This Day In Gay Utah History December 29th

December 29

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Today is the feast day of David the Prophet, whose relationship with Jonathan in the book of I Samuel is believed by some to be homoemotional .

1896 Pat McCoy was arrested yesterday by the police on the charge of sodomy He had a hearing before Justice Perrin in police court and was discharged.

1965-The New York Times reported that police in Tallahassee had been paying college students $10 each to entrap homosexuals on campus. The policy was condemned by the Governor of Florida and the dean of students.

1972- As a result of the dismissal of a gay man from his job with the Seattle Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an action was filed seeking to change the Civil Service Rules which allowed the dismissal of homosexuals from Federal employment on the basis of sexual orientation alone.

1987- Unconditional Support discussed the highlights of 1987 with people stating that these were the most important events of the year: The March on Washington, The Affirmation Conference, Gay Day at Lagoon, Gay Pride Day, and the dances held at  the Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church.

1988 -I went to Gay Fathers to meet with John Bush about Beyond Stonewall.  We decided that there wasn't any pressing need to have two assistant directors and that he and I really could do it ourselves with the help of a good steering committee.  John is going to talk to Guy Larson about being chair of the hospitality committee, and to Glen Camomile about chairing the accommodations committee. I am going to talk to Neil Hoyt about chairing the promotion committee and Jim Rieger or Becky Moss about doing publicity. I will be the Program Events Director while John will be in charge of registration and accounting. We agreed to meet again on the 16th with forms ready to send to the facilitators. (Memoirs of Ben Williams)

1990-Richard Dunne, director of the Gay Men's Health Crisis from 1985-1989, died of complications from AIDS at age 46. During his time as director the annual budget increased from $800,000 to $11 million and the staff increased from 17 to 120. GMHC_Antibody_Testing

1995-The president of an NBC-TV affiliate here said he has had enough of "trash television" and ordered talk shows "Carnie" and "Jenny Jones" pulled from his station. John Gilbert, president and general manager of KOAA-TV in Colorado Springs, the 97th ranked television market in the country said, "homosexuals, transvestites and lesbians" have no place on his station.

Troy Duty, Maughn Rollins, and daughter Nicole 1995

1995 Legal or Not, S.L. Men Take Their Vows Seriously   Gay Couple Take Their Vows Seriously Byline: By Brandon Griggs - Page: B1 THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE   In their eyes, Troy Duty and Maughn Rollins are a married couple and parents to a 7-month-old girl. In the eyes of Utah, they are roommates. The two men cemented their relationship in an Oct. 1 wedding like ceremony at a Salt Lake City restaurant, complete with flowers, cake and 150 guests. They announced the event with a small advertisement in that day's editions of The Salt Lake Tribune, becoming the first gay couple in the state to trumpet their union in a mainstream Utah newspaper. ``We want to demonstrate how our wedding is just as legitimate as any other. One of the lines in our wedding vows was that our marriage is amoral reality, even if it's not a political reality,'' said Rollins. ``That's what matters to us. And the politics will just have to catch up.''  In Utah, gay marriage will not be a political reality anytime soon. Same-sex weddings are not legal anywhere in the United States, but Utah has taken extra steps to discourage them. Earlier this year, Utah became the first state to pass a law prohibiting recognition of same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Anticipating that Hawaii someday may sanction same-sex weddings, Utah legislators voted overwhelmingly for the bill. Still, ceremonies uniting gay couples are not uncommon -- even in Salt Lake City, where a handful of pastors routinely preside over same-sex ``commitment ceremonies.' 'Combined, ministers at the Metropolitan Community Church and the Unitarian

Gregory Family 2013 

Universalist Church performed about a dozen such unions in the past year, and the procession of gay couples to the altar shows no sign of slowing.  What makes Duty and Rollins different? First, they are raising a child -- an increasingly frequent occurrence for lesbian couples but still rare among gay men. Second, unlike most homosexual members of devout Mormon families, they are boldly public about their sexuality, even going so far as to picket outside Salt Lake City's Temple Square on General Conference weekend to protest the LDS Church's opposition to same-sex marriages. The two men wear gold wedding rings. In public, Rollins occasionally refers to Duty as his husband. This openness has won them the admiration of friends and the support of many of their Co -workers. It also has cost them friendships and strained their ties to their families. Rollins' parents, who live in Provo, did not attend the ceremony; he has not spoken to them for three months. ``It's been really hard for me,'' he said. ``I go back and forth between being angry and being really sad.'' But both men believe in putting their relationship first. And both hope their example will encourage other gay couples to come forward and help combat negative perceptions about homosexuals. ``The more people that see [gay relationships],it becomes more normal to them and it's not such a freak thing,'' Duty said. Gay stereotypes are reinforced by media coverage of fringe groups such as militant activists or flamboyant drag queens, he said. ``It helps if people can see there are other gays who aren't in those extremes.''  Similar Backgrounds: Duty, 28, and Rollins, 33, met two years ago at a Christmas party. Their backgrounds were strikingly similar: Both graduated from Orem High School and attended Brigham Young University. Both served LDS missions in Thailand. And by their mid-20s, both had ceased being active in the LDS Church, In part over the church's position on homosexuality. In March 1994, during a trip to Bryce Canyon, the couple agreed to formalize their relationship with a ceremony. Troy's mother, a lesbian who lives with her partner in southern Virginia, was thrilled. Gaining the blessing of Rollins' parents was more difficult. Troy and Maughn had spent weekends visiting the Rollins family home in Provo. But when Maughn told his parents of their wedding plans, they balked. ``They got very quiet,'' said Rollins, who has a master's in philosophy from the University of Hawaii. ``I told them they needed to come out as parents of a gay son -- that whatever they felt religiously, they needed to get over the embarrassment.'' Rollins' parents initially said they would attend the ceremony, then changed their minds and refused to give him addresses of far-flung family members he wanted to invite. Rollins tracked them down and mailed them formal invitations. Most of his relatives did not respond. His younger sister, who lives in North Carolina, said her parents' decision not to attend the ceremony was ``an agonizing choice'' for them. ``My parents have said they believe strongly in gay rights. They are not reactionary people '' said Jacque Rollins, who did attend the wedding. ``But this is just a step beyond [what they can accept]. It's been hard for them to reconcile.'' Rollins' parents could not be reached for comment. For Maughn and Troy, planning the ceremony had its own hurdles. The couple chose to hold the event at the Santa Fe restaurant in Emigration Canyon, which welcomed them without hesitation and recommended a bakery and a florist. But Duty and Rollins had to call four photographers before they found one who was willing to shoot a gay wedding. And then there was the issue of the announcement in the newspaper.   The Newspaper Agency Corp., which oversees advertising for The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News, initially refused to publish the announcement. Classified Advertising Manager Diana Butcher then took the issue to the Tribune's management, which approved the ad -- with some restrictions: The ad must run on a separate page from the other wedding announcements, and the couple could not use the words ``wedding'' or ``marriage'' in the ad.  ``This was the first one, and we wanted to walk softly,'' Butcher said. ``We wanted to see the reaction of the public before we made a stronger statement.''   Publishing the announcement in the Deseret News, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was never considered. ``I did not even approach them,'' Butcher said. ``That is against everything the Deseret Newsstands for.'' The tiny announcement was buried in the Tribune's Oct. 1 editions. Under a snapshot of the couple wearing coats and ties, it began, ``Troy Duty and Maughn Rollins will formalize their relationship in a commitment ceremony this evening at The Santa Fe Restaurant. A reception will follow.''   Butcher braced herself for a flurry of complaints from readers. She received two. The ceremony went smoothly. Dressed in tuxedos, Duty and Rollins gave readings, exchanged vows, posed for snapshots and stuffed themselves with cake. Of the nearly three dozen relatives Rollins invited, four showed up. Most of Duty's family stayed away also, with the notable exception of his maternal grandmother, who traveled from Southern California to be there. ``I'm a gung-ho Mormon. But I can't turn away from these children I've loved all my life, 'Juanita Jacob said by telephone from Westminster, Calif. ``I don't approve. I don't disapprove. It all boils down to, `Do I love them?' And I do.''  Watching Hawaii: Gay couples in Utah and elsewhere are keeping a close eye on Hawaii, where the state Supreme Court in 1993 ruled that a refusal to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated the state's Constitution. The case, which is pending, could pave the way to legalized gay marriage there and spark legal challenges from gay-rights advocates in other states. Like most gay couples, Duty and Rollins say they want to enjoy the legal rights that come with marriage: filing a joint tax return, providing insurance coverage for a spouse and inheriting property. ``It's important to have the choice to get married if we want. We're not saying that all gay couples should,'' said Duty, a customer-service representative for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Utah. But many conservative and religious groups believe that extending marriage privileges to gays and lesbians would be seen as an endorsement of homosexual lifestyles. ``The reason that married couples are allowed all these privileges is to encourage the raising of families. Homosexuals don't deserve those benefits. They don't make the sacrifices the rest of us do to raise families,'' said Gayle Ruzicka, leader of the Eagle Forum, a conservative Utah lobby. ``We're not out to tell people they can't be homosexuals. That is their choice,'' Ruzicka said. ``But if we start recognizing same-sex marriages, that certainly would send a message to children that we think homosexuality is OK.''  Duty and Rollins are following the Hawaii case, and say they would get married there if gay weddings were legalized. In the meantime, they are busy raising Nicole, Duty's 7-month-oldniece. Duty's sister gave birth to the infant in July and signed over legal custody to Troy shortly afterward, fearing she could not care for the child. Under the terms of the custody arrangement, Duty's sister may not reclaim the girl until she straightens out her life. ``It's a huge emotional risk we're taking. It's a lot to ask for us to bond with this baby knowing she could be taken away,'' said Rollins, who works at a bookstore and teaches part time at Salt Lake Community College. But Duty does not think his sister will ask for the child back anytime soon, if ever. ``We fully expect to raise her,'' he said. This unorthodox family shares a small house on Salt Lake City's east side, where Rollins and Duty are learning to juggle three jobs, day care,3 a.m. feedings and diaper duty. They don't believe Nicole will be harmed by growing up in a gay household without her mother near by. ``We both feel that as long as we both love her and can provide a safe and stable home for her, we're doing as good a job as any straight couple,'' said Duty. ``Straight people have been raising children for centuries and look where the world is. Gay people certainly couldn't do any worse.'' [Footnote- I (Maughn) teach college in New Jersey but last year we bought a home in St. George, where I commute once a month. Troy is a flight attendant. Troy adopted Nicole in Utah as a single parent, and before that he and I took new last names, Gregory, so that she would have that she would have that name on adoption and we would all have a family name together. When we moved to New Jersey in 1997 I was able to adopt as a second parent. per email from Maughn Gregory 25 November 2015] 

1999-Senator John McCain met with Arizona state legislator Steve May, a gay Republican, who was in the process of being discharged from the Army reserves. McCain said he stands by the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but would look into his case to be sure he was being treated fairly.

2002- Correspondence between Ben Williams and David Nelson: 
BW: David, I thought you said that you had donated GLUD's material to the Marriott Library. 
DN: No. In fact, I remember leaving it all in your hands in 1997 at the Utah Stonewall

David Nelson

Center at 770 South 300 West in Salt Lake City (not to suggest you were responsible for its loss). You noticed that it was already correlated and said it needed only cataloging (or, I could just be delusional again). So, I assume it remained part of the archives until the "dumpster day of infamy." David Nelson 

• I work at the Marriott Library and I just punched in Stonewall Center in the search engine (I'm not at work so I don't have access to the better search engine). We do have at least a couple books: Utah Stonewall Center: a community center for sexual minorities / Michael Crooks and Center of attention. which also seems to have something to do with the Center. Both items are in Special Collections on the fifth floor. I imagine that they have quite a few more items. I can ask my friend up there or anyone who knows more is welcome to go up there and take a look at what they do have. If you do want to look up some other items, this is the direct link to the card catalog:http://www.lib.utah.edu/information/unis/index.html . If that doesn't work, just type in http://www.lib.utah.edu and click on library catalog. Hope this helps a little.~Laurie

Teinamarrie Nelson

2002-Teinamarrie Nelson to Ben Williams:, Thank you for your support in my decision to take a break.  I truly appreciate it. I read the email about the lost archieves.  I know that I have several newspaper clippings on AIDS and gay related issues.  I also have copies of World AIDS Day program from about the last 8 - 10 years.  I may or may not still have copies of the Xchange.  I know I have older issues of the Pillar.  I'm still sorting through everything.  I am willing to part with whatever I have that would be of help.  I know I have duplicate RCGSE canidate paraphenelia since the 18th or 19th reign.  I know I have old UAF Oscar, Walk and other event programs.  I may even have some photos I would be willing to have scanned on a disk. I am more than willing to turn things over to you.  I would prefer not to turn them over to certain people.  I hope you can understand. Happy Holidays, TM

Harry Hay

2002 New York Times Magazine, December 29, 2002 Gay Dad By Armistead Maupin On his 90th birthday, the father of the modern gay movement was honored at the new Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center in San Francisco. The ''campus'' of the facility had recently been named for the late Chuck Holmes, the city's leading producer of gay  male pornography - an unapologetic pairing of sex and social justice  that Harry Hay must have reveled in. For well over half a century,  taking his cues from both Marx and Kinsey, he chased a dream of  a ''golden brotherhood,'' and that night, sporting an oxygen tube and  a crown of purple pansies, the original pinko-Commie-queer seemed the  very picture of a dream achieved as a man in naughty nurse drag wheeled him out to greet the crowd. We remember him largely for the Mattachine Society, a group of seven gay men who began secretly assembling in a Los Angeles basement about the time that ''I Love Lucy'' entered the American consciousness. Named for the medieval jesters who wore masks while stirring rebellion against the monarchy, the society was committed to the daring notion that ''no boy or girl approaching the maelstrom of deviation need make that crossing alone.'' Its guiding precept - Harry's precept - was that homosexuals were not just lone degenerates without recourse but were a clearly definable minority capable of achieving change through solidarity. Back then in California, it was illegal for more than two queers to gather in one place at the same time, so the original Mattachine members took an oath of secrecy that effectively remained unbroken for a quarter of a century. The society was modeled on a Communist cell, a unit that Harry knew well. In the mid-30's, he had fallen in love with a charismatic young actor named Will Geer and followed him into the party. But the man who would one day be known as television's Grandpa Walton just didn't understand his lover's growing obsession with homosexual organizing, and most of Harry's straight comrades were openly aghast at his shamelessness. They finally bullied him into choosing a bride, though neither she nor the children they adopted could turn the tide of Harry's desires. By mid-century he had parted ways with both family and party to pursue his oddball vision of men loving men without fear. His chief ally in this was a new lover, Rudi Gernreich, a designer who would eventually give the 60's its most leeringly hetero novelty item: the topless swimsuit. Though the other five Mattachine members had been part of Harry's Marxist circle, egalitarianism seldom prevailed. Harry, in fact, seems to have been something of an autocrat, judging from a new documentary film about his life, in which Harry's fellow pioneers recall him as a ''benevolent dictator'' and ''intellectual bully.'' No one, however, denied the power of his ideas or the feeling of safety and purpose afforded by their underground brotherhood. It was not to last. As the Mattachine Society spread to other cities, younger members began to reject the secrecy and paranoia of the old order. What's more, the rise of McCarthyism had made Harry's Commie origins as embarrassing to these new queers as his queerness had been to the Commies. He was ousted from the Mattachines and once again set adrift in the world. He would not find vindication until the late 60's, when groups like the Gay Liberation Front began to regard the Mattachines as weak-kneed traditionalists. By then, however, Harry was already seeking answers elsewhere. Living in New Mexico, he began to study berdachism, the Native American practice of raising ''third gender''  children as spiritual intermediaries between the sexes. By the 70's he had begun to wonder if all gay people weren't meant to serve such a purpose and if, in fact, the desperate new drive for assimilation wasn't missing the point entirely. The result was the Radical Faeries, a group devoted to gay spirituality that Harry co-founded in 1979. At its first meeting, Harry, now in his late 60's, exhorted some 200 men to ''throw off the ugly green frogskin of hetero-imitation to find the shining Faerie prince beneath.'' This sensual pagan regimen, characterized by mud baths and ecstatic dance rituals, would serve Harry well as his last Utopia. Several of his Faerie brothers were present when he died in San Francisco on Oct. 24. And that cranky but courtly bossiness never left him. ''He had dying wishes,'' said Eric Slade, the director of the new film. ''In fact, several guys received lists of instructions.'' Armistead Maupin is the author of ''The Night Listener.''

  

2004 I [Ben Williams] wrote an extensive article on Utah's Response to the AIDS Epidemic, an abbreviated version was presented at the Utah State Historical Society in 2003. Research for the paper led me to some very disturbing allegations many which I believe are more probable causes for the spread of AIDS in the Gay population rather the  mutated green monkey virus theory. We know that racist experiments using unsuspecting African Americans as guinea pigs were conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service. Four hundred poor, illiterate Black sharecroppers in Tuskegee, Alabama were given syphilis. and the doctors who carried out the experiment lied to the men and their families, telling them only that they were suffering from "bad blood." Radiation experiments were conducted on unsuspecting U.S. citizens during the Cold War years with even American children being given small doses of radiation in their cereal. Here in Utah, citizens were allowed to be downwind of atomic fallout while the official government spokesmen stated that there were no dangers. Dr. Sabin had a bad batch of live polio vaccine that killed hundred. Some blame the Smallpox eradication project by WHO as spreading HIV in Africa by a contaminated batch of vaccine. Strange that the sexual revolution of the 1970’s, which involved many more heterosexuals than homosexuals, would produce AIDS almost simultaneously only in Gay populations in large American cities many as far apart as 2,500 miles.  Maybe not so strange-the Military-Industrial-and Pharmaceutical Industries were working day and night to produce bio-weapons during the Cold War. On July 1, 1969 Dr. Donald MacArthur, deputy director of the Pentagon under President Richard Nixon testified before a congressional subcommittee during a hearing on chemical/biological warfare stating: “Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our

relative freedom from infectious disease. During the early 1970s, the U.S. Army’s bio-warfare program intensified, particularly in the area of DNA and gene splicing research but under the guise of the National Cancer Institute. In 1971 President Richard Nixon initiated his famous War on Cancer, and ordered that offensive bio-warfare research especially “genetic engineering of viruses” continue under the umbrella of orthodox cancer research. Immediately a major part of the Army’s bio-warfare research was transferred over to the National Cancer Institute where retro-viruses were created for the first time. As predicted by Dr. McArthur, by 1974 new cancer-causing and deadly to the immune system viruses were created at the National Cancer Institute. In October 1976 the United States mobilized for an unprecedented inoculation program against an “influenza virus.” Governmental scientists warned of an outbreak of a deadly strain of the swine flu- similar to the influenza that decimated the world some sixty years earlier during World War I.  “Free” vaccination was offered to Americans and tens of millions lined up for their shots at public schools, governmental buildings, universities, medical institutions.  Never before or since has America taken a pro-active stance against a perceived health threat. The polio vaccinations of the 1950’s was for an already known disease. However Swine flu never

came to America. One has to wonder whether was it really swine influenza that governmental medical authorities wanted Americans inoculated for, or for some other unknown virus? While Swine flu never came to Utah, in January 1977 there were 11 confirmed cases of Guillian-Barre-Syndrone which was associated with many different kinds of viral diseases caused by reaction to the flu shot. G.B. Syndrome was virally similar to Epstein Barr Syndrome which also attacks the immune system and had never been seen before in Utah. One night stands were fashionable in 70's in both straight and Gay communities- not just in the Gay men’s community.  And yet it was the Gay population  which was under attack for the spread of venereal disease.  In an article for  the Salt Lake Tribune dated 19 June 1977, Dr. Harry L. Gibbons, health director of Salt Lake City and County chastised “homosexuals promoting Gay rights to become more responsible in providing VD information to health officers….Be it homosexual or heterosexual, that is irresponsible sex, and constitutes a health problem, and therefore an additional tax burden. I would not mention homosexuals per se except it is my opinion that the percentage of VD problems resulting from homosexual contacts constitutes a much greater percentage of the overall VD problem.” Ten years after Dr. McArthur’s testimony before congress, in 1979, the first AIDS cases were surfacing in the U.S, mostly where Hepatitis B experiments were being performed. By the beginning of the

1980s, Dr. Wolf Szmuness was awarded millions of dollars for his research and he collaborated with the most powerful medical institutions in the nation. Global connections included the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyons, France, and even the services of the Sengalese Army in Africa were employed to secure blood specimens in one of Dr. Szmuness' many African experiments. After the Hepatitis-B experiment ended, Dr. Szmuness insisted that all thirteen thousand blood specimens donated by Gay men be retained at the Blood Center for future use. Due to space requirements, it is highly unusual for any laboratory to retain so many old blood specimens. When asked why he was keeping so many vials of blood, Dr. Szmuness replied, "Because one day another disease may erupt and we’ll need this material."  Years later in 1985 when this stored blood at the Blood Center was retested for the presence of HIV antibodies, government epidemiologists were able to detect the "introduction" and the spread of HIV into the Gay community sometime around 1978-1979, the same year Dr. Szmuness’ Gay Hepatitis-B experiment began.  With the publication of And The Band Played On in 1987, the media became obsessed with author Randy Shilts’ "Patient Zero" story about a young Canadian airline steward named Gaeton Dugas "who brought the AIDS virus from Paris and ignited the epidemic in North America."  Dugas was diagnosed with AIDS-associated "Gay cancer" in June 1980 in New York City at a time when over twenty percent of the Manhattan Gays in the Hepatitis-B experiment were already HIV-positive. This 20%  infection rate was discovered after the HIV blood test became available in 1985, and after the stored blood at the New York Blood Center was retested for HIV antibodies. There

was no mythical Patient Zero after all. The Gay men of the Hepatitis B Experiment in 1980 had the highest recorded incidence of HIV anywhere in the world for that time. Even more than in African populations, where AIDS has been touted to exist for decades if not centuries. For that year, this extremely high infection rate is the highest rate of HIV infection ever recorded for any "high risk" group in the AIDS medical  literature. The main stream media continues to promote unlikely stories about the origin of AIDS, always avoiding discussion of the idea that HIV came out of a laboratory, and always pointing the finger to black Africa.  Many claim that AIDS existed latent and undetected in the Gay population prior to the Hepatitis experiments however "in those (Gay men) who received all three injections, 96% developed antibodies against the (hepatitis) virus. The experiment could never have been so phenomenally successful if the Gay men were infected with HIV before the experiment.  Studies have shown that hepatitis B vaccination is not very successful in immunodepressed people. In HIV-positive individuals, the success rate of the hepatitis B vaccine is about 50%, only protecting one out of two people infected with the  AIDS virus.” This suggests that Gay men in Dr. Szmuness' study were healthy before the experiment--and damaged afterward. The experiment would have been a failure (never 96% effective) if the immune systems of the men hadn't been working at full capacity.  At the time Dr. Szmuness was carefully selecting the healthiest Gay men in Manhattan for his vaccine trials, the country was going through one of its most homophobic period in history. America’s far right darling, Anita Bryant unleashed a religious backlash against Gay people in 1977. In October 1978, one month before Dr. Szmuness' experiment began, California voters were deciding whether to outlaw Gay people from teaching in the state's schools and in November of that year Harvey Milk, the first publicly elected official in America, was assassinated. His killer was declared not guilty due to his diminished capacity caused by stress and eating too much junk food I don’t know whether the introduction of HIV via the hepatitis B trials was a deliberate attempt to liquidate the Gay community--and then blame homosexual men for spreading the disease to the "general population" because of their perverted and "high risk" lifestyle. Who knows? Could have been a lone maniac working out of the National Institute of Heath not necessarily a wide conspiracy.  or it simply could have been an accidentally tainted sample. AIDS Project Utah in 1986 sponsored nine different speakers in a Salt Lake AIDS

Mathilde Krim

Symposium including Dr. Mathilde  Krim, co-chair of the American Foundation for AIDS Research. She was the keynote speaker. Dr. Krim also suggested that AIDS was spread in the Gay Men’s community from tainted gamma globulin during the Hepatitis B experiments on Gay Men in the late 1970’s. But she hypothesized that the concurrent appearance of AIDS through out the world may have resulted from the use of Gamma Globulin extracted from African Blood donors. One does have to believe in a lot of coincidences to accept official versions of the origin of AIDS. Why did a new "Gay disease" erupt as soon as homosexuals officially came out of the closet? Why were new retro viral diseases, never before seen in modern medicine, appearing so soon after retro viruses were "discovered"?  Why did the AIDS "super virus" appear a decade after it was predicted by the bio warfare experts? Why are Gay men, HIV-positive infants and poor Blacks the new experimental subjects for drug companies?  Money of course.

•          Jere Keys wrote Wed, 29 Dec 2004  Ben, Interesting article. I’m curious, though… do you believe there is a connection between the experiment and the early spread of HIV in America? Your column seems to imply so, without directly stating it. Or was it just a case of coincidental timing? I’m not asking you to rewrite the article or anything, I’m just curious about your personal opinion. Jere

  

2005 State senator has a lot more on his plate than most Talk of the Morning: What's in a

Nickname? By Thomas Burr The Salt Lake Tribune  Sen. Scott McCoy is driving home a point about his nickname, "The Gay." He's putting it on his license plate. The Salt Lake City Democrat, who is Utah's only openly gay senator, ordered a personalized license plate with his sexual orientation emblazoned on it. McCoy says he's keeping the white Ski Utah plate as a souvenir but he's not going to put it on his car.  "I think it's funny, but I don't want to reenforce that that's all I am," McCoy said Wednesday, noting he has standard plates on his vehicle now.  The term came from a Salt Lake Tribune story quoting conservative Sen. Chris Buttars' reaction to hearing that McCoy had been elected by Democrats to fill a vacant seat. "The gay?" asked a surprised Buttars, who then declined to comment. McCoy was elected by his district's Democrat delegates after former Sen. Paula Julander resigned for health reasons. Elizabeth Solomon, who, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of

Elizabeth Beano Solomon

Utah, fought the Utah Department of Motor Vehicles to allow the word gay on plates, said it was great that McCoy had ordered the plate.  But, she added, "he should put it on his car."  Solomon, who has a gay son and two adopted kids who are gay, has the personalized plate "GaysROK" on her car. She has offered to donate $50 to the Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Community Center for every person who orders and displays on their vehicle a plate with the word gay. Solomon says McCoy doesn't qualify unless his car is wearing it. "He's cheating," she said.  tburr@sltrib.com Beano Solomon

2005 Volunteers needed at the Center!! Neighborhood Captain Volunteer Positions for the

Linda Lee

Neighborhood Potluck  Network (NPN) – An Exciting NEW Program of the GLBT Community  Center!  Neighborhood Potluck Captains needed to organize and run monthly GLBTQ Potlucks in their neighborhoods.  We are looking for Captains for the following areas: § Westside - Rose Park, Poplar Grove, Glendale, Marmalade, North Temple§  Downtown - Downtown SLC, Avenues, Capitol Hill, U of U § Tooele - Tooele, Erda, Bingham Canyon, Vernon, Eureka, Grantsville, Stansbury Park, etc. § Summit - Park City, Coalville, Peoa, Oakley, Kamas, Francis, etc Weber – Weber county Captains must have e-mailing capabilities, must be motivated and organized, and willing to speak to the group at each potluck.  Each captain is encouraged to serve for a term of at least one year. This is a great opportunity to meet people and help fill a need in the  community!  Contact NPN President Lynda Lee for all the details: Lynda Lee

Rebecca Chavez-Houck

2008 Homes for children Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck is once again ready to carry the banner for equality -- and for children in Utah who need stable, loving homes -- during the upcoming session of the Legislature in January. The Salt Lake City Democrat will sponsor the same "Forever Homes for Every Child" bill that she submitted in the 2008 general session to lift restrictions that prohibit cohabiting couples, gay or straight, from adopting or acting as foster parents. Author:    Tribune Editorial

2016 St. George Spectrum Bree Burkitt Nearly a decade before 21-year-old Matthew Shepard was beaten, tortured and left to die in a Wyoming field, there was Gordon Ray Church. Just like Shepard, Church was brutally killed primarily because his attackers believed he was gay. The 28-year-old Southern Utah University student was taken by two recent parolees to a remote location in Millard County, where the men attached jumper cables to his testicles, used the car battery to shock him and then sodomized Church with a tire iron to the extent that his liver was pierced. They then beat Church to death with a car jack before burying him in a shallow grave. Unlike Shepard, Church’s killing was a decade too early to receive national recognition as an LGBT hate crime. There were no hate crime prevention acts or foundations created in his name. In two separate trials, Michael Anthony Archuleta and Lance Conway Wood were both convicted of capital murder. Wood was sentenced to life in prison, while Archuleta, who was believed to have been the primary instigator, was sentenced to death. More than 28 years later, Wood remains incarcerated in an Oregon prison while Archuleta is one of the nine men on Utah’s death row awaiting execution by lethal injection.  After growing up in a devout LDS family in the small community of Delta, he was eager to explore his interests and build his own life as a student at SUU. “We got the sense that his parents were disappointed but supportive to an extent,” Kathy Long said.  Long, who is an employee of The Spectrum & Daily News, developed a close friendship with Church through mutual friends while they were both in college. The pair would meet to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee outside of the Sharwan Smith Student Center after their morning classes. Church, Long and two other friends were actually planning to meet for a last-minute dinner before everyone returned to their family homes for the Thanksgiving holiday. The plan was to meet at an apartment before heading to the restaurant in the early evening on Nov. 22, 1988. First, Church just had to stop by the 7-Eleven on South Main Street to pick-up a pack of cigarettes and then he’d be right over to head to dinner, Long recounted. But the predetermined meeting time passed and Church wasn’t there. Two hours passed and there was still no sign of their friend. There was no answer when they called his house, so they went to dinner without him. While they didn’t think to contact police, they were concerned because it wasn’t like him to just not show up without an explanation. “He just never showed up,” Long reminisced. “It was strange because he had always been so dependable. That’s one of the reasons why we waited so long.” Long would learn the next morning that Church’s body had been found approximately 76 miles away off a deserted dirt road in Millard County. Archuleta and Wood were never supposed to be living together. The two men had both been recently released from prison. Archuleta, who was 26, for a drug offense in Utah County, while 20-year-old Wood had served one year after he was convicted of stealing and crashing a motorcycle in Bountiful when he was 18. Despite the fact that it violated both of their parole guidelines, the two parolees had been living in an apartment in Cedar City with their respective girlfriends for a few weeks. On the evening of Nov. 22, the two men were bored. Wood’s girlfriend was out of town for a few days, so the pair headed out to the 7-Eleven to get a soda before adding a few ounces of whiskey to each of their drinks. That’s when they met Church. According to testimony from Wood’s 1989 trial, the two men just started a conversation with Church while he sat in the parking lot in his white Ford Thunderbird. The three men then decided to cruise down Main Street in Church’s car. They even pulled over to chat with two young women during their drive, according to witness testimony during the trial. They then drove to a secluded area in Cedar Canyon as the sun began to set. As they parked the car, Church revealed to his new companions that he was homosexual. At this point, Wood and Archuleta’s versions of what transpired differs drastically. Wood alleged that the two men had previously made the decision to rob Church because “he was a homosexual,” while Archuleta asserted there had been no such conversation. This is not the only place their stories differ. According to Archuleta, Church offered to engage in anal sex after he told them he was gay. He even asked him to use a condom, but Archuleta changed his mind and stopped halfway through. Wood told police that Archuleta sexually assaulted Church with a knife to his throat before turning to Wood and asking if he “wanted any.” What is clear is that the two men then began to attack Church. At only 5-foot-5 and approximately 150 pounds, Church was fairly easy for the two men to tackle to the ground following the sexual assault, breaking his arm and the lower left portion of his jaw in the process. Trial prosecutors later established that Wood used a knife held in a scabbard on his belt to cut Church across the throat, resulting in a superficial wound in the shape of an “x.” During the trial, Wood detailed how Archuleta then bound Church with tire chains and a bungee cord found in the trunk of his own car. While he was still conscious, Church was shoved into the trunk of the car and trapped there as the two men drove north on Interstate 15 for nearly 80 miles. They stopped nearly an hour later in a secluded area in Millard County known as Dog Valley. The brutality only continued in the new, deserted location. After removing Church from the trunk, battery cable clamps were attached to him and to the car battery in an attempt to electrocute him before they beat him on the head with a tire jack and tire iron, according to trial records. Injuries to Church's skull were so severe that a medical examiner later testified that they appeared similar to if his head had been run over by a truck. His lifeless, mangled body was then dragged up a hillside and buried in a shallow grave covered by twisted dead tree branches. With Wood at the wheel, according to trial records, the two men left the crime scene and headed north on the I-15 before abandoning Church’s car in Salt Lake City. With their pants covered in Church’s blood, they headed to a local thrift store to buy some clean clothes. Archuleta told the clerk that the blood stains were from a rabbit hunting trip the night before. After dumping their clothes in a drainage ditch in Salt Lake County, Archuleta and Wood hitchhiked back to Cedar City. They were home free. But then Wood panicked. Wood told his parole officer how he had witnessed Archuleta kill someone less than a day after they had left Church’s body buried in Dog Valley. In the early hours on Nov. 24, Wood, accompanied by his parole officer and the Iron County sheriff and attorney, returned to the scene of the crime. Wood even retold the story to Millard County officials over breakfast after they realized that the actual murder had occurred in Millard County. Millard County Sheriff Robert Dekker, who was heavily involved in the investigation and prosecution process, still remembers being guided to the body by Wood. “You don’t ever like to deal with those kind of things, but it’s a part of the job,” he said. “It was right before Thanksgiving, so it was a difficult time. It was a difficult case to investigate. It was a very brutal crime.” Wood was initially arrested as a material witness due to concerns that he’d try to run off, Dekker recounted. It didn’t take long for investigators to figure out that Wood had done much more than just watch Archuleta kill Church after reviewing the crime scene. “The physical evidence at the scene — especially the blood splatter — gave him away,” Dekker said. “And the way he was talking. It was obvious that he was involved from the get-go.” Archuleta was arrested shortly after in Cedar City on a parole hold. Millard County isn’t exactly a hot spot for violent crimes. FBI crime data indicates just one or two murders every few years. In 1988, the population of the small county was barely 11,700. All of these factors made the brutal murder of Church particularly difficult for the community. Church’s family, which lived in Delta, was well known throughout the county, Dekker remembered. “Some people were affected by it really hard. The Church family was respected really well in Delta. They were a well-known family,” he said. The crime took a large enough toll on the community that a change of venue was granted for both Archuleta and Wood’s trial. So the Millard County Sheriff and the County Attorney packed up their offices and moved up to Utah County for Archuleta’s trial, barely 13 months after the murder, in December 1989. Wood’s trial immediately followed in January 1990. In both trials, the two defendants kept pushing the responsibility on to the other. Archuleta’s attorneys attempted to shove the blame on Wood, while Wood’s defense team portrayed Archuleta as a seasoned criminal who acted as the ringleader throughout the entire assault while Wood waited quietly in the car. Dekker saw right through their defenses.

“We had blood on both of them, on both of their clothing,” he said. “They would shift responsibility back to the other guy, but we had a lot of physical evidence from the crime scene that tied both of them back to it.” Church’s blood was found on the back of Archuleta’s jacket and on Wood’s shoes. A strand of Church’s hair was wrapped around Wood’s shoelaces. A medical examiner testified that the cuts on Church’s back were likely caused by a dull-tipped instrument similar to the red-handled side cutters found in Wood’s jeans. The front of Archuleta’s pants, which were recovered from the Salt Lake drainage ditch, were drenched in Church’s blood. Both men faced a long list of charges on top of the one count for the murder, including aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping. But a hate crime charge never made the list. Prosecutors hardly attempted to prove that the crime was motivated by Church's sexual orientation because hate crime laws wouldn’t even exist until three years later in 1992. The evidence was there, though. During Archuleta’s trial, Millard Sheriff's Sgt. Charles Stewart testified that Wood had told him during a police interview that Archuleta said he wanted to rob Church “because he was a homosexual.” In the second trial, Wood testified that “Mike (Archuleta) said Gordon was a faggot and he wanted to rob him of his money.” Long even recalled investigators telling her that a witness had heard Archuleta say, “Let’s get the fag” inside of the 7-Eleven. No other record of this exchange was found. “They couldn’t charge it as a hate crime because it just didn’t exist at that point, so that part of Gordon’s murder just got lost,” she said. “It should have been a real flashpoint in gay rights or hate crimes if it had been dealt with a little bit differently. The context of the time really didn’t allow for that, though.” Ultimately, the prosecution's attempt to portray Archuleta as the main instigator worked.  He was sentenced to death, while Wood received a lesser sentence of life in prison. Dekker believes the drastic differences in sentencing had more to do with their physical appearances than their actual roles in the crimes. Archuleta, a Hispanic Catholic, seemed to fit the look of a murderer better with prison tattoos covering his neck, Dekker recalled. “Wood (during the penalty phase) was a good Mormon boy who had his old (Boy Scout) master and bishop come to testify how good of a kid he was,” he said. “Archuleta didn’t have that. He was an adopted kid (though Wood was also adopted). I think that definitely had an effect on the jury.”  At his sentencing, family members of the then-22-year-old Wood said that he had a strong desire to be rehabilitated, finish high school and to even get married someday. With his life sentence, though, he had no choice but to accomplish it all from within prison walls. Wood was initially held in the Utah State Prison, but was transferred to an Idaho facility under the Interstate Compact, which allows for the transfer of inmates between states. There, Wood managed to accomplish one of his goals when he married Renee McKenzie, the ex-wife of an Idaho state senator. She eventually left him to marry the convicted murderer. McKenzie was appointed to help Wood with his court paperwork while working as a paralegal for her former husband’s law firm in 2012. She had agreed to Wood's request to help him fight a federal case against an employee of the Idaho Department of Corrections who accused him of sexual harassment, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Portland in 2014. Wood was accused of having inappropriate relations with four different prison employees. But the pair began to develop romantic feelings as they worked on preparing Wood’s defense, the court document detailed. The relationship went unmonitored by prison officials as they believed McKenzie was working under the supervision of a lawyer. Their affair was discovered in 2013 when a prison staff member read a letter McKenzie wrote to Wood that revealed their relationship was no longer strictly professional. McKenzie was later investigated by the county for practicing law without a license, but no charges were ever pressed. Wood was transferred to an Oregon facility in 2013, which McKenzie said was a calculated move to keep the couple separated. They ultimately married in 2015 before filing a federal lawsuit seeking $50 million in punitive and compensatory damages based on claims that they faced retaliation from the Idaho Department of Corrections staff for their continued work to uncover corruption within the prison system. The case is still pending at this time. Wood, now 48, is not currently scheduled for a future parole hearing. Archuleta hasn’t stopped fighting his death sentence since the jury’s decision was read in the Fourth District Court 27 years ago this month. In nearly three decades, Archuleta has come close to facing his looming execution only once in 2012. His appeal on the grounds that his trial and subsequent appeals counsel was ineffective was rejected by the Utah Supreme Court in 2011. A federal judge ultimately halted the firing squad execution after Archuleta decided to pursue an appeal in federal court. While that appeal was also rejected, Archuleta’s case is continuing to unfold as he remains on death row in the Utah State Prison. A new brief appealing a Fourth District Court’s decision to dismiss a previous appeals claim alleging that he was ineligible for execution because he was “intellectually disabled” was submitted on Dec. 19. “We have presented evidence to the court that Michael does have an intellectual disability, therefore he has a merited claim that he should be exempt from execution,” David Christensen, the lead attorney in the case from the Utah Federal Defenders Office, said. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that defendants who are found to be intellectually disabled could not be sentenced to the death penalty as it was considered to be cruel and unusual punishment because of the deficiencies generally related with disabilities is known to reduce their level of culpability. The decision to not bring attention to Archuleta’s alleged intellectual disability during the initial trial wasn’t an oversight by his trial counsel as it wasn’t even a real claim at that point. Court documents indicate that Archuleta’s mental health history was investigated extensively during the trial preparation. A board-certified forensic psychologist did not uncover any brain damage or recommend any possible lines of defense based on his mental health or intellectual levels. But Archuleta did have a known history of both physical and mental health issues. He was born in what court documents describe as “deplorable conditions” to a 16-year-old until he came in contact with the Charitable Trust and Custody Services of the LDS church. The 3-year-old was covered in cigarette burns and was in a “filthy state” when he was taken into their custody, according to court documents. He was placed with a foster family, who eventually adopted him. The problems continued throughout Archuleta’s youth as he suffered from ADHD and spent a significant time in the Utah State Hospital and mental health facilities, where he may have been sexually assaulted. A second post-conviction evaluation in 2006 concluded that Archuleta suffered from a neurocognitive impairment that heavily affected his ability to write and spell. Andrew Peterson, with the appeals division at the Utah Attorney General’s Office, argued that it just isn’t enough to prove Archuleta was actually intellectually disabled. “His attorney sort of guessed that he is,” he said. A previous request to have Archuleta re-evaluated during district court proceedings was denied on the grounds that that the information should have been presented to the court sooner, but instead his attorneys had been “sitting on it,” Peterson explained.  “The court wouldn’t even allow the expert to go into the prison to evaluate him because he’s not even allowed to present all of the information because of the timeliness issue,” Peterson said. The intellectual disability claim was actually tacked on to an earlier appeal to the federal court, but federal law prohibits the court from considering any claim that hasn’t already been presented to the previous courts. The matter will now be considered by the Utah Supreme Court before returning to the federal court. Peterson speculated that the claim was only brought forward to further delay the execution.

As to if — or when — Archuleta will ever face execution, Peterson estimated that he could still have years left of appeals if that's the route he wants to take. But Dekker is hopeful that he will one day face his punishment for the nearly 30-year-old crime. “I’m still waiting for that phone call to come up and witness that execution,” he said.

2017 Dr. John Reeves PhD died in Boston, Massachusetts age 83. He was a co founder of Beyond Stonewall with Ben Williams and vice chair of the Gay and Lesbian Community Council of Utah. He raised a Mormon family in Sugar House before divorcing and coming out as a Gay man at the age of 52.  In 1988 he moved to Boston for better opportunities and was a professor of Sociology at Bunker Hill Community College in Cambridge where he taught for nearly 20 years. He created the first sociology class on the topic of homosexuality convincing his administrators of the need of it for the student body. He married Jimmy Hamamoto a former radio personality from the KRCL family who moved

to Boston.

Ben Williams -My heart is diminished learning that Dr. John Reeves PhD passed away last night in Boston. I met John when he attended a support group I started in 1986 called Married and Divorce Gays and Lesbians. He had gone through an ugly divorce and was just coming out at the age of 52 and was now in a world he didn't know and he depended on me to be his guide even though I was a novice too in a brave new world. I took him to all the bars back then and even at our age we danced the night away. When I wanted to create a summer retreat for Gay people up in the mountains it was John who encouraged my dreams and helped me with the process. He was the one who came up with the name Beyond Stonewall the capsulate that we were heading from liberation to creating. John always said I was doing "my Ben thing" when I would start a new group or get involved in SLC Growing acceptance of Gay people. He was vice chair of the Gay and Lesbian Community Council in 1988 when I learned he had to leave Utah because Utah Valley College wouldn't renew his teaching position. He moved to Boston, struggled until landing a position at Bunker Hill Community College where he taught Sociology. He was the first person to teach a class on Homosexuality which he persuaded his administrators to allow him to teach. From 1988 to 1992 I would go back to Boston and stay with him and oh the adventures we had. After that a faerie friend of mine Fuku went back to Boston for a KRCL conference and he met John... Love took root and Jimmy moved back to Boston to live with him and eventually when the law allowed married John. I know that a part of my world just got smaller knowing John is no longer in it but he lived the latter half of his life a true and authentic Gay man. Condolences to Jimmy Hamamoto just doesn't seem enough for the loss of beloved John.
Chis Reeves - A short tribute. I still feel numb, but while smoking a cigarette about to get in line for security, for the flight to Boston, that I frantically booked at 1:30 in the morning last night, while thinking I would not get to say goodbye, I learned that I did not get to say goodbye. He knew I loved him, and I know I loved him, and know he loved me...but to at least to have squeezed his hand. My Grandfather, John Pitt Reeves, father of 5, survived by 3 children, Brian, Amanda, a.nd Connie, passed away, not long ago. He was a Mormon, and gay. Torn to pieces his entire life, and tried to live it 'normally.' He told me so many stories, but I will just say that he did still believe, and was religious, but his religion hated him, for who he was. He made mistakes. He was far from perfect. But he was a beautiful man, a smartass, without an ounce or shred of anger in him. Sweet, and what I wish I could be. My relationship truly began with him when I was 16. Before that, he moved out to Marion Road, out in Framingham with us, when I was a kid, because he was fleeing a broken marriage, needed a new start, and needed family. That, age the age of 5 for me, began the Reeves divide. But, my first real trip to spend time with him was when I was 16, and I learned that he was just as crazy smart, rather, wicked smart, and as amazing as my father. I spent a month out there, in Boston, bopping over to DC, New York. Seeing art, museums, Jimmy (dragging me out to music ever other night all over wherever we were). Ever year after, I would spend two to three weeks at least in Boston, with him. I could probably claim by user's right their pullout couch, because I'm sure I'm the only one who's ever slept on t, and have now for hundreds of nights. He was a brilliant psychologist turned sociologist. An amazing teacher. As sweet as he was, he was a fighter, and a survivor of AIDS for 30 years. A story I lovingly tell, which isn't a lie, is that the character sketch for Robin William's character in A Good Will Hunting is my grandfather. They are not the same, but that's who they interviewed. When my father died, neither of us could cope. We broke down together, and we made a twisted psychological promise. We would remember my father, but, we would project and swap places, and keep each other whole. We have done so for years. My grandfather, John Pitt Reeves, father of Mark David Reeves, father of John Christopher Reeves is dead. And this world became a bit dimmer tonight, because that joyous soul has left it.