Celebrating 43 Years! Issue 31 Volume 45
Bigelow’s Detroit a historical wakeup call
“Infinity Mirrors” at SAM is stunning, worth seeing
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FRIDAY August 4, 2017 FREE!
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Seattle Gay News
Primary election roundup: Seattle will have a woman mayor
Federal judge to FBI: Produce the documents on 1950s Gay purge
Charles Francis, president of the Mattachine Society, requested the documents to examine the methods used to implement and enforce the Gay workers’ purge – Photo by Tom Williams
Jenny Durkan thanks her supporters on election night – Photo by Nate Gowdy
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer For the first time since 1928, Seattle will have a woman Mayor in January 2018. Four women topped the ballot in the race to succeed Ed Murray as Mayor of Seattle.
Leading the pack, and almost certain to make it onto the November ballot is former US Attorney and out Lesbian Jenny Durkan, with almost a third of the votes in a 21-candidate field.
see ROUNDUP page 6
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer A federal judge has ordered the FBI to conduct a new search for documents related to a Fifties-era program to purge Gays and Lesbians from government jobs. The July 28 ruling by US District Judge Royce Lambeth covers thousands of documents and could expose the anti-Gay roles
played by President Dwight Eisenhower, FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover, and Chief Justice Warren Burger, then an Assistant Attorney General. As president, Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which included the words “sexual perversion” – understood at the time as referring to same-sex attraction – as one of the grounds for stripping federal
see DOCUMENTS page 14
ACLU of Montana challenges Dug Sharpe inducted into legal sufficiency of anti-LGBTQ NAGAAA Softball Hall of Fame ballot initiative
Dug Sharpe in action – Photo courtesy of Dug Sharpe Protesting I-83 in Montana – Photo courtesy of ACLU of Montana
HELENA, Mont. – On Monday, July 31, the ACLU of Montana today challenged in the Montana Supreme Court the legal sufficiency of a proposed anti-LGBTQ ballot initiative, I-183. The petition argues that the ballot and fiscal impact statements fail to adequately explain the initiative’s discriminatory impacts on transgender individuals and state and local budgets. “Any description of the true intent of this discriminatory initiative – to prevent transgender individuals from using public
facilities that correspond with their gender identity – is entirely absent from the ballot statement,” said Caitlin Borgmann, executive director of the ACLU of Montana. “In order for Montana voters to cast an intelligent and informed vote they must have clear and accurate information about the Montana Family Foundation’s proposed initiative.” In addition to the harm the initiative
see ACLU page 13
by Sara Michelle Fetters SGN A&E Writer Dug Wehage Sharpe, a 23-year member of the Emerald City Softball Association (ECSA), this September will become only the fourth Seattleite to be inducted into the NAGAAA Softball Hall of Fame. When asked how he reacted when learning he was going to become part of this prestigious group of LGBTQ amateur sports icons, Sharpe could barely contain his emotion. “It was a mixture of disbelief and honor,”
he said with heartfelt candor, “It was one of the few times in my life that I can remember actually not being able to physically speak out loud.” The North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA) is an organization dedicated to the promotion of amateur sports competition, particularly softball, for all persons regardless of age, sexual orientation or preference. It includes 46 member cities in both the US and Cana-
see SHARPE page 14