This Day In Gay Utah History November 12th

November 12

1952 Wednesday-- Police anti vice squad judgment of a motion picture being shown at the State Theater 228 So. State resulted Tuesday night in an order that the film be withdrawn from public display. Capt. E.J. Steinfeldt (1900-1982) anti vice bureau commander said that he had ordered the management of the State Theater to cease the showing of a picture entitled “Everybody’s Girl”. The motion picture he said “was unfit for public viewing” and failed to meet any of the qualifications by which motion pictures may be shown in Salt Lake City. (pg. 18 Col. 3)  The 1950 film  was A typical burlesque offering, complete with harem dances, bumps & grinds, nudist jokes, and skits and sketches. Lots of musical comedy with cartwheels and handstands galore.

Charles Socarides

1969-The Gay Liberation Front and Daughters of Bilitis protested at the Time-Life building in response to a seven-page article in Time. The article, which claimed it would challenge stereotypes about homosexuals, focused on drag balls and included comments from reparative therapy psychiatrist Charles Socarides.

1987-In the evening after work went with John Reeves to usher at Saturday’s Voyeur at Salt Lake Acting Company. Shawn Donnelly and his friend Brent Metcalf met us there and we all had a really nice time.  The show was cut a little different from last year to allow for a tribute to different songs from the past 10 years and to say goodbye to the Hotel Utah. That was kind of sad. It really slammed the Mormon Church on that one. But as always the show was joyous, upbeat and wonderful.  Mike Anderson was wonderful as always. (journal of Ben Williams)

Satu Servigna

1989 Chuck Whyte's Unity Show Fund Raiser for Gay and Lesbian Community Council of Utah was held at Backstreet's where about $370 was raised for the GLCCU. The show was dedicated to Satu Servigna editor of the Triangle Magazine but she was too ill to attend. (journal of Ben Williams)

1992-A team of attorneys filed a lawsuit in the Colorado District Court for Denver to challenge the constitutionality of Amendment 2, which sought to ban gay rights laws in Colorado.

Jon Inman

1995   "Jon Michael Inman (1969-1995) committed suicide. Jon Michael Inman was born on June 12, 1969, in Salt Lake City to Michael and Sandra Jensen  Inman. He graduated from Woods Cross High School, where he sang in the school choir and served as the manager of the basketball team. Jon was an Eagle Scout and served an LDS mission in Houston, Texas. He worked in the telephone industry. He had many friends and was loved by all who knew him." Nothing in his obituary indicated he was anything but Mormon.  Jon's parents however knew he was gay since the age of four, andwhen he came out to them they were supportive. Jon was a member of Affirmation, a member of the Metropolitan Community Church, and a volunteer at the Utah Stonewall Center. Jon committed suicide on

November 12, 1995, in a Bountiful Park. He was 26 years old. Jon is buried at the Bountiful Cemetery in Utah.  He was a  house mate of Gay community member Harold Jones. Could not reconcile his LDS religions rejection of him for being  Gay.

12 November 2000 The Salt Lake Tribune Page: D3 Tim Miller Gets on His 'Glory Box' for Gay Rights BY SCOTT C. MORGAN   THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

The name of performance artist Tim Miller will always be linked with the word "controversial." For 20 years, Miller has combined art with activism by making aspects of his personal life public in solo performance-art pieces. With titles such as "My Queer Body," "Naked Breath" and "Fruit Cocktail," Miller's pieces deal with all kinds of Gay identity issues. This week, Miller visits Salt Lake City's Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center for two performances of "Glory Box" -- perhaps his most personal and politically charged work to date. Miller is infamously known in the United States along with Karen Finley, Holly Hughes and John Fleck as one of the "NEA Four" -- artists who had their grants from the National Endowment for the Arts overturned in 1990 because their work dealing with issues of homosexuality and feminism was deemed obscene. Miller and his colleagues successfully sued the government to have their grants reinstated, only to have part of the decision overturned in 1998 by the Supreme Court, which deemed that "standards of decency" are constitutional criteria for federal funding of the arts. Meanwhile, Miller has forged ahead with his work. In his career, he has taught performance at UCLA and Cal State and was instrumental in helping to found the premier performance art spaces P.S. 122 in New York City and The Highways in Santa Monica, Calif., where he served as artistic director until last year. (Both venues celebrated their respective 20th and 10th anniversaries last year.) Miller decided to step down from his Highways position to tour in "Glory Box," in which he tackles the politically prickly issue of same-sex marriage. By sharing his personal battles with the U.S. government to stay together with his Australian partner of six years, Alistair McCartney, Miller exposes what he says is just one of many inequities Gay American citizens face today. "Relationships are hard enough without your government trying to destroy it," Miller said from his home in Southern California. At the moment, McCartney is attending Antioch University in Los Angeles on a student visa for an MFA in writing. But once the visa expires, he might be deported. In the creation of "Glory Box," Miller used this Australian colloquial equivalent to a hope chest to demonstrate the plight of Gay and lesbian couples who are not allowed to marry. He drew from his childhood memories of his mother's hope chest in creating the piece. "I remember as a kid playing in my mother's hope chest, closing the door and cuddling up against the furs, chinchillas and other stuff in there," Miller said. In "Glory Box," Miller points out that people who are homosexual do not share that kind of "hope" while growing up. He still sees this in many ways today.    "You turn on the TV and see and hear people making direct attacks on Gay and lesbian families," Miller said. Responding to this was a "job for performance art," he said. "Theater can draw attention to injustice and hopefully bring about modest kinds of social change." Miller was invited to perform in Salt Lake by Mike Allcott, a University of Utah employee and adjunct English professor who taught a "Queer Performance Art" class at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Utah this past year. Allcott used Miller's autobiographical book Shirts and Skins as a text, and many of his students expressed an interest in seeing Miller perform in person. "I'm really thrilled that he wanted to come to Salt Lake," Allcott said, calling Miller "a masterful storyteller." His worries of maxing out his credit card to bring "Glory Box" to Salt Lake were alleviated when other organizations such as the Utah AIDS Foundation, the Dance Theatre Coalition, the Salt Lake Arts Council and Sam Weller Books agreed to help sponsor Miller's Salt Lake performances. Tim Miller's "Glory Box" plays at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. as a benefit for the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Utah. The performance is recommended for mature audiences only. Tickets are $14 and $8 for students and are available at ArtTix outlets or by calling 355-ARTS.    Miller will also be on hand for a panel discussion on performance art and the NEA at the University of Utah Marriott Center for Dance on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. The panel is free and open to the public.

Donald Steward

2004 Hi All! The Salt Lake City Police Department and the Gay & Lesbian (GLBT) Public Safety Liaison Committee are holding a workshop on Cyber Dating and Cyber Safety on Friday November 12th at 7 PM. The workshop is free and open to everyone, and will be held in the training room at the SLCPD's Pioneer Precinct (it has a great Audio Visual/Web hook up) which is 1040 West 700 South. The workshop will be led by members of the GLBT community and a member of the State Cyber Crimes Unit, and will cover online and personal safety, cyber stalking, and identity theft, and how to safely handle real time meetings with dates met on the Internet. Given the increasing numbers of assaults, thefts, and victimizations coming out of gay chat rooms and dating/sex sites, this workshop is a perfect opportunity to learn how to protect yourself, and to ask any GLBT related cyber crime questions, such as dealing with aggressive hustlers, thefts, assaults, PNP, and can you report a crime if there were recreational drugs present, etc.. We recommend the workshop to anyone chatting and dating online. If you have a problem that needs to be addressed confidentially, officers and members of the GLBT Public Safety Liaison Committee will be available to meet with you individually. Donald Steward aka

Fergie.

2005 HIV/AIDS Awareness Walk Coyote Gulch Art Village In Kayenta (Ivans,Utah) Registration 8 a.m. Walk 9 a.m. FREE HIV testing 10 a.m. Results given same day Poetry Reading 6:00 p.m. Coyote Gulch Art Village  Community Room HIV/AIDS TASK FORCE OF WASHINGTON COUNTY ANNOUNCES ELEVENTH ANNUAL AIDS AWARENESS WALK Walkers, Volunteers and Sponsors Needed for the Saturday, November 12 Event Sponsored by The Independent ST. GEORGE, Utah – The HIV/AIDS Task Force of Washington County, announces the Eleventh Annual AIDS Awareness Walk on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2002. The walk will start at the Coyote Gulch Art Village parking lot in Kayenta.  Registration begins at 8:00 a.m., hot beverages and a muffin will be provided by Xetava Gardens. At 8:40 a.m. there will be brief announcements from walk organizers. Walkers will start at 9:00 a.m. and wind their way through a one mile long route through the neighborhood.  Free HIV testing will be offered at 10 a.m. This testing will be done using the new rapid testing method approved by the Utah Department of Health. Test results can be read in a short a time as twenty minutes.  The 1.-mile fun-walk will go through the beautiful residential area in Kayenta and back to the parking lot where there will be fruit and water from local supporters and the display of the Southern Utah AIDS Quilt. The registration fee for walkers is $5. The first 50 walkers to register at the event will receive a 2005 AIDS Awareness Walk T-shirt and a coupon for the hot drink and muffin at Xetava Gardens. Walkers are encouraged to ask friends, family members and co-workers to walk with them or to support their walk with a donation the HIV/AIDS Task Force of Washington County. The Task Force is also seeking volunteers to help at the walk and donations from local businesses for participant prize drawings. For more information on walk participation, volunteer opportunities or donations please call Ruthann Adams at the Southwest Utah Public Health Department, 435-986-2589. The HIV/AIDS Task Force of Washington County is a group dedicated to educating the community about HIV and how to prevent it. HIV infections are rising steadily, especially in the group of young people ages 15 to 24, and any one who engages in high-risk sexual practices and/or drug related behavior. Over 40 percent of the new HIV infections in Utah are drug related. Washington County has the second highest infection rate in the State of Utah.

Jade Sarver

2008 The Big Mormon Call Out: If it works in Eagle Mountain, it should work anywhere. By Holly Mullen Salt Lake City Weekly -Allen and Jade Sarver-Eskelsen have found a bit of peace in a place you wouldn’t figure for a gay-friendly city in Utah: Eagle Mountain, Utah County. Census figures from 2007 reveal that 89.9 percent of Eagle Mountain residents define themselves as “religious.” Of those, 88.1 percent identify as LDS—members of the same church that urged congregations to actively work against same-sex marriage in California by donating to the pro-Proposition 8 campaign. That support amounted to $22 million in contributions from Mormons—the largest faith-based chunk of money to funnel into the anti-gay marriage fight. I bumped into Allen and Jade (literally—I stepped on the back of Allen’s shoe and flattened it) during the Nov. 7 anti-Proposition 8 protest outside LDS Church headquarters. Estimates on the crowd size varied wildly. A safe guess would be 3,000. Whatever. It amounted to a whole mess o’ marchers. Allen and Jade were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest, demonstrating against the LDS Church’s tax-exempt involvement in fighting same-sex marriage. With another round of nationwide gay-rights demonstrations planned for the coming weekend, it’s growing clearer by the day that the battle over same-sex marriage will be the early 21st century’s predominant civil-rights issue. Shuffling along, I had plenty of time to talk with the marchers. No one I met could be characterized as uncivil, though everyone I talked to was damned angry. And why shouldn’t they be? Scores of my own gay and lesbian friends, co-workers and relatives have grown tired of being marginalized in this society. The mass of bodies at the downtown protest was simply a bigger and more public version of that rage. Back to Allen and Jade for a minute. Not long ago, Allen—at the tender age of 31— suffered a heart attack. He was hospitalized and underwent a balloon angioplasty to open his clogged arteries. But Jade, his partner of 13 years, was not allowed to visit him in intensive care. That privilege is reserved for legal spouses. Life isn’t nearly so uptight and rigid, though, in their Eagle Mountain neighborhood, the two men told me. “We bought a nice house for not much money,” said Jade, who works for a major Wall Street investment firm. I asked them how welcoming their largely white, Mormon and family-centered subdivision had been. “Great,” Jade said. Said Allen, who works as a plumber at a Lehi-based business: “The neighbors are always bringing us dinners, little homemade gifts at Christmas, things like that.” Isn’t that just the way? While the official LDS Church has endorsed an outdated and active agenda to fight gay rights, church members who actually reach out to a gay person, or couple, are finding middle ground. The only way that bigotry ever truly melts from people’s hearts is when they deny stereotypes and reach out to a real, live member of a minority group. That may be the principle at work on at least one street in Eagle Mountain. Earlier this week, Equality Utah called out the LDS hierarchy on its sudden mixed messages regarding gay rights. The gay-, lesbian- and transgender-interest group wants church leaders to act on recent official statements that while the church opposes gay marriage, it does not oppose civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. Spokesmen in the past couple of weeks have also stepped up statements that the church does not oppose equal rights for same-sex couples in hospitalization, medical care, housing, employment and probate matters. State Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake City, and Rep. Christine Johnson, D-Salt Lake City—two members of the Utah Legislature’s openly gay troika (Rep. Jackie Biskupski, D-Salt Lake City is the third) were at Equality Utah’s press conference announcing the push to gain official LDS support on five gay-rights bills slated for the 2008 Legislature. Executive director Mike Thompson threw down the gauntlet: “Will the [LDS Church] First Presidency draft a letter to Utah Latter-day Saints in support of rights and protections for gay couples?” Thompson said he hopes church leaders would ask such a letter be read statewide to congregations, same as the pro-Prop 8 letter was circulated last summer. It’s crafty, all right, for Utah’s gay community to keep steady pressure on the largest and most politically powerful force in the state. LDS leaders have a long and storied reputation for stirring the political pot in Utah and across the country—the concerted efforts to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the ’70s and liquor by the drink a decade earlier are two earlier examples. I’ve lived in this state for 36 of my 51 years. This is the first open challenge to Mormon leaders on a social justice issue I can recall since the debate over the MX missile in 1981. A steady and spirited fight for equality is a bit like a gay couple living on a predominantly Mormon street in Eagle Mountain, I guess. The act requires living out loud, being honest and keeping the pressure on for equality. Change will come. Believe it.

2009 LDS apostle: SLC gay-rights measures could work for state By Rosemary Winters And

Jeffrey Holland

Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune 11/12/2009 The LDS Church's unexpected endorsement of two Salt Lake City gay-rights measures has many observers wondering if another surprise could follow: a friendlier reception in the 2010 Legislature for such protections statewide. Even an LDS apostle -- continuing the string of stunners --thinks Salt Lake City's ordinances could be a model. "Anything good is shareable," Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said in an interview Wednesday, referring to Salt Lake City's new policy aimed at protecting gay and transgender residents from discrimination.  He praised the efforts of Mormon officials and gay-rights leaders who sat down to discuss the issue before the church's endorsement. "Everybody ought to have the freedom to frame the statutes the way they want," he said. "But at least the process and the good will and working at it, certainly that could be modeled anywhere and even elements of the statute." At a public hearing Tuesday, church spokesman Michael Otterson expressed strong support for ordinances that, starting in April, will ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in housing and employment. Salt Lake City, home to the worldwide faith's headquarters, approved the statutes in a unanimous City Council vote. It marked the first time the church has endorsed specific, pro-gay legislation. The organization has taken stands on the opposite side, championing gay-marriage bans in Hawaii, Alaska and California and drawing flak from gay-rights supporters. "The conflict between the LDS community and the LGBT community hasn't been limited to Salt Lake City," Will Carlson,

Will Carlson

Equality Utah's public-policy manager, said Wednesday. "The resolution can extend beyond Salt Lake City as well." Last year, Equality Utah launched the Common Ground Initiative, arguing that even those who disagree on gay marriage can agree on things like making it illegal to fire someone for being gay or providing health-care safeguards to same-sex couples. The bills were modeled after rights the LDS Church said it did not oppose. But Mormon officials snubbed an invitation to join the campaign. All three bills fizzled in the 2009 session.  At least one of the measures is poised for a 2010 comeback: an anti-discrimination statute that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state's fair employment law. The bill includes the same exemption for religious organizations and their affiliates that Otterson praised in Salt Lake City's ordinances. That means the capital's new rules, prohibiting discrimination against gay and transgender workers, home buyers and renters, do not apply to churches or small businesses. The LDS Church and its wholly owned subsidiaries, such as the towering City Creek Center condos taking shape in downtown Salt Lake City, are exempt. Rep. Christine Johnson, the Salt Lake City Democrat

Chris Johnson

who plans to float the state anti-discrimination bill for a third time in 2010, said she feels "immensely grateful" to the LDS Church for its "fair and compassionate" stand on the city ordinances. She hopes Otterson's statement will help dispel arguments, widespread during the 2009 Legislature, that providing any legal protections for gay and transgender people sets public policy on a slippery slope to gay marriage. "The church has helped establish, with clarity," she said, "that establishing a policy of nondiscrimination in no way compromises the integrity of marriage between a man and a woman."  Otterson said Tuesday that Salt Lake City's ordinances grant "common-sense rights" and "do not do violence to the institution of marriage." Would the LDS Church endorse similar anti-discrimination measures for Utah? "The church would reserve judgment," LDS spokesman Scott Trotter said via e-mail Wednesday. "We are not prepared to speculate on something we haven't seen." Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker's legislative liaison, Ben McAdams, hopes the church's position will provide cover for state lawmakers who otherwise may propose legislation killing the city's anti-discrimination effort. And it may deflate the fiery rhetoric

Chris Buttars

expressed by conservatives, including Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan. "This will make the legislative session a lot easier," McAdams said. Even Buttars, an ardent gay-rights foe, struck a conciliatory tone Wednesday, insisting he has no plans to trump Salt Lake City. "I agree with the church that a person ought to be able to have a roof over their head and have a job," he said. "I don't have any problem with that." But following Tuesday's approval, Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, said he already has heard from lawmakers who "would like to run a bill to overturn" what Salt Lake City did. On the flip side, he also has heard from others who want the state to follow Salt Lake City's lead. Waddoups does not see the church's endorsement as a "mandate" for state action. But he acknowledged it could hold sway. Most Utah lawmakers are LDS. "I would like to think that all legislators that are members of the church are independent minded and would do what is best for their constituents," Waddoups said. "On the other hand, most of their constituents are LDS." Still, conservative stalwarts the Sutherland Institute and the Eagle Forum have vowed to fight any statewide anti-discrimination measures. On Wednesday, Gayle Ruzicka, leader of the Eagle Forum, said Salt Lake City's new ordinances are "very discriminatory." "We expected the church not to have a problem because they've been carved out of it. The rest of us have not been carved out of it," she said. The ordinances "discriminate against people who have personal religious beliefs." She added that what flies in Salt Lake City cannot be expected to take root in the rest of the state. "The people who live in Salt Lake are mostly those who support those who choose a homosexual lifestyle or they themselves are part of that lifestyle," she said. "They elect people who vote the way they want them to."  Tribune reporter Derek P. Jensen contributed to this report.

Valerie Larabee

2009 Utah Pride Center lauds gays who serve in military By Aaron Falk Deseret News Published: Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 12:00 a.m. MST  Her eyes fixed on the flag as the bugle's sound filled the Capitol rotunda. Fourteen years after her honorable discharge from the United States Air Force, Valerie Larabee's decade of military service remains her "proudest accomplishment." The flag that flew over Falcon Air Force Base the day she left is one of her most treasured possessions. But Larabee, director of the Utah Pride Center, said too many other gays and lesbians in the military are being robbed of their honor and snubbed, despite their service, by the nation's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. "They deserve to serve their country openly and with dignity," Larabee said during a small Veterans Day service. Rep. Christine Johnson, D-Salt Lake City, called Don't Ask, Don't Tell a "dishonorable and debilitating law" and announced she would carry a resolution urging President Barack Obama and Congress to do away with the policy and reinstate the more than 13,000 soldiers who have been discharged because of it. "It's unjust for us to ask so much of our servicemen and -women and then ask them to hide," said Johnson, who will carry the bill as a "promise" to a close military friend who took her own life less than a month ago. "She was proud of her service and embarrassed that she had to hide her sexual orientation." Last month, Obama reiterated a promise to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell but did not offer a timeline for action. Jeff Key, a gay Iraq war veteran, said the love and support he has received from his fellow Marines proves the U.S. armed forces are ready for change. "We have been attacked so often, so viciously and for so long," Key said. "(But) those who place themselves on the side of discrimination and bigotry have placed themselves on the wrong side of history. … We are going to keep fighting. We are going to win."

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