11 May
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| Thomas Taylor |
1986- The patio opened at Backstreet at 108 South 500 West SLC UT with Michael Ball as manager.
1987, AIDS The London Times, one of the world’s most respected newspapers, published a front-page story entitled "Smallpox vaccine triggered AIDS virus." The story suggests that African
AIDS is a direct outgrowth of the WHO smallpox eradication program. The smallpox vaccine allegedly awakened a "dormant" AIDS virus infection in the black population. Robert Gallo, the co-discoverer of HIV, was quoted as saying, "The link between the WHO program and the epidemic is an interesting and important hypothesis. I cannot say that it actually happened, but I have been saying for some years that the use of live vaccines such as that used for smallpox can activate a dormant infection such as HIV (the AIDS virus)." The Times story is one of the most important stories ever printed on the AIDS epidemic; yet the story was killed and never appeared in any major U.S. newspaper or magazine.
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1987--Lesbian and Gay Student Union previewed the Police Sensitivity Training Film on dealing with the Gay community
1988- Utah’s AIDS Advisory Committee heard the recommendations of the subcommittee on Gay and Lesbian Concerns and AIDS.
Richard Starkey chair of the subcommittee spoke to the health department. The Committee accepted the Gay and Lesbian subcommittee’s recommendations of continued confidentiality.
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| Marlin Criddle |
1993 Attorney Marlin Criddle presented at Utah Stonewall Center a lecture/workshop on legal issues affecting Gay/Lesbian couples.
1996 The credibility of a key prosecution witness is being questioned in the pending trial of eight North Star employees accused of neglecting a dying teen. In documents made public Friday by a 6th District judge, defense attorneys claim the Utah Attorney General's Office withheld crucial evidence about a male counselor in the wilderness treatment program. The counselor later confessed to having sexual acts with two teen-age boys enrolled in North Star. The counselor is one of a few North Star employees who are witnesses for the state's case of felony child abuse and neglect in the March 1994 death of Aaron Bacon. While an attorney general's investigator was interviewing the counselor prior to last spring's preliminary hearing on the North Star case, the counselor confessed to three separate instances of sexual activity with two 17-year-old boys in 1994. The counselor and boys were in a separate North Star hiking group than Bacon, and Bacon was not one of the alleged sexual-abuse While the county prosecutor has had the case for 1 1/2 years, no sexual-abuse charges have been filed against the counselor.(The Salt Lake Tribune normally does not name suspects until they are charged. (05/11/96 SLTribune Page: D2)
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| Rocky Anderson |
2003 Page: B1 Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, 51, takes in the Friday night scene at the Zephyr Club. He guided media types on a tour intended to prove the city is happening at night. Below, the tour takes a cultural turn with a visit to Utah Artists Hands. Mayor Reprises SLC Night Life Tour Rocky Guides Tour of SLC Night Life By Heather May The Salt Lake Tribune As Rocky Anderson walks into The Tavernacle Social Club at midnight Friday, the dueling pianists pound out the "Rocky" theme song. Then a snippet of Bill Haley and the Comets' "Rock around the Clock." Anderson had promised his entourage the Tavernacle would feel like a party. On this night, it does feel like a party -- for the mayor. Someone shouts, "We're all voting for you." That's clear. There are at least five re-election signs posted around the room. The mayor is a tour guide this night, out with media types from Salt Lake City to prove again that, yes, there is life at night. Tavernacle is our eighth stop in the six-hour night, and there are two more places to go. The mayor requests a song -- "The Devil Came Down to Georgia" -- and even though it has been played before, a pianist does it again, noting the $20 tip Anderson drops. In the 30 minutes we are there, Anderson laughs along to raunchy lyrics, stands and smiles to the crowd with a bottle of Budweiser in hand as they toast to him, and takes a shot of dark-looking liquor, apparently bought by a group of fans. He doesn't worry this publicity stunt will alienate nondrinkers. Standing at the bar in the club whose name plays off the LDS Tabernacle choir, he says, "I don't think people should drink to excess. People ought to be able to get out and socialize and drink if that's their choice. My view is, live and let live as long as you're not endangering anybody." And then we're off. While Anderson notes the numerous bars all are within walking distance, our New Yorker shuttle bus, and our designated driver, await. A night of bar hopping is not the mayor's norm, unless he feels he must correct misperceptions. In 2001, Anderson showed some of the same spots to out-of-town media to demonstrate that the 2002 Winter Games host city is not dull. He thinks he needs to do it again for the locals. "We've got some people within our own city who don't know what a great vibrant night life [we have]. No one will ever again say there's not a whole lot to do in downtown Salt Lake City." This isn't billed as a campaign event, but the November election is hard to ignore. Co-host Tom Guinney says it's about downtown promotion. The owner of the Gastronomy chain of restaurants (including the New Yorker) is also on Anderson's re-election committee. There are Rocky campaign signs at nearly ever club we enter. Our treatment is fit for a mayor. We begin our night at the Oyster Bar (owned by Guinney) where we are ushered to three empty tables. Regular folks wait 45 minutes to sit. Drink watch: One glass of Cabernet for Anderson. At Port O' Call (campaign contribution: $5,000) the line is 30 or 40 people deep. Not for us. As soon as we enter, a table of four notice the mayor and give him a thumbs up. "He represents the minority in Utah," gushes Emily Hix. "Which means non-Mormon." Upstairs in the indoor patio, Carol Nichols spots the mayor, too, and buys him a shot of tequila. Anderson's hairdresser since he was a teenager, Nichols says later she knows everything about him. "He loves tequila. He loves tequila." She's about to reveal more when Anderson runs interference, walking over to give her a hug and a noogie. Sharing time is over. Casey Scott, another traveler on the bar tour and a producer for 107.5 FM, considers bailing out at this point. The 29-year-old already knows night life. "I kind of feel like I'm clubbing with my parents." Anderson is 51, after all. But Scott concedes he didn't know much about Salt Lake's cultural side. (We also stopped at the Salt Lake Art Center and Utah Artists Hands.) "I don't know where to buy art." But at the Zephyr Club (campaign contributions: $0), another 20-something applauds the pub crawl. As a band starts up, Abbie Sonntag stops the mayor to say thanks for being a politician in Utah. Another fan awaits at Bricks (whose owner is a frequent donor). The club is packed with kids 18 and older, chilling to techno beats or break dancing. Just as Anderson says he's glad he doesn't have a daughter to worry about in this night scene, a woman who could be his daughter suggests they dance. The mayor begs off. There were moments of reflection. At the Globe Cafe, nursing a scotch, the mayor said he still believes an ordinance that limits the number of bars or clubs to two per block is outdated, especially with the city's extra long blocks. But he won't try to change it anytime soon, already having tried and failed in 2001. "Things are really healthy right now," he says, rattling off a list of places within two blocks. We do make room for gay night at Club Axis (not a campaign donor). The place must have been hot before we got there, at 1:02 a.m., because many of the men have taken off their shirts as they mingle or grind to rapper Missy Elliott. The mayor feels overdressed, in his button down white shirt, black sweater and Lee jeans. At 1:30 a.m., Anderson is ready to hit one more spot -- the Orbit Cafe -- for breakfast. To his surprise, it's closed.
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| Stephanie Thomas |
2003 Bobby Childers to Ben Williams-Ben,Thank you for these historical moments. It has been great to walk down memory lane again. But I have just one change. Stephanie Thomas was The RCGSE's first "Lesbian" Empress. Carol Martindale was our first "female" Empress during the 3rd reign with Weldon Young as Emperor. Respectfully, Bobby Childers Emperor 27
2003 KW- Correction: Kathy Worthington was granted the right to use FAMILY LEAVE (FMLA) to care for her partner Sara HAMBLIN. Kathy
2005 The Secret Side of the Playground KSL News May 11th
, 2005 @ 5:51pm Debbie Dujanovic Reporting A favorite family recreation spot with a dark side. We show you what our undercover cameras caught out in the open. What we caught on tape goes on here, all day long, every day. That's why we went undercover, to warn you about the secret-side of a public playground. The Jordan River Parkway is a quiet escape in the heart of Salt Lake County for walking, biking, and hiking. Local government spends millions of tax dollars there - paving, maintaining, tables, bathrooms, bridges. It’s miles of trail winding along the Jordan River, but there's a secret side to this public place. Michelle Shaw: “The sad thing is people should do that in the privacy of their own home.” Debra Eastman: “Just seeing it happen, that’s not good, I don’t like that at all.” The trouble begins at a park next to the Jordan River trail. Oxbow park sits along 3300 south at 1100 West. It's listed on Salt Lake County's website as a public access point for the trail. We discovered Oxbow Park on another website as an open-air market for sex. For seven days we sit undercover. Two male producers park in separate cars during lunch hour. Men pull in, signal their headlights, leave two at a time, talk, stroll back and forth. Men approach our producer and the secret's out. "Myself, I’m bisexual. My wife don't know it, but that's okay too. Are you bisexual?" "They're probably looking for somebody that would want to go do a threesome." "What do you enjoy anyway?” ”Oh, I don't know, I haven't really given it any thought to anything specific. How about you?” ”Well, if it's fun I do it." Larry Turpin, Retired Investigator: “We had a lot of complaints from people calling in.” Retired Police Investigator Larry Turpin worked this area undercover. Larry Turpin: “They get back here in the bushes, lay down so no one can see them.” Near the river, in the park, even in the bathrooms. Larry Turpin: “People are blindsided when they walk in and here’s two people engaged in a sex act in front of their children.” Oxbow Park's secret dates back two decades. Now that the Jordan River Trail runs through it, it's an eye-opener for the innocent. Larry Turpin: “You never know what you’re going to see out here, no idea. You could walk into anything.” We see lewd acts in the park from every angle: along the trail, across the brush, even from Chopper 5. Capt. Tracy Tingey, South Salt Lake Police Dept.: “Anybody using this trail needs to be aware that this type of activity is taking place.” Our investigation has police warning the public it's dangerous here, even for officers.
Capt. Tracy Tingey: "They've been groped, they've been attacked, it's hard to get officers to work in an undercover capacity down here because it's so stressful." Salt Lake County manages Oxbow Park and areas of the parkway. Wayne Johnson, Salt Lake County: “We do not, at this time, have the ability to solve the problem.” There's no budget for new bathrooms; legally they can't level the brush. It's clear from our investigation, police don't work this area everyday. Wayne Johnson, Salt Lake County: “When you see or hear something that may not be pleasing to your child, that chance exists here.” Ironically, officials think getting more families to use the area will chase this problem away. We saw suspicious activity for nearly a mile up and down the Jordan River Trail, starting at Oxbow Park at 3300 South. But our investigation reveals trouble at other public places you take your children. We’ll show you which ones tomorrow night at ten.
2005 Lavender Tribe Thella Hall Topic: Native American Mandalas a native Navajo (Dineh), Thella combines her artistic talent with her native and beloved mandalas. She has used art therapy to help people deal with a variety of issues in their lives.
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| Ruby Ridge |
2006 Play your cards right and be part of Gay Bingo Fundraiser: With queens, a chicken "prize" and comedy, this isn't "your mother's bingo" by Jennifer Sanchez The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake Tribune "Bingo virgins" never know what to expect. Here, "queer" and "lesbian" are not bad words. Guests are cheerfully greeted by drag queens with pouffy wigs and sparkling earrings bigger than Christmas-tree ornaments. And the game's loser -or winner, depending on home-décor tastes - goes home with the rotating trophy: the "Magna D.I. Chicken," an aged ceramic chicken picked up at a thrift store. Welcome to Gay Bingo. "This is not your mother's bingo," says "Fonda," a 36-year-old drag queen who grew up playing bingo at church. "We're not so serious." The Utah Cyber Sluts, a drag queen troupe, performs an impromptu comedy show while hosting a monthly bingo night at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Community Center of Utah in Salt Lake City. Folks pay five bucks for a green bingo card, with the money benefitting the GLBT center. Since the event began in March 2005, it has generated at least $200 per night; the most was $1,200, organizers say. Karla McGuigan, a member of the center's board, says the event is a safe environment for the gay community. It attracts folks from 17 to 60, and smoking and alcohol are banned. "We want an alternative for people who don't do the bar scene," she says. "It's fun, cheap entertainment." Bingo nights are staffed by volunteers and often have a theme, such as bingo on the beach, when the event was held outside on the center's lawn and people dressed up as if they were headed for the water. Becky Moss, 48, says she loves Gay Bingo and invites newcomers because "the Sluts are a riot." She's never won a prize – donated gifts handed out after each game - but she once took the Magna D.I. Chicken home. "I had to explain why I had this ugly chicken in my house," she says jokingly. "[But] I'm certainly not a loser. I have a lot of fun here." Todd Bennett and his partner of 11 years, Ron Hunt, put Gay Bingo on their calendar each month. It's a way for them to support the center, meet up with friends and spend time together. "We're just boring old househusbands," they say. Hunt says they've played gay bingo in other cities, such as San Francisco, but nothing compares to Utah's "crazy" drag queens. "Salt Lake is the place to go for bingo," Hunt says. "We're sad when we miss it." At a recent Gay Bingo, drag q
ueen Don Stewart, known as "Ruby Ridge," noted that only a handful of the 30 people attending were women. "Is there a Lilith Fair no one told us about?" he joked, referring to a former traveling show made up of women musicians. "Where are all the lesbians?" Later, Ruby Ridge explained the rules of Gay Bingo to a crowd that grew to about 50 people. When guests get a party foul, they must pay $5; organizers prefer they put on a blue skirt and Marge Simpson-like wig and dance for tips to raise the money. Party fouls include a ringing cell phone and winning three games of bingo. Most people get up and dance, but Sam Uckerman is glad he never had to. The 31-year-old "bingo virgin" was invited by his girlfriend, Melanie Burt. Uckerman says he'll come back, mostly because he has to - he "won" the chicken. "I never thought in a million years I would win it," he says, laughing. "I'm a loser." As the night came to an end, organizers announced they had raised at least $500. For Celia Delafuent, a 20-year-old college student, Gay Bingo was a "great experience." She has never met an openly gay person and, until recently, didn't even know that there was a gay community center in downtown Salt Lake City. The center's services include a youth center, library, cafe and support and advocacy groups. Delafuent, a Salt Lake City native, went to Gay Bingo for a class assignment to spend time with an unfamiliar group. It helped break stereotypes she had about gays, she says. "I wouldn't think a lot of these people were gay or lesbian by the way they look," she says. "Everyone's just kind of normal. . . . They make you feel welcome. They don't make you feel weird." --
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| Becky Moss |
2014 Salt Lake City mayor’s red vest auctioned to support gay
rights BY MICHAEL MCFALL THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Gay rights advocates received a
donation because of Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker’s red vest. The vest,
which Becker wore while marrying same-sex couples shortly after Utah’s ban was
ruled unconstitutional last year, was auctioned at an Equality Utah fundraiser
Saturday in St. George. The vest went for $1,300, according to The Spectrum. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby’s ruling
against the ban on Dec. 20 remained in effect for 17 days. The U.S. Supreme
Court eventually granted the state a stay, halting the weddings. The 10th
Circuit Court of Appeals has yet to uphold or overturn Shelby’s ruling
2015 How Utah’s Schools Went From Homophobic War
Zones to Crowning a Trans Prom Queen CHANGE IS GONNA COME Salt Lake City used to
have one of the most virulently homophobic school districts in the nation. This
spring, it crowned its first LGBT prom king and queen. Dailey Beast By Mary Emily O’Hara Maka Brown,
18, was happy but “chill” when she was voted homecoming queen at prom this
April. The transgender teen studies dance at Salt Lake City’s School of the
Performing Arts, where she focuses on acrobatics and is training for a professional
career in circus arts. Brown transferred to SPA at age 16 from another Salt
Lake high school, Brighton. Her gender transition—using female pronouns,
changing her name—was timed with the move. But it wasn’t because Brighton was a
hostile environment for an LGBT student. “I haven’t really ever experienced
discrimination or bullying. I know that sounds kind of pompous but it’s true,”
Brown said. She noted that one day, a creative writing teacher accidentally
used male pronouns to describe her, and “the whole class spoke up and said
‘Hey, that’s wrong.’” At her high school, Brown says she is just
one of four or five trans students. Prom’s homecoming king, Jasper Clayton, is
gay and told me he’s “been out since freshman year.” “The fact that Maka and I won prom king and
queen was really amazing,” said Clayton, “It made huge waves in the media. And
everyone at our school was like, confused why it was in the news. No one had a
second thought. It’s just normal.” Clayton referred to the articles that have appeared
in outlets like People magazine and ABC News over the past two weeks,
celebrating what’s assumed to be Utah’s first transgender prom queen. It’s
notable news coming from one of the more notoriously conservative states in the
country. But to the high school students of Salt Lake, it’s no big deal at all. Clayton was born in 1996, Brown in 1997.
There’s a touching historical significance to the dates when the two LGBT prom
royals came into the world. Today, a trans teen can live openly and
safely in Salt Lake, enjoying the support of fellow students and even bringing
her boyfriend to prom. But Utah’s capital city wasn’t always such an
LGBT-friendly environment. Just a few years ago, in fact, Salt Lake’s was
probably the most homophobic school district in the U.S. In 1995, Erin Wiser was a 16-year-old student
at East High School. Wiser, who today is a transgender man living in Portland
but identified as a lesbian in high school, wanted to start a club for gay
students along with his then-girlfriend Kelli Peterson. The two had attended a
lecture at the local Pride center and were inspired after seeing Candace
Gingrich speak. With the help of a supportive teacher, Wiser and Peterson
formally applied for an East High School Gay-Straight Alliance club that September. In response, the Salt Lake City school
district voted in February 1996 to ban all extracurricular student
clubs—becoming the only city in the country to do so. “The school board decided they had three
options,” Wiser said. “Forgo federal funding to kick us out, accept our
existence, or get rid of every school club that wasn’t directly tied to the
curriculum.” Ironically, conservative Utah senator Orrin
Hatch had paved the way for East High students to insist that a Gay-Straight
Alliance (GSA) club be allowed. Hatch had sponsored 1984 legislation, the
Federal Equal Access Act, designed to allow Bible study clubs in schools.
Because of that law, the Salt Lake school district would lose its federal
funding if it tried to block one extracurricular club while allowing others to
remain. But the school board, local parents, and
conservative activists were so opposed to the idea of a gay student club that
they found a loophole. Simply ban all 700 or so of Salt Lake City’s student
extracurricular clubs—including Bible Club and Students Against Drunk
Driving—and avoid charges of discrimination. "We are going to win this
battle—and Utah will again be in the forefront," Gayle Ruzicka, president
of the Utah chapter of the ultra-right Eagle Forum, told reporters for a 1996
New York Times article. "Homosexuals can't reproduce, so they recruit. And
they are not going to use Utah high school and junior high school campuses to
recruit." The Utah Senate quickly sprung into action,
and signed a law that April that required schools to risk losing federal
funding and ban “specified school clubs”—code for anything gay-related. Utah
became the first state in the U.S. to outlaw gay clubs in schools. The battle between a small crew of awkward,
isolated queer teens and the entire population of U.S. conservatives was to
continue for over a decade. Organizations like the ACLU and Lambda Legal flew
in attorneys and advisers to help the GSA teens mull over the plethora of legal
options. Peterson and Wiser became gay superstars, speaking at conferences,
filming a lengthy PBS documentary, and doing photo shoots and interviews for
everything from international newspapers to gay coffee table books like 1999’s
Women Together. “It’s hard to describe what this was like in
terms of the attention. My aunt was living in Karachi in Pakistan, teaching
English at an embassy school, and she found out I was queer by watching CNN,”
recalled Wiser, who added that he became a “professional gay for a few years”
because the notoriety opened so many doors. The kids were the Edie Windsors of their
time. Utah’s GSA battle was watched intently by human-rights advocates all over
the world, who hung on to the news to see what would happen next. The case
brought home the humanism of the gay-rights movement for many people who had
never considered that children and teens might also be victimized by homophobia
and discrimination. Before that, the gay-rights movement was
largely angled around AIDS and Act Up, with images of adult men kissing at St.
Patrick’s Cathedral and throwing blood on politicians. Gay rights scared
people. But how could anyone hate a couple of
sweet-faced Mormon girls from Utah who just wanted to carve out a place to
belong in high school? As it turns out, some of the most vitriolic
hatred was coming from within the school walls. Some of the students filed a
petition to start an “Anti-Homosexual League,” and others told the The New York
Times that having a gay-straight alliance was “against our religion” and they’d
prefer to “do away with all the clubs, than have that club.” “The other kids at school were shits. They
threw things at us, bullied us. It’s hard to describe,” Wiser said. The
homophobia went beyond getting slammed into lockers in between classes: “One of
my good friends, Jacob Orozco, killed himself the year I graduated. There was
vandalism on the flyers for his memorial, like ‘faggot.’” In a 1997 email to Lambda Legal from Jeff
Dupré, the director of the PBS documentary for which Orozco had been filmed, he
revealed that Orozco committed suicide just before he was to take office as
president of the East High GSA. Over a decade before the Trevor Project
launched the It Gets Better campaign to combat LGBT suicide, Dupré’s
description of the death is haunting and premonitory. When you're seventeen and this is the only reality
you've ever known, it can be hard to imagine that things will ever get better,”
wrote Dupré just one day after Orozco took his own life, “It's no wonder that
for kids like Jacob, suicide seems an acceptable alternative.” Orozco wasn’t the only kid who fell victim to
the intensity and violence surrounding East High’s GSA struggle. A week after
the Board of Education voted to ban all student clubs, hundreds of Salt Lake
students marched on the State Capitol in protest. One 14-year-old girl,
Jacqueline Eteaki, was run over by a car during the march and suffered critical
injuries. The year 1998, when the ACLU sued the Utah
Board of Education on behalf of the East High GSA, was also notable for another
major event that transformed the national understanding of gay rights. In
October of that year, a 21-year-old gay student at the University of Wyoming
was brutally beaten, tortured, and left tied to a rural fence to die. Matthew
Shepard’s horrific murder inspired state-by-state hate crime legislation to sweep
across the country. Despite the tragedies that unfolded in the
aftermath of Utah’s GSA ban, the kids did eventually win. Sort of. Ivy Fox, who now lives in Seattle and manages
a network of farmer’s markets, was a plaintiff in the 1998 lawsuit East High Gay
Straight Alliance v. Board of Education. At the time, Fox and co-plaintiff
Keysha Barnes were minors, and had to sue through their moms. “We ended up having to do multiple lawsuits.
We had to get everyone on board and find plaintiffs that we willing to sue the
school,” said Fox. The East High lawsuit won a partial but complicated victory,
and the ACLU filed a second lawsuit in 1999 on behalf of the newly formed PRISM
(People Respecting Important Social Movements) club at East High, after the
club’s application was denied. Fox had already left Utah, and was in college
at Smith when attorneys from the ACLU called and told her the news. A federal
judge, Tena Campbell, ruled in favor of the second lawsuit and said that PRISM
was indeed a curricula-related club because it provided a forum for discussions
of history, sociology, and politics. Ten years later, though, conservative
politicians were still trying to find ways to block gay-straight alliance clubs
in schools. In 2007, a complex and overreaching 17-page law was signed that
tightly controlled even the most minor aspects of school clubs from
kindergarten to high school. “The lawsuits took up so much time. My
extracurricular activity [in high school] was discrimination and homophobia in
Utah,” Fox said. She remembered feeling especially driven to do well in school
even though so much of her time went into the fight, because college was her
“ticket out of Utah.” “I felt like I wanted to make it harder for
teachers to look me in the face and be a bigot,” said Fox. “It was the teachers
and the parents that fought us. To have your biology teacher stand up and say,
‘Hey, I like you, but you guys are disgusting and this is disgusting’… that was
such a disappointment.” Fox and her fellow GSA members (Wiser and
Peterson were two years older and had already graduated) were regularly called
into the principal’s office—but not to be disciplined. She remembered being
called there for protection, to hide in the office every time someone called in
a gay-related death threat to the school. Asked what that felt like, Fox sighed
and said, “It was pretty brutal.” With one of the highest rates in the country
of teen suicide, Utah is still brutal for many. But in Salt Lake, the
transformation is incredible: from the most homophobic school district in the
nation to a place where trans and queer teens can live without ever having
experienced bullying. Maka Brown said she sees “more homosexual
couples than heterosexual couples” at her high school. And even though her mom
and family were unfamiliar with the idea of being transgender when she came out
to them two years ago, she hasn’t had to explain herself to her classmates:
“People my age, and younger kids and stuff—they just understand.” But while Brown and Clayton both said they’d
had a great time in high school, each acknowledged that it’s not as easy for
everyone—especially for kids from more conservative Mormon backgrounds. The official stance of the Church of
Latter-day Saints, the Mormon behemoth headquartered in Salt Lake, is that
same-sex attraction “itself is not a sin, but acting on it is.” The church’s
website on the matter, MormonsandGays.org, is full of stories of ex-gays who
say they fought their sinful attractions and were able to remain active in the
church because of celibacy or heterosexual marriage. “I have friends who came out in very LDS
homes, and I’ve had friends who got kicked out of their houses,” Clayton said.
“But for most of them it got better. And their families were like, ‘OK, well,
what is this community?’ Salt Lake is trying to become more aware and
accepting.” Mormonism is shifting, too. Mormons Building
Bridges, itself a kind of gay-straight alliance, runs “hugging booths” at Pride
festivals and other events, where LGBT folks can get a friendly squeeze and a
“hugged by a Mormon” sticker. And Clayton said that Mormons are now in the
minority in Salt Lake, a city with a three-day-long Pride festival and a
float-filled parade down the main drag. “There are still a lot of people struggling,”
says Brown of Utah’s LGBT community. “I think it’s important to keep it up and
not take away from this thinking ‘Oh, everything is fine now.’” Brown said she feels bad for trans youth who
don’t have the supportive family that she has. Her mom, Toni Brown, was a
bikini model and former Miss Hawaiian Tropic. Her sister, Bella, is a musician
who does trick riding at the rodeo. Brown’s house, she said, “is always crazy”
between the three feisty, active women.
2018 OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE ROYAL COURT OF THE GOLDEN SPIKE EMPIRE, SALT LAKE CITY, UT FROM THE BOARD IF DIRECTORS There has been a recent post from Tiana LaShae, Empress 42, concerning her being removed as Empress, this is an incorrect statement. There is a very fluid situation going on in our realm, however, nothing has been finalized. As soon as the situation has been resolved, an announcement will be made.
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| Jasper Clayton and Maka Brown |
For now, Brown doesn’t have plans to leave
Utah. Though she imagines eventually auditioning for some of the professional
circus arts colleges in places like Montreal, or even going to live with
extended family in Hawaii, for right now she’s focused on her job as an
instructor at Utah Flying Trapeze. And maybe for Brown and young adults like
her, sticking around would be the best way to help other LGBT youth and their
families. “I would reach out to parents and say,
‘Please don’t mistreat your kids or kick them out,’” Brown said. “Family is the
place where you come from, that’s where you start. If you don’t have that as a
base, it’s hard to move forward.”
2018 OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE ROYAL COURT OF THE GOLDEN SPIKE EMPIRE, SALT LAKE CITY, UT FROM THE BOARD IF DIRECTORS There has been a recent post from Tiana LaShae, Empress 42, concerning her being removed as Empress, this is an incorrect statement. There is a very fluid situation going on in our realm, however, nothing has been finalized. As soon as the situation has been resolved, an announcement will be made.
I can say that this situation, in no way, was started by or involves the Starr Family or the campaigns of Vega Starr or Kayden from Hell. I also urge people to remember that there are two sides to every story and until a situation has been finalized, jumping to conclusions does not help any of the parties involved.
Tiana LaShae is and shall always be Empress 42 of the Royal Court of the Golden Spike Empire. Anything you have read to the contrary is wrong. She has fulfilled her duties as empress and will be stepping down along with her Emperor, Johnny Disco at Coronation 43, Big Top Coronation a little over two weeks from now. We look forward to seeing many of our friends and fellow court members here in Salt Lake City to help celebrate Tiana & Johnny, Reign 42 and the RCGSE and all the accomplishments they have had this year. We are aware that our coronation event pages have gone missing from Facebook, we are working diligently to get them back up and running.
Thank You,
Austyn Riley from Hell
Emperor 34 & President of the Board of Directors
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