This Day In Gay Utah History March 22nd

22 March

1890 Hanrahan is Held- The case of Thomas Hanrahan, the individual who was arrested a days ago on the charge of commiting a ““Crime Against Nature”” came up for a hearing in police court yesterday morning and the examinationwas held with closed doors. At the conclusion Justice Laney announced that he would hold the defendant to await the action of the Grand Jury and fixed his bonds at $1000. The defendant succeeded in finding sureties and was released. Salt Lake Herald. [Note in 1903 Thomas Hanrahan was friends with an “eccentric man” named William X Ryan who was murdered  in July of that year. He testified in court regarding information he knew about his friend.]

1947-US President Harry Truman signed executive order 9835, which set up a procedure to check all executive branch employees and job applicants in order to purge out known or suspected homosexuals.

1960-Radical John Birch Society Moralist Police Chief W. Cleon Skousen was fired by Salt

Lake City Mayor J. Bracken Lee. (03/22/61 Page 15 Col.7 SLTribune)

1975- Brigham Young University began an effort to expel all homosexual male students. Known as the “purge”, BYU security officers interrogated students majoring in fine arts or drama. Security operatives also took down license plate numbers of cars parked outside Salt Lake City Gay bars and cross-checked them with cars registered with BYU by current students.  BYU’s president, Dallin Oaks acknowledged these activities in general term in the Salt Lake Tribune “Ex BYU Security Officer Gary Moss”-Provo-A former undercover agent for the BYU security force says an atmosphere of intrigue, spying, censorship, and harassment pervades a large part of campus life at the Mormon Church owned school. Joseph “Skip” Morrow who says he quit the security force in disgust in late 1973 said he personally was asked to take spying assignments which he considered beyond the responsibility of a law enforcement agency. Morrow who says he remains a loyal member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints graduated from the 25,000 student Mormon institution last year and now works in a quick-stop grocery store in Springville, Utah. BYU security chief Robert Kelshaw denies the charges. “We haven’t done anything any other police department hasn’t done,” Kelshaw said adding that his operation is open to public scrutiny. “We have nothing to hide,” he said. Morrow says  he isn’t ready to charge that any thing illegal was done, but he says he thinks many activities  come close to being illegal. “The BYU security force pays no attention to the human rights of anyone on this campus-faculty or students. It’s Big Brother all the way. They harass innocent people. Everybody can be under investigation. Its the atmosphere. They keep files on everybody for any reason. Only God knows what they keep on file on people in this school,” Morrow said. He said BYU under cover agents have used electronic devices to spy on students both on and off campus, in dormitories, private apartments, married student housing, and in the streets..” Morrow said, “Witch Hunts” are conducted especially for drug abusers and homosexuals. Kelshaw denies that dormitories or other housing facilities have been bugged per se but he did admit that electronic devices have been planted on students to gather information on roommates or acquaintances. He also admitted that there has been some off campus surveillance as far away as Salt Lake City. Kelshaw also acknowledge as Morrow alleged that searches of dorms and other student housing have taken place without bona fide search warrants.  But Kelshaw said no search has been conducted without verbal permission or a signed statement of acquiesce from students involved. Morrow said the statement signed by all students at time of admission to follow the rules and policies of the university is often regarded by security personnel as  “permission enough”. Morrow said he was asked several times to carry hidden electronic devices. One such assignment was to look for drugs at an all male party of students whose wives were at a church Relief Society meeting. He never completed the assignment. BYU President Dallin H. Oaks late Friday responding to the former under cover agent’s charges that said “an atmosphere of intrigue, spying, censorship an harassment exists on the BYU campus, replied “Nonsense”.  “We make every possible effort to conduct all university operations well within the requirements of the law. That includes the activities of our  security offices,” said President Oaks who is a lawyer.  The university leader also said he had nothing to add to BYU security Chief Robert Kelshaw’s admission in the article that electronic recording devices have been planted on students in order to gather information on roommates and acquaintances and searches where conducted of dorms and other student housing units without bona fide search warrants.  When asked if BYU security agents check known homosexual haunts looking for BYU students, BYU President Oaks replied that he personally didn’t know of any incidences but he wouldn’t be surprised if security officers had made such investigations over a period of time. Then when President Oaks was asked if there was a  more wide spread campaign to find drug abusers and homosexuals among BYU students he replied, “Our security force is charged with helping protect our university from influences that we are trying to exclude from our university community. Two influences we wish to exclude from the BYU community are active homosexuals and drug users and these subjects are therefore among those with which our security forces is concerned. But fortunately such occurrences are relatively rare…” he said. We don’t have a campus wide surveillance organization looking over the shoulders of BYU students. We don’t have need of that and would consider that kind of atmosphere at odds with the spirit of our campus, and the learning enterprise, in any case. Dr. Oaks said. … President Oaks also said he couldn’t answer if a student found to be homosexual or a drug user would be expelled.  The university follows disciplinary policies and treats each case individually, he said. When Asked if the university keeps moral files on students he replied that the BYU has many types of files such as health and academics files which would contain personal information that very sensitive information that very sensitive information is kept confidential and that the university has a policy for regularly destroying information for the protection of those involved. (03/22/1975 SLTribune A-10)

1976- “I spent most of the day in a fit of lethargy. I am so tired and confused at the mess my life is in but I’m contented at least by now being with Larry. Larry dropped by today but didn’t stay long just wanted to say hi and that he’d see me tomorrow. What a conflict is in my heart to love the Lord and yet be in the depth of sin, caught in the filth and mire of it.  But my heart also says that if pain is the price of love, so be it, but what an awful cost.” Writes a BYU student in his journal.

Russ Lane 

1986-  I called Russ Lane the leader of the Sunday night Wasatch Affirmation and asked  if he could still meet with me.  He could so I drove over to 12^th East where he was staying with Duane Dawson, who was the founder of AIDS Project Utah.  Russ had been staying with Duane Dawson and his roommate, sleeping on the couch.  He said that he had come to Utah February 27^th on a bus from San Jose, California because he felt that the Lord called him to come to Utah to start a chapter of Affirmation that was following the general charter of Affirmation.  The first meeting of his group was at his cousin, Randy Holliday’s home on the 2^nd of March. I told Russ that I might be able to get him a job at Utah Title were I worked. (Journal of Ben Williams)

1988-Tuesday- Ken Francis taught the lesson tonight at Unconditional Support on “What

Ken Francis 

are we Proud about in the Gay Community”.  After the meeting we went to Dee’s for coffee and there were probably close to 40 people there between Unconditional Support and The Salt Lake Men’s Choir.

1988- I hear that the owners of Your Place or Mine will be opening a restaurant at Beau Chaine’s old Aardvark Café.  I hope it will be a success.

1988-The US Congress voted to override President Reagan's veto of The Civil Rights Restoration Act. Jerry Falwell campaigned hard against it, saying it would lead to affirmative action for Gays and lesbians. The bill did not address Gay issues at all.

1990- The Anne Frank Holocaust Exhibit comes to Utah and sparks widespread protest because homosexuals are not permitted to be mentioned as victims of the holocaust “A 38 page educational supplement accompanies the exhibit, and is supplied to teachers who intend to visit with their classrooms.  The material covers data related to many elements of the holocaust, not all specifically related to Anne Frank.  Three pages were removed from the guide at the school board’s request.  The pages were entitled The Fate of the Homosexuals Under Nazi Rule.”

1994 JUDGE GRANTS KILLER A STAY OF EXECUTION Associated Press A 4th District judge has granted a stay of execution for Michael Anthony Archuleta, who was sentenced to die for the 1988 torture-murder of a Southern Utah University student. Archuleta, 30, was scheduled to die by firing squad Thursday. But Judge Lynn W. Davis stayed the sentence after receiving a challenge questioning the effectiveness of Archuleta's original trial attorney, Michael D. Esplin of Provo. Davis denied arguments last week by Archuleta's new attorneys, who asked for more time to prepare a motion to stay the execution. He said they did not trigger any legal reasons to halt it. But the stay was granted when Davis received a handwritten writ of habeas corpus from Archuleta. The writ allows a prisoner to be brought before a court and forces prosecutors to justify why that person is being detained. Archuleta's new attorneys, Ronald E. Nehring of Salt Lake City and Karen Chaney

Gordon Church

of San Antonio, are taking Archuleta's appeal free of charge. "The crime (Archuleta) was convicted of is shocking to most people, but that's not the issue we'll be dealing with. We go beyond that to look at whether he got a fair trial and whether or not the death penalty is appropriate," Chaney told The Salt Lake Tribune. Kris Leonard, assistant Utah attorney general, said defense attorneys have 90 days to amend the habeas corpus petition. "We're in limbo until the defendant acts," he said. If defense attorneys can prove the original counsel provided by Esplin was ineffective, then Archuleta could be granted a new trial and possibly obtain a new sentence, Leonard said. "It depends on what issues they raise to prevail upon," he said. Esplin said he welcomes the review of his work. "If there's something I missed, then the defendant should receive counsel that has the ability to pursue all the other alternatives for him," he said. Archuleta was sentenced to death for the Nov. 22, 1988, murder of Gordon R. Church in a remote region of Millard County. Authorities said Church's arm and jaw were broken, his neck cut, his liver stabbed and that he had been sexually assaulted with battery cables and a tire iron. Lance C. Wood, who also participated in the killing, was convicted of capital homicide in a separate trial but was sentenced to life in prison because he was barely 20 years old at the time of the crime.

1995 Peggy Tingey, who died last week of AIDS, holds her son Chance, who died of the disease last July, in 1991 photo. FRIENDS RECALL CARING WORK OF AIDS ACTIVIST ACTIVIST'S WORK AGAINST AIDS RECALLED byline: By Samuel A. Autman Page: B1 THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE  AIDS activist Peggy Tingey knew the virus would claim her young son before her. So when 4-year-old Chance died last July, Tingey struggled to keep living. ``He was her whole reason for living,'' said Kim Russo, outreach coordinator for the Utah AIDS Foundation. ``He was her heart and soul.'' Tingey, one of the first Utah women to speak out about AIDS, died Thursday from complications of the virus. She was 34.  Memorial services will be Sunday, at 1 p.m., at St. James Episcopal Church, 7486 S. Union Park Ave. in Midvale.  Tingey's was one of about 1,050 AIDS cases reported in Utah since the disease emerged in the 1980s, according to the Utah AIDS Foundation. Her death was one of 600 AIDS deaths in the state. In a 1991 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Tingey spoke of the anguish of knowing her time with Chance was limited. ``I put an emphasis on the baby's health first, but I realized I have to take care of myself to outlive him,'' she said. ``Then after he dies, I have a decision to make -- whether to live or die.''  Tingey served on the board of the People With AIDS Coalition of Utah from 1991 to 1993. She also joined the Utah AIDS Foundation's speakers bureau, traveling throughout Utah and visiting Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. Her message was tailored to the young: they too were susceptible to the virus. She always mentioned how she did not know for five years that she had contracted HIV.   Tingey believed a former fiance infected her in 1985 in Chicago. Upon returning to Utah in 1986 with Amanda, her 5-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, Tingey lived with her mother in Farmington. That's where she met Bill Tingey, whom she later married.  Soon after her son Chance was born in 1990, he became ill with thrush, an oral yeast infection. Within nine weeks, Chance was in the hospital for vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration and weight loss. After his thrush became resistant to medication, she and Chance were tested for AIDS. Chance had it and Tingey was HIV-positive. Neither Bill nor Amanda tested positive. Tingey turned her tragedy into lessons for others, often bringing Chance with her when she spoke. ``She was open and really dedicated to educating people about the disease,'' said Paula Stock, volunteer coordinator for the Utah AIDS Foundation. ``She would tell them you don't have to be gay or lesbian or a drug addict to contract the virus. That was her message.'' Don Austin, an AIDS counselor, worked with her.  ``Peggy was a pretty nice woman,'' recalled Austin. ``I did some presentations with her. She would talk about what it was like to be a person with AIDS. I would do the professional side of it. She was a delightful woman. She was extremely committed.''  Tingey and Cindy Kidd successfully sued to overturn a 1987 Utah law which automatically invalidated marriages of HIV-infected people. Kidd, who contracted the virus more than a decade ago, remembered working with Tingey on the landmark case.  ``She did so much work with educating,'' she said. ``I really admired the work she did with school children. I had a lot of respect for her.'’ Tingey's older sister Becky Moss remembers her as a funny, bright woman who felt compelled to go out and warn young people about the terror of AIDS. Moss said her sister devoted countless hours to speaking to youth in schools, detention centers and youth shelters. ``Peggy did not consider herself to be exceptional. She thought she was doing what anybody else would do,'' Moss said.

2000-Human Rights Campaign officials met with representatives of the transgender community to discuss tensions that had arisen after HRC lobbyists encouraged federal lawmakers not to support protections for transgendered people in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

2000-The US Supreme Court voted unanimously to uphold the University of Wisconsin's student fee system. The system had been challenged by conservative students who objected to part of their student fees being used for the LGBT Center and other groups whose views they oppose.

2003 Saturday Morning with the Mayor Comes to Stonewall Coffee Co. at 361 North 300

West in Salt Lake City. 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. You're invited to come and talk to Salt Lake City Mayor Ross Anderson, let him know what's on your mind or just drop by to say hello. City leaders can be available to answer questions, but let us know so we can be sure they're present. Incidentally, Stonewall Coffee Co. offers the best coffee on the northwest side of town -- many kinds of tea, juice and soda pop. Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Utah

Mike Picardi

2006  Mike Picardi A WEEKEND OF PROTESTS On Monday March 20th 30 of us gathered for an hour in the cold at the streetside entrance of the Grand America hotel to greet the hundreds of oil industry executives in Salt Lake City for the annual convention of the National Petroleum Refiners Association. Hats off to Julie for not only taking the lead on this but preparing information handouts and placards. I picked up the one i had been thinking about, "no blood for oil," only to discover that Julie had made one i considered more politically pertinent, "WMD? No, Oil? Yes." 150 people came out in a snowstorm on Sunday afternoon to attend the "Support the Troops, Bring Them All Home Alive Now! U.S. Out of Iraq" program organized by Veterans for Peace and the Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice. We received many compliments on the excellent program and even got some decent local television news coverage. 300 people rallied at Salt Lake's Washington Square/City-County Building mid-day on Saturday during a few hours of blessed sunshine. People For Peace and Justice organized a march from Pioneer Park and the rally. The Salt Lake Tribune (whose reporters have sometimes inflated anti-war protest numbers) only acknowledged 200 and emphasized the small size. This was a weekend for all kinds of local protests; there were protests in Logan and Park City and elsewhere in Utah. I received a note yesterday sent at the end of last week from my father in Grants Pass, Oregon which included a newspaper clipping about an upcoming local weekend protest organized by "the Peace House." My father was an Air Force pilot during World War II and now he was going to his first anti-war protest. Next step, join Veterans for Peace. Demonstrations around the U.S. and around the world were all rather small this weekend with the largest in the U.S. ranging into ten to twenty thousand on the west coast in Portland, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Somewhere around 80,000 marched in London and there were sizable demonstrations in Rome, Tokyo and Lahore, Pakistan. I saw a report that there were several protests in Iraq, in obviously difficult circumstances. Many of us are already working on the major spring anti-war mobilization which will take place on Saturday April 29. The next meeting of the local April 29 Committee is this coming Saturday, March 25, 9:30am in the 3^rd floor conference room of the SLC Library.

 2011 Man Fired from LDS Church For Refusing to Give Up Gay Friends Drew Call's stake president would not renew temple recommend based on Call's association with gay people. 

By Jesse Fruhwirth Salt Lake CITY Weekly The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ official policy is to accept gay people as members of the church so long as they take what is, in essence, a vow of chastity. But one Salt Lake City man, a church employee for more than a decade, is surprised and angered that he lost his temple recommend—a prerequisite for employment in the church—after he refused to give up his gay friends and was fired.  Drew Call, 32, a returned missionary who is gay, was a supervisor in the church’s printing department until March 4. At a February private meeting with his Salt Lake City stake president—who declined to be interviewed—Call says he was asked to abandon his gay friends as a condition for renewal of his temple recommend. Surprised and fearing people may not believe him, Call surreptitiously made an audio recording of the follow-up meeting in March so there could be no doubt about what happened. I want people to know that [the LDS Church] is targeting people unfairly,” Call says. “I do believe they wronged me.” Hoping to avoid the situation he now faces, Call had been looking for a new job for more than a year anyway. In this tough economy, however, it’s been difficult. The divorced father of two wanted to stay in the church’s good graces long enough that he could resign with dignity and financial security. The recording makes clear that Call’s association with gay people was the problem. Call served a mission in Massachusetts from 1997 to 1999 and got married at 24 to a high school classmate even though he wasn’t attracted to women. Raised in Layton, he wanted children and felt being gay was evil. “I thought getting married would fix it and this tendency to like men would go away, but it never did,” he says. He chatted online with gay men occasionally starting in 2008 as his marriage started to fall apart over financial issues and growing distrust. He was too afraid of sexually transmitted infections—and passing them on to his wife—to actually have sex with a man, he says. In April 2009, he filed for divorce. Unbeknownst to his stake president, he started secretly dating men. In October 2009, he started swimming with QUAC, the Queer Utah Aquatic Club, after meeting a coach at the gym. Still not completely honest even with himself about his homosexuality, he went to a party where he was “warned” the attendees would be mostly gay men. When he arrived, the host asked Call if he is gay or straight. Call said he was gay. “That was the first time I admitted it,” he says. In April 2010, the already-strained relationship with his parents grew more painful when they were told—not by Call—that he was gay. They were not accepting of it. He felt shunned at church and was still unsure if rumors were spreading about his sexuality or if it was just that he was divorced. His job was in jeopardy because of his small, secret steps toward living openly as a gay man. His only strong allies with whom he could be totally honest during a painful divorce, crisis of faith and job insecurity were his gay friends, many of whom had had similar experiences. “I had no idea how many great people are in the gay community,” he says. “I have better friends than I’ve ever had in my life and I’m happier.” That made his stake president’s demand that he abandon those friends inconceivable. On the recording, the stake president expresses concerns that Call recently had taken his daughters to “gay bingo,” a monthly charitable fundraiser hosted by the Utah Pride Center and the drag/comedy troupe Utah Cyber Sluts. “I think it’s inappropriate to take children, and I really think it’s inappropriate for you to go, myself, to this gay bingo,” the stake president says on the recording. Later, the stake president says of the gay community, “They are conducting themselves in a manner that is definitely in opposition to teaching and practices of the gospel. I’ve talked to you about this, about your association with [gay people]. Last time you left here, you were willing to give up your four, or so, individuals.” Call responded that he’d thought about it, but wasn’t willing to give up his gay friends after all. To receive or maintain a temple recommend, Mormons must answer certain standardized questions. The stake president says on the recording that the question Call could not answer honestly asks, “do you support, affiliate with or agree with any group or individuals whose teaching or practices are contrary to or opposed to those accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?” The stake president goes on to say that that question applies to Call’s gay friends “because of the moral decay that is going in the world and that’s part of it. The church opposes the relationship between a man and a man and a woman and a woman, and you’re associating with those individuals. I don’t know how to get around that.” “So what are you going to do?” Call asked. “You’re going to have to look for a job,” the stake president replied. In an e-mailed statement, LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter said, “All church employees are required to have a current temple recommend. Worthiness to hold a temple recommend is determined between each individual member and his or her local ecclesiastical leaders.” That’s the problem, says Dave Melson, president of Affirmation, a group for queer Mormons. The Maryland-based president of the national organization complains that LDS Church discipline in regards to homosexuality is inconsistent and often unfair. “You can go to one ward where you can be openly gay and your husband can hold a church calling [but] you go to the next ward over where you can be excommunicated simply for being gay. I’ve seen that literally,” Melson says. Melson’s group is working with the LDS Church to develop training manuals for ecclesiastical leaders on how to respond to gay issues. In 2008, the LDS Church supported passage of an employment nondiscrimination ordinance in Salt Lake City that—if it did not contain a religious exemption—would have made Call’s firing illegal. Brandie Balken of Equality Utah said Salt Lake City’s employment nondiscrimination ordinance—now duplicated in 11 Utah municipalities—protects workers from being fired for being gay, being perceived as gay or even just for associating with gay people. Balken said virtually all nondiscrimination laws across the country exempt religious organizations and that Equality Utah has not worked to change that. “The religious exemptions have consistently been in deference to the First Amendment of our Constitution,” she says. “It came as a big surprise that I couldn’t have gay friends and have a temple recommend,” Call says, stating there’s no explicit rule in LDS doctrine that you can’t associate with gay people. He’s not planning to fight the decision, however. Instead, he’s focusing his energy on finding a new job so that he doesn’t fall too far behind on his child support.

2014 Letter: Utah has wasted taxpayer money on worthless gay-marriage argument I was on the side of the state when it came to gay marriage, even though I grew up with a lesbian sister. I’ve believed that gay couples should have all the rights of a married couple just not marriage. I have been able to argue on the merits and believed the state would also. My sister didn’t agree with my argument, but she understood where I was coming from with full respect on both sides. The brief the outside counsel has filed on behalf of Utah is a disgrace (“Utah filing: Gay-marriage ruling a ‘judicial wrecking ball,’” Tribune, March 15). It doesn’t argue on the merits; it argues religious belief in what a family should be. It makes me a second-class citizen in the eyes of the state, for I have chosen to be a single man without children. A lot of my friends are married without children. So, in the state’s eyes, I and so many others wouldn’t be a so-called “valedictorian.” The taxpayers of Utah have just paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a legal brief when a sixth-grade student studying the Constitution would have a done a much better job. Shame on you. So what my sister Peggy was unable to convince me of, the state has. How ironic. Ed Tomsic

2016  Gay Men Aloud  posted a TOPIC SURVEY here on FaceBook. Thanks to all of you who participated and took time to give us feedback. The topics we had everyone voting on were issues/themes/topics we have been hearing at GMA meetings, and 1-1 discussions. The following are the results (1 to 10) of the voting, and we will be coordinating our GMA curriculum to focus on these topics that YOU selected in your voting. Again, much thanks. 

1. Finding JOY, while in the reality of day-to-day life. 2. Strengthening your Social & Emotional Connectivity. 3. Creating meaningful/sustainable excitement and strong purpose.

4. Finding a partner and desire for true intimacy in your mature years. Aging and Sexuality. 

5. Finding balance and staying relevant. 6.Releasing negative imprinting and moving beyond, releasing techniques. 7. Gay historical topics. 8. Comparing and exploring spirituality and organized religion. 9. The Importance of memory building, and activities that enhance it. 10. Coming out later in life strategies.