Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
The Question of Time: What Was Life Like in 1963?
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Sheriff Roland on February 26, 2007, 05:56:42 pm ---The effort of these homosexuals to appear manly is obsessive – in the rakish angle of the caps, in the thumbs boldly hooked in belts. Ryquy says, “This is a place for men, a place without all those screaming faggots, fuzzy sweaters and sneakers. Those guys, the ones you see in other bars, are afraid of us. They’re afraid to come here because everything looks tough. But we’re probably the most genteel bar in town. ”
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I find that comment about the leather bar being "the most genteel bar in town" very interesting. I've read that "back in the day," the leather scene had a very rigid code of "etiquette"--as funny as that may sound--and that comment from someone who owned a leather bar back in the Sixties I think tends to support that point.
Sheriff Roland:
at least two more long instalments to go, after this one.
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disclaimer: this is part of an article published in 1965 in LIFE magazine, a very popular magazine of it's time. It is not a recent article!
The ‘Gay ’ World takes to the City Streets by Paul Welsh (part 3 of 5)
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One Incorporated, another homophile organization formed in Los Angeles in 1952, publishes a monthly, One Magazine, mailed to subscribers throughout the country and sold in newsstands. One Inc basically is involved in education and propaganda. It has an education division called the ‘One Institute of Homophile studies’ which offers courses designed to give parents, ministers, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, sociologists and the public an understanding of homosexuality and homosexual.
These formal homophile groups share the same problems – small memberships, insufficient funds and the hostile atmosphere in which they try to promote their cause. Although membership rolls of various societies are held confidential, homosexuals are reluctant to join simply because they fear that their names may reach the hands of the police.
Homosexuals everywhere fear arrest – and the public exposure that may go with it. In Los Angeles, where homosexuals are particularly apparent on city streets, police drives are regular and relentless. The running battle between police and homosexuals has produced bitter feelings on both sides. Leaders of homophile societies in Los Angeles and San Francisco have accused the police of “harassment, entrapment and brutality” towards homosexuals.
Actually there is no law in California – or in any other state – against being a homosexual. The laws which police enforce are directed at specific sexual acts. For the most parts, these laws make it a crime for two people to engage in any sex activity which could not result in procreation.
It is also unlawful in California to solicit anyone in a public place to engage in a lewd act. Under these laws, the police are able to make arrests. In many cases a conviction results in a homosexual being registered as a ‘sex offender’ (along with rapists) in the state of California.
Inspector James Fisk says that the 3,069 arrests for homosexual offenses made in Los Angeles last year represents merely a ‘token number’ of those that should have been made. “We’re barely touching the surface of the problem” Fisk says. “The pervert is no longer as secretive as he was. He’s aggressive and his aggressiveness is getting worse because of more homosexual activity”
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ifyoucantfixit:
Thank you very much Roland for posting this entire series..I think that
this is the kind of information that this site should be providing. It gives
real insite to the situation, as it is was and has been. Maybe these types of
informed notices, can do a great deal toward making people aware of things
that can help the future to be informed and more fairminded..It should
be a subject made aware to all the young men and women that have need.
Thanks again for this timeless and knowledgeable post. janice
Sheriff Roland:
Thank you Janice. It's a long one today, and the last one too will be long. Then I'll start on the second article that deals with the 'scientific study' of homsexuality ...
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disclaimer: this is part of an article published in 1965 in LIFE magazine, a very popular magazine of it's time. It is not a recent article!
The ‘Gay ’ World takes to the City Streets by Paul Welsh (part 4 of 5)
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As part of the antihomosexual (sic) drive the Los Angeles police force has compiled an ‘educational’ pamphlet for law enforcement officers entitled ‘Some Characteristics of the Homosexual.’ The strongly opinionated pamphlet includes the warning that what the homosexuals really want is ‘a fruit world.’
In their unrelenting crackdown on homosexuals, the Los Angeles police use two approaches: one is an effort to deter homosexual activity in public, and the other is an arrest effort. The first includes patrolling, in uniform, rest rooms and other know loitering places such as Selma Avenue. The police go the rounds of the ‘gay’ bars to make their presence felt. To arrest homosexuals, the police have an undercover operation in which offers dressed to look like homosexuals - tight pants, sneaker, sweaters or jackets – prowl the streets and bars. The officers are instructed never to make an overt advance, they can only provide an opportunity for the homosexual to proposition them. Arrests are made after the officer has received a specific proposition.
In a typical arrest effort in Hollywood this spring, a plain-clothed officer loitered under the streetlight at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Stanley Avenue. Soon a car slowly turned the corner onto Stanley and the officer drifted into the darkness down the block. When the car pulled over to the curb, the officer (Jim) approaches it. After a few minutes of idle talk the driver establishes that his name was Jerry. He lives many blocks away but Jim indicates that he himself had a ‘place on Wilcox’ (actually the police station.) Part of the conversation, which the officer would enable him to make an arrest, went like this:
Officer: “What’s on your mind after we get home? That’s what I want to know.
Jerry: Well, what’s on your mind?
Officer: Well … I don’t know.
Jerry: “You don’t?
Officer: Well that is to say (laughs) … there isn’t anything to drink at my place, you know.
Jerry: Well, I can always drink coffee. I don’t drink anything stronger.
Officer: Uh huh … Well, anything else…?
Jerry: Anything Else?
Officer: I said, is there anything else?
Jerry: To drink?
Officer: No.
Jerry: No?
Officer: I was just wondering … maybe … what else you had in mind, if anything.
Jerry: (sighs deeply) At this point I don’t care.
Officer: Well, I don’t know exactly how to take that.
Jerry: Well … how do you want it to go?
Officer: Like I say, it’s up to you, Jerry.
Jerry: Well, you call it and … we’ll go from there. I’m your guest … self invited.
Officer: Well … I know, but … I wouldn’t want to be a presumptive host, you might say in other words, a good host always looks out for the welfare of his guests. You understand? So … I’ll leave it up to you.
Jerry: Well … we can just let the chips fall where they may or forget it.
Officer: I always say, if you know what you want and aren’t man enough to ask for it, why then to heck with it. You know? (laughs)
Jerry: Yeah, I know.
Officer: Well, there’s no use wasting any more of your time or mine I guess, Jerry?
Jerry: Well, I don’t know. It’s up to you.
Officer: You don’t know? What’s the matter, are you afraid?
Jerry: Well, Isn’t everybody?
Officer: I’m not afraid of you.
Jerry: I don’t know you and you don’t know me.
Officer: Well, that’s true, but still and all, I’m not, although, maybe I should be. I don’t know. You’re not a policeman, are you?
Jerry: No.
Officer: Well, you could be.
Jerry: So could you
Officer: Well, that’s true. I understand they have a whole lot of plainclothesmen, so I don’t know what to think sometimes. But that’s why you got to be kinda careful.
Jerry: Uh huh … it pays …
Officer: You understand of course
Jerry: So maybe we should just drop it at that.
Officer: Oh? Well …
Jerry: I mean (laughs) we’re both getting on the leery (sic) side.
Officer: Yeah … Well so long Jerry. I won’t take any more of your time.”
The police officer had decided that the encounter was not going to reward him with an arrest. Jerry drove away and the officer went back to work on the corner.
Although the antihomosexual (sic) stand taken by the Los Angeles Police is unswervingly tough, it reflects the attitude of most U.S. law-enforcement agencies on the subject. Yet within the past decade this position has been criticized by legal and religious groups – here and abroad – which has asked for more social and official tolerance of homosexuals. They frequently quote the ‘Wolfendon Report,’ the famous statement on homosexuality made in 1957 by a British government committee headed by Sir John Wolfendon. The committee recommended that Britain change its sex laws so that ‘homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offense.’ In its argument, the committee held the view that ‘there must remain a realm of private morality and immorality which is, in brief and crude terms, not the law’s business.
The position of the Wolfendon committee has since been supported by spokesmen from various religions. A group of Quakers in Britain challenged the view that homosexuality is immoral. In a pamphlet titled ‘Towards a Quaker View of Sex.’ Published in 1963, it was suggested that society ‘should no more deplore homosexuality than lefthandedness (sic). … Homosexual affection can be as selfless as heterosexual affection and therefore we cannot see that it is in some way morally worse …’
A Catholic viewpoint, which does not condone homosexuality but does regard it as a psychological problem has been provided in a book ’Counselling (sic) the Catholic” written for U.S. parish priests by Father George Hagmaier, C.S.P. and Father Robert Gleason, S.I. The book makes the point that in order to ‘bring one’s activity into accord with objective morality, one need knowledge and one needs freedom defect in either will normally imply some lessening in responsibility.’ The authors conclude that because they are subjected to this psychological disturbance, homosexuals do not have this freedom.
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David In Indy:
--- Quote from: Sheriff Roland on February 27, 2007, 05:55:49 pm ---
A Catholic viewpoint, which does not condone homosexuality but does regard it as a psychological problem has been provided in a book ’Counselling (sic) the Catholic” written for U.S. parish priests by Father George Hagmaier, C.S.P. and Father Robert Gleason, S.I. The book makes the point that in order to ‘bring one’s activity into accord with objective morality, one need knowledge and one needs freedom defect in either will normally imply some lessening in responsibility.’ The authors conclude that because they are subjected to this psychological disturbance, homosexuals do not have this freedom.[/i]
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I was born and raised Catholic. Everyone in my family and my extended family is Catholic. Catholicism has been in my family for centuries. But I stopped attending Mass several years ago. I couldn't take it anymore. The Catholic Church has taken part in many shitty crappy deals for a millennium, maybe longer, and yet they have the audacity to look me straight in the eye and condemn me for who I am and the way God created me. >:(
The nerve! >:(
And yet, I still struggle with it. Sometimes I really do question myself and my sexuality. I ask myself questions like "Am I really going to go to Hell when I die"? "Does my sexuality really offend God"?
I guess this is what happens after 40 years of Catholic teachings being beat into a person day after day and year after year.
The Catholic church needs to get its own priorities in order before they start condemning me for mine! >:( >:(
I'll never go back to Mass again. >:(
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