Tag Archives: crimes against nature

Gay History – June 2: Bill Clinton Introduces PRIDE Month, AIDS Tax Introduced in Congress, A Chorus Line, and MORE!

OTD Gay History – June 2: Bill Clinton Introduces PRIDE Month, AIDS Tax Introduced in Congress, A Chorus Line, and MORE!

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June 2:

1983 – US Congressman Lawrence McDonald (D-GA) proposed that a “user-tax” be imposed on people with AIDS to finance research, saying that since they caused the epidemic they shouldn’t expect others to pay for the research necessary to find treatments.

McDonald, who considered himself a traditional Democrat “cut from the cloth of Jefferson and Jackson,” was known for his ultra-conservative views, even by southern standards and was more conservative than many members of the Republican Party at the time.  In fact, one scoring method published in the American Journal of Political Science named him the second most conservative member of either chamber of Congress between 1937 and 2002.

McDonald sponsored amendments to stop government aid to homosexuals and also co-sponsored a bill “expressing the sense of the Congress that homosexual acts and the class of individuals who advocate such conduct shall never receive special consideration or a protected status under law”.

MacDonald was also the second president of the John Birch Society and opposed the establishment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day saying the FBI had evidence that King “was associated with and being manipulated by communists and secret communist agents.”

On September 1, 1983 Lawrence McDonald boarded Korean Air Lines Flight 007. to attend a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the United States–South Korea Mutual Defense Treaty. McDonald and the rest of the passengers and crew of KAL 007 were killed when Soviet fighters, under the command of Gen. Anatoly Kornukov, shot down KAL 007 near Moneron Island after the plane entered Soviet airspace. All passengers were lost.

1987 – “A Chorus Line” creator Michael Bennett passes away of complications from AIDS at age 44 in Tucson, Arizona.

Following several workshops and an Off-Broadway production, A Chorus Line opened at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway July 25, 1975, directed by Michael Bennett and co-choreographed by Bennett and Bob Avian. An unprecedented box office and critical hit, the musical received twelve Tony Award nominations and won nine, in addition to the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The original Broadway production ran for 6,137 performances.

1989 – The first annual Lambda Literary Awards ceremony was held.  The “Lammy” is the most prestigious, competitive, and comprehensive literary award offered specifically to LGBT authors writing about queer lives across multiple genres published by large and small presses.

1998 – The Rhode Island legislature voted to repeal the state’s sodomy law. The prison sentence under the law had ranged from 7-20 years. 

2000 – Bill Clinton, is the first U.S. President to proclaim June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. Clinton took the occasion to renew his call for passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. 

President Bill Clinton declared June “Gay & Lesbian Pride Month” in 1999 and 2000. Then from 2009 to 2016, each year he was in office, President Barack Obama declared June LGBT Pride Month. Later, President Joe Biden declared June LGBTQ+ Pride Month in 2021 and 2022 and LGBTQI+ Pride Month in 2023.

Four years earlier in 1996 Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act which prevents the Federal Government from recognizing same sex marriages in America.

2008 – Charges of crimes against nature were dropped against two men who were arrested for having consensual sex in Wake County, N.C. since it was in private. Though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 that consensual gay sex is not a punishable offense, North Carolina still classified sodomy as an illegal activity. Raleigh police were told that they could continue to arrest gay men for having public sex, but not private sex.

New York LGBT Politicians DEMAND Obama Act On Russia’s Anti-Gay Human Rights Abuses

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A group of gay and lesbian New York state legislators and NYC politicians including NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, state Sen. Brad Hoylman, Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick, and Assemblyman Matthew Titone are demanding that President Obama respond and demounce Russia’s crackdown on LGBT people and cancel an upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Dear President Obama:

We write as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) elected officials from New York City in anticipation of your deciding whether to continue or cancel plans for an upcoming diplomatic trip to Russia to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. While you are considering whether to cancel that trip in light of Russia’s decision to give asylum to Edward Snowden, we also urge you to consider the country’s horrendous treatment of members of the LGBT community and its clear human rights abuses aimed at our community. Russia has become a country that persecutes anyone who might be LGBT or supports gay rights.

As then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on behalf of your administration, “Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights. It should never be a crime to be gay.” Given that President Putin and Russia have enacted laws to criminalize gay people and supporters and deny human rights to their LGBT citizens, they should not be the beneficiary of any trip by your office until they fully restore all civil rights to LGBT people in their country. Recent actions taken by the Russian government have led LGBT citizens to face not only a society that is intolerant of their basic civil rights, but also a country that would imprison them for declaring support for their own fundamental rights as humans. This has promoted an atmosphere of hate where gay people fear for their own lives and safety. Police are allowed to arrest foreigners who are considered gay or pro-gay and detain them for up to 14 days. Under their new law, as a pro-gay supporter even you could be subject to arrest and imprisonment while in Russia.

Mr. President, you will remember that in December 2011 the White House released a presidential memorandum directing executive officers and agencies that deal in foreign affairs to address human rights abuses against LGBT people abroad and to pressure foreign governments to decriminalize homosexuality. Now it is time for you and your administration to directly act on this memorandum. The LGBT community and its allies in Russia are under attack and the victims of clear human rights abuses. We urge you to stand in solidarity with us. Refuse any diplomatic mission to Russia until President Putin stops these abuses now and agrees to make Russia a country that proudly supports its LGBT community and its allies worldwide. We expect nothing less.

Other N.Y. political signatories  include Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, Assemblyman Micah Kellner, and NYC Council members Jimmy Van Bramer, Rosie Mendez, and Daniel Dromm.

Both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have been silent about the atrocities being perpetrated against Russia’s LGBT community

Gay Men Arrested In Baton Rouge Under Sodomy / Crimes Against Nature Laws

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Since 2011 the Baton Rouge, LA Sheriffs Department has arreseted dozens of gay men under Louisiana’s sodomy and crime against nature statute — R.S. 14:89, the  1805 law that includes language banning “the unnatural carnal copulation by a human being with another of the same sex or opposite sex.” and was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, a ruling that prompted Louisianna’s then-state Attorney General Richard Ieyoub to issue a statement saying the state’s anti-sodomy law would be unenforceable except for provisions banning sodomy for compensation. (i.e. prostitution)

In the latest arrest, July 18th. an undercover East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputy was staking out Manchac Park about 10 a.m. The deputy struck up a conversation with a 65-year-old man and, after denying being a cop, deputy propositioned his target with “some drinks and some fun” back at his place. After following the deputy to a nearby apartment, the man was handcuffed and booked on a single count of attempted crime against nature.

There had been no sex-for-money deal between the two. The men did not agree to have sex in the park, a public place. But the man was still arrested and the charge brought against him was based on a part of Louisiana’s anti-sodomy and crimes against nature law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court a decade ago.

So how could this happen?

According to Casey Rayborn Hicks, a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman “This is a law that is currently on the Louisiana books, and the sheriff is charged with enforcing the laws passed by our Louisiana Legislature,” Hicks said. “Whether the law is valid is something for the courts to determine, but the sheriff will enforce the laws that are enacted.”

And why is the struck down law still on the books?  

Because the Louisiana State legislature has never gotten around to amending and  removing “consensual sex” either out of ineptness or on purpose.

“It’s really unfortunate that police are continuing to single out, target, falsely arrest and essentially ruin the lives of gay men in Baton Rouge who are engaged in no illegal conduct,” said Andrea J. Ritchie, a civil rights attorney.

Peter Renn, an attorney with Lambda Legal, the prominent gay rights organization, said the pattern of “unlawful arrests over multiple years” suggests authorities are using the stings as a means to harass gay men. The fact that this has been going on for a two-year period is unbelievable.”

And while the city of Baton Rouge wastes time and resources harassing gay men.  Current statistics show that Baton Rouge’s crime rate is almost double that of New Orleans.

Perhaps we should start calling Baton Rouge, Little Russia.

Source:  The Advocate