This Day In Gay Utah History December 1st

December 1

1642-The General Court of Connecticut adopted a list of 12 capital crimes, including "man lying with man." The law was based on the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Liberties of 1641. Five men would be hanged in Connecticutt for Sodomy between 1642 and 1662. The first execution of a European in the colony was a man accused of Sodomy. Apparently under this statute, one William Plaine of Guilford was executed in 1646 for masturbating a number of young men in the town. He also had committed sodomy in England twice, although it is unclear if Plaine’s execution was only for the masturbatory acts or for those as well as the sodomy in England. In either case, it is questionable whether the execution was lawful. The statute did not contemplate masturbation and the Connecticut courts would have no jurisdiction over offenses committed in England.   According to John Winthrop, the charges were that Plaine, though "a married man ... had committed sodomy with two persons in England," and "had corrupted a great part of the youth of Guilford by masturbations ... above a hundred times." When asked about such "filthy practice," Plaine "did insinuate seeds of atheism, questioning whether there was a God.” In a case from 1653, six young males in New Haven were sentenced to a public flogging for "much wickedness in a filthy corrupting way" with each other. Their acts were "of such a filthy nature as is not fit to be made known in a public way[.]" Again, it is unclear that there was a statute authorizing such punishment for the unspecified acts

1901- El Universal, a Mexican newspaper, reported that police raided a party attended by single women. The article implied that the women were lesbians.

Gordon Northcutt

1928 Ape Man Hates Prisons of US Looks Talks Like Woman Frowns on Curious Americans Gordon Northcutt accused of the murder of four Southern California youth and about to go on trial here for one of the slayings prefers Canadian customs and institutions. The youth who alledgedly conduct a murder farm on which he abused boys and then killed them does not look like a harden slayer. “Northcutt is a killer no doubt,” Deputy Sheriff Bill Bright who helped bring him here from Canada said, “but he looks and acts more like a female impersonator.” The asserted slayer talks with a lisp and sometimes in a high pitchy soprano voice has an exaggerated manner of pronouncing such words as “shocking” and “preposterous” and on occasion rests his hand on his hip in the best mannequin  style.  Ogden Standard Examiner [The Wineville Chicken Coop Murders was a series of kidnappings and murders of young boys occurring in Los Angeles and Riverside County, California, in 1928. The case received national attention and events related to it exposed corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department. The 2008 film Changeling is based upon events related to this case.]

Bernard P. Brockbank

1971 Bernard P. Brockbank, Assistant to the Council of Twelve "The Ten Commandments",  Ensign, Dec. 1971, p. 61 "Fornication and homosexual acts are inspired by the devil and are grievous sins in the sight of God."  

1972- Club Baths opened a Gay men's bathhouse known as Jeff's Gym at 700 West 1700 South in Salt Lake with Ray Andrews first club manager.

1973 Rose Carrier hosted her first annual Pajama Party at The Sun Tavern 1 South 400 West Tavern

1975 The Western Rustlers, a women’s organization sponsored by The Rusty Bell Tavern hosted a Sub for Santa in salt Lake City

Deanne Empress I

1975- Deanna Empress I of the Imperial Court of Utah visited Denver for their court Snow Ball and made arrangements to have the Imperial Court of the Rocky Mountain Empire of Colorado officiate over the coronation in Utah. 

  

1975- The Name of the Game Jr., located at 535 South State, began a transition from a straight bar to a Gay bar. The owners stated, "Our initial motive was for purely business reasons. We would rather have an open crowd so that Gay did not feel alienated. Gays get down a lot more and are less trashy than some of the straight street people we get in here." The bar offered free drinks on Mondays and Tuesdays from 8-10 PM for ladies, and men in drag, a first for any Gay Bar.

Jill Johnson

1975- Feminist writer Jill Johnston wrote an essay "Are Lesbians Gay?" in which she explained why she believed it was absurd for lesbians to align themselves with the Gay movement.  The beginning of a feminist Lesbian separatist  movement that would distinguish Gay women apart from Gay men. Jill Johnston (1929 – 2010) was an American feminist author and cultural critic who wrote "Lesbian Nation" in 1973 and was a longtime writer for The Village Voice. She was also a leader of the lesbian separatist movement of the 1970s. Johnston also wrote under the pen name F. J. Crowe.

1976 Gay Advocate Group Ease Social Problems; by Russell Weeks.  Changes in social attitudes in this city and in the United States resemble the fitful sculpture of wind on granite more than the sudden upheaval of earthquakes or floods. Like the wind a group from Salt Lake City’s Gay community works quietly to alter people’s view of homosexuality and to help other members of the Gay community adjust to themselves and to living in a heterosexual society. On  November 3, the Gay Student Union GSU was placed on the university’s register by the Committee on Student Affairs. The founding members of GSU are currently working on drafting by-laws and plan to hold elections the 3^rd week in January. Officers will serve until the end of Spring Quarter. GSU intends to elect an interim president in the Spring and elect officers to full nine months term next fall.  The GSU’s purpose is to “promote and maintain activities and ideas supportive to Gay rights and Gay people through combating Gay oppression and promoting Gay dignity, unity, and liberation”.  It will also serve as a resource center for “the benefit and general welfare,” of the university and the metropolitan area by presenting its ideas through education and consciousness raising and working politically for Gay Rights, taking part in community service projects and promoting social functions to provide interaction for members of the Gay community.  Membership in the Gay Student Union is open o anyone who conducts themselves according to and in support of the goals of GSU. A $5 annual membership fee will be charged and membership cards will be issued as receipt for the dues.  In one of the by-laws meeting the GSU considering admitting for free any BYU student, faculty, or staff member with a valid identification card to any GSU activity in lieu of an official membership card.  One of the activities the Gay Student Union now sponsors is the Gay Consciousness Raising  Group which meets  every Monday at 7:30 p.m. in OSH 135. The Gay Consciousness Raising Group is designed as an alternative to the Gay Bars and the parks, as a setting where members of the Gay community and any heterosexual who wishes to attend can relate to each other as complete people instead of simply as sex objects.  The group also shows people who are Gay that they are not alone in their homosexuality and helps those people adjust with themselves and learn to cope with living in a heterosexual society.  An average of 40-50 people attend the Consciousness Raising Group each week. Some members of the GSU are members of the Gay Service Coalition. GSU expects to work closely with that organization. The coalition operates a Gay Help Line and published a newsletter The Open Door on a semi regular basis.  The Help Line 533-0927 handles crisis calls and furnishes information concerning activities of the Gay Community in SLC as does the newsletter. Acceptance of homosexuals as human beings in perhaps the most important goal of the GSU. Some members of the Consciousness Raising Group commented that since homosexuality has been so long viewed as something with which no average person would have anything to do with one of the biggest personal hurts for the homosexual is the desertion of friends after she or he tells them of her or his sexual orientation. One of these persons spoke about his friends reactions after he told the he was Gay, “After I came out, friends that were close would say Oh that’s fine, no reaction. For a couple of weeks I’d call them up and we’d still go to bars and do things. Six or 8 weeks later, I’d start getting excuses. A lot of them were afraid to be seen with me because they were afraid to be seen with me because they were afraid they would be thought of as homosexual too.”  A homosexual in Salt Lake City also faces the problem of parental reaction, loss of jobs, eviction from apartments, and social ostracism in general, some members said. A great social stumbling block for homosexuals in Salt Lake City and other places is organized religion. The Roman Catholic Church advocates that a homosexual; should try to become heterosexual and if her or she fails, insists on abstinence from sex entirely because no homosexual act can be justified morally.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) share basically the same opinion viewing homosexuality as “sin in the same degree as adultery and fornication.”  Many Protestant denominations view homosexuality as wrong but feel homosexuals  deserve to be accepted in the congregation. A Gay community workshop was held 18 September 1976 at St. Mark’s Cathedral, but only two churches, The Metropolitan Community Church and Grace Community Church openly serve the Salt Lake Gay community. Because the Mormon Church’s stance on homosexuality leaves only one alternative open for homosexual, becoming heterosexual, the church as set up a counseling program for people who wish to change their sexual orientation . According to Jerry Cahill of the Mormon Church’s press relations office, the program involves the whole priesthood structure of the church and is based on four step. They are: confession with a  bishop or stake president followed by regular meetings with a bishop, gospel education to completely acquaint the homosexual with the basic doctrines of the church, social support meaning having at least 1 person the homosexual can relate to honesty; and personal refinement to over come any personal inadequacies the homosexual may feel her or she has.  If a member of the priesthood feels he needs help or advice from professional counselors, he can request the aid of the Mormon Social Services office which has at least one professional counselor. Where Mormons services are not available he can seek the assistance of local professionals who views coincide with those of the Mormon Church. Cahill described the Mormon Church’s method of dealing with homosexuality as “Not a matter of retribution but a helpful encouraging patient and kind approach.”  Yet  members of the Gay community insists the Mormon Church refuses to deal realistically with homosexuality. “It boils down to a bishop saying stop being a homosexual.” Sates one man. Also if a homosexual does not change his or her orientation, then he or she faces disfellowship or excommunication from the church, Cahill said. A method used for changing sexual orientation is aversion therapy. One psychologist in Salt Lake City who works with aversion therapy is Dr. Robert Card. Card explained aversion

Robert Card

therapy as a pairing of noxious stimulus with the stimulus trying to be reduced. In the case of sexually orientating a human being, he uses electrical aversion therapy and covert sensitization. Covert sensitization involves deep muscle relaxation or hypnosis of a patient then associating homosexual behavior with negative imagery. Electrical aversion therapy involves three phases. In the first phase, stimulus substitution, the patient sits in a chair with an electrical conductor attached to his forearm much like a block pressure gauge. The patient is shown a homosexual pornographic movie until clearly aroused beyond voluntary control. While the patient is aroused the movie is witched to a heterosexual porno movie so he will begin to associate arousal with heterosexuality. The homosexual movie is accompanied by very low shocks of electricity because the object of the phase is sexual arousal. Once the patient achieves arousal to heterosexual stimulus the number and strength of the electrical shocks is increased during the homosexual movie in the 2^nd phase. Card emphatically pointed out that the electrical shocks accompanying the movie are not like those seen in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and said the shocks produced tolerable pain levels only in the arm directly where the conductors were placed. The 3^rd phase of the aversion therapy treatment program involves strengthening the patients response to heterosexual stimulus.  The patient attempts to avoid shocks during the homosexual film by pressing a button attached to the chair in which he is sitting. The patient escapes shocks in the homosexual film by turning on the heterosexual film with another button attached to the chair. During all the phases of the treatment half of the time is spent counseling the patient about self adjustment.  Card does not see aversion therapy as a panacea because “conditioning without good counseling skills is a waste of time.”  He will not accept patients referred from an agency or anyone else unless the individual shows a desire to change sexual orientation. Card states he is willing to counsel people who don’t want to change sexual orientation to help them adjust to living in a heterosexual society. He believes if no one has a real motive to change, then professional counselor’s responsibility is to help that man or woman adjust with themselves but he says, “I think I have an ethical responsibility to  help anyone who wants to change.” Card also points out that patients who come in for treatment may not reflect the psychological make up of the general homosexual community and says that some data shows that homosexuals that do not seek treatment are as emotionally stable as the heterosexual community in general.  Card’s views are generally those of many professional counselors. In December 1973 the American Psychiatric Association APA board of Trustees voted to remove homosexuality from its lists of mental disorders. The following spring the APA voted 5854-3810 to endorse the action at least in part .  Dr. Gerald C. Davidson in an article in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology questions even the ethics of offering change of sexual orientation programs because they may strength society’s prejudices against homosexuality and contribute to the self hatred and embarrassment that may cause a homosexual to seek to become heterosexual. Davidson proposes that professional counselors stop offering therapy to help homosexuals change orientation and concentrate on improving the quality of their interpersonal relationships.  Organized Gay groups in Salt Lake City began around 1969 when a chapter of the Gay Liberation Front was formed but not until May 1975 that the Gay Community had any real organization to deal with adjusting to society, except the Gay bars.  That year the Gay Community Services Center opened an office near a popular Salt Lake Bar. The CSC folded last spring because of disorganized leadership, personality clashes, and lack of support within the Gay community but was reorganized in August as Gay Service Coalition. In October 1975, the Gay Consciousness Raising Group was founded under the sponsorship of the Campus Christian Center. The group grew quickly and this fall moved to Orson Spenser Hall where it is now sponsored by GSU. Utah Daily Chronicle 

 Daily Utah Chronicle pg. 1 

1977- The Gay Community Service board changed the name of its newspaper The Rocky Mountain Open Door back to the Salt Lake Open Door due to confusion with the name Rocky Mountain being associated with Denver not Salt Lake.

1977- The GYM at 2827 South 2300 East advertises in The OPEN DOOR . Utah’s first gay oriented Bath house. Community activist Steve Barker was employed at Bath house. The Owner also owned Steve’s Gym in Reno, Nevada and had an on going feud with co partner Mack Hunt over finances.

1978 - A 26 year old man was found shot to death about 5 p.m. Thursday in a box car behind the Union Pacific Station 500 West South Temple. Victim was Douglas Ray Coleman, of 177 West 300 North Salt Lake City, Utah. He had been shot in the head. Robbery did not appear to be motive. Two suspects one about 30 years blond, six foot, wearing a long white coat. Another adult male was wearing a long coat. [Doug Coleman was murdered on November 30th after leaving the Sun Tavern where he had been celebrating his pre birthday. He was one of a series of unsolved murders of Gay men in Salt Lake that year]

1979 The East Room next to The Sun Tavern 1 South 400 West is opened as Salt Lake City's first Gay after-hours disco restaurant

1979 The Lesbian Newsletter, Women Aware Newsletter put together primarily by Marilyn and Nancy began to be published.

1979- Three local women started a mail order book business called HON Enterprises to specialize in Lesbian and women's books. They also offered non-sexist children's books. 

1980-The American Journal of Psychiatry published an article recommending religion as a cure for homosexuality.

1980- Donald Attridge A Gay man was fired from his job as the Medical Center's children coordinator after agreeing to be interviewed in a KUTV documentary, concerning the attitude of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints towards homosexuals. ACLU executive director Shirley Pedler said, "it is a very serious matter when governmental employers take it upon themselves to determine for their employees which views and opinions they may express publicly and which they may not,"

The Mad Woman Empress

1982 -Wilma Empress VII of the Royal Court resigned and Princess Royal Tina Sinclair succeeded her to finish out the reign. Wilma later was given the title The Mad Woman Empress. Tina Sinclair became officially Empress VII.

1984- A Utah county woman became the state’s first female victim of AIDS and was the first person to contract the disease from a Blood transfusion. She had received the transfusion in a foreign country. She was diagnosed at the time of her death.

1985- The Utah Community Services Center and Clinic located at 442 East 800 South opened a Gay library lending room with five books.  The center was a the creation of Michelle Beauchaine and Dean Walton (Auntie De)

1986- Beauchaine's Cabaret Corporation., a non-profit organization to support the Utah Community Services Center and Clinic opened a restaurant with a non-alcoholic atmosphere known as the Gingerbread House on 5th East and 5th South. Beauchaine offered the proceeds from the Gingerbread House to be used as a mean of permanently establishing a Gay Community Center. Beauchaine, as last board member of the Utah Community Services Center and Clinic, reorganized the lapsed entity under the Cabaret Corporation and continued to operate and fund the Gay Help line.  Beauchaine's Aardvark Café was sold and closed on the 31st of 1987. The catering business of Cabaret Corporation all that was left.

1988- First World AIDS Awareness Day held in SLC. The event was sponsored by the World Health Organization. World AIDS Day was first conceived in August 1987 by James W. Bunn and Thomas Netter, two public information officers for the Global Program on AIDS at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Bunn and Netter took their idea to Dr. Jonathan Mann, Director of the Global Program on AIDS (now known as UNAIDS). Dr. Mann liked the concept, approved it, and agreed with the recommendation that the first observance of World AIDS Day should be 1 December 1988.

1988  The 1^st Presidency of the Mormon Church issued a statement on AIDS, which urged church members ``to extend compassion to those who are ill with the disease and to their families.'' ``It is well to become informed about AIDS  and to avoid actions that place oneself or others at risk,'' the First Presidency statement said. ``Members should join in wise and constructive efforts to stem the spread of this debilitating and deadly affliction.''

Michael Archuleta

1988 2 FORMER CEDAR INMATES CHARGED IN SLAYING

Two men charged in the death of a Southern Utah State College student were inmates at a state prison annex in Cedar City until being paroled in October, the facility's director says. Michael Anthony Archuleta, 26, and Lance Conway Wood, 20, are charged with first-degree murder in the beating death of Gordon Ray Church, 28, of Delta, whose body was found Nov. 23. Archuleta had served 18 months of a zero-to-five-year term for arranging to distribute a controlled substance for sale and was paroled Oct. 1, said state Corrections spokesman Juan Benavidez. Wood, sentenced to zero to five years for theft and a concurrent one-year term for attempted theft, had served a year and was paroled on Oct. 25, Benavidez said. Both had been incarcerated in the Cedar City facility, which opened in February, but were returned to Utah State Prison in Draper for processing before being released, said Jimmy Stewart, director of the Iron County-Utah State Correctional Facility. Stewart said Monday that two women, also SUSC students, regularly visited Archuleta and Wood. The men obtained permission from their parole supervisor to return to Cedar City to look for work, said John Garff, regional director of state Adult Probation and Parole.  Archuleta and Wood, who also are charged with aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping and car theft, are being held without bail in Millard County Jail in Fillmore pending a preliminary hearing. No date has been set. Church's body was found in a field near I-15 about 25 miles south of

Gordon Church

Fillmore. His abandoned, blood-splattered car and a pair of blood-stained blue jeans were found in West Valley City later the same day. Millard County Sheriff Ed Phillips said at the time that deputies had received detailed information on the location of the body. He also said the slaying appeared to have been at least partially sex-related and that Church was dead when his body was dumped and covered with dirt. No further information has been released in the wake of a gag order issued by Justice of the Peace Ron Hare on Nov. 25. Stewart said Archuleta originally was from Salem, Utah County, and Wood from Bountiful. (DN)

1989 The People With AIDS Coalition of Utah organized "A Day Without Art" as part of worlds AIDS day to commemorate artists lost to AIDS About 30 Salt Lake arts and community groups participated followed by a candlelight vigil

1990 The People With AIDS Coalition of Utah organized “A Day Without Art” as part of worlds AIDS day to commemorate artists lost to AIDS. About 30 Salt Lake arts and community groups participated. A reception was held at the Art barn followed by a candlelight vigil

1991 THE SALT LAKE MEN'S CHOIR welcomes the Christmas season with two concerts, this evening and Monday, Dec. 1 and 2, at 7 p.m. in Kingsbury Hall. Admission is $6 at the door. Amanda Dickson will be emcee, and performances will be interpreted for the deaf and hearing impaired. The Salt Lake Men's Choir's annual Christmas Concert held. The director of the choir distanced the groups from the Gay community by stating in a Salt Lake Tribune article that the choir would never support the Gay Civil Rights Movement as long as he was in charge.Tonight is the Salt Lake Men’s Choir’s Christmas performance. "The director of the choir put his foot in his mouth about the Gay Civil Rights Movement in an article into today’s Tribune.  Alexander said he’d never support the Gay Civil Rights Movement as long as he was in charge!" (Memoirs of Ben Williams)

1991 I worked on the Sacred Faeries’ Zine Salt and Sage stuff mostly today.  I was not well enough to trek over to The Bridge for a staff meeting. Heard from Becky Moorman that Allen Ofeldt, the Gospel singer who lived on Wayne Court died yesterday of AIDS.  He was so beautiful and talented.  It’s like we Gays are being swept away into a black hole.  Who will be next? Bob Christensen's  obituary was in the Salt Lake Tribune I think last Tuesday. He attended the 1^st Beyond Stonewall. 

Frank Pignanelli

1991 HATE CRIME BILL SHOULD HATE-CRIMES BILL COVER GAYS? UTAHNS SPLIT  Utah is the only state in the nation that doesn't have some kind of hate crime law, but efforts to pass such legislation are hung up on the question of whether homosexuals should be protected along with racial, ethnic and religious groups. The latest Deseret News/KSL-TV poll shows that Utahns are split over whether gays should be protected under a bill proposed by House Minority Leader Frank Pignanelli, D-Salt Lake. Pollster Dan Jones of Dan Jones & Associates found that 42 percent of Utahns believe gays should be included in the new law, while 42 percent say they should not. For Utah gays and lesbians, the issue is a critical one. They've packed recent meetings of the Legislature's Interim Judiciary Committee, which is considering Pignanelli's bill. Final action on the bill is expected during Wednesday's committee meeting. But opposition to including homosexuals in the bill has come from both Republicans and Democrats, says Pignanelli, who represents the lower Avenues and Capitol Hill area of Salt Lake City. Committee member

Merrill Nelson

Merrill Nelson, R-Grantsville, believes homosexuals should not be given special status under the new bill, considering that sodomy is against the law in Utah. He argues, in essence, that the Legislature would be giving special legal protection to a group of criminals. Pignanelli counters that he's not changing the statutes on sodomy, and doesn't want to. "Many homosexuals don't practice sodomy, they don't act on their sexuality. Yet they are still victims of hate crimes." In fact, most of the hate crimes committed across the United States and in Utah are not against a racial minority or religious group - they're against homosexuals. To get at this problem, and it is a problem, gays have to be included." Pignanelli says that some people's idea of a good time is getting drunk, going to a bar or place frequented by gay men and women and intimidating them verbally or beating them physically. Under Pignanelli's proposed bill, anyone who attacks another for reasons of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual preference would be guilty of a crime one degree higher in severity than the normal assault. For example, if a person beats a black person, calling him racial names, then the attacker could be charged with a more serious crime because the beating was a "hate crime." Prosecutors and police would prove the act was a hate crime and ask for the stiffer penalty. "This is a hate crime bill, not a minorities bill," says Pignanelli. "If five black guys beat up a white guy, and did it for racial reasons, then the blacks could be charged for higher offenses under this bill as well." Some who oppose Pignanelli's bill worry that simply including gays in the new law could lead some to believe that homosexuality is given special status in Utah anti-discrimination law. Pignanelli, an attorney himself, says that won't be the case. To calm those fears, Pignanelli has taken language from a federal hate crime law sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and included it in his bill. The language says no cause of action for sexual discrimination can be inferred from the hate crime law. "Hatch defended this language on the floor of the U.S. Senate against attacks by Sen. Jesse Helms. I say, what is good enough for Hatch is good enough for Utah, too," Pignanelli said, ripping his Republican legislative colleagues. "I find it ironic that some who oppose this bill are members of a religious group (the LDS Church) whose ancestors were victims of one of the worst hate crimes in this nation's history - the burning of Nauvoo and the beatings that took place there," Pignanelli said. "Utah was settled because of hate crimes, yet we're the only state that doesn't have a law against this." **** (Poll) A proposed law makes a crime against a person a more serious offense if the crime is committed because of the victim's race or religion. Would you favor or oppose also giving this protection to victims having alternative sexual preferences? Favor 42% Oppose 42% Don't know 15% © 1998 Deseret News Publishing Co.

Randi Wagner

1991 Works donated by Utah artists will be auctioned Sunday in Tivoli Gallery, 225 S. State, as part of a major fund-raiser for the Utah AIDS Foundation. Abstract painter Randi Wagner is honorary chair of "Art For Life."   A silent auction of paintings will alternate with entertainment from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., when alive auction will conclude the afternoon.   Works by some 50 artists, including Randall Lake, the late Dan Baxter, Ken Baxter, Nancy Crookston, Gary Collins, Randi Wagner, Benjamin Cabey, Marilyn Miller, Lanny Barnard, Cheri Piefke, Ursula Brodauf and Thomas Leek will be on exhibit throughout the day. Pianist Gregory Saint Thomas, accompanied by a harpist, will present a program of Debussy and Chopin as well as several of his own compositions at 2 p.m. "Completely Gershwin," a musical revue, will be performed by local artists Mark Chambers, Joe Pitti, Calvin Johnson, Terri Cowan, Jay Ceen Craven and Brent Fotheringham at 3:15 p.m. A light buffet and beverages will be served.   Tax-deductible tickets for "Art for Life" are $35 per person and will be available at the door. Ben Barr, executive director of the Utah AIDS Foundation, said he is impressed by the response from the art community. "I think it's hard enough for artists to make a living in this town, and their willingness to commit work to this effort is fantastic."   The Utah AIDS Foundation is the only agency in the state of Utah that deals with the entire spectrum of services for HIV diseases.   Programs include a food bank, open to anyone who is HIV postive; a hot meals home-delivery program which is carried out in conjunction with LDS Hospital and the Salvation Army; a community education project used by the Junior League, Rotary Club, public schools and churches as well as health-care professionals; an AIDS hot line; a counseling service for both individuals and groups; an advocacy and referral service encompassing medical, social and legal services. The Foundation also acts as coordinator and leader for those agencies and groups in Utah which are providing services for individuals who are HIV positive. (Page: E10 Day:      SUN (Copyright 1991)

Ben Barr

1992 In commemoration of World AIDS Day, the federal Health Care Finance Administration paid tribute to 14 who have made significant contributions caring for people with AIDS. Ben Barr and the Utah AIDS Foundation he directed were among the honored. In 1990, Mother Teresa's order received the same award.

1993 Day Without Art: The 5th International Day of Action and

Mourning in Response to the AIDS Crisis celebrated the achievements of colleagues and friends lost to AIDS. Galleries and museums in Salt Lake City participated in the observance by removing or shrouding works of art in a symbolic representation of the tragedy of AIDS in the arts community. ( 11/28/93 Page: F7 SLTribune)

1994 The 6th International Day of Action and Mourning in Response to the AIDS Crises- also known in the United States as Day Without Art was observed. The Salt Lake City Arts Council joined artists, arts organizations and community groups throughout the country in focusing attention on the needs of people with AIDS. World AIDS Day: celebrates the achievements of colleagues and friends lost to AIDS, acknowledges the need to find a cure and broadens the effort to educate the public about the disease. Twenty-three galleries and museums in Salt Lake City participated in the event by removing or shrouding works of art(11-27-94  Page: F3 SLTribune )

• -A candlelight vigil sponsored by the Utah AIDS Foundation, the American Red Cross and the People With AIDS Coalition was at the State Capitol An additional candlelight vigil was held at Westminster College. With the lights of Salt Lake City in the background, about 500 people gather at the Capitol to hold a candlelight vigil in observance of World AIDS Day. One after another, they climbed up the Capitol steps to tell the world that they remember their dead. ``I'm here for my father who died of   AIDS,'' said one girl.  A woman carrying a toddler said, ``Isabel and I are here to remember my brother and her uncle.'' ``I wish I could tell you all, `Come home for the holidays,' '' a man said to his friends who had died. It was a time, they said, to remember friends, lovers and family and a chance to sound a warning to the state.  ``It's easy to ignore the AIDS crisis,'' said Bruce Reeves, a participant at the candlelight vigil. ``The main reason I came here tonight is that maybe it will stop this, so more people will not have to lose friends.'' People stood huddled in groups cupping their hands over their candles, shielding the flames from the wind. Children played on the lower steps while they listened to the speakers. Maggie Snyder, a medical worker who has spent many hours with AIDS patients, told the group, ``We are family working together. ``We have only begun to make a difference,'' she said. ``There are many more roads that need to be paved.''   One of those roads is educating Utahns about the reality of AIDS, said Mark Bigler, an official with the Utah AIDS Foundation. (11-27-94  Page: F3 SLTribune)(12-02-94  Page: D1 SLTribune)
• In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta report more than 400,000 cases of AIDS since 1983. Of those 400,000, some 243,423 have died.  Some of the Utahns commemorating the 180-nation World AIDS Day said their state has not escaped the ravages of the disease. According to the Utah Department of  Health, there have been 992 reported cases of AIDS since 1983 and 566 deaths. The department estimates that nearly 5,000 people are infected with HIV. (12-02-94  Page: D1 SLTribune)
• -An Ecumenical Service of Celebration and Remembrance at 7 p.m. at the First Unitarian

  

  Cindy Solomon

  Church, 569 S. 1300 East, Salt Lake City. - Many of the people holding candles in the night air at the Capitol later went to a interfaith religious service at the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake. The Rev. Cindy Solomon of the Metropolitan Community Church, Brother Carl Schichte of the Roman Catholic Newman Center, Jean McCreery of the Lutheran Campus Ministry, the Rev. Tom Goldsmith of the First Unitarian Church, the Rev. JoAnn Leach, an Episcopal chaplain and Rabbi Fred Wenger of the Congregation Kol Ami lighted candles and offered prayers. Solomon asked for ``medicine to heal our brokenness.'' A woman at the Capitol candlelight vigil sought that same healing in remembering. ``I miss the times we had on the porch,'' she said to her friends who had died.  (11-27-94  Page: F3 SLTribune ) (12-02-94  Page: D1 SLTribune)

1995- The Utah attorney general's office announced that Utah's public schools could not ban gay student clubs as long as those schools accept federal education dollars.

1995 Confidential, free AIDS tests were provided in Salt Lake County and St. George were offered in conjunction with World AIDS day. Utah supporters of the annual observance, gathered for a candlelight vigil on the steps of the State Capitol.

1995 A World AIDS Day Ecumenical Service was held at the First Baptist Church. UAF Director Barbara Shaw spoke as well as PWAC Barb Barnhart. George Henry was the organist and the Salt Lake Men's choir performed. 

1996 Tori Osborne former director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task force spoke at the Utah Stonewall Center to promote her book.

Laura Gray

Kevin Knollenberg

1997- Laura Miliken Gray, Terry S. Kogan, Jane A. Marquart, David Nelson, and Kevin B. Nollenberg were appointed by former US Attorney Scott M. Matheson Jr. to serve as members of the Hate Crimes Working Group for the US Department of Justice Office of the Attorney for the District of Utah.

1997- Both Brook Heartsong, Chair of the board of trustees and Louis Bohannon, board member resigned from the board of trustees of the defunct Utah Stonewall Center.

1997- Right wing attorney, Matthew Hilton, of Utah County, filed suit against Lesbian school

Wendy Weaver Chandler

teacher Wendy Weaver claiming to represent the Citizens of Nebo School District for Moral and Legal Values. He alleged that Weaver was guilty of a laundry list of illegal activities ranging from child abuse and sodomy to unprofessional conduct as a teacher. Wendy and the Lost Girls

1997- Mark Bigler, director of community education for the Utah AIDS Foundation. As of September 1997, Utah had 631people living with AIDS and another 784 who are HIV positive. (Page: D5 THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE) 1 December 1997 Page: D1ROLLY & WELLS Byline: BY PAUL ROLLY and JOANN JACOBSEN-WELLSHERE WE GO AGAIN   Remember when students and an adviser wanted to form a gay and lesbian club at East High School? The public reaction led to the banning of all school clubs in Salt Lake City.   We have another situation. And, again, it is at East.   Chris Sontag, a gifted actor and a student at Highland High School, participated in the University of Utah's Theater School for Youth program last summer. One of the program’s instructors, Peggy Davis, is directing Shakespeare’s ``As You Like It'' at East High School as part of her requirements for a theater education degree at the U. When Sontag asked her if he could audition for the play, she asked school administrators who OK'd the request.   Sontag auditioned and won the lead part of Orlando. The idea was that he eventually would transfer to East. But when a teacher at Highland and a teacher at East went to dinner together, they discussed Sontag and agreed he should stay at Highland.   After Sontag won the part, he went to all the rehearsals and practiced at home. Then, when it was decided he would stay at Highland, Davis was told Sontag could not play Orlando because he was not an East High student. But he could play a lesser part.   The cast, says Davis, is upset, and Sontag’s mother, Mary Ann Sontag, complained to the district. She found no policy precluding Sontag from playing the lead role in a play put on by another school within the district. So what is East High School's solution to the controversy? Rehearsals for ``As You Like It’ have been suspended until further notice.   East High Vice Principal Mike Sadler, the primary decision-maker throughout this saga, did not return our calls last week.   EYE OF THE BEHOLDER   Guess what seniors at West High School in Salt Lake City discovered in their humanities textbook, Culture and Values: A Survey of the Western Humanities, Fourth Edition.   A photo of ``The Kiss'' -- a Rodin sculpture banned at Brigham Young University.   The book calls Rodin a ``great original'' and says ``Rodin breathed new life into sculpture.’ The teacher recommended the textbook be purchased because ``it is the same text they use at BYU.''

1997 Page: D5 Marielle Egbert, a student at Sandy's Peruvian Park Elementary, took first with this poster.  AIDS Contest Shows Kids Say The Hardest Things Humanely Byline: BY KATHERINE KAPOS THE SALTLAKE TRIBUNE   Through drawings and a few simple words,  Utah students have cut through the politics and gotten to the heart of AIDS awareness.   For the nine winners of this year's HIV/AIDS Awareness Poster Contest, the disease is all about love, care and compassion.   ``Kids who do these posters know how to say things that sometimes as adults we lose,'' said Mark Bigler, director of community education for the Utah AIDS Foundation.   The foundation, along with the Utah State Office of Education and KUTV Channel2, sponsors the annual contest, which this year attracted 772 entries from around the state.   First, second and third place winners were selected in high school, junior high and elementary school divisions. The winners were announced recently to coincide with today’s observance of World Aids Day.   Bigler said the Utah AIDS Foundation   distributes copies of the winning posters around the state to remind people that AIDS is a reality and there needs to be care and compassion for those with the disease.   ``Children say that in a way that is not only nonthreatening but very powerful,'' said Bigler.   As of September 1997, Utah had 631people living with AIDS and another 784who are HIV positive.   Amanda Gallegos, the first-place winner in the high school division, created her poster as part of an assignment in her Olympus High School art class.   Gallegos said she has had no friends or family members diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, but the disease still has her worried.   Her poster -- which depicts the Earth encircled by a red ribbon, the symbol of the fight against AIDS -- calls on the world to unite.   ``I wanted to show people that we can unite against AIDS and we should help out the people who have the virus. The whole world needs to be as one,'' she said.   The second-place winner in the high school division was Melinda Davidson, a sophomore at Hillcrest High School in Midvale. Third place went to Trey Parker, a junior at Weber High School, Ogden.   Jennifer Smalley, a sixth-grade student at Wasatch Middle School in Heber City, received first-place honors in the junior high division. She took her inspiration from visits to the hospital to see her grandfather. `It really helps them and encourages them when you go over to see them and show you really care,'' Smalley said. ``Everybody needs compassion.'' Annie Richards and Sara Ruggs, ninth-grade students at South Cache Freshman Center in Hyrum, received second and third place, respectively, in the junior high division. At the elementary level, first place honors went to Marielle Egbert, a sixth-grade student at Peruvian Park Elementary, Sandy. Second place went to Nicholas Ballstaedt and third was awarded to Jordan Henderson. Both are sixth-grade students at Butler Elementary in Salt Lake County.   First-place winners receive a $50 cash award, second-place winners earn $25 and third place gets $15..  

Becky Moss

1997 Becky Moss interviewed on KUTV Channel 2 for World AIDS Day. Stated she had been doing AIDS Awareness for last 15 years. 850 people had died of AIDS in Utah since the beginning of the epidemic

1998 Worlds AIDS Day celebrated in Salt Lake City with Candlelight Vigil

1999 World AIDS Day commemorated with Candlelight Vigil at the Utah State Capitol Rotunda. The portions of the Names Project Quilt displayed at the state capitol and at various location around the state including Salt Lake Community College and Southern Utah University in Cedar City.

2000 - World AIDS Day. Interfaith Memorial Service 7:30 pm Buddhist, Christian and Jewish traditions represented. Also music by Salt Lake Men’s Choir at First Baptist Church of Salt Lake City 300 East 800 South - parking on the east side of the church as well as in the East High School parking lot Candlelight Vigil 6:00 pm - a new quilt panel will be dedicated for inclusion to the National AIDS Quilt

1 December 2000  World AIDS Day. First Baptist Church of Salt Lake City 300 East 800 South - parking on the east side of the church as well as in the East High School parking lot Candlelight Vigil 6:00 pm - a new quilt panel will be dedicated for inclusion to the National AIDS Quilt Interfaith Memorial Service 7:30 pm - Buddhist, Christian and Jewish traditions represented. Also music (Salt Lake Men’s Choir) and dancers Luckily, the Salt Lake Men's Choir is here in your hour of need. This Sunday, we can help you make this the perfect season. Our 18th Annual Holiday concert is entitled "Joy! Joy! Joy!" It includes traditional music, as well as songs from our Holiday CD entitled "Ring Out Wild Bells" (which is available in lots of music and bookstores), but we are excited to have some premier performances: "Betlehemu," a Nigerian carol accompanied by live drumming, and Daniel Pinkham's Christmas Cantata, accompanied by organ and

brass quartet. And you'll never forget the singing AND dancing on "Merry, Merry Christmas, Baby" Even Elvis didn't do it better.

2002 Pillar WHY A HISTORICAL SOCIETY FOR HOMOSEXUALS? By Ben Williams “Few in the Lambda community of Utah have a general understanding of national Gay and Lesbian history, and even less have a sense of "Gay and Lesbian regional history."-Ben Williams  How committed are we in the Lambda communities of Utah to tracking the people and the events that created one of the greatest civil rights movements of the Twentieth Century? The generation that has spawn the social phenomenon known as the Stonewall Rebellion is aging. Many have already passed away due to the AIDS crisis. Today people coming to term with their homosexuality, young and old, often enter our community without any sense of a collective identity. The vast majority of Gay men and Lesbians grow up in a cultural vacuum unaware of the significant contributions made by homosexuals in all the academic, political, scientific, and aesthetic fields of humankind. This is not our fault. Few Utah educational institutions will teach even “a single iota” of the positive contributions we have made to world history.  Some purport that history is the collective myths, facts, and lies agreed upon, by which a people can define themselves.  Be that as it may- where there is no “history” there is no sense of group identity either. But ‘history is terrifyingly vulnerable to denial.” Right-wing heterosexual ideologists would have us believe that we are not a distinct and separate people apart from them. Homosexuals are simply misguided heterosexuals. If homosexuals would just stop having same-sex copulation there would be no homosexuality. We know that to be a great lie. We are not simply heterosexuals committing homosexual acts, which is how we are generally viewed. It is obvious to the open minded that we are homosexual by the nature of our love for our own sex, not by how we have sex. We know that this “love” infuses us and enriches us with a totally unique, if not any better, than at least a different life experience from heterosexuals. It is from this experience- that we as homosexuals operate in the world. While no one would want their sexuality to be the considered the sole sum of their worth, the nature of one’s sexual orientation is important in writing about historical figures. Understanding someone’s sexual orientation is necessary- much in the same way that it is necessary to know if a person is male or female.  No one would argue that the physical and behavioral components that make us male and female are not factors in how we perceive the world. However many heterosexual historians disregard homosexuality as pertinent to the understanding of how a person reacts to the world around them. Much of this is based on the fact that a heterosexuals’ perspective on homosexuality is generally negative. In the non-Gay world, homosexuality is seen as a moral weakness, or a character defect at best and at worse a sign of a depraved or wanton nature. Therefore homosexuality is rarely discussed or brought to the table when studying history. This absence of the mention of a person’s sexuality implies that everyone is heterosexual by default unless proven guilty. Therefore it is imperative that homosexuals become historians and reclaim what is rightfully ours-our perspective of history. When a majority wants to negate a minority’s legitimate cultural identity, the first thing its does is destroy their history.  The Nazi’s knew this when then burned Magus Herschfeld’s immense archive of Gay and Lesbian history, including manuscripts from the times of Socrates and Sappho. If one can bury vital information, or even worse destroy an historical archive of a people or movement, one can successfully eliminate them from living memory.  Heterosexuals cannot be relied upon to examine and explain us in a context to which we can relate. Most won’t do it for us and in reality many can’t- anymore then Christians, having no understanding or sympathy for the nuances “that underlay old native chronicles” can objectively write about the symbols and metaphysics of the pagan world. I therefore propose that if we desire to win the ideological wars with the far-right in the Twenty-First Century we must insure that our significant contributions are memorialized. Otherwise our enemies like “those vindictive priests in ancient Egypt who went around chiseling the names of out-of-favor kings and queens out of temple inscriptions” will blot us out of the “book of life,” we call history.  Utah Stonewall Historical Society and Archives Meetings Held Every Third Wednesday at Angles Café Next Meeting 18 December 2002

• Mission Statement- The Utah Stonewall Historical Society and Archives is established to promote the recovery, preservation and understanding of the history of the Lambda people of Utah. Our primary focus is on Lambda history and culture along the Wasatch Front. It is our conviction that our collective identity is best served when Lambda People preserve the records and cultural artifacts of their own history. The USHSA is dedicated to preserving and interpreting these important historical records as a legacy to the state and people of Utah. We are an all-volunteer and nonprofit organization governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. Area Needing Attention- Lesbian Studies Oral Histories Photography The October’s Yearly Digest Speaker Bureau contacts Knowledge is power and knowing our real history is a powerful way for all Lambda people to understand that we are not alone but united and strong.  Pride is more than a party.

2003 Artists put AIDS awareness in the Utah, global spotlight Three million people have died so far this year from AIDS. And 40 million are living with HIV, including 2.5 million under 15 years old. Five million people were newly infected with a virus that many people believe is "under control." The worldwide statistics, released by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, may surprise many Americans because they do not reflect merely what is happening in Africa, central Asia and Eastern Europe; the trend is the... Author:  The Salt Lake Tribune  Page: A1

2004 World AIDS Day this year is on a Wednesday---Dec. 1. You are invited to attend the service at the New Promise Lutheran Church at 929 W. Sunset Blvd, St. George Utah at 6 p.m.  Wed Dec 1, 2004  6:28 am

2004 In commemoration of World AIDS Day, the Utah AIDS Foundation will hold an open house today at 1408 South 1100 East from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. The group is encouraging guests to make prayer flags and will have information available on where people can get tested for the disease. Westminster College will host another event, a film festival and quilt display, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. - Carey Hamilton

2005 ROTC of Salt Lake City Can you toss a triple? Can you butterfly Silk? Would you like to learn how? We're looking to get a group of people, male and female, ages 21 and up to form The Righteously Outrageous Twirling Corps (ROTC) of Salt Lake City. For the purpose of providing entertainment to Salt Lake City Gay, Lesbian, Bi, and Transgender community, during the annual Pride parade and other local and statewide events and as a social organization involved in the twirling/pageantry forum with rifles and flags. Our performance would consist of a precision, military-style warm-up routine, and traditional routines to dance or disco music. Our performance can be suited to either marching or standstill situations We have right now about 6 or 7 people interested in the Drill team, both men and women, gay and straight and all ages.  This is going to be GREAT.  I'm looking to get everyone together after the holidays for a meet and greet.If this sounds like something you would like to do email us at rotcslc@yahoo.com  Thanks Logan Brueck Kaye Christensen

2005 WORLD AIDS DAY This international holiday on Dec. 1 includes A Day Without Art in the United States. Free oral HIV testing is available at various places in Utah including the Salt Lake Valley Health Department

2005 Honoring 20 Years of Care in Utah The Utah AIDS Foundation, in conjunction with the Hotel Monaco and Bambara, invite you and a guest to commemorate our 20th year, Thursday, from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.  at the Hotel Monaco 15 West 200 South, Salt Lake City R.S.V.P. to Celeste Barker Suggested $5.00 donation at the door 100% of funds raised directly benefit the Utah AIDS Foundation Hors d’oeuvres provided by Bambara Utah AIDS Foundation 1408 South 1100 East Salt Lake City, Utah  84105 Phone: (801 487-2323  Fax: (801) 486-3978

2005 Stuart Merrill, an activist for HIV & aids funding, will be speaking this Thursday, December 1st, International AIDS Day on KCPW. KCPW is 88.3 on the FM dial (duh!!) Stuart will be on from 10:15 to 10:45 am. Please tune in and give him your support. Mike Picardi

2005 Bisexual Discussion Group – Multi Purpose Room GLCCU (7pm) Are you bi?  Know and love someone who is?  Are you looking for people to connect to?  It’s TIME!  Come and create OUR community!

Rafe Jenkins

2005 Gay Mormon gets real on 'Survivor' Talk of the Morning: Utah's Prime-Time Connection By Vince Horiuchi The Salt Lake Tribune In a television reality show based on deception and trickery, a self-described "gay, Mormon, Ivy League grad, wilderness guide" who was born in Salt Lake City is leading this season's "Survivor." Rafe Judkins, a Brown University graduate who now lives in Providence, R.I., is one of six remaining players to "outwit, outplay and outlast" in the jungles of Guatemala on the hit CBS series, which airs tonight at 7 p.m. on KUTV Channel 2. And in the face of the show's typically backstabbing, conniving gameplay, Judkins is "surviving" with honesty, sincerity and a positive outlook, traits he has in part attributed to his faith. But his announcement in last week's episode about his sexuality and faith has led many fans of the top-10 show to wonder: Can someone be gay and Mormon? "Is Rafe setting himself up for discipline from his local temple when he describes himself as a gay Mormon?" asked one fan on message forums for Television- WithoutPity.com, a TV fan site.

In Judkins' case, the answer is no because he was never baptized in the church, although he was raised in a large family of active Mormons in Utah, including more than 50 cousins and some 20 aunts and uncles who still live in the state. Nevertheless, the 22-year-old considers himself a member of the Mormon faith. "I would call myself a gay Mormon. They [the church] would not call me a Mormon. But it's a part of who I am. I grew up with my family, we eat scalloped potatoes at funerals, we have Jell-O all the time like we're Mormon," he joked in an interview with CBS.com (contestants are not allowed to talk to news media during the show's run.) "Mormons are so focused on family and caring for other people, and there are so many things about the Mormon religion that I want to bring to my life," he added. "When I have a husband and kids, I want us to have Family Home Evening on Monday nights, and I'll get together and play board games or do whatever. I think the Mormon church has so much good that you can take from it." Judkins has been one of the few contestants in the show's 11 seasons to play the game with little or no deceit, instead choosing to be genuine and loyal to alliances with tribe mates. In one episode, he was near tears over the way one of his teammates taunted a rival contestant during a challenge. "[His personality] is a combination of who he is and his religious views," said his mother, Lani Lee, a former artist who helps run Judkins' father's invention business in Pittsburgh. "He went to seminary in high school. He's a Mormon in heritage." Judkins and his family moved from Salt Lake City to Pittsburgh when he was about 5. He has degrees in anthropology and biology but wants to be a Hollywood screenwriter. Though his sexuality has been known to his immediate family for some time, his extended relatives in Utah were not aware of it until this last summer. "It wasn't a shock to me, but I'm sure it was to other people," Lee said of her son's homosexuality. "[The relatives] said, 'This is a shock, but we're drawing the wagons around you.' " The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like Catholics and Baptists, believes engaging in homosexuality is a sin. In the LDS Church, such behavior leads to excommunication. "We cannot stand idle if they indulge in immoral activity, if they try to uphold and defend and live in a so-called same-sex marriage situation," wrote LDS President Gordon B. Hinkley in 1998. "To permit such would be to make light of the very serious and sacred foundation of God-sanctioned marriage and its very purpose, the rearing of families." Rafe's rising popularity on "Survivor" has made him "an icon of sorts" in the gay and  lesbian community, said Michael Aaron, executive editor of Salt Lake Metro, a Utah gay and lesbian biweekly newspaper that featured Judkins on the cover in September. "The stereotype of the gay man is that he always goes to the bars and does alcohol and drugs and sex," Aaron said. "And it turns out we have a person who is the flagship gay boy who doesn't smoke or drink and has had a partner of so many years. To show that side of the community is new and unusual. "They [other gays] can see that there's somebody more like them that doesn't speak with a lisp or the stereotype that they internalize themselves," he added. "They can relate better to him than to Jack on "Will & Grace" or what goes on in the "Queer as Folk" shows." Russ Gorringe, president of Reconciliation, a Utah-based gay and lesbian group that still embraces the Mormon faith, agrees Judkins is good for the image of gays who do not want to shed their Mormonism. "They come out of the closet to be a whole person, to be who they are. But often, by coming out of the closet, they put their faith in the closet and bolt the doors," Gorringe said. "And that is sad because there is a place for us at the table of Christ."

2005 Bishop Rees Reviews “In Quiet Desperation” He Takes Issue with LDS Family Services,

Robert Rees

AMCAP by Matt Christensen December 2005 Affirmation Robert A. Rees, a former bishop who often counseled with gay Mormons, has just published a review of the book In Quiet Desperation for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.  In Quiet Desperation is a two-part book written by Fred and Marilyn Matis and Ty Mansfield. Fred and Marilyn are the parents of Stuart Matis, a young gay LDS who committed suicide in 2000. Ty Mansfield is a gay Mormon from Virginia who has accepted his sexual orientation and decided to remain celibate. "The responsibility for the negative attitudes

Stuart Matis

toward and treatment of homosexuals is shared by all of us—General Authorities, local and regional ecclesiastical leaders, family and friends, and lay members alike," writes Bishop Rees. "It is also shared by many in the LDS therapeutic community which, to some degree, has not served Mormon homosexuals well by doggedly persisting in emphasizing reparative or change therapy, by encouraging homosexuals to marry, by marginalizing therapists who have taken a broader view of homosexuality, by simplifying the issue in not recognizing the range of sexual attraction, and by attempting to control the dialogue about treatment." "Many homosexuals report finding standard treatment by LDS Family Services therapists not only unhelpful, but counterproductive, and in some in stances even destructive," he adds. "The Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists (AMCAP) has seemed particularly resistant to any challenge to the standard position. There are, of course, examples of courageous therapists who have been willing to consider different points of view and employ alternate therapeutic treatment." Bishop Rees knew Stuart Matis and counseled with him before Stuart's suicide. Rees has written about his experiences in "Requiem for a Gay Mormon: In Memory of Henry Stuart Matis" and in "'In a Dark Time the Eye Begins to See': Personal Reflections on Homosexuality among the Mormons at the Beginning of the New Millennium" (Dialogue 33:3 [Fall 2000]: 137-151). To see Bishop Rees's full review, go to www.dialoguejournal.com/excerpts/38-4a.pdf (PDF document).

2006 Hello Volunteers, I hope this email finds you all well.   We are getting ready for our 2nd Annual Red Party on Friday Dec. 1st and we need your help.  I am looking for a group of about 10 - 15 volunteers who would be able to help us decorate the Hotel Monaco on Thursday, November 30 between 6-9 PM. Anyone who volunteers is welcome to come to the party for free.  I will need to know by Wednesday at six Please. Have a safe and wonderful holiday. Johnnie Brakey

2008 Alleged kidnapper's statements fair game at trial Attorneys for a man badly beaten by his South Salt Lake neighbors after he allegedly kidnapped two young children from their home on Monday were unsuccessful in suppressing the man's interview with police. Attorney Susanne Gustin had argued that police should have ended their interview with David James Bell when he said he wanted an attorney. But 3rd District Judge Paul Maughan said the interview can be heard by a jury.  Stephen Hunt The Salt Lake Tribune

2015 A recognition of World AIDS Day was held at the Pride Center at 6:30 organiuzed by Michael Sanders. Gay Men Aloud helped with a memorial display to acknowledge our fallen family. December 1st is World AIDS Day which use to be an annual event in this community. Michael Sanders saw that nothing was being done to commemorate the day so he asked for grassroots support to make the event happen and had asked if Gay Men Aloud would like to support it. This was a great way of providing a service to our community which is part of our mission as Gay Men Aloud.  That most of us have been affected by HIV and or AIDS either through the lost of lovers, friends, and family, we must not forget or let others forget. The Pride Center let the event use the main floor space from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. Michael Sanders created an event page and contacted the Health Department and the Utah AIDS Foundation that sent some representatives. Gay Men Aloud made a bulletin of butcher paper to post pictures of National Figures who had died and a space for people to write the names of people  loved and lost.  

• Michael Sanders It looks like we will have the following in addition to the Gay Men Aloud participation: Utah Aids Foundation will kick off the Seasons Givings Holiday Basket program, The Salt Lake County Health Department will have the latest HIV information