Monthly Archives: May 2021

Gay History: 10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked

Article, Gay Interest, History, Political, , , ,

Battling the ‘homosexual agenda,’ the hard-line religious right has made a series of incendiary claims. But they’re just not true.

Ever since born-again singer and orange juice pitchwoman Anita Bryant helped kick off the contemporary anti-gay movement some 40 years ago, hard-line elements of the religious right have been searching for ways to demonize gay people — or, at a minimum, to find arguments that will prevent their normalization in society. For the former Florida beauty queen and her Save Our Children group, it was the alleged plans of gay men and lesbians to “recruit” in schools that provided the fodder for their crusade. But in addition to hawking that myth, the legions of anti-gay activists who followed have added a panoply of others, ranging from the extremely doubtful claim that sexual orientation is a choice, to unalloyed lies like the claims that gay men molest children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws will lead to the legalization of bestiality and necrophilia. These fairy tales are important to the anti-gay right because they form the basis of its claim that homosexuality is a social evil that must be suppressed — an opinion rejected by virtually all relevant medical and scientific authorities. They also almost certainly contribute to hate crime violence directed at the LGBT community, which is more targeted for such attacks than any other minority group in America. What follows are 10 key myths propagated by the anti-gay movement, along with the truth behind the propaganda.

MYTH # 1
Gay men molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals.

THE ARGUMENT
Depicting gay men as a threat to children may be the single most potent weapon for stoking public fears about homosexuality — and for winning elections and referenda, as Anita Bryant found out during her successful 1977 campaign to overturn a Dade County, Fla., ordinance barring discrimination against gay people. Discredited psychologist Paul Cameron, the most ubiquitous purveyor of anti-gay junk science, has been a major promoter of this myth. Despite having been debunked repeatedly and very publicly, Cameron’s work is still widely relied upon by anti-gay organizations, although many no longer quote him by name. Others have cited a group called the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) to claim, as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council did in November 2010, that “the research is overwhelming that homosexuality poses a [molestation] danger to children.” A related myth is that same-sex parents will molest their children.

THE FACTS
According to the American Psychological Association, children are not more likely to be molested by LGBT parents or their LGBT friends or acquaintances. Gregory Herek, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who is one of the nation’s leading researchers on prejudice against sexual minorities, reviewed a series of studies and found no evidence that gay men molest children at higher rates than heterosexual men.

Anti-gay activists who make that claim allege that all men who molest male children should be seen as homosexual. But research by A. Nicholas Groth, a pioneer in the field of sexual abuse of children, shows that is not so. Groth found that there are two types of child molesters: fixated and regressive. The fixated child molester — the stereotypical pedophile — cannot be considered homosexual or heterosexual because “he often finds adults of either sex repulsive” and often molests children of both sexes. Regressive child molesters are generally attracted to other adults, but may “regress” to focusing on children when confronted with stressful situations. Groth found, as Herek notes, that the majority of regressed offenders were heterosexual in their adult relationships.

The Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute notes that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends, and the majority are men married to women. Most child molesters, therefore, are not gay people lingering outside schools waiting to snatch children from the playground, as much religious-right rhetoric suggests.

Some anti-gay ideologues cite ACPeds’ opposition to same-sex parenting as if the organization were a legitimate professional body. In fact, the so-called college is a tiny breakaway faction of the similarly named, 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics that requires, as a condition of membership, that joiners “hold true to the group’s core beliefs … [including] that the traditional family unit, headed by an opposite-sex couple, poses far fewer risk factors in the adoption and raising of children.” The group’s 2010 publication Facts About Youth was described by the American Academy of Pediatrics as not acknowledging scientific and medical evidence with regard to sexual orientation, sexual identity and health, or effective health education. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, was one of several legitimate researchers who said ACPeds misrepresented the institutes’ findings. “It is disturbing to me to see special interest groups distort my scientific observations to make a point against homosexuality,” he wrote. “The information they present is misleading and incorrect.” Another critic of ACPeds is Dr. Gary Remafedi, a researcher at the University of Minnesota who wrote a letter to ACPeds rebuking the organization for misusing his research.

In spite of all this, the anti-LGBT right continues to peddle this harmful and baseless myth, which is probably the leading defamatory charge leveled against gay people.

MYTH # 2
Same-sex parents harm children.

THE ARGUMENT
Most hard-line anti-gay organizations are heavily invested, from both a religious and a political standpoint, in promoting the traditional nuclear family as the sole framework for the healthy upbringing of children. They maintain a reflexive belief that same-sex parenting must be harmful to children — although the exact nature of that supposed harm varies widely.

THE FACTS
No legitimate research has demonstrated that same-sex couples are any more or any less harmful to children than heterosexual couples.

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry affirmed in 2013 that “[c]urrent research shows that children with gay and lesbian parents do not differ from children with heterosexual parents in their emotional development or in their relationships with peers and adults” and they are “not more likely than children of heterosexual parents to develop emotional or behavioral problems.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in a 2002 policy statement declared: “A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with one or two gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual.” That policy statement was reaffirmed in 2009 and in 2013, when the AAP stated its support for civil marriage for same-gender couples and full adoption and foster care rights for all parents, regardless of sexual orientation.

The American Psychological Association (APA) noted in 2004 that “same-sex couples are remarkably similar to heterosexual couples, and that parenting effectiveness and the adjustment, development and psychological well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation.” In addition, the APA stated that “beliefs that lesbian and gay adults are not fit parents have no empirical foundation.” The next year, in 2005, the APA published a summary of research findings on lesbian and gay parents and reiterated that common negative stereotypes about LGBT parenting are not supported by the data.

Similarly, the Child Welfare League of America’s official position with regard to same-sex parents is that “lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents are as well-suited to raise children as their heterosexual counterparts.”

A 2010 review of research on same-sex parenting carried out by LiveScience, a science news website, found no differences between children raised by heterosexual parents and children raised by lesbian parents. In some cases, it found, children in same-sex households may actually be better adjusted than in heterosexual homes.

A 2013 preliminary study in Australia found that the children of lesbian and gay parents are not only thriving, but may actually have better overall health and higher rates of family cohesion than heterosexual families. The study is the world’s largest attempt to compare children of same-sex parents to children of heterosexual parents. The full study was published in June 2014.

The anti-LGBT right continues, however, to use this myth to deny rights to LGBT people, whether through distorting legitimate research or through “studies” conducted by anti-LGBT sympathizers, such as a 2012 paper popularly known as the Regnerus Study. University of Texas sociology professor Mark Regnerus’ paper purported to demonstrate that same-sex parenting harms children. The study received almost $1 million in funding from anti-LGBT think tanks, and even though Regnerus himself admitted that his study does not show what people say it does with regard to the “harms” of same-sex parenting, it continues to be peddled as “proof” that children are in danger in same-sex households. Since the study’s release, it has been completely discredited because of its faulty methodology and its suspect funding. In 2013, Darren Sherkat, a scholar appointed to review the study by the academic journal that published it, told the Southern Poverty Law Center that he “completely dismiss[es]” the study, saying Regnerus “has been disgraced” and that the study was “bad … substandard.” In spring 2014, the University of Texas’s College of Liberal Arts and Department of Sociology publicly distanced themselves from Regnerus, the day after he testified as an “expert witness” against Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban. The judge in that case, Bernard Friedman, found that Regnerus’ testimony was “entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration,” and ruled that Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Despite all this, the Regnerus Study is still used in the U.S. and abroad as a tool by anti-LGBT groups to develop anti-LGBT policy and laws.

MYTH # 3
People become homosexual because they were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling by their parents.

THE ARGUMENT
Many anti-gay rights activists claim that homosexuality is a mental disorder caused by some psychological trauma or aberration in childhood. This argument is used to counter the common observation that no one, gay or straight, consciously chooses his or her sexual orientation. Joseph Nicolosi, a founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, said in 2009 that “if you traumatize a child in a particular way, you will create a homosexual condition.” He also has repeatedly said, “Fathers, if you don’t hug your sons, some other man will.” 

A side effect of this argument is the demonization of parents of gay men and lesbians, who are led to wonder if they failed to protect a child against sexual abuse or failed as role models in some important way. In October 2010, Kansas State University family studies professor Walter Schumm released a related study in the British Journal of Biosocial Science, which used to be the Eugenics Review. Schumm argued that gay couples are more likely than heterosexuals to raise gay or lesbian children through modeling “gay behavior.” Schumm, who has also argued that lesbian relationships are unstable, has ties to discredited psychologist and anti-LGBT fabulist Paul Cameron, the author of numerous completely baseless “studies” about the alleged evils of homosexuality. Critics of Schumm’s study note that he appears to have merely aggregated anecdotal data, resulting in a biased sample.

THE FACTS
No scientifically sound study has definitively linked sexual orientation or identity with parental role-modeling or childhood sexual abuse.

The American Psychiatric Association noted in a 2000 fact sheet available on the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists, that dealing with gay, lesbian and bisexual issues, that sexual abuse does not appear to be any more prevalent among children who grow up and identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual than in children who grow up and identify as heterosexual.

Similarly, the National Organization on Male Sexual Victimization notes on its websitethat “experts in the human sexuality field do not believe that premature sexual experiences play a significant role in late adolescent or adult sexual orientation” and added that it’s unlikely that anyone can make another person gay or heterosexual.

Advocates for Youth, an organization that works in the U.S. and abroad in the field of adolescent reproductive and sexual health also has stated that sexual abuse does not “cause” heterosexual youth to become gay.

In 2009, Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a psychologist at the Christian Grove City College, noted in an analysis that “the research on sexual abuse among GLBT populations is often misused to make inferences about causation [of homosexuality].”

MYTH # 4
LGBT people don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals.

THE ARGUMENT
Anti-LGBT organizations, seeking to promote heterosexuality as the healthier “choice,” often offer up the purportedly shorter life spans and poorer physical and mental health of gays and lesbians as reasons why they shouldn’t be allowed to adopt or foster children.

THE FACTS
This falsehood can be traced directly to the discredited research of Paul Cameron and his Family Research Institute, specifically a 1994 paper he co-wrote entitled  “The Lifespan of Homosexuals.” Using obituaries collected from newspapers serving the gay community, he and his two co-authors concluded that gay men died, on average, at 43, compared to an average life expectancy at the time of around 73 for all U.S. men. On the basis of the same obituaries, Cameron also claimed that gay men are 18 times more likely to die in car accidents than heterosexuals, 22 times more likely to die of heart attacks than whites, and 11 times more likely than blacks to die of the same cause. He also concluded that lesbians are 487 times more likely to die of murder, suicide, or accidents than straight women. 

Remarkably, these claims have become staples of the anti-gay right and have frequently made their way into far more mainstream venues. For example, William Bennett, education secretary under President Reagan, used Cameron’s statistics in a 1997 interview he gave to ABC News’ “This Week.”

However, like virtually all of his “research,” Cameron’s methodology is egregiously flawed — most obviously because the sample he selected (the data from the obits) was not remotely statistically representative of the LGBT population as a whole. Even Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has called Cameron’s methods “just ridiculous.”

Anti-LGBT organizations have also tried to support this claim by distorting the work of legitimate scholars, like a 1997 study conducted by a Canadian team of researchers that dealt with gay and bisexual men living in Vancouver in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The authors of the study became aware that their work was being misrepresented by anti-LGBT groups, and issued a response taking the groups to task.

MYTH # 5
Gay men controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust.

THE ARGUMENT
This claim comes directly from a 1995 book titled The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams. Lively is the virulently anti-gay founder of Abiding Truth Ministries and Abrams is an organizer of a group called the International Committee for Holocaust Truth, which came together in 1994 and included Lively as a member.

The primary argument Lively and Abrams make is that gay people were not victimized by the Holocaust. Rather, Hitler deliberately sought gay men for his inner circle because their “unusual brutality” would help him run the party and mastermind the Holocaust. In fact, “the Nazi party was entirely controlled by militaristic male homosexuals throughout its short history,” the book claims. “While we cannot say that homosexuals caused the Holocaust, we must not ignore their central role in Nazism,” Lively and Abrams add. “To the myth of the ‘pink triangle’ — the notion that all homosexuals in Nazi Germany were persecuted — we must respond with the reality of the ‘pink swastika.'”

These claims have been picked up by a number of anti-gay groups and individuals, including Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, as proof that gay men and lesbians are violent and sick. The book has also attracted an audience among anti-gay church leaders in Eastern Europe and among Russian-speaking anti-gay activists in America.

THE FACTS
The Pink Swastika has been roundly discredited by legitimate historians and other scholars. Christine Mueller, professor of history at Reed College, did a 1994 line-by-line refutation of an earlier Abrams article on the topic and of the broader claim that the Nazi Party was “entirely controlled” by gay men. Historian Jon David Wynecken at Grove City College also refuted the book, pointing out that Lively and Abrams did no primary research of their own, instead using out-of-context citations of some legitimate sources while ignoring information from those same sources that ran counter to their thesis.

The myth that the Nazis condoned homosexuality sprang up in the 1930s, started by socialist opponents of the Nazis as a slander against Nazi leaders. Credible historians believe that only one of the half-dozen leaders in Hitler’s inner circle, Ernst Röhm, was gay. (Röhm was murdered on Hitler’s orders in 1934.) The Nazis considered homosexuality one aspect of the “degeneracy” they were trying to eradicate.

When Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party came to power in 1933, it quickly strengthened Germany’s existing penalties against homosexuality. Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s security chief, announced that homosexuality was to be “eliminated” in Germany, along with miscegenation among the races. Historians estimate that between 50,000 and 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality (or suspicion of it) under the Nazi regime. These men were routinely sent to concentration camps and many thousands died there.

Himmler expressed his views on homosexuality like this: “We must exterminate these people root and branch. … We can’t permit such danger to the country; the homosexual must be completely eliminated.”

MYTH # 6
Hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and necrophilia.

THE ARGUMENT
Anti-gay activists, who have long opposed adding LGBT people to those protected by hate crime legislation, have repeatedly claimed that such laws would lead to the jailing of religious figures who preach against homosexuality — part of a bid to gain the backing of the broader religious community for their position. Janet Porter of Faith2Action, for example, was one of many who asserted that the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act — signed into law by President Obama in October 2009 — would “jail pastors” because it “criminalizes speech against the homosexual agenda.”

In a related assertion, anti-gay activists claimed the law would lead to the legalization of psychosexual disorders (paraphilias) like bestiality and pedophilia. Bob Unruh, a conservative Christian journalist who left The Associated Press in 2006 for the right-wing, conspiracist news site WorldNetDaily, said shortly before the federal law was passed that it would legalize “all 547 forms of sexual deviancy or ‘paraphilias’ listed by the American Psychiatric Association.” This claim was repeated by many anti-gay organizations, including the Illinois Family Institute.

THE FACTS
The claim that hate crime laws could result in the imprisonment of those who “oppose the homosexual lifestyle” is false. The First Amendment provides robust protections of free speech, and case law makes it clear that even a preacher who publicly suggested that gays and lesbians should be killed would be protected.

Neither do hate crime laws — which provide for enhanced penalties when persons are victimized because of their “sexual orientation” (among other factors) — “protect pedophiles,” as Janet Porter and many others have claimed. According to the American Psychological Association, sexual orientation refers to heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality — not paraphilias such as pedophilia. Paraphilias, as defined (pdf; may require a different browser) by the American Psychiatric Association, are characterized by sexual urges or behaviors directed at non-consenting persons or those unable to consent like children, or that involve another person’s psychological distress, injury, or death.

Moreover, even if pedophiles, for example, were protected under a hate crime law — and such a law has not been suggested or contemplated anywhere — that would not legalize or “protect” pedophilia. Pedophilia is illegal sexual activity, and a law that more severely punished people who attacked pedophiles would not change that.

MYTH # 7
Allowing gay people to serve openly will damage the armed forces.

THE ARGUMENT
Anti-gay groups have been adamantly opposed to allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces, not only because of their purported fear that combat readiness will be undermined, but because the military has long been considered the purest meritocracy in America (the armed forces were successfully racially integrated long before American civil society, for example). If gays serve honorably and effectively in this meritocracy, that suggests that there is no rational basis for discriminating against them in any way.

THE FACTS
Gays and lesbians have long served in the U.S. armed forces, though under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy that governed the military between 1993 and 2011, they could not do so openly. At the same time, gays and lesbians have served openly for years in the armed forces of 25 countries (as of 2010), including Britain, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia, according to a report released by the Palm Center, a policy think tank at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The Palm Center report concluded that lifting bans against openly gay service personnel in these countries “ha[s] had no negative impact on morale, recruitment, retention, readiness or overall combat effectiveness.” Successful transitions to new policies were attributed to clear signals of leadership support and a focus on a uniform code of behavior without regard to sexual orientation.

A 2008 Military Times poll of active-duty military personnel, often cited by anti-gay activists, found that 10% of respondents said they would consider leaving the military if the DADT policy were repealed. That would have meant that some 228,000 people might have left the military the policy’s 2011 repeal. But a 2009 review of that poll by the Palm Center suggested a wide disparity between what soldiers said they would do and their actual actions. It noted, for example, that far more than 10% of West Point officers in the 1970s said they would leave the service if women were admitted to the academy. “But when the integration became a reality,” the report said, “there was no mass exodus; the opinions turned out to be just opinions.” Similarly, a 1985 survey of 6,500 male Canadian service members and a 1996 survey of 13,500 British service members each revealed that nearly two-thirds expressed strong reservations about serving with gays. Yet when those countries lifted bans on gays serving openly, virtually no one left the service for that reason. “None of the dire predictions of doom came true,” the Palm Center report said.

Despite the fact that gay men and lesbians have been serving openly in the military since September 2011, anti-LGBT groups continue to claim that openly gay personnel are causing problems in the military, including claims of sexual abuse by gay and lesbian soldiers of straight soldiers. The Palm Center refutes this claim, and in an analysis, found that repealing DADT has had “no overall negative impact on military readiness or its component dimensions,” including sexual assault. According to then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in 2012, the repeal of DADT was being implemented effectively and was having no impact on readiness, unit cohesion or morale. Panetta also issued an LGBT Pride message in 2012.

MYTH # 8
Gay people are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol.

THE ARGUMENT
Anti-LGBT groups want not only to depict sexual orientation as something that can be changed but also to show that heterosexuality is the most desirable “choice,” even if religious arguments are set aside. The most frequently used secular argument made by anti-LGBT groups in that regard is that homosexuality is inherently unhealthy, both mentally and physically. As a result, most anti-LGBT rights groups reject the 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. Some of these groups, including the particularly hard-line Traditional Values Coalition, claim that “homosexual activists” managed to infiltrate the APA in order to sway its decision.

THE FACTS
All major professional mental health organizations are on record as stating that homosexuality is not a mental disorder.

The American Psychological Association states that being gay is just as healthy as being straight, and noted that the 1950s-era work of Dr. Evelyn Hooker started to dismantle this myth. In 1975, the association issued a statement that said, in part, “homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, reliability or general social and vocational capabilities.” The association has clearly stated in the past that “homosexuality is neither mental illness nor mental depravity. … Study after study documents the mental health of gay men and lesbians. Studies of judgment, stability, reliability, and social and vocational adaptiveness all show that gay men and lesbians function every bit as well as heterosexuals.”

The American Psychiatric Association states that (PDF; may not open in all browsers) homosexuality is not a mental disorder and that all major professional health organizations are on record as confirming that. The organization removed homosexuality from its official diagnostic manual in 1973 after extensive review of the scientific literature and consultation with experts, who concluded that homosexuality is not a mental illness.

Though it is true that LGBT people tend to suffer higher rates of anxiety, depression, and depression-related illnesses and behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse than the general population, that is due to the historical social stigmatization of homosexuality and violence directed at LGBT people, not because of homosexuality itself. Studies done during the past several years have determined that it is the stress of being a member of a minority group in an often-hostile society — and not LGBT identity itself — that accounts for the higher levels of mental illness and drug use.

Richard J. Wolitski, an expert on minority status and public health issues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put it like this in 2008: “Economic disadvantage, stigma, and discrimination … increase stress and diminish the ability of individuals [in minority groups] to cope with stress, which in turn contribute to poor physical and mental health.”

Even as early as 1994, external stressors were recognized as a potential cause of emotional distress of LGBT people. A report presented by the Council on Scientific Affairs to the AMA House of Delegates Interim Meeting with regard to reparative (“ex-gay”) therapy noted that most of the emotional disturbance gay men and lesbians experience around their sexual identity is not based on physiological causes, but rather on “a sense of alienation in an unaccepting environment.”

In 2014, a study, conducted by several researchers at major universities and the Rand Corporation, found that LGBT people living in highly anti-LGBT communities and circumstances face serious health concerns and even premature death because of social stigmatization and exclusion. One of the researchers, Dr. Mark Hatzenbuehler, a sociomedical sciences professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said that the data gathered in the study suggests that “sexual minorities living in communities with high levels of anti-gay prejudice have increased risk of mortality, compared to low-prejudice communities.”

Homosexuality is not a mental illness or emotional problem and being LGBT does not cause someone to be mentally ill, contrary to what anti-LGBT organizations say. Rather, social stigmatization and prejudice appear to contribute to health disparities in the LGBT population, which include emotional and psychological distress and harmful coping mechanisms.

MYTH # 9
No one is born gay.

THE ARGUMENT
Anti-gay activists keenly oppose the granting of “special” civil rights protections to gay people similar to those afforded black Americans and other minorities. But if people are born gay — in the same way that people have no choice as to whether they are black or white — discrimination against gay men and lesbians would be vastly more difficult to justify. Thus, anti-gay forces insist that sexual orientation is a behavior that can be changed, not an immutable characteristic.

THE FACTS
Modern science cannot state conclusively what causes sexual orientation, but a great many studies suggest that it is the result of both biological and environmental forces, not a personal “choice.” A 2008 Swedish study of twins (the world’s largest twin study) published in The Archives of Sexual Behavior concluded that “[h]omosexual behaviour is largely shaped by genetics and random environmental factors.” Dr. Qazi Rahman, study co-author and a leading scientist on human sexual orientation, said: “This study puts cold water on any concerns that we are looking for a single ‘gay gene’ or a single environmental variable which could be used to ‘select out’ homosexuality — the factors which influence sexual orientation are complex. And we are not simply talking about homosexuality here — heterosexual behaviour is also influenced by a mixture of genetic and environmental factors.” In other words, sexual orientation in general — whether homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual — is a mixture of genetic and environmental factors.

The American Psychological Association (APA) states that sexual orientation “ranges along a continuum,” and acknowledges that despite much research into the possible genetic, hormonal, social and cultural influences on sexual orientation, scientists have yet to pinpoint the precise causes of sexual orientation. Regardless, the APA concludes that “most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.” In 1994, the APA noted that “homosexuality is not a matter of individual choice” and that research “suggests that the homosexual orientation is in place very early in the life cycle, possibly even before birth.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics stated in 1993 (updated in 2004) that “homosexuality has existed in most societies for as long as recorded descriptions of sexual beliefs and practices have been available” and that even at that time, “most scholars in the field state that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice … individuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual.”

There are questions about what specifically causes sexual orientation in general, but most current science acknowledges that it is a complex mixture of biological, environmental, and possibly hormonal factors but that no one chooses an orientation.

MYTH # 10
Gay people can choose to leave homosexuality.

THE ARGUMENT
If people are not born gay, as anti-gay activists claim, then it should be possible for individuals to abandon homosexuality. This view is buttressed among religiously motivated anti-gay activists by the idea that homosexual practice is a sin and humans have the free will needed to reject sinful urges.

A number of “ex-gay” religious ministries have sprung up in recent years with the aim of teaching gay people to become heterosexuals, and these have become prime purveyors of the claim that gays and lesbians, with the aid of mental therapy and Christian teachings, can “come out of homosexuality.” The now defunct Exodus International, the largest of these ministries, once stated, “You don’t have to be gay!” Meanwhile, in a more secular vein, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality describes itself as “a professional, scientific organization that offers hope to those who struggle with unwanted homosexuality.”

THE FACTS
“Reparative” or sexual reorientation therapy — the pseudo-scientific foundation of the ex-gay movement — has been rejected by all the established and reputable American medical, psychological, psychiatric and professional counseling organizations. In 2009, for instance, the American Psychological Association adopted a resolution, accompanied by a 138-page report, that repudiated ex-gay therapy. The report concluded that compelling evidence suggested that cases of individuals going from gay to straight were “rare” and that “many individuals continued to experience same-sex sexual attractions” after reparative therapy. The APA resolution added that “there is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation” and asked “mental health professionals to avoid misrepresenting the efficacy of sexual orientation change efforts by promoting or promising change in sexual orientation.” The resolution also affirmed that same-sex sexual and romantic feelings are normal.

A very large number of professional medical, scientific and counseling organizations in the U.S. and abroad have issued statements regarding the harm that reparative therapy can cause, particularly if it’s based on the assumption that homosexuality is unacceptable. As early as 1993, the American Academy of Pediatrics stated that“[t]herapy directed at specifically changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving change in orientation.”

The American Medical Association officially opposes reparative therapy that is “based on the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based on an a priori assumption that the person should change his/her homosexual orientation.”

The Pan-American Health Organization, the world’s oldest international public health agency, issued a statement in 2012 that said, in part: “Services that purport to ‘cure’ people with non-heterosexual sexual orientation lack medical justification and represent a serious threat to the health and well-being of affected people.” The statement continues, “In none of its individual manifestations does homosexuality constitute a disorder or an illness, and therefore it requires no cure.”

Some of the most striking, if anecdotal, evidence of the ineffectiveness of sexual reorientation therapy has been the numerous failures of some of its most ardent advocates. For example, the founder of Exodus International, Michael Bussee, left the organization in 1979 with a fellow male ex-gay counselor because the two had fallen in love. Other examples include George Rekers, a former board member of NARTH and formerly a leading scholar of the anti-LGBT Christian right who was revealed to have been involved in a same-sex tryst in 2010. John Paulk, former poster child of the massive ex-gay campaign “Love Won Out” in the late 1990s, is now living as a happy gay man. And Robert Spitzer, a preeminent psychiatrist whose 2001 research that seemed to indicate that some gay people had changed their orientation, repudiated his own study in 2012. The Spitzer study had been widely used by anti-LGBT organizations as “proof” that sexual orientation can change.

In 2013, Exodus International, formerly one of the largest ex-gay ministries in the world, shut down after its director, Alan Chambers, issued an apology to the LGBT community. Chambers, who is married to a woman, has acknowledged that his same-sex attraction has not changed. At a 2012 conference, he said: “The majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them, have not experienced a change in their orientation or have gotten to a place where they could say they could never be tempted or are not tempted in some way or experience some level of same-sex attraction.”

Reference

Gay History: Has Orange Juice Turned Bluto And Popeye Gay?

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Classic cartoon enemy musclemen Popeye and Bluto haven’t kissed but they have made up in this animated campaign behind Minute Maid orange juice. The two have overcome their differences to such a degree that some in the gay community (and the straight media too, such as Slate.com ad reviewer Rob Davis) have wondered if the sailors are supposed to suddenly be romantic partners. 

The two play like school children on a swing, a see-saw, bury each other in sand on the beach, and get tattoos together that say “Buddies for Life.” At the end, they ride a two-person bicycleùpassing usual romantic interest Olive Oyl, who calls out “Oh, boys!” and they ride past her without notice. She offers a confused, if not suspicious, look as they pedal away. 

An ironic development for Minute Maid, given the anti-gay “Save Our Children” crusades by former Florida Orange Juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant in the 1970s.

Before the campaign was conceived, Dave Linne, the Popeye ad’s creative director at ad agency Leo Burnett Co says the concept is “the opposite of the clich? of getting up on the wrong side of the bedö where people wake up in a good mood. 

Linne came up with about 12 conceptual examples of people acting out of character and being nicer than normal, including an elementary school cafeteria line that resembles a Depression-era soup kitchen — except for one cheery server. Another example has a husband doing “wifely” weekend activities such as laundry and brings breakfast in bed to his wife to her surprise as she wakes up. 

They also wanted an example of classic enemies who become friends. “We looked at movie villains and there are so many arch enemies, so we thought, ‘Let’s do an animated spot.’ We looked at lots of cartoon characters and we liked Popeye and Bluto for two reasons: I haven’t seen them in a commercial before, and they’re human characters instead of animals.” 

So as they were making the ad, the creative team decided to put Popeye and Bluto in various playful situations. “The only reason we put them on a two-person bicycle was because it seemed so stupid,” Linne says. As they pass Olive Oyl, who Linne notes “is usually the catalyst to make them fight” not even she can get between them this time. 

Linne says gay innuendo was not intentional but is intrigued about its possibility. “I think it’s interesting if you can read it both ways. I guess it’s working on all kinds of levels,” he mused. 

While Linne seems impressed that his work can be read into by the gay community, the same cannot be said for officials at Minute Maid headquarters. “We’re not going to go there,” says Dan Shafer, a spokesman for Houston-based Minute Maid. “Any intent to draw a (gay relationship) parallel would be wrong. Anyone who knows Popeye and Bluto understands that’s not the case, there’s no intent like that.”

Commercials: Out of the Closet

Is Popeye gay? An ad company using the cartoon sailor’s likeness says no, but the commercial is still being featured on a new site of gay-themed ads.

POPEYE AND BLUTO may be the most recent celebrity couple to be outed by the media. 

In a recent Minute Maid orange juice ad, the pair is seen palling around on a swing-set, burying each other in sand on the beach and riding a bicycle built for two as they gleefully pass by a scorned Olive Oyl. They even get matching tattoos that say “Buddies for Life.”

The animated spot, created by the ad agency Leo Burnett, is one of the latest additions to The Commercial Closet, an online museum of gay-themed ads from around the world, which launched Monday.

CommercialCloset.org compiles video clips and storyboard stills of hundreds of commercials featuring gay characters or themes, including several that never made it on the air. The archive includes ads representing 150 different ad agencies and 250 major advertisers, including American Express, Coca-Cola, Nike and the Gap.

Ranging from innocuous to offensive, the ads are grouped into four major categories: positive, negative, neutral and gay vague; and 50 subcategories such as “hustlers/ pornographers/murderers/pedophiles” and “sissies and queens.”

Michael Wilke, a former reporter for Advertising Age, created the site to promote awareness of the “evolution in the portrayal of lesbians and gays in advertising as it reflects the public’s perception of them,” and to raise money for a documentary film he’s making to further explore that theme.

Over the past 30 years, “there’s been an evolution from complete invisibility to popular stereotypes to more neutral and positive portrayals of gays in advertising,” Wilke said.

While there’s an increasing number of gay-themed ad campaigns cropping up today, according to Wilke, it’s still a mixed bag. “There’s definitely an increase in gay-positive ads, but the negative stereotypes continue to be a popular source of comedy in commercials,” he said.

Transgendered individuals in particular almost always end up the butt of the joke in commercials, which earned them their own sub-category in Wilke’s archive, called “(Straight) Dude Looks Like A Lady.”

But not all ads in this category are negative. Some manage to cast transgender characters in funny situations without making them out to be villains or clowns.

A 1996 Australian commercial for air-freshening spray Domestos, for instance, riffs off the cult classic Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, featuring a Terrance Stamp look-alike who asks to use the ladies’ room in a roadside bar. Finding it filthy, she pulls Domestos out of her purse and clears the air. Later she proclaims the bathroom “fit for a queen.”

“It’s not that transgendered people can’t be funny,” Wilke said, “but there’s a difference between laughing at someone and laughing with them.”

Although there may be more gay-themed ads on the air today, there’s a popular misconception in the media about who gay people are and what motivates them as consumers, according to Kathy Renna, a director at the media advocacy organization Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

“There’s the perception that gays and lesbians are very affluent, own three cars and buy 100 CDs,” Renna said. “That’s not reflective of the whole gay community. One thing that is true is that it’s a very loyal demographic.”

Companies with gay-positive reputations include American Airlines, Absolut vodka and Coors, she said.

But while marketing to gays and lesbians is an important priority for many corporations, advertisers and ad agencies must still walk a fine line when depicting them in ads.

Today, ads featuring gay people among other minorities in a happy-people world are relatively safe bets for corporations wanting to project a multicultural image.

A 1994 Ikea ad about a gay couple buying a dining table together, for instance, was controversial as one of the first gay-positive commercials by a major corporation.

Part of a three-part ad campaign depicting people in alternative lifestyles buying furniture -– the other two being a single mom and a white couple with an adopted Asian baby -– the ad was meant to “reflect real life and real people and not the middle-of-the-road all-American family,” according to Kathy Delaney, the executive creative director at Deutsch, the agency that made the ad.

But while homosexuality remains a touchy subject fraught with political correctness, that doesn’t mean advertisers should only approach it with kid gloves, Wilke said. Still, many agencies and advertisers would rather avoid the topic altogether than open a can of worms.

Then there’re companies such as Calvin Klein, Diesel and Benetton that, instead of shying away from controversy, promote a fashion-forward or youth-oriented brand and deliberately provoke people with their ads.

A notorious example is Benetton’s 1992 “Pieta” print ad depicting AIDS activist David Kirby on his deathbed. The emaciated Kirby, surrounded by his friends and family, bore an eerie resemblance to Jesus, which sparked controversy among Christian groups and AIDs activists who were uncomfortable with the religious tone used in association with the disease and, ultimately, to sell clothes.

On the other hand, the ad was also one of the first in many countries to show AIDs in the context of real human suffering and compassion. Although it was singularly criticized, the ad was part of a larger, ongoing campaign for AIDs prevention and awareness that included the distribution of condoms in Benetton stores.

Some companies, by contrast, seem reluctant to acknowledge any controversy their ads may create.

The Popeye and Bluto spot, for instance, is included in the “Gay Vague” category, because the advertiser’s message related to gay people isn’t very clear. In fact, there’s no substantial proof that the two adversaries are in fact lovers, as they are never seen kissing.

In a interview with Wilke, the creative director for the Popeye ad seemed pleasantly surprised at the suggestion that it implied a relationship between the two erstwhile foes, and that the spot was simply meant to show two enemies who become friends, supposedly transformed by drinking Minute Maid orange juice.

Minute Maid, meanwhile, firmly denied that Popeye and Bluto are an item.

“Any intent to draw a (gay relationship) parallel would be wrong,” Minute Maid spokesman Dan Shafer told Wilke. “Anyone who knows Popeye and Bluto understands that’s not the case, there’s no intent like that.”

Ad Report Card: Minute Maid Makes You Gay! (Happy, That Is)

Some months ago the Ad Report Card devoted not one but two installments to commercials that turned on references (oblique or otherwise) to homosexuality. Often the reference served as a punch line of one sort or another, and in some cases I was critical of the way in which this or that advertiser used gayness as a joke. Responses were many and spirited. Some suggested I was being ridiculous, seeing gay themes where there were none. Others, some claiming to have inside knowledge of the ad business, argued I was naïve, overlooking the benign influence of gays who work in “ad creative.” I have no way of checking the latter claim, but both critiques came to mind when a couple of people e-mailed me recently about a Minute Maid orange juice spot featuring Popeye and Bluto. The ad is part of a series, the theme of which is that drinking Minute Maid makes you gay.

As in happy.

Now, some observers have suggested that, in addition to promoting the happy-making power of Minute Maid, the Popeye spot might just be an example of “gay vague,” along with another commercial that I haven’t seen, which is airing in Europe—read this for more. You can see the spots in the U.S. campaign below: the Popeye one, another featuring Bobby Knight, a third about a “helpful hubby,” and a fourth centered on a suspiciously cheerful lunch lady. My main focus is the Popeye spot.

Popeye The ad: Here they are, two of the most famous rivals in cartoondom, playing happily together on a swing and then a seesaw. Popeye good-naturedly pats sand over Bluto on the beach; sappy pal music plays. The pair gets matching “Buddies for Life” tattoos. What’s going on? An announcer says cheerfully: “Somebody had their Minute Maid this morning. It takes a minute, but the feeling”—the unbridled joy and affection we’re seeing here—“lasts all day.” Popeye and Bluto pedal along on a tandem bike. Olive Oyl waves (“Oh boys!” she calls), but they ride straight past, blithely ignoring the object of their traditional erotic rivalry.ADVERTISEMENThttps://39598048fe002d9e70fc861e576fdf63.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Coach Hmmm. Perhaps it’s ridiculous of me to ask, but what exactly is it that’s preventing these Minute-Maid-drunk boys from including Olive in their fun? On the other hand, what is it that makes it inevitable that almost any prominent male pair is inevitably subject to some kind of what-if-they-were-gay speculation—good-natured, homophobic, or somewhere in between? (Perhaps you’ve heard spurious gossip about the relationship between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Or read my Slatecolleague David Plotz’s exploration of the fan fiction subgenre devoted to the imagined couplings of Kirk and Spock, among others. Or recall a New Yorkercartoon that one of my correspondents remembers, featuring none other than Popeye and Bluto holding hands, having finally figured out “where all that anger was coming from.”)

Bed What about the other Minute Maid spots? You could say that they all play it straight. Hothead basketball coach Bobby Knight, having had his Minute Maid, coddles and dotes on his players, bursting into the post-game locker room to ask “Who wants a treat?” A spot featuring a surprisingly helpful husband has him forsaking football to bustle around neatening things up, heading off to “market,” and setting his iron for chiffon. A chipper lunch lady minces through a school cafeteria asking, “Who wants tiramisu?”

School Anyway, subtext or no subtext, this is a pretty good campaign. All the spots, but especially the Popeye one, are attention-getting and make a clear case for the alleged powers of a morning glass of Minute Maid. The helpful hubby installment is the weakest, but the Bobby Knight one is hilarious. Mushing together grades for all four into one composite score, I’d give them a solid B. When I watch these ads, I feel … happy.

Reference

Gay History: NOT The Only Gay In Village! Plans Revealed For ‘No Straights’ Commune

Article, Gay Interest, , , ,

A PLAN to build a “gays only” gated housing estate “with all mod cons” has been revealed as an elaborate hoax.

ALL ABOARD: Would a gays only commune be of any benefit at all to society? [GETTY]

The Gay Village project described itself as a scheme to create a prejudice-free community in Tilbery, Netherlands, complete with a cooking school and tennis courts.

The plan was endorsed by officials, estate agents and developers when it looked like building may go ahead.

Tilburg mayor, Peter Noordanus, welcomed the plan.https://get-latest.convrse.media/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailystar.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flatest-news%2Fgay-only-commune-in-netherlands-18734601&cre=top&cip=6&view=web

He said: “A tolerant city is pleased to have a gay community within its borders.”

It later emerged that the officials were persuaded to play along by the Roze Maandag (Pink Monday) foundation which hosts an annual day at the Tilburg Fair, dedicated to LGBT issues.

HOAX: The plan for the housing estate was an elaborate joke to raise awareness [GETTY]

Roze Maandag posted on its website stating: “Although Gay Village is not real, intolerance against the gay community is.”null

The website explained how they were inspired to act by recent surveys showing that nearly a quarter of all gay men in the Netherlands – regarded as one of the most tolerant countries in the world – did not feel safe in their own neighbourhoods.

Despite being a hoax the story was met with intense criticism when it was first revealed.

Many argued that by “ghettoising” itself the LGBT community were doing nothing to help tackle homophobia and transphobia.

The group said it was pleased that the story gathered negative attention, stating: “to the effect that a gay village is indeed ‘ridiculous’”.

A spokesperson told the Netherlands Times: “We are happy with the thousands of negative, and the fewer positive, reactions.

“It is great to hear that the majority is against the idea. All we wanted was to create an awareness, and we are certain that we succeeded in this.”

EQUAL: The hoax highlighted the need for society to be more inclusive of all members of all communities [GETTY]

Reference

Gay History: The Orange Juice Boycott That Changed America

Article, Gay Interest, History, Political, Religion/Lifestyle, Short Story, , , , , ,

How a breakfast table staple sparked solidarity and protest in the queer community

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CREDIT: ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN KOLM

As she heeded the call to come on down, descending the Price Is Right’s audience riser wearing a headscarf with juicy swirls of lemon, tangerine, and lime, Yolanda Bowsley’s breasts jiggled out of her tube top. Producers flashed a thick blue bar over the contestant’s naked bits, people in the studio howled, but Bowsley looked neither freaked nor ashamed. Meanwhile, on ABC’s new sitcom Three’s Company—a show with double entendres about three-ways and casual lust—a pair of tangy orange throw pillows on the set’s central couch visually throbbed, the implied accoutrements of seduction. Sexual freedom in 1977 tended to express itself in fearless, provocative hues of citrus.

But not for the queen of orange juice herself. Not for Anita Bryant, who wore shirt-dresses the color of lemon meringue pie filling and tangerine cap-sleeve bodices as if they were the armor of the righteous in battle. Bryant saw sexual openness as a challenge to God’s order, a threat to what she liked to call “straight and normal America.” It lacked decency. It corrupted children. It had to be stopped.

Bryant had been Miss Oklahoma once, beautiful, with pale skin and dark eyes. She was Jackie Kennedy with a hard-spray flip and a soft country twang, raised on church suppers and sticky flour gravy. As a tightly poised pop singer in the early ‘60s, she’d built a shortstack of hits, earning three gold records. She married her manager, Bob Green, a hunk with a handsome mess of sandy hair who knew how to pair a blazer with a turtleneck. They were a dream couple, country stylish like Elvis and Priscilla but without the obvious diet pills and demons. They lived in a six-bedroom mansion on Miami Beach’s North Bay Road, where palms rustled and clouds billowed like Rococo scrollwork, framing a crystal blue sky.

In 1969 Bryant began her second and most lucrative career—the Florida Citrus Commission, a politically powerful consortium of the state’s largest growers, crowned Bryant the Sunshine State’s official OJ Sweetheart. She became the star of TV spots and magazine ads, a lifestyle ambassador for frozen concentrated orange juice.

In an early commercial, Bryant strolls a sunny citrus grove, stabs a spigot in a dangling orange and sings a loping jingle, “Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree,” as a five-foot glass fills with juice. She tugs the spigot out and collects the last golden sluice in a tumbler of normal size. She sips. And in an Oklahoma drag that’s genuine, gentle, and perfect, with just enough post-production echo to make it sound infallible, Bryant drops the tagline: “Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.”

Orange juice was, in a way, the Sun Belt’s symbol: healthy, wholesome, and optimistic, like… well, sunshine. Anita was its avatar. Then she became its avenging angel.

Per capita American OJ consumption would end up just about filling the Citrus Commission’s mighty sloshing prop glass. Houseware manufacturers like Libbey included pony-size juice tumblers in starter sets. Bars invited in a back squad of OJ party cocktails—Screwdrivers and Tequila Sunrises—to soak up the glut of concentrated juice. They invented the Alabama Slammer and the Harvey Wallbanger to keep things percolating in fern bars and fairway lounges.

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CREDIT: PHOTO BY GAB ARCHIVES VIA GETTY IMAGES

There was something else bending in OJ’s favor: a cultural tilt south. Starting in 1969, the collapse of the Rust Belt—factories in the Northeast and Upper Midwest closing, towns boarding up, labor unions shrinking—became an unavoidable narrative for papers and the evening news. The Sun Belt, a made-up political projection encompassing a westward sweep of the map from Jacksonville to San Diego, was where a new conservatism was spreading like the creep of subdivisions in the desert near Phoenix. Orange juice was, in a way, the Sun Belt’s symbol: healthy, wholesome, and optimistic, like… well, sunshine. Anita was its avatar. Then she became its avenging angel.

The year Bryant stabbed that orange with a spigot, 1969, was a year of events more tumultuous billowing up north. At New York City’s Stonewall Inn, demonstrations smoldered for days following a routine bust of queers, trans women, and drag queens that set off a riot, the official start of the gay liberation movement. In spite of an ambient distaste for homosexuals and the lack of even one openly gay or lesbian elected official anywhere in the nation, by the end of 1976, legislative bodies in 40 cities and counties and one state (Pennsylvania) had passed LGBT nondiscrimination laws in some form. An enlightened consensus was jelling. It said citizens shouldn’t be fired, or evicted, or denied service because they were gay, all standard under the old rules, when America discriminated righteously to thwart sodomy and other acts of moral degeneracy. But righteousness didn’t evaporate in the heat of Stonewall. Righteousness festered, biding its time.

As 1977 dawned in South Florida, liberals on the Miami–Dade County Commission passed a pretty standard homosexual nondiscrimination ordinance. Religious conservatives, including Bryant, representing her church, drew a line in the pale, sugar-fine sand. They spoke against the ordinance at a Commission hearing, arguing that the ordinance violated her rights as a person of faith. When it passed anyway, Bryant promised retribution, spinning a metaphor that, consciously or not, conjured a vision of Florida orange groves choked by a homosexual radicalism inching its sinister tendrils toward Washington and the Constitution. “The seed of sexual sickness,” Bryant said, “that germinated in Dade County has already been transplanted by misguided liberals in the U.S. Congress.”

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CREDIT: PHOTO BY BORIS SPREMO VIA GETTY IMAGES

Bryant’s retribution came weeks later, when she and her allies delivered, in an enormous bulging old suitcase wheeled into the county registrar’s office on a dolly, signatures in favor of calling a special referendum on the Miami-Dade ordinance. Bryant and her allies launched Save Our Children, to urge voters to bury the homosexual nondiscrimination ordinance with a special referendum in June. Children were the true victims of the ordinance, which enabled homosexuals (and especially gay teachers) to bend the innocent ones toward a mincing evil. “Gays can’t reproduce,” Bryant would say—often—in variations on the line, “so they have to recruit.”

Gay and lesbian political groups nationally saw what was happening: Suddenly, Miami was America’s test case for the strength of the nascent homosexual civil rights movement. And they were going up against a star, a woman with a national profile, with the strength of one of Florida’s major industries tacitly, at least, behind her. They were up against the queen of frozen concentrated orange juice herself.

Some raised money to send to activists in Miami defending the ordinance. Jim Toy, an LGBT-rights pioneer in Michigan, remembers driving from Ann Arbor to Detroit to make the round of gay bars with a donation jar. Others tried to hurt Bryant at the source of her fame. “We didn’t know any way to get back at her,” says Wayne Friday, who in 1977 was president of San Francisco’s Tavern Guild, a powerful association of gay bar owners and employees. “So we just targeted orange juice.”

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Weeks after the Miami-Dade special referendum was called, gay bars across the U.S. were boycotting orange juice from the Sunshine State, and activists including Harvey Milk, a vocal organizer in the new queer scene in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, were urging people to drop it at breakfast. Consumer boycotts were a persuasive tactic of the left, starting with farm labor organizer César Chávez’s call in 1966 for shoppers to shun California grapes and lettuce. In 1977, organized labor called for a boycott of Coors beer to protest the company’s labor practices, its union-busting and alleged racism and homophobia. But the Florida orange juice boycott was the first organized by gay and lesbian activists. They called it a gaycott. And it was strongest in what was, in 1977, the gayest city in America.

In April, San Francisco’s Tavern Guild printed up notices on orange construction paper for its member bars to post. The signs didn’t state so much as throw down: “TO PROMOTE HUMAN RIGHTS this establishment DOES NOT SERVE FLORIDA ORANGE JUICE or orange juice from CONCENTRATE.”

Wayne Friday says the public boycott started at a Polk Street bar, the N’Touch. Friday tended bar there. “Bars up and down Polk Street,” Friday says, “they’d have a thing where they’d say, ‘Okay, at 11 in the morning everybody pour out your orange juice in the street.’ We even got some non-gay bars to do it. The police would get a little mad but the city would just wash down the street.”

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CREDIT: PHOTO BY FRANK LENNON VIA GETTY IMAGES

In some bars you could get a Screwdriver for half price if you brought in your own sack of oranges and squeezed them yourself, on little hand squeezers set out on the bar. You could bring in your own juice, but you had to know what you were carrying. “God help you if you brought a bottle of orange juice that was from Florida,” Friday says. “I’ve seen a bartender take it off the bar, look at the label, and pour it right down the drain.” Other bars pushed Greyhounds (vodka and grapefruit juice). Dan Perlman, a member of Ann Arbor’s Gay Student Union during the boycott, remembers a horrible grapefruit Tequila Sunrise, though a grapefruit Alabama Slammer tasted better (and still tastes better, he says) than the OJ original.

In his April 14 column for the Bay Area Reporter, a weekly gay newspaper, Harvey Milk urged readers to switch to pineapple juice for breakfast. “Some say that ONE can of OJ won’t make any difference,” he wrote. “Before Bryant becomes more powerful, remember that your ONE can adds up to millions of ONE cans throughout the nation. The only way to stop this bigot is to have a fully effective economic boycott.”

A queer cottage industry of anti-Anita protest gear popped up, with oranges as symbols of active (and sometimes passive) defiance: “Anita, Dear… Cram It”; “Stop V.D. Fuck Oranges.” People wore orange buttons that said “Squeeze Anita!” “A Day Without Human Rights Is Like a Day Without Sunshine,” read a popular T-shirt in all-caps bold, under a rough-skinned orange lurking like the Death Star.

Bryant spent the five months of the Miami-Dade campaign defiant, showing up at her church school to sing “Glory, Glory Hallelujah” with kindergartners as props. “Anita Bryant was once known as an orange juice saleswoman,” the local Miami NBC affiliate reported. “Not anymore. With a religious fervor that has made her the nation’s most controversial woman overnight, she has been selling her Save Our Children group.”

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CREDIT: PHOTO VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Bryant portrayed her own martyrdom at the hand of the gaycott. “They’re coming, attacking my livelihood,” Bryant told a TV reporter, “and it has undermined a 10-year relationship with Florida citrus of goodwill. But I feel strongly, and I have great faith in God, that he’s going to take care of me. I’m not afraid. I have not been moved in that respect. And I do not believe that the product and the people I represent will be intimidated by that kind of a force.” She vowed to fight on, even if what she called her livelihood (in 1977 the Florida Citrus Commission paid her $100,000; adjusted for inflation that’s a little over $400,000 today) was stripped from her.

“We’re dealing with a vile and a vicious and a vulgar gang,” a young Jerry Falwell, Bryant’s supporter, said of Save Our Children’s foes.

The gays and their allies were simply outplayed. Save Our Children hired a Republican political consultant to produce a devastating ad, contrasting Miami’s annual Orange Bowl Parade with the San Francisco Pride march. The image of a baton twirler at the Orange Bowl, a girl with rosy cheeks, in a white, stylized military uniform, gives way to washed-out footage from San Francisco of a shirtless man in worn jeans and feathered hair, pelvic-thrusting on a float with a sad-looking palm tree, then cuts to another man in a black jockstrap and studded leather halter.

“The Orange Bowl Parade,” you hear a man say in voiceover, “Miami’s gift to the nation, wholesome entertainment. But in San Francisco, when they take to the streets, it’s a parade of homosexuals, men hugging other men, cavorting with little boys. The same people who turned San Francisco into a hotbed of homosexuality want to do the same thing to Dade County.” The dystopian gay metropolis appears furtive and frantic, fueled by speed and menace.

https://youtu.be/H-A2Ql81WTY

They never really had a chance, the gays and lesbians on OJ pickets at supermarkets or arguing their case at grocery co-op meetings, squeezing oranges or passing donation jars in gay bars. They thought the cause of civil rights, pretty much alone, would rally voters of conscience. They expected easier grounds for common cause with other minorities who’d suffered oppression.

As election news from 3,000 miles away seeped in through TVs, bars bumping Thelma Houston and Donna Summer emptied onto the streets of San Francisco’s burgeoning gay neighborhood that chilly night in June. By a two-to-one margin, voters in Dade County had killed the nondiscrimination ordinance. At an event she called the Lord’s victory supper, Anita Bryant was gleamingly triumphant. She vowed to take the fight to every city, county seat, and state capitol in the nation with laws protecting gay people.

The crowd in San Francisco marched from the Castro to Polk Street, chanting, carrying candles in Dixie cups.. They milled around City Hall, returned to the Castro, and sat down in a busy intersection. Harvey Milk marched at the head of the crowd; later he spoke. Nobody had seen such a large and spontaneous takeover of the streets by so many calling themselves “faggots” and “dykes.” “I feel like the bill of rights has been wadded up on a cheap piece of paper and thrown in the wastebasket,” a woman told a radio reporter that night. You could hear her anger.

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Others glimpsed a measure of victory in defeat. Bob Kunst, Bryant’s opponent on the ground in Miami, said the ordinance fight had galvanized world opinion. “She gave us every access to world media,” Kunst said from the post-referendum party in a quietly reflective at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach. “We had over 50,000 news clippings, this was the turning point where ‘gay’ became a household word, and we opened up the entire debate on human sexuality.”

For Milk, defeat was a reckoning, a reminder that gays and lesbians had to unify, to organize, and most of all to come out. Later that year, Milk would become the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in America. Just 17 months later he’d be assassinated, shot by a former cop, but not before he’d inspired a more active national LGBT movement and urged every one of the estimated 15 million queer Americans to come out to President Jimmy Carter, by letter. It wasn’t until 1998, 20 years later, that Dade County passed a new gay and lesbian rights ordinance. It’s still in effect, though conservative groups tried to repeal it in 2002.

The orange juice gaycott went on after the referendum, petering out gradually. Bryant continued the work of Save Our Children; she was met with picket lines and protests everywhere she went. In Iowa, a protester nailed her with a cream pie. It is, perhaps, the enduring image of Anita, flicking pie crust out of one eye, praying for the man who threw it.

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“At first the Florida Citrus Commission was bombarded,” Bryant told the Miami Herald after the referendum. “I guess people had nothing better to do than to write and to boycott. Then the mothers of America retaliated, I think. Sales are up 15 percent over last year. The citrus people say I’m a private citizen, that I can express my views.” It was an exaggeration, or wishful thinking. Two weeks after the referendum the public relations spokesman for Florida citrus said he wished Bryant would resign. At the end of 1978, in the same month Milk was assassinated, Bryant was fired. In 1980 she and Bob Green divorced. She experienced bankruptcy and decline. In 1990, trying to make a comeback with a new album, Bryant told Inside Story she had no regrets about what she did in Dade County in 1977. “I don’t regret it because I did the right thing.” She now lives quietly in Oklahoma.

On the night of the referendum, people called in to Fruit Punch, a gay radio show broadcast across the bay from San Francisco in Berkeley, to express their anger, fear, or despair. “I just about broke down in tears, something like this happening in our country,” a woman said in a weary tone. Another seemed almost chipper in her resolve. “I’m not gay myself,” she explained. “I just want to say that Anita Bryant has made me really mad because she’s wasting her time on negative things.”

She said she had a solution, said it with the optimism of the perpetually just. “We are giving up orange juice.”

Bob Green, Anti-Gay Bigot, Dies As Resentful As He Lived

Most people have no idea who he was. You can’t blame them. He was just a speed bump on the road toward equality of rights. Behind the scenes, however, he played an important role in creating the “culture war” that still plagues this nation.

Anita Bryant, the anti-gay crusader, was his wife. He didn’t play the role of sidekick; he was the power behind the throne.

Bryant was a would-be beauty queen, a Miss America runner-up who tried a singing career. She managed a small number of songs in the top 100 but was never star material. Green met her when he was a radio station DJ and escorted her to a music industry convention. They married in 1960, and he took control of Anita’s career.

2012-02-25-Anita.jpeg

Her career peaked when the Florida Citrus Commission hired her as a spokeswoman. Her commercials hawking orange juice made her a familiar face in American living rooms, something she used to her advantage in 1977 when she and Bob launched their anti-gay campaign. The couple trotted out all the usual anti-gay stereotypes, right down to naming their organization Save Our Children.

Their campaign resulted in numerous copycats working to repeal anti-discrimination laws around the country — but only those anti-discrimination laws that protected the LGBT community. Jerry Falwell rushed to Miami to support her but stole the lucrative anti-gay issue from under her by forming his Moral Majority.

In addition to pushing the usual stereotypes, Bryant even claimed that her “ministry” was capable of “curing” gay people through prayer. Save Our Children originated most of the talking points still used by the religious right in regard to gay people.

I made my way to Indianapolis on Oct. 7, 1977 to witness Bryant and Green in action. They were there to promote a “Right to Decency” bill introduced by Rep. Don Boys, a fundamentalist minister. Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell were the draw for an evening rally. Earlier, her fundamentalist followers held a march in support of the bill. Some carried protest signs demanding that gay people be executed. Others seriously told me that the presence of homosexuals caused droughts. I jokingly asked if it were possible to control flooding by busing homosexuals, and one person seriously told me it would work.

Bryant had a concert/rally scheduled in South Bend on the Oct. 27, so I called the sponsoring minister and persuaded him to allow me to spend the day at the auditorium with Bryant and Green. It was eye-opening. Bryant was practicing, but between numbers she and Green would talk with me. When they weren’t talking to me, I was watching them.

Anita was plastered in make-up, though she was only 37 at time. Green, nine years her senior, dominated her completely.

Through the rehearsal he’d chastised her, pointing out every error or flaw. He wasn’t kindly, either. He barked at her. She didn’t talk back, but her body language was unmistakable. She tensed when he neared; her eyes shot barbs of contemptuous anger in his direction. Theirs was obviously a terminally ill marriage. Having experienced an abusive father at home, I was sensitive to the signs. I wondered how much worse it was behind closed doors, without a stranger watching.

At first, Save Our Children was rolling in money. But Falwell and other hate-mongers jumped into the market. Falwell’s television empire easily pushed Save Our Children out of the cash-generating limelight. Bryant’s records weren’t going to make her rich, and by publicly taking a political position, Bryant was poison as a spokeswoman. In 1979 the Florida Citrus Commission didn’t renew her expiring contract.

The final straw was a 1980 divorce. She claimed emotional abuse as the reason. Green insisted that they were still married according to the Bible and opposed her, publicly urging her to return to his side. The messy public divorce angered fundamentalists, her last source of support, guaranteeing her a well-deserved decline into obscurity. And when she was no longer in the public eye, Bob Green became a nobody. It took the media over a month to notice he had died.

Green remained bitter until the end. Bryant had told the world what I already knew, that their marriage “was never much good to begin with.” He never took responsibility for the decline and fall of Anita Bryant. He blamed gays, saying, “Blame gay people? I do. Their stated goal was to put her out of business and destroy her career. And that’s what they did. It’s unfair.” But Bob Green was the one who managed her into obscurity. He encouraged the crusade that lost her the spokeswoman career, and they couldn’t out-compete Falwell in the anti-gay market.

In The Miami Herald Steve Rothaus wrote, “For more than 30 years, Mr. Green lived quietly, alone and resentful.” He didn’t take responsibility for the choices he made. He convinced himself that it was all the fault of “the gays” and his ex-wife. Anita told Rothaus, “Bob internalized a lot of his own anger and frustration and disappointments. … I tried to be his friend, but you can only go so far.”

Reference

Gay History: A Queer Bushranger

Article, biography, Gay Interest, General Interest, History, , , , ,
Darlinghurst Gaol record of AG Scott, alias Captain Moonlite, November 1879. Image courtesy of State Records NSW

The tale of Captain Moonlite

I first learned of Captain Moonlite from the historian Graham Willett. In Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne, a book Willett co-edited, Moonlite features “as the bushranger most likely to qualify as queer”.

Andrew George Scott – George to his friends – was born in 1845 (some records say 1843) to a wealthy family in Ireland. He emigrated with them to New Zealand in 1861, where his father served as a clergyman and magistrate. Arriving in Australia six years later, the young Scott, too, became a lay preacher, before turning to crime. In 1879, he held up a cattle station in New South Wales. Two of his associates were killed when the police arrived, as was a constable – and Scott was hanged in Sydney at the start of the following year.

But it was Scott’s relationship with James Nesbitt, one of his gang members, that attracted Willett’s attention. “Nesbitt and I were united by every tie which could bind human friendship,” wrote Scott (underlining and all) during his final incarceration. “We were one in hopes, one in heart and souland this unity lasted until he died in my arms.” Awaiting execution, Scott wore a ring made from Nesbitt’s hair, and pleaded with his gaolers to bury him with the younger man in the graveyard at Gundagai.

“I long to join him where there shall be no more parting,” he wrote.

The request wasn’t granted, of course, but Willett’s account concludes by explaining how, in 1995, “a group of [Scott’s] admirers persuaded the government to surrender Moonlite’s body to be re-interred in the Gundagai cemetery”.

That struck me as entirely remarkable. Exhumation requests are seldom granted. Given the context, I’d assumed Moonlite’s “admirers” to be queer agitators. One of them was a woman called Christine Ferguson, who was definitely an activist – but her activism centred on the National Party, of which she’d been federal president until earlier this year.

What was going on? Why had a leader of a staunchly socially conservative party gone to such trouble to re-bury an executed murderer next to the man he loved?

I found the phone number of the cattle and sheep station Ferguson runs near Gundagai. Oh, yes, she said, she’d love to talk about Moonlite.

When Scott landed in Victoria in 1868, he may well have been fleeing a scandal concerning his military service in New Zealand. Regardless, the Bishop of Melbourne offered the well-spoken newcomer a plum post as a lay preacher in the Bacchus Marsh settlement. At the time, worshippers there were still gathering each Sunday in a building known as the Iron Church, one of many pieces of prefabricated infrastructure imported during the Victorian gold rush. In archival photos, it looks like a corrugated-iron shed, unflatteringly supplemented with a steeple.

Such was the colony at the time: a still fluid society in which the stone certainties of Anglicanism were replicated with ersatz materials entirely unsuited to the local climate. The setting suited Scott, who emerges from Paul Terry’s authoritative biography In Search of Captain Moonlite as charming, self-centred, and almost entirely amoral.

The Reverend WH Cooper of Bacchus Marsh presented the recruit to his flock “as a young warrior who now has a firm grip on the sword of righteousness”. And, at first, Scott justified Cooper’s faith. The archivist at Bacchus Marsh’s present-day Holy Trinity Church showed me a weathered ledger where Scott’s beautiful copperplate signature repeatedly appeared alongside the number of parishioners he attracted – generally, close to 100 each week.

But in early 1869 a man called Robert Crook faced the Bacchus Marsh Court House accused of breaking a neighbour’s fences and stealing his cattle. Scott had ingratiated himself with the Crook clan, one of the grandest families in the parish, and obligingly provided the young squire with an alibi. Unfortunately, it was immediately contradicted by one of his Sunday school students, who swore she’d seen Scott and Crook loitering near the crime scene.

Naturally, the court believed a churchman over a teenage girl. But the acquittal did not quell the Anglican hierarchy’s unease about its lay preacher, who was abruptly banished to the isolated mining town of Mount Egerton.

The remains of the Iron Church were sold for scrap in the 1870s to make way for a stone chapel, but the archivist directed me to a decaying house on the corner of Waddell and Graham streets where pieces had been dumped. In the knee-high grass of the backyard I found rusted slabs of iron – remnants of the church – now crudely fashioned into a garden shed. Wasps were nesting on one panel; there was a strong smell of rot coming from inside.

It felt, perhaps fittingly, like a crime scene.

In dusty Mount Egerton, Scott befriended the few respectable people he could find, including a 17-year-old banker, Ludwig Julius Wilhelm Bruun, and the town’s schoolteacher, James Simpson.

On 8 May 1869, Bruun told authorities that a masked man had forced him to open the bank’s safe and hand over its gold. The intruder left a note: “I hereby certify that LW Bruun has done everything within his power to withstand this intrusion and the taking of money which was done with firearms.”

It was signed “Captain Moonlite”.

The whole implausible story was probably a fabrication, a scam cooked up by Scott, Bruun and Simpson. Their friendship, however, had soured, and Bruun said he recognised the gunman as his former friend, tying Scott to the Moonlite moniker. Scott hotly denied the charge and threw the blame back at Bruun and Simpson, who were sent to trial (and later acquitted); Scott departed hurriedly, taking himself to Fiji and then to Sydney, where he began spending the wealth he’d mysteriously acquired.

James Nesbitt

In late 1870, he was arrested for passing bad cheques. Confined in Maitland Gaol, he feigned madness and was transferred to the more comfortable Parramatta Lunatic Asylum, where the medical registry described him as a “civil but … unprincipled fellow without a spark of honour or decency to him”.

Upon his release in 1872, Scott was charged with the Mount Egerton robbery. While on remand, he dug through the brickwork in his cell and scaled the walls of the gaol. He was quickly recaptured. Redmond Barry (the judge who later sentenced Ned Kelly to death) sentenced Scott to ten years in Melbourne’s Pentridge prison for the robbery, adding one for his attempted escape.

As a criminal, Scott was always more urban hustler than highwayman. But he was handsome and athletic, had reportedly seen heavy combat in the so-called Maori Wars, and was a skilled rider and crack shot. The Captain Moonlite sobriquet, with its irresistible hint of midnight romance, took on a life of its own. His attempted escape further popularised the reputation of the bold and dashing Moonlite. “Brave to the verge of recklessness,” a journalist wrote, “cool, clear-headed and sagacious, and with a certain chivalrous dash, he is the beau ideal of a brigand chief.”

The press thought him a bushranger – and a bushranger he would become.

It was a long drive from Bacchus Marsh to Gundagai. The spring rain had left the wheatfields a deep green and those of canola garishly yellow. The landscape tramped by George Scott and James Nesbitt and their four young companions, in drought-stricken 1879, must have been very different.

Scott met Nesbitt – a petty criminal from Carlton – in Pentridge, where the younger man was once disciplined for “taking tea to Prisoner Scott”. As biographer Terry says, it’s an affectingly tender infraction.

Upon Scott’s release in March 1879, the men shared a rundown house in Fitzroy. But how would they live? Scott tried lecturing on prison reform but, though he drew huge crowds, theatres often refused to book him, particularly with the press linking the notorious Moonlite with every unsolved crime. Police warned potential employers against him; he was dragged in for questioning about the most preposterous allegations.

Scott resolved to walk to New South Wales in search of work and a new start. He took with him a coterie of young men from the slums of inner Melbourne. Like Nesbitt, Thomas Rogan was 21. Frank Johns, Graham Bennett and Augustus Wernicke were in their teens. Exiled from polite society, the 34-year-old Scott basked in the admiration of these youths, to whom, as an urbane intellectual, he seemed like a visitor from another world.

The journey proved an utter disaster, a weary trudge along a hot and inhospitable track. The privations were exacerbated by constant police harassment.

“As long as our money lasted,” Scott explained later, “we bought bread, and when our money was gone we sold our clothes and bought bread, with what we obtained for them. We tried to get work, but could not, and we fasted day after day.”

They’d been living on damper and tea and koala meat – and then no food at all – when they approached Wantabadgery Station, near Gundagai. The property was known for its hospitality but, unbeknown to Scott, it had recently changed hands and the new owner harboured little sympathy for itinerants.

Abruptly ordered to leave, Scott snapped.

“Misery and hunger produced despair,” he wrote later, “and in one wild hour we proved how much the wretched dare.” He retreated into the bush and then returned with gun in hand – transforming, at last, into the persona that had been created for him.

The men with Scott had never previously left the city, let alone ridden a horse. Suddenly, though, they too were bushrangers.

Scott acquired nothing of value at the station. Instead, he demanded food and drink. Leaving his men, he then bailed up the Australian Arms Hotel and detained everyone inside before forcing them back to Wantabadgery: he was more concerned about playing the gentlemanly host than planning an escape.

Inevitably, the police arrived; inevitably, a gunfight ensued.

Scott and his small gang then decamped to a nearby farmhouse, which was soon surrounded by troopers. “Come and fight!” Scott yelled, even though the rest of his gang could barely hold a rifle. Poor Tom Rogan spent the whole shootout hiding under a bed.

Wernicke was mortally wounded. “I am only fifteen,” he cried. A short time later, Nesbitt was shot in the head. A journalist of the time described how, as Nesbitt died, Scott “wept over him like a child, laid his head upon his breast, and kissed him passionately”.

In the exchange of fire, Senior Constable Edward Webb-Bowen took a bullet in the spine – his subsequent death sealed Scott’s fate. The surviving “bushrangers” were tried for murder. With the Kelly Gang still at large, the court set an example, handing down death sentences to all. Johns and Bennett received an eventual commutation on the grounds of their youth; Scott and Rogan (who hadn’t even fired a shot) walked to the gallows on 20 January 1880 and were buried at Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery.

I drove to Kimo Estate, about 20 minutes from Gundagai, where a troop of dogs romped up to greet me. A minute later, Christine Ferguson roared into view on a ride-on mower. She was wearing a pullover emblazoned with a Captain Moonlite logo.

“G’day,” she said, wiping clean her hands. “You find the place all right?”

Kimo’s house dates back to the 1870s, and is pleasantly weathered. In spite of recent renovations for the bed-and-breakfast trade, Kimo is still a working farm. We sat in a lounge room crowded with books and framed photos, and talked about the exhumation in 1995.

Ferguson confirmed that disinterring a corpse wasn’t easy.

“We were actually the first people who weren’t relatives or the state to get a body exhumed. The only reason it was possible was because of Moonlite’s last letter, in which he wished to be buried in Gundagai next to his friends.”

But why had Ferguson gone to such trouble? “Here you are putting money and time into re-burying a convicted murderer who seems to have been involved in a same-sex relationship. It does seem, well, a bit strange.”

“Well, it was really only after the whole event that people raised that he might be gay,” Ferguson explained. “For a long time, we said, ‘Look, we believe they were just good mates, good friends.’ Just recently Sam Asimus, my partner in crime in the whole affair, told me she’d done some more research and she thinks Scott might have been bisexual. But who knows?”

As well as exhumation approval from the state, the women needed permission from the Anglican Church – eventually, both were granted. Ferguson’s team enlisted a local undertaker (“He was terribly excited!”), and they brought an ornate horse-drawn hearse to Gundagai on the back roads. The pallbearers wore period costumes.

“The locals here aren’t terribly excited about anything much,” Ferguson said, shrugging. “But when it was all done and it didn’t cost them any money, they did get into the swing of things. We had people lining the roads to watch.”

I still wanted to talk about sexuality. I’d learned about Moonlite from Willett and other gay historians, I explained. “Here was someone saying in those last letters, ‘I love this man, I want to be buried with him.’”

“He actually didn’t say that,” Ferguson said, then corrected herself. “Well, he did say it – in a way. But it was a long time ago, and mates were mates. We don’t know if he was gay or not. It comes down to your interpretation of ‘mate’ and what ‘mateship’ would have meant at the time.”

Fair enough. But mateship was a lot queerer than most people thought. In his 1958 book The Australian Legend, which popularised the concept as a national trait, Russel Ward suggested that, in the masculine environment of the frontier, the typical bushman satisfied himself sexually with prostitutes and indigenous women, then assuaged his “spiritual hunger” with “a sublimated homosexual relationship with a mate, or a number of mates”.

Was that how to think about Scott? In Bacchus Marsh, he seems to have been involved with a woman named Mrs Ames, who felt strongly enough about Scott to visit him regularly before his execution. Yet she barely registers in Scott’s death-cell writings, in which he returns again and again to Nesbitt.

“He died in my arms,” Scott wrote. “His death has broken my heart.”

That didn’t seem sublimated.

In one of his letters, Scott ended his plea for burial alongside Nesbitt with a quotation:

Now call me hence by thy side to be:
The world thou leavest has no place for me.
Give me my home on thy noble heart,
Well have we loved – let us both depart.

The lines came from a Felicia Hemans poem entitled ‘The Lady of Provence’.

“The original was about the feelings of a woman for her dead lover,” I mentioned to Ferguson. “So here’s Scott including what seems to me clearly a love poem to a man.”

“Well, that was never brought up at the time,” she said. “But, again, we don’t have the evidence. Do homosexuals now write poems to each other? It’s an odd thing to do, writing poems – not something people do these days.”

Until quite recently, I’d been the editor of Overland, a literary journal that regularly publishes poetry. Nevertheless, I took the point. The more I read about sexuality in the 19th century, the more it seemed both strikingly familiar and disconcertingly strange.

During Scott’s criminal career, the police in Victoria had been led by Chief Commissioner Frederick Standish. He was a gambler and libertine, who, at one notorious dinner, decorated the room with naked women seated on black chairs to better show off their white bodies. When Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria, toured Melbourne in 1867, Standish acted as royal pimp, escorting the prince to Sarah Fraser’s brothel in Stephen Street.

But, as Willett says in Secret Histories of Queer Melbourne, the commissioner was also infatuated with men – in particular with Frank Hare, another policeman chasing the Kellys. “It was almost pathetic to see …” wrote one of their contemporaries, “how restless and uneasy [Standish] became were Hare out of his company. I have seen Standish on the top rail of a fence watching anxiously for Hare’s return from a short ride.”

And then there was the story of Edward Feeney, who, eight years before Scott’s execution, was put to death at Melbourne Gaol for his part in a bizarre suicide pact.

In March 1872, Feeney had accompanied Charles Marks into Melbourne’s Treasury Gardens, where, according to a pre-arranged plan, they attempted to shoot each other. Feeney’s gun fired; Marks’ didn’t. This left Feeney on trial for murder.

Feeney refused to offer any explanation. But the court heard that he and Marks exchanged letters about their passionate love for each other. A bar owner testified that they regularly cuddled in his premises, sometimes laying their heads on each other’s laps. In her article about the case, historian Amanda Kaladelfos points out that while the proprietor believed their behaviour unusual, “he expressed no malice toward Marks and Feeney; nor did he give evidence that he ever asked them to stop showing their affections in his place of business”.

“Men often slept together in the same beds,” historian Clive Moore explains in his study of sexuality on the frontier, “without raising the slightest suspicion that they were involved in what we would call a homosexual affair, were physically affectionate, had romantic crushes, wrote lovingly to each other and fretted when they were apart … For most of the 19th century there was no clear social, medical or legal concept of homosexuality; homosexual acts were recognised, particularly sodomy, but not a personal disposition or social identity.”

Today, of course, matters are very different.

“Is there a gay community in Gundagai?” I asked Christine Ferguson.

“Hmm. I know one who’s come here, used to be with Qantas and he’s here … I’ve only met him once but I know he’s here. A couple of others in town who are probably bachelors but most people say they are [gay]. But that’s about it.”

“Do they have a hard time?”

“No, I don’t think so. You really wouldn’t know. They’re not openly living with a bloke or anything. Gundagai is conservative but I don’t think it’s really bothered by homosexuality.”

“Would the town be open to the tourist potential of Moonlite as a gay icon?”

“No, I didn’t think Gundagai would be into that,” Ferguson replied. “A lot of the old people want to keep Gundagai how it is and how it has been in the past. They don’t see … they’re not very progressive.”

She told me that she and Samantha Asimus had wanted to establish a bushrangers and police museum in the old gaol, when a property there became available. They’d had plans for holograms; they’d spoken to the Justice & Police Museum in Sydney about borrowing exhibits.

“We thought it would be fabulous for the town. But no, no one was interested.”

We talked for a little while about politics in general – Ferguson is close friends with Tony Abbott and struggled to sound enthusiastic about Malcolm Turnbull – and then she showed me through the station.

“I like to have a project,” she said. “I like to keep myself busy.”

And that, it seemed, helped to explain her involvement in the re-burial, a cause she’d taken on almost because of its inherent difficulty.

In his cell, Scott had described the headstone he wanted:

[A] rough unhewn rock would be most fit, one that skilled hands could have made into something better. It will be like those it marks, as kindness and charity could have shaped us to better ends.

The words were now carved into a suitably craggy stone located at the very edge of the North Gundagai Cemetery.

In some ways, the sentiment seemed less apposite for Scott (who, in his early life at least, had scarcely been deprived of opportunities) than for the slum kids who died with him.

Ever since I stumbled upon Edward Feeney and Charles Marks’ story, I’d been thinking about the inner-city origins of Moonlite’s unhappy gang, and the strange visual connection between the past and present. Before Marks and Feeney went to the Treasury Gardens to kill each other, they’d posed for final portraits in a Bourke Street photographer’s studio. The resulting images are utterly compelling. In one picture, they’re holding hands – and, with their bushy whiskers and cloth trousers, they look disconcertingly contemporary. You would not blink an eye to see them strolling in Fitzroy or Carlton today.

On the scaffold, Feeney had issued a statement denying he’d been “improperly intimate” with Marks. The doctors who dissected his body inspected his rectum for signs of sodomy. In that posthumous indignity, we can detect, Amanda Kaladelfos says, the beginning of the modern science of sexuality, which in the decades to come would establish “homosexuality” as a distinct and all-consuming pathology.

A second photo of Marks and Feeney depicts them with pistols against each other’s breast. The photographer had suggested they pose as “bushrangers”, a comment that made me wonder if, by the 1870s, the life of the outlaw gang was seen as representing a kind of male intimacy that the cities were beginning to exclude.

Was Feeney gay? Was Moonlite? In one sense, asking such questions is almost silly, the projection of contemporary categories onto a past where they did not belong. Yet, in another sense, the rediscovery of men who loved other men (as both Feeney and Moonlite clearly did) matters a great deal.

I’d also asked Christine Ferguson whether, in today’s Gundagai, men who wrote love poems to other men would be welcome in the local pub.

“Yeah, they probably wouldn’t go to the pub,” she replied, amused at the thought. “The pubs in here are pretty blokey.” She didn’t drink in them much herself, and nor did many women.

Surely that was the value of the Moonlite story. It revealed the traditional masculinity enforced in public bars, sporting clubs and other bastions of heterosexuality to be neither innate nor eternal.

Scott had designed his own epitaph. He’d wanted it to read “This stone covers the remains of two friends”. He’d then written Nesbitt’s name and his own, with Nesbitt’s death listed as the date the pair were “separated”, and his own execution recorded as when they were “united by death”.

The exact location of Nesbitt’s body in this cemetery is no longer known. When Scott’s body was re-buried, the tombstone noted that he had been “laid to final rest near his friends James Nesbitt and Augustus Wernicke who lie in unmarked graves close by”.

The inscription diffused Scott’s passion for one man into a more conventional friendship with two.

The morning was starting to warm, but Scott’s grave was pleasantly shaded by a beautiful old gum tree. Its slight separation from the rest of the cemetery gave it an unmistakeable prominence – a gesture that the always-vain Scott would have liked.

Why bushranger Captain Moonlite died with a lock of hair in his hand

HISTORY
Moonlite: The True and Tragic Love Story of Captain Moonlite and the Dying Days of the Bushrangers
Garry Linnell
Michael Joseph, $34.99

In the annals of bushranging, Andrew George Scott (aka Captain Moonlite) is not as familiar a name as Ned Kelly, though arguably he was just as complex and interesting a character as well as being similarly accomplished as a horseman. Scott was Irish – technically more so than Kelly, having been born there – but he came from a very different background from the leader of the Kelly Gang, being well-educated and Protestant. But both had occasion to be tried in a courtroom presided over by Sir Redmond Barry, also an Irishman.

The grave of Captain Moonlite. CREDIT:LUKE WATSON

The story of the life and misadventures of Captain Moonlite is recounted with gusto in this book.

The front cover boldly announces “A New Era of Australian Storytelling”, with Garry Linnell explaining that he tried to write a work of non-fiction “in a style that borrows heavily from novels and movies – using character development, pacing, dialogue and sub-plots” to enliven material drawn exclusively from archival sources.

Linnell consciously departs from the conventions of popular history by declaring “I despise footnotes” and questioning whether anyone ever reads them.

The armour notwithstanding, Kelly was not as showy as Scott, who created the legend of Captain Moonlite, dressing himself in a black crepe mask and cape-like coat as though he was a stage villain in some provincial melodrama.

Captain Moonlite was frank about his feelings for James Nesbitt.

For all its theatricality, the criminal persona was somewhat effective in obscuring Scott’s true identity. The performance was designed to instil fear and awe in Moonlite’s victims though it did have an absurd aspect, since Scott had a limp that tended to give him away no matter how impressively he tried to present himself to the world as a swashbuckling land pirate.

These days Kelly is regarded by many Australians as a prototypical bogan who, if he had been born a century or more later, would have worn flannelette and performed burnouts in a stolen Commodore. By contrast, Captain Moonlite was the nearest thing to a dandy highwayman in the tough yet surprisingly sentimental frontier culture that produced the bushrangers and their networks of supporters. We can imagine Kelly enjoying AC/DC while Scott might have preferred to listen to Adam and the Ants.

Like so many of the misfits and ne’er-do-wells from privileged families in Britain and Ireland that fetched up in far-flung colonies, Scott tried different careers but could not settle down to anything respectable. Linnell speculates that Scott, who pleaded insanity at a trial for fraud and was confined to the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum, was bipolar. The authorities concluded that Scott was feigning mental illness while plotting to escape and had him transferred to a regular prison.

Like Kelly, Scott’s career as a bushranger was curtailed in part by the then new modern technology of the telegraph and the railway, as well as more effective policing.

Perhaps the most compelling section of Moonlite features the extraordinary tenderness with which Scott regarded his last partner in crime and the love of his life, James Nesbitt, whom he met while both men were doing time in Pentridge. Scott was disarmingly frank about his feelings for the younger man, especially in an era during the 19th century when sex was not discussed publicly and homosexuality was harshly suppressed by the state.

Scott was captured following a deadly shootout and condemned to be executed. Linnell writes that at the end of his troubled life he thought only of Nesbitt, who had died in his arms during the last stand of Captain Moonlite.

“When they finally hauled Scott to his feet, handcuffed him and led him away, Scott took with him a lock of Nesbitt’s hair. In the years to come, as legend and myth and fact all merged into one, it would be said that Captain Moonlite went to the gallows with that lock of hair forming a ring on the wedding finger of his left hand.”

Reference

Gay History: Gangster Twins Ronnie And Reggie Kray ‘Had Secret Gay Sex With Each Other’

Article, biography, Gay Interest, General Interest, History, , , , ,

Ronnie and Reggie Kray had a secret incestuous relationship with each other so criminal rivals would not discover they were gay according to author John Pearson who interviewed them both

Kray Twins

Vicious gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray had an incestuous sexual relationship with each other as they were growing up.

The pair, who ran a cruel and violent criminal empire in London’s East End in the 1960s, were terrified of their secret coming out.

They were worried that rivals would see their sexuality – Ronnie was a homosexual and Reggie was bisexual – as a sign of weakness so only had sex with each other in order to keep the secret.

Author John Pearson who extensively interviewed the brothers and their associates has made the revelation as a new film comes out on the twins.

John said: “Homosexuality was nothing to be proud of in the East End.

“But as they became more notorious, Ronniebecame quite shameless about it.

“According to Ron in the early days they had sex with each other because they were terrified about people finding out.”

Smart: Twin brothers and organised crime bosses Ronnie and Reggie Kray (Image: Getty)

It has long been known that Ronnie was a homosexual and Reggie was bisexual but the news they had a sexual relationship with each other gives a telling insight into their close connection.

Actor Tom Hardy stars as both brothers in a new film , Legend, based on the lives of the murderous pair as told in a book by John.

Actor: Tom Hardy in his latest roles as Ronnie (left) and Reggie Kray in the film, Legend (Image: PA)

John has written three books on the brothers and says Ronnie told him the twins dark secret during one of their chats.

He says while he knew about the the incest he waited until the brothers were both dead before revealing it for fear of retribution.

Ronnie died in Broadmoor secure hospital of a heart attack in 1995 and Reggie died of cancer in 2000 having been released from prison on compassionate grounds.

In his book Notorious: The Immortal Legend of the Kray Twins , John said the pair were spoilt by their mother Violet, Grandma Lee and their two aunties, May and Rose, while their father was soon dominated by the increasingly violent brothers.

Brotherly love: Amateur boxers Reggie (left) and Ronnie Kray with their mother Violet Kray (Image: Getty)

John wrote: “All of which conformed, of course, to a classic pattern; and with their warm, indulgent mother, their ineffectual father, and their surrounding cast of loving women, it was not surprising that, with adolescence, the Twins discovered that they were gay.

Given their identical genetic make-up, it was virtually inevitable that if one twin was, the other would be too.”

Tome: Author John Pearson’s book on the Kray Twins

However there was a problem for the twins as back in the macho world of 1950s East End it was seen as a weakness to be gay.

John wrote: “So it was hardly surprising that, for the time being, both the twins kept their sexual preferences to themselves.

Claims: Author John Pearson says the brothers had an incestuous relationship(Image: Twitter)

The brothers ran a notorious criminal network in the 1960s building up an empire of nightclubs though hijacking, armed robbery and arson.

Fighters: Ronnie and Reggie during their amateur boxing days in their youth

As they moved from the East End to the West End their became big names rubbing shoulders with Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland and being photographed by David Bailey.

Eventually the police got them and the Krays went to prison for murdering fellow gangsters George Cornell and Jack McVitie.

Reference

6 Super Hot Guy-On-Guy Gay Sex Scenes In Modern Movies, Ranked (NSFW)

Article, Gay Interest, ,

6 Another Gay Movie (2006)

Never forget: TV chat show host Graham Norton once played a dildo-and-harness-wearing male dominatrix called Mr Puckov in American Pie parody Another Gay Movie. While that scene, like most of the film, is played for cheap laughs, there’s one climactic scene (literally) that takes a genuinely sexy turn at the end of the film.

It occurs when Andy, one of the core four characters desperate to lose his ‘anal virginity’, achieves this twice over during a raucous, hair-pulling threeway. We’d score it 10/10, were it not for the lassoing hand movements and the cringe-inducing dialogue… (‘heavens to Betsy!’).

Sexiness score: 6.5/10

5 King Cobra (2016)

Where to start with King Cobra? This biopic of gay porn actor Brent Corrigan (whose life the film ‘bastardized‘, he said) has enough thunderous, sinewy sex scenes to fill this entire list. But most of them are also utterly, laughably stupid.

In fact, the depictions of real sex are often more silly than the depictions of porn shoots. (Step forward James Franco’s porno director screaming for his boyfriend to ‘GIVE ME THAT BIG DICK!’). As such, a panting Garrett Clayton is particularly smouldering in an early montage showing him finding his footing in porn, soundtracked by the Scissor Sisters’ spirited classic Filthy/Gorgeous.

Sexiness score: 7/10

Photo: HBO

4 Looking: The Movie (2017)

In Looking For Now, the first episode of the first season of this seminal HBO drama, main character Patrick shows all the sex appeal of a wet lettuce. We watch as Jonathan Groff’s San Francisco-residing, saucer-eyed video game designer fumbles his way through an awkward encounter with another man in some bush.

Numerous hook ups, two relationships and one affair later, Patrick evolves into a different being. In Looking: The Movie, the show’s feature length swan song after it was criminally cancelled after two seasons, our main man shows off his rimming skills with such conviction that confidence radiates from the screen. It’s so obvious Jonathan Groff’s amazing in bed, isn’t it? Sigh.

Sexiness score: 8.10

3 God’s Own Country (2017)

When the dam of sexual tension finally breaks in 2017’s Call Me By Your Name, the camera suspiciously trails out of the window before the action even starts. Why? To make the movie palatable to straight audiences and awards voters, critics claimed.

Conversely, in the excellent God’s Own Country – a somewhat similarly-themed movie that came out around the same time, but didn’t receive nearly as much attention – the camera is agog with fascination during the sex scenes.

Indeed, when our straight-presenting protagonists Gheorgie and Johnny finally give into their unquenchable thirst for each other, the resulting sex is blunt, powerful and shocking. And yet, it’s filmed with enough dexterity that arguably all you’re witnessing is a spot of extreme heavy petting.

The only thing unsexy about the scene is the setting: the outer reaches of a neglected farm next to some sheep. (Well, they are farmers). It’s a rough, gruelling watch: you can almost feel the damp in the air and the biting cold, as Gheorgie’s long johns start to fall down, and he leaves a muddy handprint on Johnny’s backside… Actually, scrap that, we’d like to give it a try.

Sexiness score: 8.5/10

2 Stranger By the Lake (2014)

In God’s Own Country, the viewer’s face is pushed up against the camera lens. In French arthouse flick Stranger By the Lake, it’s pushed through – albeit with a gentle, deadly caress. Spoiler alert: this movie shows explicit sex, so might not be one to watch with the parents.

Indeed, while there are yet more outdoor shenanigans in Stranger, here, the nudity (plus the erections, ejaculations and blow jobs) are decidedly more sun-dappled.

Stranger tells the story of the sweeping sexual affair that takes place between two Frenchmen at a lakeside cruising spot one summer. The setting is stunning, the men are ridiculously hot, and the tension is unbearable. It would be aspirational, were it not for the fact that one of them’s a cold-blooded killer.

All of the sex looks amazing, but I’m deducting a fraction of a point because it’s all a little too, well photogenic for me. And I’m sorry, but nobody has sex this pleasurable-looking on dead grass or pebbles. Trust me, I grew up in the country.

Sexiness score: 9.5/10

1 Weekend (2011)

Here it is: the joyous, romantic and still totally sexy apex of gay sex on film.

In the critically-acclaimed Weekend, Tom Cullen and Chris New play Russell and Glen, two lost souls with kind hearts and handsome faces who fall for each other over a weekend in Russell’s dingy flat atop a Nottingham housing block.

Although the guys meet in a trashy gay bar on a Friday evening, the film wisely passes over their drunken first time together later that night.

We are privy, however, to the lazy, groaning sex they have the following afternoon, shortly after a stoned Glen’s gone to work on a piece of confectionary. (Can somebody please tell me: is that a McVitie’s Penguin he’s eating?! For some reason, I’m dying to know!).

In an earlier scene, artist Glen – who records interviews with his hook ups – bemoans compromising his work for ‘the straights’. Director Andrew Haigh, who’s since directed the Oscar nominated 45 Years (not to mention Looking: The Movie!), makes no such allowances. He shows all the sweat, tears and semen needed to make this love affair between two men feel truly convincing.

Sexiness score: 10/10

Reference

11 Gay Movies That Actually Have Happily-Ever-After Endings

Article, Gay Interest, , ,

Not In The Mood For Another Sad, Gay Movie?

There are a lot of important gay movies that don’t have the happiest endings for gay characters, especially when those movies try to tackle important topics like homophobia or the HIV/AIDS crisis. Still, it can feel a little depressing when you keep seeing the same Bury Your Gays trope played out over and over again. It’s also important to see happy reflections of gay life in media. If you’re just in the movie for a fun film with a happily ever after ending, check out these 11 movies!

1) Beautiful Thing

The 1996 British film Beautiful Thingfollows Jamie, a teenage boy who is infatuated with his classmate, Ste. While Jamie is bullied in school, Ste is dealing with an abuse at home. Jamie’s mother, Sandra, offers Ste an escape from his alcoholic father, which results in Jamie and Ste sharing a bed and a kiss. While Sandra is initially shocked by her son’s relationship, she comes to accept it. The final scene shows Ste and Jamie celebrating their relationship openly, with Sandra at their side.

2) Shelter

The 2007 movie Shelter follows Zach, an aspiring artist who puts his college dreams on hold to help out his family. He falls for his best friend’s brother, Shaun, but struggles with his feelings. While their families are initially uncomfortable, they accept the relationship by the end of the film. If you’re looking for an uplifting story about romantic love and families with a final scene that’s uplifting, check out Shelter.

3) The Way He Looks

The romantic coming-of-age drama The Way He Looks has a happy falling in love with your best friend and riding off into the sunset ending that so many straight high school romance movies have. The film follows Leonardo, a blind high school student, as he falls for new student Gabriel. It’s also available to stream on Netflix.

4) The Birdcage

The 1996 comedy The Birdcage (the American remake of La Cage aux Folles) follows Armand, the owner of a drag club in South Beach called The Birdcage and is partner Albert who’s drag persona Starina is the club’s star attraction. When Armand’s son Val announces he’s marrying a woman with ultraconservative parents, Armand and Albert try to pull off a ridiculous farce. The all-star cast (Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane, and Dianne Wiest), over the top situations, and light tone make this the perfect movie for an evening where you just don’t feel like watching anything heavy.

5) Maurice

The 1987 British drama Maurice is based on the E.M. Forster novel of the same name. The film is set in early 20th century England and follows Maurice Hall from his childhood to early adulthood. Maurice struggles with his feelings, but eventually meets his life partner Alec Scudder. Though society condemns their relationship, they’re willing to give up anything to be together.

6) Boys (Jongens)

This Dutch coming-of-age film explores 15-year-old Sieger’s first love as he falls for Marc. While there are a few melancholy moments, the end makes it clear that Sieger is on a journey of self-acceptance, Marc will be a part of that journey. The film is streaming on Netflix.

7) Latter Days

Latter Days is full of ridiculous rom-com tropes, but this movie about a gay party boy and his closeted Mormon missionary neighbor falling in love is fun to watch. While there’s definitely some heartbreak, the movie ultimately has an uplifting ending.

8) Touch of Pink

Sometimes you just need some good romantic comedy fluff. Touch of Pinknever takes itself too seriously (see: Kyle MacLachlan playing the ghost of Cary Grant), which makes it a fun, endearing film. Alim movies to London to get away from his conservative family. When he comes out to his mother and faces problems with his boyfriend Giles the ghost of Cary Grant gives him advice that often seems to do more harm than good.

9) Jeffrey

Jeffrey is a 1995 romantic comedy that’s set in Manhattan during the height of the AIDS epidemic—but hear me out. Rather than going doom-and-gloom, the movie follows title character Jeffrey, who is afraid of falling in love with someone who might die. He swears off sex because of the AIDS crisis, and then meets and falls for Steve, an HIV positive man. He realizes he has to confront his fears to live and love fully. There are also some awesome cameos by Patrick Stewart, Sigourney Weaver, and Nathan Lane.

10) Big Eden

This 2000 romantic comedy follows Henry Hart, a New York City artist who returns to his rural hometown in Montana to take care of his grandfather. The townsfolk welcome Henry back and are accepting of his sexuality. Henry has to confront his unresolved feelings for his high school friend Dean Stewart, but he’s oblivious to the feelings of Pike Dexter, the Native American owner of the town’s general store. While films about rural gay life often focus on hardships, Big Eden is unique. The entire film is devoid of homophobia.

11) Love, Simon

The groundbreaking 2018 film (based off of Becky Albertalli’s young adult novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda) follows the story of typical, suburban high school senior Simon Spier as he tries to navigate life after being blackmailed and threatened with outing by one of his classmates while also trying to figure out the identity of his anonymous, romantic, online pen pal named Blue.

Although there are serious themes and instances of casual homophobia throughout the movie, like most teen rom-coms, the ending is really sweet and gives the audience a feeling of hope for the titular character and his life as a newly-out, gay man.

Reference

Seven Abandoned Buildings In Australia

Article, General Interest, History, Travelogue, ,
The interior of the old Peter’s Ice Cream Factory in Taree, on the NSW mid-north coast. Photo: Lost Collective

Broadway Hotel — Woolloongabba, QLD

Photo: Lainey Quinn/Abandoned World Photography

Grand old pubs dot the corners of many an Australian main street. Many are still buzzing with activity, but the abandoned Broadway Hotel, in the Brisbane suburb of Woolloongabba, had stood proudly since it was built in 1889 until fire gutted it in 2010, leaving it derelict. There have been plans to redevelop the site, but the hotel has been listed on the Queensland Heritage Register since 1992 and cannot be demolished.

The Big Textile Factory — Unknown, QLD

Photo: Flickr/darkday

This former textile factory was discovered by an urban exploration group back in 2012, somewhere in the industrial suburbs of Brisbane. They uncovered a warehouse full of machines, with fabric still in the feeds and rolls of material lining the timber floors, looking as though everyone had just up and left — not even having finished the day’s work. Still today the exact location has been kept a secret and the former business name of the factory also remains unknown.

Balmain Leagues Club — Rozelle, NSW

Photo: Lost Collective

Some buildings become derelict and abandoned due to hard times, development deals gone wrong, or even government intervention. And that is the story behind the Balmain Leagues Clubs site in Sydney’s inner city. The club was forced out in 2010 when the site was earmarked for a metro station, which in the end never eventuated. The site has since been proposed for redevelopment with developers, council, and residents’ groups at an impasse over what is to be built.

Atlantis Marine Park — Two Rocks, WA

Photo: WAToday

What was supposed to be Western Australia’s answer to the Gold Coast theme parks – Atlantis Marine Park – opened in 1981, on the back of Perth’s economic boom. However, just nine years after its opening, the park shut its gates and the business magnate responsible for the nautical-themed park, Alan Bond, was soon after declared bankrupt, and later imprisoned for fraud. Today the amusement park still lies empty, although in 2015 the famous King Neptune statue was cleaned up by local developers and the owner of the land, after being vandalised in the intervening years.

Peters’ Ice Cream Factory — Taree, NSW

Photo: Lost Collective

This factory was an important part of the mid-north coast of NSW for more than 50 years. It was built in 1939 and served the once-booming dairy industry around Taree, originally producing condensed milk for the manufacture of ice cream. The factory ceased operation in the 1990s, but still holds a significant place in the hearts of local residents, with a “Dairy Factory Reunion” held there in 2016, as part of the National Trust Heritage Festival.

Almost a Ghost Town — Hammond, SA

Photo: Flickr/denisbin

A single abandoned building can be intriguing, but there’s something about almost a whole town that is much more eerie. Several ghost towns dot the southern Flinders Ranges region of South Australia, yet Hammond stands out, due to the large number of buildings that still remain intact. The town began in 1879 and existed to service the rail line and surrounding farming community, but saw its decline in population start from as early as the 1930s, leaving just several houses with full-time residents today.

Wangi Power Station — Wangi Wangi, NSW

Photo: Lost Collective

The Wangi Power Station came into operation in 1958, and at one point was the largest power station in NSW. At the time of construction, 1000-odd workers camped onsite during its entire ten years it took to build. The station was eventually deemed surplus to requirements and decommissioned in 1986 with all power generation & associated equipment removed, save for a few heavy gears and skid mounts. Since then, there has been a heritage listing placed over part of the site and there have been numerous proposals for redevelopment, though none have come to fruition.

This article has been updated to show a more recent image of the restored King Neptune, and the item about the Wangi Power Station replaces one about a former zoo in western Sydney.

Reference

The Hidden Survivors

Article, Gay Interest, Health Information, HIV/AIDS, ,

Why people living and aging with HIV will lead the way

Tuesday, 9/18 is National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day. Long-term survivors of HIV face unique challenges; they are the “hidden” survivors of the epidemic. When I was diagnosed with HIV in 1989 I wasn’t sure I’d be here in 2018 to talk about it. At the time there was no effective treatment for people living with HIV, it

was basically a death sentence. For those of us who did have access to health care and treatment, we were given what we now know is suboptimal therapy that not only rendered us resistant to more effective medications that were being developed, but also had life-altering side effects that remain with some of us to this day. These side effects from those earlier, more toxic treatments have added to the stigma of aging with HIV and have disfigured us, made us frailer, and caused our hearts to literally skip a beat.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to be here. As a white, gay, cis man living with HIV who turns 60 this year, I also recognize and acknowledge my privilege. I have access today to a one pill, once-a-day therapy that keeps my virus fully suppressed, so that I’m unable to pass on HIV to others, and I experience virtually no side effects to my current regimen. But I also know that when I walk into a room, I have “the look”—the sunken cheeks, the veiny arms and legs, the extended belly. “You should be grateful to be here,” we’ve been told, “thankful to be alive!” But to what end? Grateful to be here to suddenly be rolled off of disability after being out of work for 20–30 years, expected to join the ranks of the work force without any specialized training or support? Grateful to be here only to fall into addiction or isolation because our support networks, friends and former lovers no longer exist? Grateful to be here while there is scant culturally competent care for aging LGBTQ+ seniors who are living with HIV? We as a society in general do not value our elders—how does the LGBTQ+ community regard those of us aging, let alone aging with HIV?

There is much work to be done, but if anyone can lead the way, it’s people living with HIV and our allies. We were the ones who took care of each other back at the start of the epidemic, and we will come to the forefront of the battle once again. The lesbian community was there for many gay men back in the 1980s when we were dropping like flies and when no one else would touch us; thank heavens for these unsung heroes. Community-based organizations like TPANwere founded by people living with HIV so that we could survive and thrive. Informational resources like Positively Aware delivered the information we needed to live healthy, happy lives.

Earlier this year The Reunion Project convened a community-led, diverse coalition of survivor advocates to discuss the needs and priorities of survivors, and issued a report in June. Go to tpan.com/reunion-project for more info. As someone living with HIV for 29 years, I am excited to be part of a national network of survivors that is giving voice to those who don’t have one and who have in many respects been left behind.

Currently 50% of people living with HIV are over the age of 50, and by 2030 it will be 70 percent. But we knew this was coming. Where is the sense of urgency? Where is the crisis task force taking up our agenda? Do we matter?

I believe we do. As the saying goes, with age comes wisdom. Long-term survivors have an opportunity to come together and join forces, mentor those coming up behind us on how to age and live with HIV gracefully, and to advocate for those who have no voice. An entire generation was lost, so who now is going to step up and advocate for us?

Those of us who have survived.

Reference