminated the investigation for insufficient evidence. Following another honorable discharge in 1974, the Army accepted Watkins’ application for a six-year reenlistment.  In October 1979, the Army yet again accepted Watkins’ application for another three-year reenlistment.

But in 1981 the Army promulgated a regulation that mandated the discharge of all homosexuals regardless of merit and after 14 year of military service Major General Elton recommended that Watkins be discharged.

Watkins fought the discharge and on October 5, 1982, the district court enjoined the Army from refusing to reenlist Watkins because of his admitted homosexuality, holding that the Army was equitably stopped from relying on the nonwaivable disqualification provisions of its new regulation. The Army re-enlisted Watkins for a six-year term on November 1, 1982, with the proviso that the reenlistment would be voided if the district court’s injunction were not upheld on appeal.

In 1989, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, voting 7 to 4, upheld the injuction and ordered the Army to allow Mr. Watkins re-enlist. It was the first time a U.S. appellate court ruled against the U.S. military’s ban on service by gays and lesbians. The Bush administration sought Supreme Court review of that decision without success. Watkins initially planned to reenlist, but settled instead for a retroactive promotion to sergeant first class, $135,000 in retroactive pay, full retirement benefits, and an honorable discharge.

But Watkins’ story took a sad turn in the early 1990s, when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was enacted during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Watkins rushed to help the gay community but was ignored. The individuals chosen to play such a role where white veterans like Keith Meinhold and Joseph Steffan. Watkins’ experience as a drag artist and frank admissions of sexual encounters with other male servicemembers created a “public relations problem”.  In the words of Tom Stoddard, head of Lambda Legal, referring to Margarethe Cammermeyer, who was embraced by movement leaders, Watkins wrote: “We’ll go with a [white] woman who led a lie for fifty-sex years before we go with a black man who had to live the struggle nearly every day of his life.”

Sadly Perry Watkins did not live to see the repeal of DADT. 

Perry Watkins passed away on March 17, 1996 at his home in Tacoma, Washington of complications related to AIDS .

Perry Watkins is a forgotten gay hero that needs to be, and should be remembered.

PRIDE Month + Gay History – June 8: The First Gay Activist Priest, Lambda Rising Bookstore, and So Much More!

June 8th. is a BIG LGBT history day.  

1860 – Gay American author and art collector Edward Perry Warren was born on this date. Under the pseudonym Arthur Lyon Raile, he wrote a three-volume 60,000-word “Defense of Uranian Love.” He also wrote poetry and novels on the same subject, notably “Itamos: A Volume of Poems,” and “A Tale of Pausanias Love,” about homosexuality at Oxford.

Warren purchased the Roman silver drinking vessel known as the Warren Cup, now in the British Museum, which he did not attempt to sell during his lifetime because of its explicit depiction of homoerotic scenes. He also commissioned a version of The Kiss from Auguste Rodin, which he offered as a gift to the local council in Lewes. The council displayed it for two years before returning it as unsuitable for public display. It is now in the Tate Gallery.

1903 – Birth date of bisexual French author Marguerite Yourcenar Her first novel, “Alexis”, was published in 1929. Translator Grace Frick invited her to America, where she lectured in comparative literature in New York City. She and Frick became lovers in 1937 and remained together until Frick died in 1979. In 1951 Yourcenar published the French-language novel “Memoires d’Hadrien” (Memoirs of Hadrian), which was an immediate success and met with great critical acclaim.

In 1939 Yourcenar’s intimate companion at the time, the literary scholar and Kansas City native Grace Frick invited the writer to the United States to escape the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Yourcenar lectured in comparative literature in New York City and Sarah Lawrence College. Yourcenar was bisexual; she and Frick became lovers in 1937 and remained together until Frick died in 1979. After ten years spent in Hartford, Connecticut, they bought a house in Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island, Maine, where they lived for decades.

1923 – Malcolm Boyd (pictured above), becomes the first openly gay clergyman in a mainstream U.S. church.

Boyd was born in Manhattan NY and for a few years worked in the film business.  Boyd entered the Episcopal seminary in 1951 and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1955. He traced his difficulties in his autobiography, “Take Off the Masks” (1978).

In the 1940s Boyd moved to California and eventually became a Hollywood junior producer.  He began moving up in the Hollywood world, eventually founding PRB, a production company, with Mary Pickford. At the same time, amidst all the abundance, he found himself looking for meaning in different places — including churches.

In 1951 Boyd began studying to become a priest at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California. He graduated in 1954 and was ordained a deacon.  Boyd studied further at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and in the 1960s, Boyd became known as “the Espresso Priest” for his religiously-themed poetry-reading sessions at the Hungry i nightclub in San Francisco,

Boyd went on to become a prominent white clergyman in the American Civil Rights Movement. He participated as one of the Freedom Riders in 1961.

Boyd was also active in the anti-Vietnam War movement, marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.

In 1977 Boyd came out of the closet, becoming the most prominent homosexual clergyperson to come out. In the 1980s Boyd met gay activist and author Mark Thompson, who would become his long-time partner

1956 – The case of Clackum vs. the United States was brought to court. The plaintiff had been a reservist in the US Air Force and was given an other-than-honorable discharge after she refused to resign following accusations of homosexual activity. The court ruled that there was no reason to change the type of discharge. She was deprived of the rights and benefits of an honorably discharged service member.

1972 – Camille Mitchell of San Jose, California became the first openly lesbian mother to be granted custody of her children in a divorce proceeding. The judge ordered her not to live with her lover and only see her lover during times when her children were at school or visiting their father.

1974 – Lambda Rising bookstore opened in Washington, DC. Founded by Deacon Maccubbin in 1974 with 250 titles, it was known for its wide selection of books, ranging from LGBT theory and religion to erotica, as well as DVDs, music CDs, and gifts.

To support LGBT literature, Lambda Rising created the Lambda Book Report in 1987 and the annual Lambda Literary Award, also known as “the Lammys,” in 1989. In 1996, Lambda Rising turned those projects over to the new non-profit Lambda Literary Foundation.

In December 2009, Maccubbin announced that Lambda Rising’s two stores would close by January 2010.  In his statement, Maccubbin said the phrase ‘mission accomplished’ has gotten a bad rap in recent years, but in this case, it certainly applies.”
“When we set out to establish Lambda Rising in 1974, it was intended as a demonstration of the demand for gay and lesbian literature. We thought… we could encourage the writing and publishing of LGBT books, and sooner or later other bookstores would put those books on their shelves and there would be less need for a specifically gay and lesbian bookstore. Today, 35 years later, nearly every general bookstore carries LGBT books.  We said when we opened it: Our goal is to show there’s a market for LGBT literature, to show authors they should be writing this literature, to show publishers they should be publishing it, and bookstores they should be carrying it. And if we’re successful, there will no longer be a need for a specialty gay and lesbian bookstore because every bookstore will be carrying them. And 35 years later, that’s what happened. We call that mission accomplished.”
r a specifically gay and lesbian bookstore. Today, 35 years later, 

1975 – Members of the gay rights group GATE appeared before a Parliamentary Committee in Toronto on Immigration and called for dropping all references to homosexuality in Immigration Act.

1977 – 10,000 demonstrators marched in NYC to protest the repeal of the gay rights ordinance in Miami the day before. Composer Paul Williams and his wife took out a full-page ad in Variety supporting a boycott of Florida orange juice, the product for which hate-monger Anita Bryant did commercials.

1977 – Florida’s homophobic governor, Reubin Askew, signed into law a bill forbidding same-sex marriage and the adoption of children by homosexuals. It took more than three decades to overturn the adoption ban.

1988 – Dennis Shere was fired from the “Dayton Daily News” in Ohio for refusing to accept an ad by a gay organization for a health seminar and legal services.

1989 – Composer Louis Weingarten dies of complications from AIDS at age 45. Weingarten, who was born in Detroit, graduated from the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Elliott Carter.

In 1968, Mr. Weingarden won the Prix de Rome and studied at the American Academy in Rome for two years. In 1972, he won a composer’s grant from the estate of the composer Charles Ives, an award administered by the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Among his works is ”Evening Liturgy of Consolation,” which was commissioned by another AIDS patient.

In 1968, Mr. Weingarden won the Prix de Rome and studied at the American Academy in Rome for two years. In 1972, he won a composer’s grant from the estate of the composer Charles Ives, an award administered by the National Institute of Arts and Letters. 

2000 – Outspoken Irish-born singer Sinead O’Connor, 33, said in a letter to the UK’s “Hot Press” recording industry magazine, “I am a lesbian. I love men but I prefer sex with women and I prefer romantic relationships with women.”

2003 – New Hampshire Episcopalians elected Gene Robinson to be their bishop, making him the first openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican Church and sparking a controversy that continues today.

2005 – Colorful rainbow flags, symbols of gay pride, began flying over the historic Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine, Fla. after a federal judge ruled against city leaders who had turned down several requests by a local LGBT group to fly the flags.

2007 – The Department of Defense announced that the homophobic chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, would be replaced in September. Pace stirred controversy by saying that homosexuality is immoral and the military should not condone it by allowing gays to serve openly.

2007 – In an essay in the New York Times magazine, ex-Navy petty officer Stephen Baldwin wrote about the pain of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy of discharging gays from the military: “As the friends I once served with head off to 15-month deployments, I regret I’m not there to lessen their burden and to serve my country. I’m trained to fight, I speak Arabic and I’m willing to serve. No recruiter needs to make a persuasive argument to sign me up. I’m ready, and I’m waiting.”

That Time When the U.S. Naval Investigative Service Went Searching For Our Good Friend "Dorothy"

That Time When the U.S. Naval Investigative Service Went Searching For Our Good Friend “Dorothy”

Nobody knows where and when the expression actually started but everyone knows that being a “Friend of Dorothy’s” is gay slang for a gay man. In the past, stating that, or asking if someone was a friend of Dorothy was a furtive shibboleth used for discussing sexual orientation while avoiding hostility.

Well in the late 1970s, the Naval Investigative Service was investigating homosexuality in the Chicago area. Agents discovered gay men sometimes referred to themselves as “friends of Dorothy”. Unaware of the historical meaning of the term. The Intelligence Service deduced that “Dorothy” must be an actual woman that functioned as a sort of information hub that gay men could use to find other gay men. If they could only find her, they figured they could convince her to talk, perhaps outing many of the gay navy personnel in the process, who in turn, with a little pressure, could no doubt out many others.  The key was simply to find Dorothy.

Of course they failed at finding Dorothy, wasting an amazing amount of taxpayer money paying investigators to pose as gay men.

So now you know.

After 60 Years Lesbian Kicked Out Of The Military During The Lavender Scare Gets Honorable Discharge

Helen Grace James grew up in Pennsylvania  and enlisted in the Air Force in 1952, and had a fine service record. She was promoted to Airman 2nd Class.

But when she was stationed at Roslyn Air Force Base on Long Island, Airman James came under investigation by the Office of Special Investigation. One night in the winter of 1955,during The Lavender Scare she sat with a friend in her car to eat sandwiches when an officer shined a blinding light into her eyes and took her into custody. She was later interrogated for hours. Investigators told Helen Grace James that if she didn’t sign a statement they put in front of her, they would tell her family she was gay.

Helen Grace James signed. She was discharged as “undesirable.”

Now60 years later Helen Grace James has,received her honorable discharge this week after decades of fighting the government for recognition.

“I’m still trying to process it,” she told NBC. “It was both joy and shock. It was really true. It was really going to be an ‘honorable discharge. The Air Force recognizes me as a full person in the military,” she said, having done “my job helping to take care of the country I love.”

Hillary Clinton Tells Rachel Maddow That DOMA and DADT Were Used As ‘Defensive Actions’ by Bill – Video

Clinton on Maddow

 

Last night Rachel Maddow sat down with Hillary Clinton and during her interview asked Hillary about both the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell two anti-gay bills that her husband then President Bill Clinton signed into law despite running on a “pro-LGBT platform his first term. two issues which have taken over “a decade of progressive activism to unwind.” And have harmed  hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian lives.

Asks Maddow in the clip below:

“Whether it was ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ or the Defense of Marriage Act or the – you know, tough on crime (ph) mandatory sentences.  Former President Clinton is progressive on all those issues now… but the policies that he signed – for politically practical reasons – in the ’90s have taken – you know, the political miracle of Barack Obama’s election and a decade of progressive activism to unwind those things to get back to zero. …And so I know that you and President Clinton are different people, and I know that you’re not responsible for what he did as president.  But is your approach to civil rights issues the same as his, or is it different? “

Clintons reply?

“Well, I want to say a word about the issues you mentioned, because my take on it is slightly different. On Defense of Marriage, I think what my husband believed – and there was certainly evidence to support it – is that there was enough political momentum to amend the Constitution of the United States of America, and that there had to be some way to stop that. And there wasn’t any rational argument – because I was in on some of those discussions, on both ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and on DOMA, where both the president, his advisers and occasionally I would – you know, chime in and talk about, ‘you can’t be serious. You can’t be serious.’ But they were.  And so, in a lot of ways, DOMA was a line that was drawn that was to prevent going further.

“It was a defensive action. The culture rapidly changed so that now what was totally anathema to political forces – they have ceded. They no longer are fighting, except on a local level and a rear-guard action. And with the U.S. Supreme Court decision, it’s settled. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is something that – you know, Bill promised during the ‘92 campaign to let gays serve openly in the military.  And it’s what he intended to do.”

I call total Bill-shit. The only “defensive move” was that to get Bill re-elected for a second term which he then blew. Or at least Monica did.

This excuse has been 10 years in the making with the help of former Clinton staffer and current Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin.

I wish Rachel would have asked her about Bill using his signing of both the anti-gay laws in his re-election campaign.  And all the lives both DADT and DOMA  harmed and the millions upon millions of tears, dollars and man-hours spent trying to undo them..

I will admit it.  just don’t 100% trust Hillary Clinton.  But unfortunately I am probably going to have to vote for her using the “lesser of two evils” voting strategy.

I tell you know though.  If Hillary Clinton comes back and bites us in the ass if elected.  You will see an “I told you so”  of biblical proportions.

 

Bill Clinton Performs At Human Rights Campaign Gay-la National Dinner (Video)

Bill Clinton HRC

 

Via Politico:

The fired-up crowd attending the Human Rights Campaign’s national dinner at Washington D.C.’s cavernous convention center was particularly enthusiastic whenever he mentioned Hillary Clinton, a likely 2016 Democratic candidate. The former president noted her support for gay rights during her time at State, when she said that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” “I love the HRC. The initials are great,” Clinton said as the crowd embraced the dual reference to the rights organization and his wife’s middle name, Rodham. Early on, the former president also mentioned Guy Cecil, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who is thought to be a candidate to run Hillary Clinton’s potential presidential campaign. Bill Clinton noted several times how much has changed on the gay rights front — including court-sanctioned gay marriage in many places — since he addressed the organization in 1997. “One thing we have learned is no human heart is immune to an honest outreach,” he said. “No one can forever ignore their personal experience. If you ask somebody who the most conservative member of the Bush administration was, most people say Dick Cheney. But Dick Cheney was for gay marriage [and] gay rights because of his daughter [one of whom is gay], because of his personal human experience.”

NO mention of DOMA.

NO mention of DADT.

NO mention that he SIGNED those bills, had the nerve to campaign for re-election using them as campaign points and that he helped create over a decades of inexpressible heartbreak and inequality for hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians in the United States

And still NO apology to the Lesbian and Gay community for signing either.

(And lets not forget Welfare reform. The selling-out of the middle class.and not thaving enough respect for the presidency to keep his pants zipped for a few years.)

 

AFA’s Bryan Fischer: Obama’s Gay Army Is A Cesspool of Deviancy and Male-on-Male Rape

Bryan Fischer lunatic

 

Good ole’ Batshit Bryan Fischer of the anti-gay hate group The American Family Association is at it again.  This time in an article published at the anti-gay MassResistance website Fischer is screaming about how President Obama’s post DADT repeal military has descended into “moral and sexual debauchery” and has become a ripe of perversion and male-on-male rape.

What Fischer doesn’t tell you is that all the information and statistics come from a GQ article using reports and information gathered BEFORE the repeal of DADT.

One of the things we predicted when the infamous crime against nature was dropped as a bar to military service was an inevitable descent into moral and sexual debauchery in our armed forces.

And we were right.

Homosexual conduct is immoral, unnatural and unhealthy. There are a host of pathologies associated with male homosexual conduct, including random, promiscuous, anonymous sex, a highly elevated risk of HIV/AIDS and a proclivity toward sexual violence.

This is not a lifestyle any rational society, let alone its military, should embrace or support.

Now we are getting more information about just how twisted and dangerous this lifestyle is.

According to the Daily Mail, a prominent newspaper in the UK, male on male rape in the United States military is reaching epidemic proportions.

Absorb this tragic excerpt:

When a man enters the military he is ten times likelier to be sexually abused, and in 2012 alone there were an estimated 14,200 reports of male rape.

Read that again. A man who enlists in the United States military is ten times more likely to be on the receiving end of sexual abuse than if he remains in the civilian population. The risk of being raped jumps a staggering 1,000 percent.

Our military has become a playground for sexual predators, a veritable smorgasbord of victims for homosexuals on the prowl.

It would be stupendously stupid not to accept the plain fact that, as the public becomes aware of these sordid and tragic realities, recruitment, retention, readiness and morale will plummet.

Because sodomy is now a most-favored sexual proclivity in President Obama’s military, male victims of rape have no one to tell without placing their military careers in jeopardy.

And they have a vanishingly small chance of getting justice if they do complain. “[T]he military justice system…has only convicted 7 per cent of all MSP cases that go to trial, which is why an estimated 81 percent of victims never even report.”

In other words, in 2012 there were almost certainly more than the 14,200 male-on-male rapes that we know about. Our military has become a cesspool of homosexual degeneracy.

Bottom line: it is long past time to reinstate the ban against homosexuality in the United States military. Our national security depends upon it. 

Rape can happens to either gender and is committed by either gender. It has run rampant in all male institutions for years. It’s not about sex. It’s about power and control and a heinous act that only the diseased and corrupted mind of Bryan J. Ficher could try to use in his anti-gay arguments.

United States Navy Adds Japan As Military Assignment With Benefits To Same Sex Married Couples

Japan

The United States Navy now will provide military benefits to gay couples stationed in Japan after previously denying dependent status to same-sex spouses there, according to defense officials. The change came after U.S. and Japanese officials agreed to an interpretation of the status of forces agreement between the two nations, concluding that the term “spouses” applied to all individuals who are legally married to Department of Defense personnel.

The Navy announced its decision saying in a notice to personnel that it had added Japan to its list of overseas assignments for same-sex couples. The move came after the Washington Post published an article exposing how gay service members and their spouses often miss out on U.S. benefits while living abroad.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel issued a directive in August ordering the military to treat all legally married couples equally for purposes of federal benefits, ensuring that the Pentagon complied with a Supreme Court ruling this year that overturned a key portion of the Defense of Marriage Act.

The American Military Partners Association, a gay-rights group, described the Navy’s decision as “welcome news” but noted that the armed forces still do not treat same-sex spouses equally at many duty stations abroad.

As of this writing the U.S. Navy has only made Japan and Guantanamo Bay available as overseas assignments for gay couples.

Today In Gay History September 20th: The Battle of The Sexes, The Saint NYC, DOMA and DADT

The Saint White party

1973: Out tennis player Billie Jean King squared off against Bobby Riggs in what the press dubbed the “Battle of the Sexes.” King went on to defeat Riggs and made history for women in sports.  Billie Jean King was still in the closet when she won the match against Riggs and her sexuality would not become public until may of May 1981 when a ‘palimony’ lawsuit filed by her longtime secretary and girlfriend, Marilyn Barnet.

1980: Love Sensation by Loleatta Holloway goes to #1 on Billboard’s dance chart.

1980 – Opening night at “The Saint”, New York’s premier gay dance club of the located in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan.  The Saint was opened by Bruce Mailman and his business partner and his architectural designer, Charles Terrell and was as financed in large part by Mailman’s other gay venture, the nearby St. Marks Baths.  Several times during the year, themed parties such as the “Black Party” and the “White Party” attracted celebrities from around the world. These Saint parties are considered by most disco historians to be the precursors to the circuit party and were attended by thousands of gay men each year.  The Saint closed its doors in 1988 but the “Black Party” and the “White Party”lives on.

1996: President Bill Clinton announced he would be signing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into law, thus making marriage federally recognized as being only between one man and one woman. At the time Clinton stated, “…this legislation should not, despite the fierce and at times divisive rhetoric surrounding it, be understood to provide an excuse for discrimination, violence or intimidation against any person on the basis of sexual orientation.” (Yeah, right!) Clinton later flipped on the issue, and stated he regretted signing DOMA into law. But NEVER apologized to the LGBT Community for doing so.

2011: After 18 years the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the ruling that kept lesbian, gay and bisexual people from openly serving in the military, was repealed. The transgender cocommunity was once again shamelessly left out.

 

 

 

BUSTED! – FRC’s Tony Perkins Lies About Male Sex Abuse In The Military

Tony Perkins FRC KKK

Family Research Council President and white supremacist Tony Perkins went off on make sexual assault in the military and putting the blame squarely at the feet of the repeal of DADT and allowing gay men to serve.

“President Obama is finally admitting that sexual assault is a serious  problem in the military, but what he hasn’t conceded is that his policy  on homosexuality helped create it. According to a new Pentagon survey,  most of the victims were not female (12,000 incidents), but male (14,000), highlighting a growing trend of same-sex assault in our ranks. How could this happen? Well, for starters, the Obama administration ordered military leaders to embrace homosexuality–completely dismissing the concerns that it could be a problem to have people attracted to the same sex, living in close quarters. Groups like FRC were right to be concerned about the overturning of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.'”

Problem is that Tony has lifted his info from Wing-nuttier (if possible) Judith A. Reisman,  a close pal of Porno Pete LaBarbera who recently wrote an article (if you can call it that) in World Net Daily called: Military sodomite abuse: The untold story which uses statistics from a report that was published BEFORE the DADT repeal legislation passed Congress on December 18, 2010 and President Obama signed the bill on December 22, 2010.

Whoopsie.