Tag Archives: Paris

Gay History - July 20: The Mattachine Society's "Mission and Purposes, Cruising in Paris, Gerry Studds, and the Murder of John O'Connell

Gay History – July 20: The Mattachine Society’s “Mission and Purposes”, Cruising in Paris, Gerry Studds, and the Murder of John O’Connell

1845: In Paris, a mob attacks a group of about 50 men arrested by police in a sweep of the Tuileries Gardens, a popular cruising area.

The Archives de la Bastille contain hundreds of reports of conversations between “sodomites” and police decoys in public spaces such as the Luxembourg and Tuileries gardens. The reports include many of the same comments and gestures, as well as numerous variants in their opening lines. Thus, for example: Charles Gentil accosted a man listening to music emanating from the Tuileries palace by noting that “there are some fine instruments in this ensemble” and adding that “there are others that do not make so much noise but give more pleasure” (from the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Archives de la Bastille, November 1, 1728). He explained by exposing himself, as countless others did without the clever verbal prelude. Many “sodomites” discussed their endowments or endurance, preferences and adventures, all in order to impress and entice the object of their desires. Some declared that they had never liked women (sometimes in misogynistic terminology) and always liked men—which begins to sound like an assertion of personal sexual identity.

1951: The “Missions and Purposes” of the Mattachine Society are ratified under California corporation law.

The Society, founded upon the highest ethical and social principles, serves as an example for homosexuals to follow and provides a dignified standard upon which the rest of society can base a more intelligent and accurate picture of the nature of homosexuality than currently obtains in the public mind. The Society provides the instrument necessary to work with civic-minded and socially valuable organizations and supplies the means for the assistance of our people who are victimized daily as a result of our oppression. Only a Society, providing an enlightened leadership, can rouse the homosexuals — one of the largest minorities in America today — to take the actions necessary to elevate themselves from the social ostracism an unsympathetic culture has perpetrated upon them.

1983: The House votes 420 to 3 to censure Representatives Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.) and Daniel B. Crane (R-Ill.) for sexual misconduct with House pages. Studds later reads reporters a statement saying that the censure was not warranted: his affair with the page was private and mutually voluntary. He adds that he hopes “to emerge from the present situation a wiser, a more tolerant and a more complete human being.” The censure strips Studds of his chairmanship of the Coast Guard and Navigation Subcommittee.   “We are here to repair the integrity of the United States House of Representatives,” proclaims Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia).

After retiring from Congress in 1997, Studds worked as a lobbyist for the fishing industry.

Studds and partner Dean T. Hara (his companion since 1991) were married in Boston on May 24, 2004, one week after Massachusetts became the first state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage.

Gerry Studds died on October 14, 2006, in Boston, at age 69, several days after suffering a pulmonary embolism. Due to the federal ban on same-sex marriage, Hara was not eligible, upon Studds’ death, to receive the pension provided to surviving spouses of former members of Congress.. Hara later joined a federal lawsuit, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, that successfully challenged the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act.

1981: Despite having privately acknowledged her “bisexuality” to officials from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Czechoslovakian- born tennis champion Martina Navratilova is finally granted U.S. citizenship, six years after she defected.

1984: Forty-year-old gay San Franciscan John O’Connell is murdered, and another man injured, when five men, all in their late teens or early twenties, drive into the city from nearby Vallejo looking to “beat up some fags.”  The murderers are all released in 1990, after only serving four years of their 15-year-to-life terms.

Via UPI:

A 9 p.m. in the Polk Street district, a favorite area of homosexuals, two men walking along the street were accosted by four of the Vallejo group, one of them shouting anti-homosexual epithets.

John O’Connell, 42, suffered two blows and fell to the pavement. The medical evidence was that it was the fall, not the blows, that produced the cerebral trauma that caused death. 

The defendants left the scene laughing.

There’s more.

2005: Bill C-38 receives Royal Assent, legalizing same-sex marriage in Canada nationwide. The first same-sex couple to receive a marriage license under the new law is a couple from Alberta.

#OTD - June 3, 1906: Bisexual Singer, Dancer and Actress Josephine Baker Is Born.

#OTD – June 3, 1906: Bisexual Singer, Dancer, and Actress Josephine Baker Is Born.

Singer, Dancer, WW2 French Resistance Spy, and Civil Rights activist. Josephine Baker was much more than just a banana skirt.

Josephine Baker, born on June 3, 1906 was an iconic figure in the world of entertainment. She was a French-American singer, dancer, and actress, known for her remarkable talent, charisma, and trailblazing spirit. Josephine Baker was also known for her open bisexuality, which was an important aspect of her personal life.

Baker was born in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and grew up in a challenging environment. She faced poverty and racial discrimination, but her determination and passion for performance pushed her towards a brighter future. At the age of 13, she started performing on stage, and by the 1920s, she had gained significant recognition for her unique style and energy.

In 1925, Josephine Baker achieved worldwide fame when she traveled to Paris (Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States ) and became an instant sensation at the Folies Bergère with her captivating performances. Her provocative dances, featuring her famous “banana skirt” and sensual movements, revolutionized the entertainment industry and broke numerous social barriers.

Baker was the most successful American entertainer working in France. Ernest Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw”. The author spent hours talking with her in Paris bars. Picasso drew paintings depicting her alluring beauty. Jean Cocteau became friendly with her and helped vault her to international stardom.

Aside from her success on stage, Josephine Baker was also active in the French Resistance during World War II. She served as a spy, smuggling secret messages hidden in her sheet music and using her celebrity status to gather information for the Allies. Her bravery and contributions earned her several honors, including the Croix de Guerre and the Medal of Resistance.

Josephine Baker’s personal life was marked by her bisexuality. She had both romantic and sexual relationships with both men and women, which was considered taboo at the time. She was known for her affairs with prominent figures, including Frida Kahlo, Colette, and many others. Her openness about her bisexuality challenged norms and helped pave the way for acceptance and understanding of different sexualities.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Josephine Baker became increasingly involved in the civil rights movement. She actively fought against racism and segregation, refusing to perform for segregated audiences in the United States. Her contributions to the movement were recognized, and she was the only woman to speak at the March on Washington in 1963.

I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad. And when I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth. And then look out, ’cause when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world.

josephine baker – march on washington – 1963

Later in her life, Josephine Baker adopted twelve children from different ethnic backgrounds, forming what she called her “Rainbow Tribe.” Her dedication to promoting racial harmony and acceptance through her family exemplified her commitment to social justice and equality.

Coretta Scott King approached Baker in the Netherlands to ask if she would take her husband’s place as leader of the Civil Rights Movement. After many days of thinking it over, Baker declined, saying her children were “too young to lose their mother”.

Josephine Baker continued to perform and advocate for civil rights until her death on April 12, 1975, at the age of 68. She received a full Catholic funeral at L’Église de la Madeleine, attracting more than 20,000 mourners.[The only American-born woman to receive full French military honors at her funeral, Baker’s funeral was the occasion of a huge procession. After a family service at Saint-Charles Church in Monte Carlo. Josephine  Baker was interred at Monaco’s Cimetière de Monaco.

Her legacy as a bisexual trailblazer, entertainer, and activist live on, and she is remembered as an LGBT icon of the 20th century.

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It’s good KARMA and always appreciated!

PAYPAL will@back2stonewall.com – VENMO @Will-Kohler-1 

Gay History - April 9, 1821: Charles Baudelaire French Poet, Critic, and Essayist is Born

Gay History – April 9, 1821: Charles Baudelaire French Poet, Critic, and Essayist is Born

Charles Baudelaire is born in Paris to a bourgeois family on this day in 1821. The author of Les Fleurs du Mal which consists of 126 poems Baudelaire  is alternately described as a Catholic, a Satanist; brilliant, mundane. No one knows much about his sexual exploits, although Marcel Proust and Andre Gide tell us he was certainly gay.

What is know of Baudelaire’s life is he best known for his collection of poems “Les Fleurs du mal” (The Flowers of Evil), which was published in 1857 and caused a scandal due to its controversial content.

His life was marked by a series of struggles, both personal and professional.

Baudelaire’s personal life was marked by a series of complicated relationships with both men and women. He had a number of close male friends, including the poet Théodore de Banville, with whom he shared a close bond.

He suffered from ill health throughout his life and struggled with addiction, which ultimately led to his premature death at the age of 46. Despite these difficulties, however, Baudelaire left a lasting legacy in the world of literature.

You can read the poems of Le Fleurs du mal” HERE

Over 100 Thousand People Attend Paris Gay Pride Parade

Over 100 Thousand People Attend Paris Gay Pride Parade

Over one hundred thousand people thousand flooded the streets of central Paris for the annual Gay Pride parade on Saturday, with plenty of exuberance but also calls to “carry on the struggle” against discrimination.

Marchers wound their way through the French capital under the traditional rainbow colours of the LGBT community. 
Among the slogans waved on placards were “You don’t have a monopoly on families”, “Close down the Vatican” and “Neither the world nor women are here to be conquered”.

But that did not stop the haters from hating.

A self-confessed “far-right anti-LGBT activist” was arrested for ripping a rainbow flag at the French parliament on the eve of Saturday’s LGBTI parade in Paris. Earlier in the week vandals defaced rainbows painted on the street amid a right-wing backlash against official support for gay rights.

For the first time ever two rainbow flags were placed at the doors of the National Assembly this week as a “symbol of the fight against homophobia

Right-wingers and hardline Catholics demonstrated as the parliament debated the government’s gay marriage bill but failed to prevent it being passed.

Graffiti was sprayed on rainbow street crossings in the Marais, a centre of gay nightlife in Paris.

The city council responded by painting two more crossings and announcing that the decoration would become permanent, a “resolutely positive and benevolent signal” according to Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo.

right-wing politicians and social media users were horrified President Emmanuel Macron’s invitation to techno artistes to perform at the presidential palace during the annual music festival.

During the event LGBTQ dancers performed on the steps and posed for a photo with Macron and his wife Brigitte.

“Help!” was National Rally (formerly National Front) leader Marine Le Pen’s reaction to ,the photo while mainstream-right Republicans MP Julien Aubert stormed that “the presidency of the republic is not a nightclub and even less a strip joint”.

The photo was “an insult to France’s heart”,

Christophe Castaner, who heads Macron’s Republic on the Move party, hit back with a call to distribute the photo as widely as possible, “since it upsets a part of the political class that normalises racist and homophobe statements”.

 

Ted Cruz Holds “Rally for Religious Liberty” at Bigoted, Anti-Gay Bob Jones University

Ted Cruz religious Rally Bob Jones

On Saturday Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz threw a “Rally for Religious Liberty” at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

Cruz told a crowd of cheering evangelical “Christians” that the issue of gay marriage is not settled despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down state bans against the practice, including one voters had put into the South Carolina Constitution. (Even though it really is.)

“This is not settled,” the Texas/Canadian senator declared during a fire and brimstone speech. “It’s not the law of the land. It’s not the Constitution. It’s not legitimate, and we will stand and fight.”

Cruz said the definition of marriage is “left to the states and left to the people” under the Tenth Amendment.

Cruz reminded the audience that he had spoken out forcefully against the ruling at the time it was handed down in June and said it was “sad” to have heard other GOP White House hopefuls react by saying, “It’s settled. It’s the law of the land. We give up. Let’s move on.”

Also during his speech, Cruz disgustingly argued that the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday evening were further evidence that Christians are under attack — despite the fact that the attacks took place at a myriad of nightlife hot spots and a concert and targeted no churches whatsoever.

Calling for a moment of silence, Cruz made a prayer about Islamic extremism:

“Right now as we speak, it is persecuting Christians. It is persecuting Jews. It’s even persecuting fellow Muslims. We ask for unity for the people of America, and we ask finally, that you bless this gathering in celebration of the liberty to worship you with all of our hearts, minds and souls.”

Many of the speakers honored by Cruz rally are some of America’s most notorious antigay activists: Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council (a known friend to the KKK and who recently called for parents to remove their children from public schools after a principal came out); Dick and Betty Odgaard, the dimly determined couple that refused to host a same-sex wedding at their chapel and launched an ambitious billboard campaign against marriage equality; and Texas Pastor David Welch, who claimed we’re all in the “presence of evil” during the botched HERO fight.

In 2014 an independent report found Bob Jones University officials for years told sexual assault victims not to contact the police and that they were to blame. The school, which didn’t admit unmarried black students until 1975, still banned interracial dating. Its then-president, Bob Jones III, endorsed stoning gay people during a visit to the White House in 1980. Mr. Jones’s father, Bob Jones Jr., called the Catholic church a “Satanic cult” and labeled the pope the anti-Christ.

Don’t give me that old time religion.

NOM Launches International Org Against Gays – Voulez Vous Hate Homos?

Bryan Brown evil

Jeremy Hooper of As Good As You has exposed The National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM)  launch of an international organization to promote anti-gay hate.

Writes Hooper:

We know NOM has moved forward with all of the other plans in those strategy documents (including the “drive a wedge” one); this is just a continuation of the international plan, with France being the first chess move in a larger, planetary onslaught on behalf of inequality. Because it’s NOM’s Earth, apparently—we just get discriminated within it.

This should come as a surprise to no one.  With support and money dwindling for NOM and Brian Brown’s million dollar paycheck, Brown took a  recent trip to Paris, where he enthusiastically reported on the French anti-gay marriage demonstrations.

Hooper goes on to note that internal NOM documents released last year confirm that NOM has been planning the creation of International Organization for Marriage since at least 2008-09.

And while French ‘traditional marriage’ opponents are amping up the violent rhetoric, promising blood will be spilled over equality and gay bashing is on the rise.  Brian Brownshirt and NOM remain silent on the violence.

Brian Brown shirt Paris

 

 

DISGUSTING! – “On met les enfants devant” Toddlers Used As Human Shields At Paris Gay Hate Rally

Toddlers used as human shields in France

News agencies from  France are reporting that yesterday’s NOM approved anti-gay hate march in Paris turned violent when protesters attempted to march down the off-limits Champs Elysees, prompting riot police to respond with force and with tear gas.

Christine Boutin, leader of the French Christian Democratic Party, and one of National Organization for Marriage’s speakers at their forthcoming anti-gay hate march in Washington, DC was seen lying on the ground in the Champs-Elysees, after being tear-gassed by police during the demonstration, after clashing with the police herself.

100 to 200 frustrated protestors had reportedly attempted to breach a police barricade blocking them from entering the Champs Elysees. In response, riot police forcibly pushed them back from the fences, as well as spraying them with tear gas. Jean-François Copé, leader of the centre-right opposition UMP party, who was present at the protest, called for President Hollande to be “held to account”, and expressed his “indignation” that tear gas had been deployed “against families present with their children.”

John Aravosis, from AmericaBlog is also reporting that anti-gay protestors also attempted to use their children as “human shields” against police.

“On met les enfants devant, on met les enfants devant.” TRANSLATION:  “Put the kids in front, put the kids in front,” a father yells to other  protesters, as he approached the police line with his three-year old  child perilously perched on his shoulders right after the police used  tear gas and batons, telling the protesters to back up.

DISGUSTING.

So much for the anti-gay “it’s all for the best interest of children” lie.

Les talibans francais.

Sources Estimate As High As 400,000 People March In Paris FOR Same-Sex Marriage – Video Report

Paris same sex marriage march

A crowd estimated by some sources to be that of at least 400,000 rallied and marched today in Paris for same-sex marriage and to counter the protest of two weeks ago of a smaller anti-gay crowd who supported and led by the Catholic Church marched against gay marriage.

Demonstrators waved banners emblazoned with phrases like “Equality of rights is not a threat” and chanted: “What do you want? Equality! When do you want it? Now!” Another placard showed a version of the French government’s seal, but with two Mariannes kissing, and under the words, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” was the slogan “No more, no less!” (snip)

“During his campaign, the Socialist François Hollande, now president, promised to legalize gay marriage within a year of taking office in May. And with effective majorities in both houses of Parliament, Mr. Hollande and his government should be able to beat back various efforts by opponents to kill or amend the bill, and some suggest that even given the long legislative process, it may become law in May or June.

The major chant was of the day of the march was a time-honored classic as true today as when it was first shouted far too long ago:  “Qu’est-ce que vous voulez? Egalité. Vous la voulez quand? Maintenant.”

What do you want? Equality! When do we want it? Now!

********************

AMERICA LEASE TAKE NOTEThis is a MAJOR part of gaining civil rights not only for the LGBT community but for all.  A part of the strategy we have sorely been lacking and we despertately need to return to.

Video Report courtesy of AussieNews1

BUSTED! – French Anti-Gay Website Built By NOM To Agitate Bigots Over Gay Marriage In France

BUSTEDWhile France is edging ever closer to same-sex marriage and the vatican and Catholic church are pushing homophobes to fight back the French website “Laissez-Nous Voter” (Let Us Vote) popped up of Friday demanding that French citizens get to vote on a gay couple’s civil marriage right and and  be treated as a public referendum:

The intrepid Jeremy Hooper over at Good As You has discovered that the website  “Laissez-Nous Voter” was not created by the French opposition to gay marriage but was created by none other     than Texan Colton Brugger, the OPUSFidelis tech guy who does all of the National Organization For Marriage’s web work.

Yesterday we reported that NOM’s President Brian Brownshirt has traveled to Paris, France to spew hateful lies and propaganda as organizers, mostly Catholics who believe in “traditional marriage” had planned three huge protests this weekend.

Colton Brugger, Brian Brown and the National Organization for Marriage starring in Les Doucherables!

 

Paris Gay Kiss In Marred By Threats Of Violence In the Name Of Religion (Video)

A gay Valentine’s Day kiss-in that was originally to be held in front of Notre Dame Cathedral was moved because Christian Fundamentalist (who call themselves “Catholic” websites put out a call to action to “defend their faith against this provocation” against the ‘aids bags’, ‘sodomites’and other homophobic insults. The websites called for a violent response so the organizers decided to change the location to place Saint Michel in the nearby Latin Quarter, after the police strongly encouraged it, saying they could not protect them in case of trouble.

The kiss in was held peacefully at St-Michel but some gays went to Notre Dame anyway and witnesses are saying 200 Christian activists were expecting them, and after they started kissing, they were attacked with motorbike helmets and kicked.”

“We can’t protect you.” The police no longer protect people from violence? Wonderful

Video of the “Non-Violent” kiss-in at St-Michel

Video of the religious zealots at Notre Dame screaming (what I believe is) “HABEMUS PAPAM” which is Latin for “We have a pope!”