Dan Vera, Humor, Marriage Equality, Religion, Right Wingers

Maggie Gallagher Speaks

November 8, 2009 Dan Vera Leave a comment

You can thank Jeff Whitty (of Avenue Q) for this bit o' truth.

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Gay Wisdom – Today in Gay History

Born

1712 -

The Prussian King FREDERICK II, was born. Interested primarily in the arts during his youth, Frederick unsuccessfully attempted to flee from his authoritarian father, the "Soldier-King" Frederick William I. Young Frederick persuaded his lover, Hans von Katte, to help him flee the prince's ruthless father. They were captured and sentenced to death. The prince was ordered to be present at von Katte's execution.

Frederick was a proponent of enlightened absolutism. For years he was a correspondent of Voltaire, with whom the king had a turbulent friendship. The works of Niccolò Machiavelli, such as "The Prince," were considered a guideline for the behavior of a king in Frederick's age. In 1749, Frederick finished his Anti-Machiavel — an idealistic writing in which he opposes Machiavelli. It was published anonymously in 1740, but Voltaire distributed it in Amsterdam to great popularity. Immanuel Kant published religious writings in Berlin which would have been censored elsewhere in Europe.

Frederick had famous buildings constructed in his capital, Berlin, most of which still exist today, such as the Berlin State Opera, the Royal Library, St. Hedwig's Cathedral, the French and German Cathedrals on the Gendarmenmarkt, and Prince Henry's Palace (now the site of Humboldt University). However, the king preferred spending his time in his summer residence Potsdam, where he built the palace of Sanssouci, the most important work of Northern German rococo. Sanssouci, which translates from French as "carefree" or "without worry", was a refuge for Frederick.

Some historians have speculated that Frederick the Great was homosexual, bisexual or celibate, but what is known is that he showed no interest in his wife, and his relationship with Katte was widely speculated in the Prussian court to be romantic. Voltaire implied that Frederick was homosexual. Frederick is buried at his favorite residence, Sanssouci in Potsdam. He died childless.

1857 -

The first Boy Scout, LORD BADEN POWELL was born. The British Army lieutenant-general, Baron and writer is considered the founder of the International Scouting Movement through the publication of his book "Scouting for Boys", published in 1908.

Robert Baden-Powell's sexuality has been brought into question by his principal modern biographers, who have found a great deal of evidence indicating he was attracted to youthful men and boys. While early biographies of Robert Baden-Powell tended towards the hagiographic, two important modern biographies, by Michael Rosenthal of Columbia University and professional biographer Tim Jeal, have reached the conclusion that he was probably a repressed homosexual. Jeals writes:

Baden-Powell "…consistently praised the male body when naked. At Gilwell Park, the Scouts' camping ground in Epping Forest, he always enjoyed watching the boys swimming naked, and would sometimes chat with them after they had just 'stripped off.'"

Jeal cites a revealing account by Baden-Powell of a visit to Charterhouse, his old public school, where he stayed with a bachelor teacher and housemaster who had taken large numbers of nude photographs of his pupils. Baden-Powell's diary entry reads: "Stayed with Tod. Tod's photos of naked boys and trees. Excellent." In a subsequent communication to Tod regarding starting up a Scout troop at the school, Baden-Powell mentions an impending return visit and adds: "Possibly I might get a further look at those wonderful photographs of yours." (According to R. Jenkyns, the album contained nude boys in "contrived and artificial" poses.)

However Jeal also shows that paintings of nude boys were regarded as art, being hung in the Royal Academy each year without causing particular stir. Also Tod's photo's were accepted by parents and school authorities until the sixties, when they were destroyed. Baden-Powell's admiration of the male body was physical, as being the best example of the beauty of nature, and with that of God, the creator: "A clean young man in his prime of health and strength is the finest creature God has made in the world." As an example he told about some Swazi chiefs with whom he met some gymnastic instructors. The chiefs were not fully satisfied until they had had the men stripped and had examined themselves their muscular development." Baden-Powell himself did not write about or draw (he was a good amateur-artist) males in an erotic sense.

At age fifty-five Baden-Powell married twenty-three-year-old Olave St Clair Soames. Olave "altered her appearance to suit him, flattening her breasts and shearing her hair." Shortly after the marriage Baden-Powell began to suffer from agonizing headaches: these left him abruptly two years after the birth of their third child when he began sleeping apart from his wife: "With every hint of sex removed from a relationship he could get on reasonably well with women."

Interestingly enough, today is also the anniversary of the founding of the first Boy Scout troop, which was organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell.

1944 -

German performance artist and counter-tenor KLAUS NOMI was born in Immenstadt, Germany. Nomi is remembered for bizarrely theatrical live performances, heavy make-up, unusual costumes, and a highly stylized signature hairdo which flaunted a receding hairline. His songs were equally unusual, ranging from synthesizer-laden interpretations of classic opera to covers of 1960s pop standards like Chubby Checker's "The Twist" and Lou Christie's "Lightnin' Strikes."

Born Klaus Sperber in Immenstadt, Germany, in Nomi's youth in the 1960s, he worked as an usher at the Deutsche Opera in West Berlin where he would sing on stage in front of the fire curtain after the shows for the other ushers and maintenance crew. Around that time he also sang operatic arias at a Berlin Gay club called Kleist Casino. Nomi moved from Germany to New York City in the mid-1970s. He began his involvement with the art scene based in the East Village. Nomi died on August 6, 1983 in New York City, one of the first celebrities to die of an illness complicated by AIDS. His ashes were scattered over New York City.

Died

1965 -

British lion, WINSTON CHURCHILL died. He had been Britain's wartime prime minister whose courageous leadership and defiant rhetoric had fortified the English during their long struggle against Hitler's Germany. "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat," he stated upon becoming prime minister at the beginning of the war. He called Hitler's Reich a "monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalog of human crime."

Following the war, he coined the term "Iron Curtain" to describe the barrier between areas in Eastern Europe under Soviet control and the free West. There was a scandal about boys playing with boys when Churchill was at college that he resolutely denied. But in his biography of W. Somerset Maugham, Ted Morgan writes that Maugham once asked Churchill if it were true as Churchill's mother had claimed, that the statesman had affairs with men in his youth. "Not true!" Churchill replied. "But, I once went to bed with a man to see what it was like." (The man turned out to be British musical-comedy star Ivor Novello whose birthday was last week) "And, what was it like?" Maugham asked. "Musical," Churchill replied.

Noteworthy

1975 -

Norman Lear's path-blazing, groundbreaking, though, alas short-lived series "Hot L Baltimore" premiered on this date. The television situation comedy series was adapted from the hit off-Broadway play by Lanford Wilson and took place in the "Hotel Baltimore" in Baltimore, Maryland and drew its title from the cheap establishment's neon marquee, which had a burned-out letter "e" that had never been replaced. The half-hour series premiered January 24, 1975 and was produced by Norman Lear for ABC. (It was, in fact the first Norman Lear property to air on ABC.) The cast included Conchata Ferrell, James Cromwell, Richard Masur, Al Freeman, Jr., Gloria LeRoy, Jeannie Linero, and Charlotte Rae.

The series had several controversial elements, including two primary characters who were prostitutes (one of whom was an illegal immigrant) and one of the first Gay couples to be depicted on an American television series. Because of the story lines the show was the first network television show to have a warning at its opening, cautioning viewers about mature themes. The network supported the show and gave it a full publicity campaign, but it failed to win an audience and was canceled after thirteen episodes; its last telecast was June 6, 1975.

The very bizarre happenings in the lives of the residents of the seedy Hotel Baltimore. Despite their disparate backgrounds and ethnicities, these neighbors became families. George (Lee Bergere) and Gordon (Henry Calvert) were middle-aged Gay lovers in their fifties, Suzy and April were prostitutes, Mr. Morse was a grouchy old man, Jackie was a young tomboy, Mrs. Bellotti was an eccentric woman with a never-seen psychotic son Moose who once glued himself to the ceiling, and Charles was a wise black man. Bill was the hotel's desk clerk, and Clifford its young manager.

Died

1983 -

American film and stage director GEORGE CUKOR died. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of Cukor to Hollywood film history. He made so many good films but here are a few: Tarnished Lady, Our Betters, Little Women, David Copperfield, Camille, Holiday, The Women, Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Winged Victory, Adam's Rib, Born Yesterday, Pat and Mike, It Should Happen To You, A Star is Born, My Fair Lady, Love Amongst the Ruins, and The Corn Is Green. Cukor was a homosexual gentleman of the old school. The courtly and prolific film director did his best to play straight by the rules, even when the rules didn't play straight by him.

Though his sexuality was a virtually open secret, Cukor, always mindful that any public violation of the studios' standard "moral turpitude" clause could cost him his career, didn't question the prevailing rules of his day. Dropping his guard only in the company of a circle of trusted friends he nicknamed "the chief unit,"

Cukor held private Sunday afternoon pool parties that were unabashed all-boy affairs; the rest of the week, he reverted to the role of "extra man," a congenial dinner partner always seated beside either a mogul's wife or one of his celebrated actresses. Yet, when push came to shove, a lifetime of discretion could not protect him from what today would be recognized as blatant homophobia

Patrick McGilligan reports in his penetrating biography, George Cukor: A Double Life, that Cukor was fired from Gone with the Wind, the most famous movie ever made, because its star, Clark Gable, exploded on the set, "I won't be directed by a fairy! I have to work with a real man!" The story had long circulated within Cukor's social circle that as a young man Gable had once had a drunken sexual encounter with silent screen actor-turned-decorator William Haines, one of Cukor's pals. When another of Cukor's intimates began indiscreetly joking that "George is directing one of Billy's old tricks," Gable, who already feared that Cukor, known in the business as “a woman’s director”, might tilt the movie in favor of Vivien Leigh, flew into a rage.

Cukor’s six-acre estate above Sunset Plaza was famous throughout the 1930s and '40s for the glittering lists of celebrities, ranging from Greta Garbo and Aldous Huxley to Simone Signoret and Henry Miller, whom Cukor entertained. But once the guests left his formal Sunday brunches, the director would then set up a buffet of leftovers poolside and a constantly changing parade of young men would begin to arrive. As the Baroness d'Erlanger once teased him, "Mr. Cukor has all these wonderful parties for ladies in the afternoon. Then in the evening naughty men come around to eat the crumbs!"

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Maggie Gallagher Speaks

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