This Week In Lambda History October 16–31 by Ben Williams ben@slmetro.com
16 OCTOBER
be of greater service’’ to patients and their families.
18 OCTOBER 1998 Eight West and East high pupils challenged the Salt Lake City School Board’s ban of all non-curricular clubs as unfair and shortchanging students.
1975 Ms Magazine editor Gloria Steinem spoke at the University of Utah to an audience of over 5,000 on the Equal Rights Amendment. She mentioned Utah’s Gay Community Service Center and that new consciousness raising sessions were soon to be initiated by a lesbian counselor associated with the center. 1988 Utah Valley Men’s Group said that BYU is threatening gay students with expulsion unless they agree to undergo “reorientation therapy”. 1998 A 13-year-old boy at Provo’s Centennial Middle School stepped to the microphone and wished that “gay men be crucified on Main Street and lesbians be burned at the stake.’’ Some of the students cheered.
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1956 Radio City Tavern had its beer permit suspended by the Salt Lake City Police Department vice squad. 1987 Chris Trujillo and Yvette Del Rio won the Mr. & Miss Golden Spike Universe Pageant Contest at Backstreet. 1987 The organizational meeting of the Gay Community Council was held at Aardvarks Cabaret. At the meeting, they officially adopted the name Gay and Lesbian Community Council of Utah. 1988 Ben Williams spoke at the Utah Valley Men’s Group on “Gay History and Gay Liberation through Political Activism.” The group was under attack by Brigham Young University Standards officers. 1988 Utahn Barry Fairbanks died of AIDS at age 34. 1992 Elder Loren Dunn of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints First Quorum of the Seventy stated that the church was now willing to talk with leaders in the AIDS community to “explore how the church could
1980 Dr. Nyla Cole, Dean of the Psychology Department at the University of Utah spoke at a Salt Lake Affirmation Meeting on her research in human sexology. 1983 The Lesbian and Gay Student Union of the Univ. of Utah and KRCL sponsored a concert with singers Cris Williamson and Tret Fure at Kingsbury Hall. 1986 The Mayor of Salt Lake City and the Governor of Utah both declared the last week in October as AIDS Awareness Week. 1989 Rocky (Connell) O’Donavan and Ben Williams spoke at the National Organization for Women conference on the role of men in the feminist movement. 1998 About 300 people protested the Salt Lake City Board of Education ban on all non-curricular high school clubs.
1915 George Tainter and Mike Murphy of Salt Lake City were convicted of sodomy with Louis Smith. Murphy and Tainter were sent to prison. 1963 Third District Judge Joseph C. Jeppson ordered that only men may wear trousers in family disputes arising before the court. Slacks and toreador pants were considered improper attire for women in divorce actions.
20 OCTOBER 1991 Salt Lake Tribune featured an article on Peggy Tingey and her son Chance, both infected with AIDS. They are the sister and nephew of activist Becky Moss.
22 OCTOBER 1976 LDS First Presidency spoke against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, saying, “We fear it will even stifle many God-given feminine instincts.” The First Presidency stated its first objection to passage of the ERA fearing: “an increase in the practice of homosexual and lesbian activities, and other concepts which could alter the natural, God-given relationship of men and women.” 1976 Conscious Raising Encounter Group began to meet at University of Utah campus to “talk openly of their hang-ups” with dealing with their own homosexuality. 1985 Dr. David Perkins, a Logan pathologist, said “because homosexuals are mostly likely to be exposed to AIDS, there is a rule that a person who has ever had even one homosexual experience since 1977, cannot donate blood,” to calm fear about the spread of AIDS through blood transfusions. 1997 Spanish Fork High School teacher Wendy Weaver sued the Nebo School District over its order prohibiting her from discussing her sexual orientation or lifestyle.
23 OCTOBER 1914 Bert Downie of Salt Lake City filed a complaint against Frank Thompson charging him with assault with intent to commit the “infamous crime against nature” upon Downie, “who was then and there a male person”. 1979 Salt Lake Tribune ran the story “BYU Security Personnel Can Operate Off Campus: Gays Protest Power.” 1983 Lesbian Mothers, co-parents and lesbians considering parenthood meetings were held at 20 Rue Jacob. 1987 AIDS Awareness Week is sponsored by AIDS Project Utah, Rocky Mountain Infection Control, Salt Lake Women’s Council of Realtors, KTVX Channel 4, ASUU of the UofU, and the Royal Court of the Golden Spike Empire. The morality rate of people with AIDS in Utah is higher than in other states because Utah had no Medicare-approved hospices for the terminally ill. 1988 AIDS Project Utah’s AIDS Awareness Week Benefit was canceled. 1992 Feminist singer Margie Adam performed on the University of Utah campus as a benefit for the Utah AIDS Foundation and the University Student Health Services. 1994 First awards banquet of the People With AIDS Coalition of Utah was held. Sen. Orrin Hatch was the recipient of the Political Social Award for sponsorship of the 1990 Kennedy-Hatch Bill which established the Ryan White Fund.
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SALT LAKE METRO ■ OCTOBER 27, 2005
24 OCTOBER 1954 Salt Lake City police arrested one man and sought another for masquerading on city streets as women. 1986 AIDS Project Utah sponsored an AIDS Awareness Week with comedian Roseanne Barr, “Domestic Goddess” and sister of APU founder Ben Barr, performing at Symphony Hall. Other entertainers included Johnny Crawford of the Rifleman series, the Saliva Sisters, mime Joe Pitti, and singers Rusty Richards and Davyd Daniels. The event was hosted by actress June Lockhart and emceed by radio host Todd Collard. 1986 Richard Cochran, director of APU, caused a riff in the community when he expressed his gratitude for “the first AIDS Awareness Week,” though the Royal Court had twice sponsored such activities. 1987 The Run for Life race held as an AIDS benefit sponsored by lesbian bar Your Place or Mine. 1989 Melissa Sillitoe and Michelle Davies are elected Utah Gay and Lesbian Youth Group officers. 1994 About 20 skinheads from the “Army of Israel’’ hassled a meeting of Cedar City gays and lesbians held to promote understanding among Southern Utahns. 25 OCTOBER 1979 Approximately 40 men and women formed the Gay Awareness League in Pocatello to increase awareness of the existence and needs of gays in Pocatello and eastern Idaho. 1987 AIDS Project Utah sponsored “Laugh for a Life” again with Roseanne Barr, and comedians Pam Matteson and Louie Anderson at Symphony Hall. The Salt Lake Men’s Choir and the Lovebirds, who were the first gay drag performers to play at Symphony Hall, were local acts.
1988 Ben Barr and Ben Williams founded the Utah AIDS Memorial Quilt Project.
26 OCTOBER 1986 Singers and Gay activists Romanovsky and Phillips performed a benefit for AIDS Project Utah. 1997 Cleve Jones, founder of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, was a speaker at the People With AIDS Coalition of Utah’s fourth Community Awards. 1998 The LDS Church gave $600,000 to the political-action group Save Traditional Marriage ’98 according to a report in the Honolulu Advertiser.
27 OCTOBER 1979 Women Aware, a lesbian-feminist organization sponsored a Womyn’s Dance at the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City. 1986 Nine different speakers came to Utah to participate in a lecture series on AIDS sponsored by APU. Dr. Mathilde Krim suggested that AIDS spread in the gay men’s community from tainted gamma goblin during the Hepatitis B experiments on gay men in the late 1970s. 1992 The Salt Lake Tribune featured an article on AIDS activist Mason Rankin and his Kindly Gifts Organization that held meetings called Stitch and Bitch.
28 OCTOBER 1864 A Salt Lake City trial court dismissed sodomy charges against Frederick Jones, a soldier at Camp Douglas, because Utah had no sodomy law. Later that day, unknown assailants murdered the man for having molested an LDS youth. 1977 Utah Supreme Court Justice Albert H. Ellett stated that pornographers were “depraved, mentally deficient, mind warped queers”. 1979 Studio 8 held a benefit show for The Boise Seven. Some of the lesbians involved in the lawsuit against the city of Boise were at the benefit. 1985 The Gay/Lesbian Alliance, a support group for homosexuals, was formed at Utah State University in Logan. 1987 Dr. Paul Volberding spoke at the University of Utah about the pandemic nature of AIDS.
29 OCTOBER 1979 The Salt Lake Gay Athletic Association was formed to put gay people in contact with others who would like to participate in sports and to form group activities. 1985 An LDS Hospital obstetrician who used donor sperm to inseminate infertile women said he won’t perform the procedure again until he was certain that donors could be adequately screened for AIDS.
30 OCTOBER 1973 University of Utah’s Daily Chronicle featured the story “Gay Church Welcomes Community Unwanted” about the Metropolitan Community Church of Salt Lake City. 1978 The Gay Student Union of the University of Utah elected Allen Blaich as chairman, and Carl Boyer and Jimmy Hamamoto as officers in charge. 1982 Chuck Whyte presented the first Unity Show to unify the gay community. 1987 Women Against AIDS benefit was held at Puss N Boots.
31 OCTOBER 1975 Rev. Bob Darst, pastor of Grace Christian Church, resigned. 1980 Rev. Robert Waldrop pastor of MCC Salt Lake was a candidate for state representative. 1980 Bob Edwards began The Imperial Court of Utah’s fundraiser for Toys for Tots with a Halloween Fashion show. 1988 The Blue Horizon bar in Ogden closed. 1988 Rocky (Connell) O’Donavan, Robert Erichssen, and Ben WIlliams formed the Gay Historical Society and Archives for Utah. 1995 Stuart Reid, a Democratic Mormon Salt Lake mayoral candidate, stated, “I’m opposed to an attempt by Rich McKeown and the homosexual community to get special recognition from city government for particular hiring preferences, and also for the homosexuals to gain special benefits for their companions.’’ Deedee Corradini won the election. Ben Williams is the founder and president of the Utah Stonewall Historical Society, at utahstonewallhistoricalsociety.com