This Day In Gay Utah History November 24th

November 25

Newgate Prison

1698 There are now above 400 Prisoners in Newgate, 78 of whom are to Plead his Majesties Pardon next Sessions, and the rest are to come upon their Tryals, some of whom are for Buggery. (Dawks's News-Letter) Buggery was the English Civil Law term for Sodomy. Buggers were sodomites

1907 Edward Burke, contractor and an employee of the Bell Telephone Company was arrested by Policeman Ilson at 235 South State, Salt Lake City, Utah charged with an unspeakable crime upon Leon Young of Eureka, a youth who he said ran away from home because of mistreatment by his stepfather A.P. Olsen. Burke who is a fine specimen of physical manhood, resisted arrest and the policeman had to force his door. Young said he met Burke on Commercial Street, Saturday afternoon, and after being invited to lunch with him was taken to his room to wait until the shows to begin. At the rooming house it is said that Burke did not live in the room but used it to entice young boys to it. (Location is the State Street Plaza now)

1933-A Nazi law was passed to allow surgical castrations as a crime prevention measure and a therapeutic treatment for homosexuality.

1944 Parowan Times District Court Holds Brief Court Session page 1 In the case of the state vs Wm. Fee, which was continued from last term, Fee was arraigned and charged with the following “A detestable “Crime Against Nature”.” He pleaded not guilty and trial was held before a jury with A M Marsden appointed by the court to defend the case and Durham Morris county attorney and Ellis Pickett district attorney prosecuting. The case was tried on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday with the case going to the jury late that afternoon. After an hour and fifteen minutes of deliberation the jury brought in a verdict of guilty and the court set December 4 at 5 p.m.as the time for passing sentence.  Another similar crime against the defendant was passed and will probably be dismissed. In the meantime Mr Fee is in custody of the county sheriff until such time as he can raise bond of $1500 or sentence is passed on him.

1955 In the wake of the kidnapping and murder of a Sioux City, Iowa, boy earlier this year and the murder of a 22 month old girl, the county attorney ordered the detention of 20 men suspected of homosexuality and committed them to mental asylums as a preventive measure authorized by the state's "sexual psychopath" laws without trial. In Sioux City, Iowa, following the brutal murders police, to quell public hysteria, arrested 20 homosexual men as "sexual deviates," even though the authorities never claimed they had anything to do with the crimes. Neil Miller’s book "Sex-Crime Panic: A Journey to the Paranoid Heart of the 1950s" is a disturbing and well-researched book of that time. Miller, a journalist and author of "Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present" and "In Search of Gay America," focuses on the men’s ordeals and the murders that led to their arrests. In August 1954, 8-year-old Jimmy Bremmers of Sioux City disappeared. He was later found murdered outside the city limits near an old rural road. Had he been kidnapped by a "sex fiend," as a local newspaper conjectured? Nearly a year later, 22-month-old Donna Sue Davis was abducted, raped, and murdered. Sioux City was in an uproar. The police force was under pressure to arrest someone, do something. So in September 1955, it rounded up 20 gay men from Sioux City and the surrounding area, window dressers and hairdressers, retailers and clerks, residents of their town, and in November placed them in a locked ward of a state mental hospital until February and March 1956, when they were pronounced "cured" and released. As a result of "sexual psychopath" laws that were passed and enacted in more than 20 states including Utah between 1947 and 1955, this sort of miscarriage of justice could, and did, happen. Interviewing the men who were incarcerated, as well as law enforcement officials, lawyers, mental health staff, and relatives of the murder victims, Miller pieces together their disparate stories and paints a vivid and thorough portrait of Sioux City in the grip of antigay hysteria. When one puts a name to a victim, the story becomes that much more powerful and meaningful. Miller does just that, telling us about men such as Bernie McMorris, who was rounded up, a beauty-shop owner who had a wife and three children; police officer Richard Burke, who relished sting operations to catch local homosexuals; Ernest Triplett, whose conviction for Bremmers’s murder was overturned in 1972 when it was discovered that the police had given him large quantities of drugs to elicit his confession; and attorney Donald O’Brien, who petitioned the court to declare the men sexual psychopaths (a label that lumped together gays with child molesters and murderers). It is a story that, hopefully, won’t be repeated, but as Miller writes, "Public fears and anxieties can lead to the enactment of bad laws, and laws enacted in an atmosphere of fear and anxiety can lead to even worse consequences. No one can say for sure that what happened in Sioux City in the 1950s couldn’t happen again, in a different form, perhaps to a different group of people." Miller sheds a bright light on those dark days in Iowa—not quite the placid time we like to think back on fondly.  Bremmers murder is a cold case  Baby Davis cold case

T  C Jones

1959 Clark County Commissioners demanded the New Frontier Casino in Las Vegas fire it’s female impersonator T.C. Jones. The commissioners included Jones with stripper Candy Barr and a nearly nude female chorus line in what they termed “unsuitable entertainment”. Jones is appearing at the New Frontier Hotel show producer Bill Miller said. :How can I fire him? What is he guilty of? He’s a great entertainer and has appeared at a lot of the country’s top houses.”  Ogden Standard Examiner.

• Thomas Craig "T. C." Jones (October 26, 1920–September 21,

  

  TC Jones as
  Tallulah Bankhead

  1971) was an American female impersonator. He was known for his impersonations of stars such as Tallulah Bankhead, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn and others. He has been described as "probably the best female impersonator since vaudeville's late famed Julian Eltinge". Jones danced in two Broadway shows in the mid-1940s before beginning his career as an impersonator in 1946 in a stint with the Provincetown Players. "One night...another of the players brought me some...material that was hilarious. The only catch was that it more or less required a woman to deliver it. He suggested I do an impersonation." He moved to the Jewel Box Revue in Miami, performing impersonations of Bankhead, Hepburn, Edith Piaf, Claudette Colbert and Bette Davis. Jones's portrayal of Bankhead brought him to the attention of theatrical producer Leonard Sillman. Sillman cast him in the revue New Faces of 1956, directed by Paul Lynde. Sillman was strongly advised not to cast Jones but stated, "I never think of T. C. as a female impersonator, as a man imitating a woman. T. C. on stage is simply an extraordinarily talented woman." Jones entered the stage by descending a staircase to the tune "Isn't She Lovely" and, as Bankhead, acted as mistress of ceremonies. The show ran 220 performances. The following year Jones starred in Mask and Gown, another Broadway revue. Jones toured with Mask and Gown but it was unsuccessful. Jones appeared in regional theatrical productions, including The Man Who Came to Dinner in 1959. He also played the nightclub circuit and recorded two albums, the original cast recording of Mask and Gown (1958) and T. C. Jones Himself! (1959). Jones appears on the original cast recording for New Faces of 1956 (1956) and released the single "Champagne Cocktails" b/w "Sunless Sunday" (1957). Jones made a number of

  

  TC Jones as Nurse Betty

  television appearances, including portraying a homicidal transvestite with a penchant for strangling nurses in "An Unlocked Window", an Edgar Award-winning episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1965 and another killer transvestite in "Night of the Running Death", a 1967 episode of The Wild Wild West. Jones appeared in a male role opposite Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren in the film Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964)  and played dual male/female roles as Mr. and Mrs. Ace in The Monkees' film Head (1968). Thomas Craig Jones was born October 26, 1920 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Prior to beginning his performing career, Jones served in the United States Navy and studied to be a minister at Bethany College in West Virginia. He was married to the former Connie Dickson, who had previously been an actress, competitive fencer and proprietor of several beauty parlors. She and Jones met when he patronized one of her shops in search of a new wig.[1] T. C. Jones died of cancer on September 21, 1971 at the age of 50. He was survived by his wife. He is interred at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, CA - Skyview Lawn, Lot 1207, Grave #4.
• The Unlocked Window was probably one of the most frightening and suspenseful and surprising episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour. I watched it when I was 14 years old and it left a lasting impression on me all my life.

Craig Rodwell

1967 New York City: Craig Rodwell opens the first gay bookstore in the US, the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. For years all SM publications are banned from the store.

1976 Helen Lacko: No matter how liberated I think I am, I still have a hard time laughing at homosexuality.  I don’t mean a behind the hand stifled snicker. I mean out right guffawing, that is encouraged by the film The Ritz currently playing at Trolley Theaters. I had seen the Ritz on stage in New York City a couple of years ago as part of a theater tour. Then I (and several other numbers of my group) thought it was a piece of trash, two hours of shouted one liners that I felt were more damaging than prime time polish jokes. It appears that the playwright Terrence McNally, turned himself into a $50 an hour lay, “using faggot stereotypes to choke laughter” from people at $7.00 a ticket.  Most of the acting was worn out but I gave the show the benefit of a doubt. We saw it at a matinee after it had been playing for several months and the cast had to act to a half filled house of stodgy matrons during a bleak February.  So when the movie came out, I knew I had to see it again, if only to see an untired cast performing.  The principals are the same: Rita Moreno still steals the show as the hilarious Puerto Rican trying to make her way to Hollywood,

Rita Moreno & Treat Williams

Jack Warden is the poor schnook whose passionate Italian brother-in-law is trying to kill him, and Jerry Stiller is the vengeful murderer.. The story and nearly all the lines are the same, but the over all effect is much fresher and the homo humor is not so forced.  Briefly the plot- Poor schnook learns that his brother-in-law wants to kill him because he married the sister.  When he can’t get out of town, he asks the cabby to take him to the last place the murderous maniac would find him.  So the driver drops him off at The Ritz, which turns out to be a Gay bathhouse, unbeknownst to poor schnook.  The brother in law of course has poor schnook tailed by a detective and follows him there. The comedy is in the “devices” Poor schnook’s silly wig and mustache disguise, the Dick with a voice like Mickey Mouse who says he’s not Gay, a chubby chaser who becomes lustfully infatuated with poor schnook, and tries to entice him with éclairs and Baby Ruth’s, the steam room that no non Gay can fathom, and Moreno’s zany night club act (her rendition of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” is priceless.) I admit I went to see the movie out of curiosity, as I think most straights do. I thought several lines were particularly right on. (Stiller demands of the chubby chaser who is dressed like on of the Andrew Sisters for an amateur act, “What do you think you are anyway! And the chubby chaser sneers, “Fashionable”.  I enjoyed it much more the 2nd time because the performances were better, and the setting of the elaborate bath house is more suitable to film. But I think the script by McNally is a prostitution of himself. McNally uses cheap saloon gags about fags for comedic affect. He designs props and devices to cosmeticize a stupid plot line.  He contrives an ending using information learned at the very last minute. He obviously capitalized on a fad, (not homosexuality, but wisecracks about it) to make some bucks.  All this sexual searching for who we are and who we should love leaves me confused and perplexed, We’re a nation shouting for

identity and we take jabs at our individuality of which sexuality is a part.  The Gays came out of

the closet, its cool to be queer, and a counter culture develops. But with The Ritz the kinkiness has become stilted and the humor turns to hysteria. An interesting note to seeing the show. The

The Sun Tavern

night I went The Sun Tavern 1 South 400 West Tavern and KSXX had bought out the whole theater for the 10 p.m. show.  Naturally the audience was 99 and 44/100 percent pure Gay. I’ll say this for the homosexual people, they certainly have the ability to laugh at themselves. When Chris, the head queen said, “Oh I’m so glad I’M Gay,” I thought the roof was going to fall in from the audience’s resounding cheer.  The Ritz

1980-Ronald Reagan's son Ron was married in New York City. His father frequently defended his son's heterosexuality because of his career as a ballet dancer.

1985 Sunday Fifty African Participants in the World AIDS Conference held in Africa met to draft a politically charged statement saying there is no conclusive evidence that AIDS originated in Africa. Max Essex of Harvard University however announced finding a Monkey AIDS virus in individuals in Senegal. (SLTribune A-19) A story entitled "Research refutes idea that human AIDS virus originated in monkey," appeared in the Los Angeles Times (June 2, 1988). In the process of decoding the genetic structure of the monkey virus and the human AIDS virus, Japanese molecular biologists discovered that the gene sequences of the two viruses differed by more than 50% — indicating absolutely no genetic relationship between the green monkey virus and HIV. The Japanese investigators specifically criticized Myron (Max) Essex and Phyllis Kanki of Harvard Medical School, who "discovered" a second AIDS virus in African green monkeys that was widely heralded in the media. Essex and Kanki’s "second" AIDS virus was later proven to be a contaminant monkey virus traced back to the Harvard researchers own laboratory.  No mention is given to the Hepatitis experiments on Gay men in the late 1970’s

Sonia Johnson

1985 Seven out of 10 Utahns fear AIDS Epidemic Seven out of ten Utahns think AIDS, a fatal and incurable disease will become a wide spread health problem according to a SLTribune poll.  If you learned that a child with AIDS was attending the same school as a child of yours 22% of Utahns said they would fight to have an AIDS child removed from school, and 40 % would tell their child to avoid contact with AIDS child.

1987- Utah's National Organization For Women sponsored a night with Sonja Johnson, excommunicated LDS Feminist turned Lesbian.

Joe Redburn

1988 Nationally syndicated columnist Jack Anderson was the special guest on Joe Redburn's KTKK radio program.  Anderson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, did a two-hour TV special, "American Expose: Who Murdered J.F.K.," on ABC earlier this month. He will discuss his own investigation into the John F. Kennedy assassination with Redburn for about45 minutes.

1988 A Gay and Lesbian Community Thanksgiving Day Dinner was sponsored by LGSU, Affirmation, and Unconditional Support. Ben Williams cooked and Mike Pipkim “decorated the church just beautifully and it looked all so elegant with the candles on the tables and the color lights set to enhance the mood. Oh Mary Its takes a Fairy to make something beautiful.”  Becky Moss donated a turkey, as did David Malmstrom and Ben Williams. A Lesbian folk singer and her spouse from Long Beach, California performed.  More than 45 people came for the free event.

Freddie Mercury

1991 - Freddie Mercury, lead singer for Queen, died of complications from AIDS. It was only the day before that he acknowledged that he had the disease. He left most of his estate to a former friend, Mary Austen, who cared for him during his final months.

1996 The battle for gay rights, historically centered in huge coastal cities such as San Francisco, is increasingly being fought in smaller inland communities such as Denver, Minneapolis-- and Salt Lake City.   Furthermore, it is being waged not so much by political activists as by ordinary gays and lesbians. By coming out of the closet to their family, friends and co-workers, these people set living examples that help sway the tide of public opinion toward tolerance.   So says author

Torie Osborn

Torie Osborn, former director of the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, who will visit Utah next week.   ``Salt Lake is a perfect example of how this issue has moved from San Francisco and New York,'' Osborn said by telephone last week, citing the furor last winter over the forming of gay-student clubs in Utah high schools. ``That explosion of visibility and support is a sign of the times. It used to be you had to move to a big city to come out [of the closet].''   Osborn has written a new book, Coming Home too America: A Roadmap to Gay & Lesbian Empowerment. It is a book that she, as much as anyone in the country, is qualified to write. A lesbian activist for more than two decades, she debated Pat Buchanan on CNN's ``Crossfire'' and brokered an Oval Office meeting between gay leaders and President Clinton in 1993.   The book is filled with scores of personal anecdotes from the thousands of gay people-- and their friends and relatives -- Osborn has met during her career. Such as the Kansas mother who fell in love, at age 64, with a woman classmate at a high-school reunion. Or the Virginia man who came out to his mother, only to discover his parents already were attending meetings for parents of gays and were trying to fix him up with another man. Or the elderly man sobbing at the AIDS quilt in Washington, D.C., stricken with guilt over the dead son he had abandoned a year earlier.   ``I believe so much of history is made by the individual,'' Osborn said. ``This is a personal struggle. There's a vibrancy and an immediacy to people’s own experiences.''   In Coming Home to America, Osborn urges gays and lesbians to come out of the closet. Each and every time homosexuals communicate their identity, she writes, they educate people and help break down stereotypes. Studies show that people who are acquainted with gays or lesbians are more likely to support gay rights. And of all the gay people Osborn has encountered, none of them have ever told her they regret revealing their homosexuality.   Activists will not achieve equal rights for gays through speeches, parades or protests alone, Osborn believes. If gays in America are to rally mainstream America to their side, they must do so one neighborhood, one workplace, one family at a time.   ``This struggle for equality will be won around the Thanksgiving tables of America,'' she said. ``In many ways, this is a very moral movement. It's driven by love, by commitment, by community -- all those things the radical right says we don't have.''   Osborn is highly regarded in gay and lesbian communities around the nation. Salt Lake City gay leaders, impressed with Osborn's energy and her skillful stewardship of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, are eagerly anticipating her visit.   ``She's a tiny little woman, but she just has this charisma that goes for miles,'' said Renee Rinaldi, executive director of the Utah Stonewall Center. ``She's dynamic. Every time she's here she just blows us away.''   As a national activist, Osborn has seen such issues as gays in the military and same-sex marriages become the subject of national debate. She backed Clinton enthusiastically four years ago, and while she has reservations about the president's positions on some gay issues, she still supports him.   ``I know homophobia. I can smell it a mile away,'' she said, referring to her 1993 White House meeting. ``Bill Clinton was as warm and welcoming as he could be. He was clearly comfortable with us.''   Along with the rest of the country, Osborn watched Clinton move to the political center as he sought re-election. Now she wonders whether the president's second term will free him to adopt more gay-friendly stances on issues.   Osborn believes Hawaii's courts will legalize same-sex marriages sometime next year, but she doesn't expect other states to immediately follow.   ``The issue is a little ahead of its time,'' she said. ``This country is evolving. In 20 to 30years we'll look back . . . and people will have changed. This [gay-rights] issue has come tremendously far. It's on America's social agenda -- and I remember when it wasn't.''   Polls show about one-third of the nation is sympathetic to gay rights. Another 30percent of Americans are religious, political or cultural conservatives who will never embrace homosexuals as equal members of society. Osborn, ever hopeful, is targeting her message to the people in the middle.   ``We're still in the process of changing hearts and minds. The best way to get through to people is through humanity. We have more in common [with the religious right] than they think we have,'' she said. ``We have a ways to go. It's just a matter of time.''   Coming Home   Torie Osborn, former director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, will visit Salt Lake City for two days next week. She will read and sign Coming Home to America: A Roadmap to Gay & Lesbian Empowerment, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Sam Weller's Books, 254 S. Main. She also will appear at an event Dec. 1 at 6 p.m. at the Utah Stonewall Center, 770 S. 300 West. 11/24/96 Page: E3 

2005 Thursday  - Thanksgiving Day Feast & Festivities - Multi-Purpose GLBTCCU (1-5pm). Spend Thanksgiving with your queer family at the Center from 1-5pm.  Drop by to eat, or just drop by to escape the "other family" for a few hours.  There will be a Thanksgiving Day  feast, games, movies and general good times for all.  All ages welcome.