This Day In Gay Utah History June 28th

28 June

1900 A Revolting Case Yesterday three boys named Clarence Turner, Frank Wilson, and Rob Danley reported to the police that five tramps had seized them in the brush near the Ogden river and compelled them to submit s to their fiendish purpose.  Three  of the men Frank McCormack, Fred Wilson, and George Powers are now under arrest charged with sodomy. The other  two escaped, The Salt Lake herald. (Salt Lake City [Utah)

George Merrill & Edward Carpenter

1929-Edward Carpenter, co-founder of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology in 1914 and lover of George Merrill, died at age 84. He was a socialist poet, philosopher, and early activist for rights of homosexuals. He inspired E.M. Forster novel Maurice.  On his return from India in 1891, Carpenter met George Merrill, a working class man, 22 years his junior, and the two men struck up a relationship, eventually cohabiting in 1898.  Their relationship endured and they remained partners for the rest of their lives, a fact made all the more extraordinary by the hysteria about homosexuality generated by the Oscar Wilde trial of 1895. Carpenter remarked in his work The Intermediate Sex:"Eros is a great leveller. Perhaps the true Democracy rests, more firmly than anywhere else, on a sentiment which easily passes the bounds of class and caste, and unites in the closest affection the most estranged ranks of society. It is noticeable how often Uranians of good position and breeding are drawn to rougher types, as of manual workers, and frequently very permanent alliances grow up in this way, which although not publicly acknowledged have a decided influence on social institutions, customs and political tendencies." Uranian was a 19th Century term used before the word homosexual came into medical usuage. It was developed from Plato's philosophy that same sex love was the highest form of love.

1934-Ernst Roehm, head of the Nazi SA and an openly gay man, was arrested and executed along with 300 other members of the Brown Shirts. Hitler wanted to purge the homosexual element from the paramilitary group that helped bring him to power as well as placate the German Army generals. The purge became known as "The Night of the Long Knives."

1935-Paragraph 175, the German sodomy law, was expanded by the Nazis to include kissing, lewd glances, and fantasies.

1969 At 1:20 a.m. on 28th of June, the police pushed opened the front door at the Stonewall and marched in. The strong front door, put in place by the Mafia owners, however allowed time for the white lights to warn patrons in the bar who instantly stopped dancing and touching.  The bartenders quickly took the money from the cigar boxes that served as cash registers, jumped from behind the bar and mingled with the customers. There were about 200 patrons in the bar that night. The mafia owners escaped through a back door and were safely out on the street as the cops, with their usually arrogance, stomped through, ordering patrons to line up and get their IDs ready for examination. The

only people arrested in raid were usually those without IDs, those dressed in the clothes of the opposite gender, and some if not all of the employees.  Everyone else would be let go with a few shoves, a few contemptuous words but it was annoying to have one's Friday night screwed up. This night many of the Stonewall Inn patrons were pissed and felt edgy and emotional over the funeral of Judy Garland which had taken place earlier. One of the patrons remembered his mood saying "It had got to the point where I didn't want to be bothered anymore." Some of the campier patrons, emerging one by one from the Stonewall Inn to find an unexpected crowd, took the opportunity to strike instant poses, starlet style, while the on lookers whistled and shouted the applause-meter rating.  However when a paddy wagon pulled up, the mood turned more somber and sullen when the police officers started to emerge from the Stonewall with prisoners in tow. The police, two of which were women, were oblivious to the crowd’s mood because everything up to that point had been so routine and were surprised when a few people started to boo and others pressed against the waiting van. The cops standing near the paddy wagon yelled angrily for the crowd to move back. "You could feel the electricity going through people. You could actually feel it.  People were getting really, really pissed and up tight".  A guy in a dark red T-Shirt started shouting "Nobody's gonna fuck with me! And "ain't gonna take this shit". As the cops started loading their prisoners into the van more and more people joined in the shouting.  Tammy Novak, one of three queens lined up for the paddy wagon was poked with a police club. He told him to stop pushing and when he didn't she started swinging! From that point on so much happened so quickly. That no one knows exactly what happened! Craig Rodwell the founder of the first Gay and Lesbian Bookstore in America was an eyewitness and he said "A number of incidents were happening simultaneously. There was no one thing that happened or one person, there was just ... a flash of group of mass anger." One story is told of how a dyke dressed in men's clothing had been in the bar visiting a male employee and was arrested for not wearing the requisite 3 pieces of clothing appropriate to one's gender which was a New York Law.  This version claims that she complained when the handcuffs they had put on her were too tight and in response one of the cops slapped her in the head with his nightstick.  Seeing the cops hit her, people standing immediately outside the store started throwing coins at the police.  However there has never been anyone to step forward and claim to be this person.  Other eye witnesses insist that it was drag queen that precipitated the events that led to the Stonewall Riots. Inside the paddy wagon a drag queen sporting nylons and a high heel kicked a policeman in the chest throwing him backwards and then another queen then opened the door and jumped out followed by

several others who managed to escape into the crowd. From this point on melee broke out in several directions and swiftly mounted in intensity.  The crowd, now in full fury began screaming at the police "Pigs" Faggot Cops” with Craig Rodwell screaming for the first time "GAY POWER". One teenager started kicking at a cop as the cop held him at arm's length and a queen mashed an officer with her heel knocking him down grabbing his handcuffs, freed herself and passed the keys to queens behind her. By now the crowd had swelled to a mob, and people were picking up and throwing whatever loose objects came to hand coins, bottles, cans, bricks from a nearby construction site. Mafia owner Zucchi egged on bystanders, in their effort to rip up a damaged fire hydrant and he persuaded a young kid to throw a wire mesh garbage can nearby.  The can went sailing into the plate glass window painted black and reinforced with plywood. Stunned by the crowd's unexpected fury, the police retreated inside the bar. Deputy Pine stated "I had been in combat situations but there was never anytime I felt more scared than then." With the cops holed up inside the Stonewall, the crowd was now in control of the street and

it bellowed in triumph and pent-up rage. The crowd then tried to smash down the door and Pine shouted "We'll shoot the first motherfucker that comes through!" One of the protestors then tried to set the bar on fire with the police inside using lighter fluid and matches.  Meanwhile the barrage of bottles cans, and rocks continued with one group even uprooting a parking meter to use as a battering ram against the police. The crowd finally began to disperse with the arrival of re-enforcement.  A brief report of the confrontation "4 POLICEMEN HURT IN VILLAGE RAID appeared on page 33 of the New York Times two days later.           Speculation on why the melee at the Stonewall Inn took place several observers suggested that Judy Garland's recent death contributed to the sense of Gay frustration and outrage. Others note that there was a full moon. On June 28th a second night of rioting broke out in Greenwich Village when a crowd once again gathered outside the Stonewall Inn to protest the previous night's raid.  The city’s Police Tactical Force units poured into the area to route angry protesters who were starting fires, throwing

bottles, and shouting slogans of "legalize Gay Bars’ “Gay Is Good. The battle between the police and protesters lasted nearly two hours.  At one point a group of Gay men formed a chorus line and began doing a can-can routine down the street until the police armed with bully clubs and night sticks charged and dispersed them. The taunting of the police went on into the early hours of June 29th. (Martin Duberman's STONEWALL and John DeMilio's SEXUAL POLITICS, SEXUAL COMMUNITIES.)

1970- On 28 June 1970, the 1^st  anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village came and went in Salt Lake City without celebration but Christopher Street Liberation Day parades were held in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco. New York City held the largest parade with an estimated 5,000 marchers. But activism was growing in Salt Lake also throughout the year. In August of 1970 Pam Mayne ran an ad in the Salt Lake Tribune for Utah’s Gay Liberation Front. The next day she received a phone call from the editor saying he couldn’t run it again because he didn’t want what happened in San Francisco to happen in Salt Lake.  The Christopher Street Liberation Committee organized a "Gay Be-In" in Central Park in New York to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

1970-Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, was arrested for blocking the sidewalk following a demonstration in Los Angeles. While in jail a MTF pre-operative transsexual was brutally beaten after being placed in the same cell with male heterosexual prisoners. Perry arranged for her release and went on a hunger strike to convince authorities not to put transsexuals in cells with male heterosexuals.

1976-The Washington DC city council passed an ordinance prohibiting sexual orientation from being grounds to deny custody or visitation.

1977 “Utah Fair Has It All” is the theme of the annual event to end its September 9-18 run this year with Anita Bryant, songstress and antigay rights publicist. Other performers will be Lynn Anderson Sept 9, Bill Anderson Sept 10, Barbi Benton Sept 11, Anne Murray Sept 13 and Crystal Gayle Sept 16. Fair director is Hugh C. Bringhurst. (SLTribune B16)

1979  Gay Pride Day- Denver’s Gay Pride Marching Band came to Utah to participate in Utah’s Gay Pride Day. Called the Denver Mile High Freedom Marching Band directed by Tom Robinson sponsored by the Sun Club and Joe Redburn. A protest and all night candle light vigil on the steps of the City and County building during Gay Pride Week drew national attention to Gay and Lesbian struggles in Utah on the 10^th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion.

1980- The 2nd Annual Gay Day at Lagoon Outing was held by Salt Lake Affirmation as part of Utah’s Gay Pride Week which was sponsored by the Tavern Guild. (Triangle Community Digest-Editor & Publisher Satu Servigna October 1987)

• As the new decade began, there was a lull in political activism in the Gay and Lesbian Community of Utah. Many of the firebrands from the 1970’s had burned out or moved on. The coalition of Gay bar owners formed the Tavern Guild to work together rather than against each other for patronage. The strongest social organizations, in Salt Lake City in 1980 outside of the bars, were Affirmation, the Lesbian and Gay Student Union, and the Royal Court. The Court System, while much larger than either Affirmation or LGSU was going through an upheaval and metamorphosing into the Royal Court of the Golden Spike Empire. MCC’s Bob Waldrop, the media voice of the Gay community in the 1970’s, had burned out. The Lesbian community was held together primarily by Women Aware and were more focused on the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Within the women’s community Lesbian Separatism was beginning to split the community between men and women issues.
• Affirmation sponsored  the 2nd Annual Lagoon Outing and the Lesbian and Gay Student Union at the U of U held a low key one day seminar as part of Gay Pride Week. The bars each hosted a Gay Pride Theme on various days of the week. While there were not a single Gay Pride Day event, Salt Lake City’s Gay bars, operating through The Salt Lake Tavern Guild, sponsored a float in San Francisco’s Gay Pride Day.  The community was in the doldrums without leadership and direction after being hammered by the Anita Bryant Save Our Children campaign 

1986- Howard Johnson, a Gay attorney, offered an amendment to the Human Services and

Michael Aaron

Resources section of the Utah Democratic resolutions addressing civil rights proposing that the words “sexual orientation be added.  The amendment was defeated by a large margin. Later the same day Bryan Stone Daly and Michael Aaron sponsored a plank in the party resolutions that the Utah Democratic Party would support funding for education, research, treatment, and hospice programs in response to the AIDS epidemic.  The motioned passed without dissent.

Ben Williams

1987- “At Wasatch Affirmation about fifty people attended and I sat on the ‘Deacon’ bench in the back with Curtis Jensen, Greg Harden, and Chuck Whyte.   Well Affirmation had to be the worse ever. Keith McBride gave an ‘Elders Quorum’ lesson on distinguishing differences between the church, the Gospel, and the truth.  I couldn’t believe it.  It was just like being in church with Keith quoting from scripture, well not really- just the Doctrine and Covenants.  I was challenging him on most of the ridiculous statements he was making.  Finally I reminded the group about Mormon Elder Poulman’s attempt to separate the Gospel and the Mormon Church, in General Conference of 1982 and how the general authorities made him change his speech and retape it.  The Mormon church does not believe there is a distinction between the Gospel and the Mormon Church and for Keith to say you could stay an active Mormon if you make that distinction was just plain irresponsible.  I know I was making a lot of people mad but still I knew a lot of people needed to hear what I had to say. In fact this one guy was so mad at me he got up and walked out. I went outside to talk to him and he said that he came here to hear the gospel not listen to a cat fight.  I said that this is a support group not a church and he responded by saying that I was interfering with Keith’s presenting his lesson and I was just being disruptive. I told him that if he wants church lessons perhaps he should go back to church but if he needs to be with people who are wanting to dialogue with each other then he should stay.  I also said that somewhere between the bullshit I’m saying and the bullshit Keith is saying is a point where reasonably thinking people can be comfortable.  I have to add that this guy was really drunk so who knows what his guilt hang ups are but at least he went back into the meeting.  The Wasatch group has gotten people so uptight that people won’t even get up and take a piss or get a drink of water in fear that they might draw attention to themselves.  After the meeting a lot came up to me and said they were glad that I spoke out. I said that I don’t hate the Mormon Church but that it's the general authorities are living in denial.  They have been like an abusive parent to their Gay children and they continue to deny they have ever been abusive or even that they have Gay Children!  The Mormon Church can only recover and begin to get well when they face the reality of what they have done to Gay Latter Day Saints. Admit it. Ask for forgiveness and then never do it

Steve Oldroyd

again.  For me to act like the Mormon Church is not abusive is to be like a child protecting an abusive parent because of that child’s fear/love of the parent. I will raise my voice in Affirmation and say no more abuse!. Steve Oldroyd gave me a compliment by saying my activism has given him the courage to be one himself. We make our mark whether we know we have or not.(Journal of Ben Williams)

1988 - I baked some sugar cookies in the shape of pink triangles for Unconditional support tonight. I did  a lesson on Gay Pride. About 25 people were at the meeting with about 3 new people. [Journal of Ben Williams]

1991 Friday, GAY PRIDE DAY MARCH WHITE SUPREMACISTS SHOUT AT GAYS DURING `PRIDE DAY' PARADE IN S.L. Hundreds of members of Utah's gay and lesbian community marched through downtown Salt Lake City Thursday to conclude their 10th annual "Pride Day." People who identified themselves as white supremacists shouted at the group and waved a Nazi flag during the march, but no physical confrontations erupted. Gays, lesbians, family members and friends carried signs and chanted as they walked from the State Capitol down Main street and east on 400 South to the City-County Building. More than a dozen police officers escorted the group and stood between them and 14 white supremacists during a rally at the building. The march and rally culminated a week long celebration that began June 16 in Ogden and included a day of speeches, fund-raising activities and music at the Salt Lake County Fairgrounds. © 1999 Deseret News Publishing Co.

• Supporters at the Second Annual Gay and Lesbian Pride March encountered some antagonists Thursday afternoon in the form of about a dozen skinheads.   "They tried to disrupt the rally and had signs that read `Thank God for AIDS,' " said Ben Barr, executive director of the Utah AIDS  Foundation. More than 300 marchers ran into the skinheads at the Salt Lake City-County Building,400 S. State, at the end of the route but it was"a peaceable rally," said Mr. Barr. (06/28/91 Salt Lake Tribune Page: D2)

• I wasn’t sure I was going to join the Gay Pride March today organized by Rocky O’Donovan but I did at the last moment. I joined Gary Boren and we ran up Second North behind the Deseret Gym to join the marchers on Main Street. I’d say about 500 to 600 people were at this march. We went down Main Street to Fourth South and finished in front of the City-County Building at Washington Square. MCC people were again noticeably absent from the march as were the Royal Court people. Anyway about ten skinheads with Nazi Battle Flags were on the steps of the county building ready to confront and hassle us. Organizers suggested that we turn our backs on them and while I had been in the front holding a GLCCU banner with Brenda Voisard and Maureen Davies we now were the closest to the skinheads. I was so proud to be with these brave women. The police stood between us and the pseudo Nazis, with their batons out to prevent any violence. I am sure several of the police wanted to do a number on the skinheads but there were no violence just verbal confrontations. I couldn’t hear any of the speeches being way in the back but I know Rocky O’Donovan, Melissa Sillitoe, Dale Sorensen, and Debbie Rosenberg all gave rousing speeches. Perhaps others did too. Debbie Rosenberg led us in singing Holly Near’s “We Are a Gentle Angry People”. The Nazis were saying things like “Out of the Closet Into the Grave” and carried signs which read, “Thank God For AIDS”. I could tell that David Sharpton (Note-Former founder of PWACU) was livid. He also told me that he got a hold of reporter Mary Sawyer about the Marinol issue. (Note-Marinol was a derivative of Marijuana which spurred appetite in AIDS patients) Sawyer is a news reporter for KUTV. Anyway the rally broke up about 8:30 p.m. [Journal of  Ben Williams

1991 Friday I was up all night long to keep Gary Boren company while he drove straight through to San Francisco. Part of the contract with Hertz is that no one under 25 can drive the vans. That left Nancy Perez, Kathy Rizer, John Crapeau, Gary Boren, Rocky O’Donovan, Dave Omer, Vince and myself the only ones able to drive. Jimmy Hamamoto doesn’t have a driver’s license. Anyway it rained on us off and on in Nevada and from Donner Pass on into San Francisco it rained pretty hard and steady. We got to San Francisco about 3 pm and we are staying at the Leland Hotel off of Polk Street and Bush Street across from the QT Bar. After unpacking we walked down to the Castro area to look around. It truly is a different world than I have ever experienced. Exciting yet also kind of strange and foreign. We went to the Different Light Bookstore and other shops. Everything and everyone is geared up for the Gay Pride Parade. The effects of the trip and lack of sleep was slowing me down but Jimmy and I went to this Thai Restaurant which was deliscious before he left to go stay with Dale a friend of his in the Haight-Asbury district. Later in the evening some of Curtis Jensen’s crowd wanted tp go to the STUD Bar. I went along with them because I wanted to go later with them to The Church Annex, which is a sex club.  Well the Stud Bar was a very young Reebock type of bar and I was not excited about it in the least so since Gary Boren was also tired too, we walked back to I think was 9^th and Tehoma where this sex club was located. It cost $8 to get in and it was a three story building. The upper floors were dark with petitions that formed a sort of maze. Most of the petitions had glory holes and hand grips.  The middle floor showed pornos and had some more glory hole areas and the refreshments were located there. They provided free beer and soda pop, hamburgers, and hotdogs. The basement was one huge room for I guess group sex. However we were done by 11:30 about the time the others said they got there amd they said it was really crowded and hopping after Gary and I had left. I’m finding that I really don’t fit in with the young set in Queer Nation.   [Journal of Ben Williams]

• Gary Boren 2 Sept 2011 Wow, Ben thanks for sending that! You should note that Devin Hanson was my boyfriend and he drove the other Van. Lewis Burgess was a friend of ours. Even after Devin and I broke up, Devin and I where very close after he moved to San Francisco and we went back to living together and to planning out lives together. We were as close as any too people could be until he died on November 23, 2002.

1999-Two gay men kissed on live television on NBC's "Today Show." Brian Patrick Thorton recalled the lip-lock with then-boyfriend Rich on his blog. Here is part of it: It was to be ambush theater at its best. Rich and I were two young, hot-headed queer activists in love. We’d met in the aftermath of the terrible October 1998 Matthew Shepard political funeral, during which dozens of mourners were arrested by New York City police. Since then we’d protested other hate violence, as well as police brutality in the city. So kissing on TV? That was nothing. We finally settled on the live-TV bait that is a marriage proposal, which is how that Monday morning at 6 a.m., we were standing in the Rockefeller Plaza with a sign that read: “Jill, Will U Marry Me?” The outdoor producer loved the idea of a man proposing to his girlfriend back in Ohio, and sprinted inside to run it by the higher-ups. But that morning, the first three Al Roker weather segments passed us over. We thought they must have figured us out as homos, despite our wearing our most heterosexual outfits. (Mine included an ill-fitting Structure polo shirt.) But then, in the 8:30 half-hour, Roker walked over to a couple celebrating a milestone wedding anniversary. What’s your secret, he asked. Pray, the husband answered. That finished, Roker barreled down the line of gathered fans, proclaiming that there was a guy who had something to ask. And with that, the camera and microphone were thrust in Rich’s and my faces. “Jill, I’ve got something I have to tell you,” I stammered. “I’m so happy that I love … Rich!” And with that, I turned to Rich, and we mashed our lips together in what is possibly the most awkwardly fashioned kiss in TV history. But it was history: the first (real) gay-male kiss broadcast in the U.S.

2002 Chad Keller UGRA Joint Marketing: Clair,  I am working right now on a couple of Joint Marketing programs to be proposed to the 4 major June events.  One of them would be to combine several of the printed items into one print job, of all the we need or newly designed items that will satisfy the needs of all.  I have another person that I am getting together with that is working on Joint Grant writing, and some crossover fundraising. I know that you are thinking of moving the Rodeo to August....I would like to talk to you more about that.  I know that some. well I can think of just one or two that has a problem with the onslaught of events in June.  There are many advantages to your weekend and current location...could it be the weekend before memorial day?? Call me or at home   And let me know when you will be downtown again, and when you, Clayton and I can get together to discuss the pros and the cons from your stand point.  After Denver would be fine...just don’t get to many people in on it right now, as I and the others making this proposal want to deal with those in charge first, and then if acceptable we will make the announcement. This would be complete marketing campaign promoting Coronation, Rodeo, Pride, and Walk for Life...and each of the groups yearly events....and hell no it wont cost that much...There could be some street banners in it for the Rodeo.....!! CK

Millie and Gary Watts

2003 NEA to Honor Gary and Millie Watts Gary Watts, a PFLAG national board member from Utah, and his wife and colleague PFLAG leader Millie Watts will be honored by the National Education Association -- our nation's largest educator group -- with the NEA's Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights in early July in New Orleans.  PFLAG is very proud of Gary and Millie for their efforts on behalf of families and youth in need, and we are gratified that a prestigious organization like the NEA has recognized the leadership of the Watts family. The Watts live in Provo, Utah and have a gay son and a lesbian daughter.

2003 SALT LAKE TRIBUNE EDITORIAL Left alone  The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down state laws that purport to ban specific kinds of private sexual behavior among consenting adults. The ruling will be denounced, as it was by the court's own dissenters, as judicial activism of the worst sort. But Justice Anthony Kennedy's ruling is nothing of the

Justice Kennedy

kind. It is, rather, a recognition that such bans had already withered from our laws, unenforced if not repealed. It says that the Supreme Court, rather than hold back the democratically expressed tide of history, has a duty to defer to it and, in enforcing the equal protection guarantees of the U.S. Constitution, to drag the few remaining holdouts into the 21st century. One of those holdouts is, was, Utah. Our law banning certain sexual acts among consenting adults was dismissed Thursday along with the Texas law on which the appeal was brought. Among the arguments the court correctly obliterated was one made by Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, and joined by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, that warned of the very collapse of American civilization were the sodomy laws to be wiped from the books.   Utah's sodomy law is now unenforceable but, sadly, not meaningless. It should be promptly repealed by the Legislature, lest it continue to be used as a fossilized club with which to beat gays and lesbians who, in the fevered imaginations of militant heterosexuals, violate the law on a regular basis. In order to overturn a particularly odious ruling of his predecessors, a 1986 Georgia case in which the court ruled against any fundamental right to sexual privacy, Kennedy had to do more than find the previous ruling in error. He had to note that public sentiment and, more importantly, state laws on the subject, had long been moving in the other direction. Before 1960, all 50 states had anti-sodomy laws. Since then, 37 states have dropped them, either by legislative action or the rulings of their own courts. Georgia was one of them. Texas was one of four that still banned sodomy only for same-sex couples. Utah was among nine that supposedly banned it for everyone. Supposedly is the word because, as Kennedy noted, the principle that laws limiting adult sexual behavior were more honored in the breach goes all the way back to colonial times. The vast majority of sodomy prosecutions, even by our supposedly puritanical ancestors, were against those accused of abusing children or forcing themselves upon the weak or incapacitated. Thus has Justice Kennedy exposed as a patent falsehood the idea that a government presence in people's bedrooms is a long-established tradition of our law. The true tradition of American law, to leave people alone unless there is a compelling state interest in interfering, is the real touchstone of the Constitution, the one to which the Supreme Court returned Thursday. 

2003 Lawsuit targets sodomy statute By Elizabeth Neff  The Salt Lake Tribune June 28, 2003 One day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws banning consensual sodomy, a Salt Lake County man is not waiting on state lawmakers to repeal Utah's statute. D. Berg has filed a lawsuit challenging the antisodomy law -- and another that prohibits Utahns from having sex out of wedlock. Filed Friday afternoon in 3rd District Court against the state, Gov. Mike Leavitt and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, Berg's lawsuit says he has privately violated Utah's antisodomy law by having heterosexual oral sex, and the fornication law by having sex with another unmarried person. Utah's consensual sodomy law forbids "any sexual act with a [unmarried] person who is 14 years of age or older involving the genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person, regardless of the sex of either participant." The anti-fornication statute bans pre-marital sex, saying "any unmarried person who shall voluntarily engage in sexual intercourse with another is guilty of fornication." Both crimes are class B misdemeanors punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Although Berg was not arrested for violating either law, he "fears criminal prosecution for past and future conduct," according to the lawsuit. The suit claims the laws have "inhibited [Berg's] ability to communicate and to pursue and further intimate personal relationships." Like the 6-3 majority decision issued by the Supreme Court on Thursday, Berg's lawsuit contends the sodomy statute is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. He makes the same argument against Utah's prohibition on fornication. The justices held a Texas law banning gay sex unconstitutional, as it dictates to consenting adults what should take place in the privacy of their bedrooms. Utah's statute is not specific to homosexuals, but the justices said consensual sodomy laws are attempts to control personal relationships that are "within the liberty of persons to choose without being punished as criminals." The ruling did not apply to two other portions of Utah's statute that prohibit forcible, or nonconsensual, sodomy and sodomy on a child.     Friday's lawsuit asks a judge to declare Utah's sodomy and fornication laws null and void, to enter a temporary restraining order preventing the laws from being enforced while the lawsuit is pending, and to award $1 in

Brian Barnard 

damages to Berg.     Berg is represented by Salt Lake City civil rights attorney Brian Barnard, who has said a court challenge would be necessary to remove the sodomy law from Utah code if legislators did not repeal it in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Barnard was not immediately available for comment, but has previously represented plaintiffs in unsuccessful attempts to overturn Utah's sodomy and fornication laws. Thirteen states still have laws against consensual sodomy. Of those, laws in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri apply only to same-sex couples. Eight other states in addition to Utah ban sodomy for all unmarried people: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

2003 Ben Williams to Marlin Criddle - I burned a CD recording for the USHS of the Rally on Thursday. I would like for you to have a copy. How can I get it to you? Ben Williams

• Marlin Criddle to Ben Williams Thanks a lot, Ben. And thanks also for helping to get the word out to people. I can pick it up from you, but I don't know where you live now. You can  mail it to me, or you can drop it by my office or home. 

2003 Ben Williams  to Michael Mitchell - Michael, I just wanted to drop you a line to tell you how moving your speech was at the State Capitol. You are a very dynamic and more importantly sensitive individual. I do not know you very well..I was dropping out as you were dropping in.. two ships in the night I guess.. but I am so proud to have you represent me and the other Gay folk of Utah. I know the struggle can be discouraging but I felt your spirit through you speech and I know in my heart those who are no longer here to voice for themselves would always say..Well done.  Best Regards Ben Williams

• Michael Mitchell-Ben, Your email brought tears to my eyes.  Thank you so much for

  

  Michael  Mitchell

  taking the time to write it. You know, I do what I do because there's nothing else I could do (sounds Seuss-ian... sorry).  I really feel in my bones that my mission for the time being is to be working on the front lines for our rights where my home is. It's an honor and incredibly humbling.  Thank you for the work you are doing to have our history be alive and present for us.  It makes a huge difference to know where we've been and to have a sense of community and history. Warmest regards, Michael

2003 Hey Everyone, As discussed and voted on by the General Membership, Court Meetings  have  been moved to the City Library.  Starting this Tuesday, July 1, the  Court  Meetings will be conducted at the City Library - Basement Level, Conference  Room B. I hope to see all of you there. July 1 - Court Meeting - 7:30 PM - City Library - Basement Level, Conf Room  B Thanks... Mark Thrash

Emperor XXVIII

BENT

2005 The GLBT Community Center and the GLBT Resource Center at the U of U invite you to a special screening of the movie "Bent, " in honor of Holocaust Remembrance month & Gay Pride month Tuesday June 28^th 6:30 pm in the Center Space 361 N. 300 W. SLC  801-539-8800 ext. 13 Discussion to follow, facilitated by the Director of the LGBT  Resource Center at the U of U – Charles Milne. Admission is free  Come watch the movie "Bent", a provocative story about two gay men at a concentration camp in Nazi Germany  "Bent" is a landmark film dealing with a subject almost never before tackled on the screen, and a must-see for those interested in gay and lesbian history.  Gay men, like the Jews, Gypsies, and others, were targeted by the Nazis in World War II-era Germany. Sadly, even many out and proud gay men and lesbians are unaware of this dark chapter in our history. Over 100,000 gay men were arrested as "degenerates" in Nazi Germany. Between 10,000 and 15,000 of these men were sent to concentration camps. Beautifully photographed and wonderfully acted, "Bent" opens with a scene inside a

Jennifer Nuttall

lively Berlin gay nightclub in 1934.  But this pretty picture soon fades when the gay witch-hunt starts and we see our hero Max (played by Clive Owen) being shipped off to a concentration camp.  At the camp, Max meets another prisoner, Horst (Lothaire Bluteau). Despite the fact that the prisoners were not even allowed to look at each other, much less touch each other, the two soon fall in love and give each other a slim shred of hope amidst their bleak circumstancesDon't miss this film and discussion about a very important chapter in our history.Jennifer Nuttall GLBT Community Center of Utah Program Director  

2005 For the Record Salt Lake Tribune Hearing scheduled in fatal stabbing A man accused of killing his estranged wife's girlfriend outside a West Valley City apartment building this month is scheduled for a preliminary hearing July 12 before 3rd District Judge Denise Lindberg. Trey Holloway Brown, 25, is charged with first-degree felony murder in the June 10 stabbing death of 27-year-old Norma Hernandez Espinoza. Gay and lesbian groups have labeled it a hate crime, but prosecutors say they have found no evidence of that under Utah law.

2006 HALL OF FAME INDUCTS 100S SALT LAKE CITY -- As part of the Utah Pride 365 Gay Freedom Day celebrations, the Utah Stonewall Hall of Fame published on June 28 the names of more than 600 Utahns who have been recognized for their service to and achievement among the state's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. "Our inductees have continued the fights and the victories of the Stonewall Inn rebels of 1969," USHF founder David Nelson said. "Like them, our inductees ran to the sound of the fight and joined it. Considered collectively as well as individually, they're the active, not passive, history of Stonewall in our state." The inductees comprise the people, places and things who have received awards, citations, honors and medals for their work since 1976. Additional inductees will be made annually on every June 28 Stonewall Day. Ongoing historical research will add as needed those inductees whose work was recognized in the past. The hall of fame is the most recent of several such groups throughout the United States.

2007 Michael picardi wrote: hey bud, I am out of town, but received notice of Chad's death. What happened?? Was he sick?? and will there be any type of service? Thank you,  Mike Picardi 
From: "Ben Williams" To: "michael picardi" Chad overdosed on some medicine he was taking for his Hepatitis C. I think he was also severely depress. He died on Monday and Kevin Hillman found him on Tuesday. I haven't heard of a memorial service here yet but his funeral is Monday July 2 in Thatcher Idaho.

2007 LGBT’s & Friends: Mountain West Volleyball League is having open Sand Volleyball - Thursdays at 6:30, Liberty Park.   Hope to see you there. If you have any questions, please feel free to call or drop me a line. Ralph Ingersoll  

2014 Salt Lake Q Host 40th Anniversary of Gay Freedom Day Come join us for a Family picnic up City Creek Canyon. Yes, 40 years ago this day, Joe Redburn, Nikki Boyer and patrons of the Sun Tavern went up City Creek Canyon for a kegger to celebrate Gay Freedom Day.Bring food and any kind of drink for you and your group. The pavilion is the very last up the canyon. This is a free event sponsored by QSaltLake. This will be very low-key. How many of you have even been up this canyon? Beautiful City Creek flows right by. There are limited tables. Bring camping chairs if you'd like. A table would be great.Enjoy a day with the Family. We'll start at 2 and go through 6pm. Though it is only 5.5 miles up the canyon, expect it to take about 20 minutes for the drive from the gate.