Volume
13 No. 20 October 26,
2006Compiled & written by Mike Fitzpatrick
Top
Stories:
Turnout Will Decide Whether November 7 Ballot Measure Wins Or Loses
Madison - A recent Wisconsin Public Radio/St. Norbert College poll is good news for opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions, according to Fair Wisconsin, the statewide coalition of ban opponents.
On its face, the statistics would seem to show otherwise. The poll released October 19 suggests 51% of respondents said they would support the amendment , while 44% opposed it. 5% were unsure while 1% refused to answer. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 5%. However, if voting were to skew to the lower end of the margin error, the amendment could fail by one or two percentage points.
According to St. Norbert political science professor Wendy Scattergood the poll’s methodology was the same as last Spring’s but factored out registered voters who did not indicate they would actually go to the polls November 7. “Participants have their phone numbers randomly drawn by computer, and they are asked if they are likely to vote in the election,” Scattergood said. “If not, the interview is ended.”
Scattergood added that the latest poll came out with a slightly higher percentage of Democrats in the sample, which could have some effect on the results but might show some Republicans weren’t as definite about voting when they were contacted. “Maybe they’re a little bit disaffected and more likely to be staying home,” she said. “If that’s the case when we’re contacting people and saying how likely are you to vote, they may be saying they’re less likely.”
But that won’t be known until Election Day, Scattergood concluded.
Fair Wisconsin campaign manager Mike Tate compared the St. Norbert survey with the one released last April and is elated with the results. “This is a ten point move in our direction from their last poll and it shows we’re closing the gap, Tate told supporters in an email sent the day of the poll announcement.
Tate confirmed with Quest that he is more certain than ever that Wisconsin will defeat the ballot measure. “I’ve said all along that if we pull to within eight points in the polling, we will win on Election Day, Tate said. “The St. Norbert poll puts at us at seven points and well within the margin of error.”
Recent comments made by Julaine Appling of the Family Research of Wisconsin at a debate at an October 12 at Madison’s Edgewood High School about the constitutional separation of church and state being “completely bogus” have further energized ban opponents, Fair Wisconsin insiders said.
Capital Times reporter Judith Davidoff pursued Appling on her comments in a post debate interview. Appling reiterated that the separation of church and state is “not in the Constitution.” But “it’s treated as if it’s in the Constitution,”she said, adding “The church is the moral gatekeeper in every society and the notion that churches are banned from involvement in politics or government is just a fabrication.”
Columnist Dave Zweifel took Appling to task in an October 20 piece entitled “Religious Zealots Surge In Our Politics.”
“Julaine Appling, the flame-throwing director of the so-called Family Research Institute of Wisconsin, tipped her hand the other night at an Edgewood High School debate over the marriage amendment, which would for the first time legitimize discrimination in our state constitution, Zweifel fumed.
“She proclaimed that the separation of church and state, the historic concept embodied in the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, is a myth. She told our reporter, Judith Davidoff, that the separation notion is “just a fabrication” and that the church is the “moral gatekeeper” in every society - the writings of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison apparently notwithstanding,” the columnist wrote.
“It’s zealots like Appling who seek control of America’s political process in an effort to impose their own Christian beliefs on all citizens,” Zweifel continued. “Lost in all of this is that our forefathers fled to this country for precisely that reason - to escape their governments’ intolerance of any religious beliefs but their own.”
Zweifel then played the “Taliban”card. “What’s the difference, pray tell, between these doctrinaire Christians controlling governmental decisions here and the radical Islamists’ hold over so many Middle Eastern countries?” he concluded.
The Capital Times also formally opposed the ballot measure, endorsing a “no” vote in an editorial appearing the same day as the Zweifel column and drawing on Wisconsin’s history of entering the Union as a “free state” in the run up to the Civil War and as the first state to pass anti-discrimination protections for its gay and lesbian citizens nearly a quarter century ago. “Now, however, the worst sort of politicians seek to amend the state constitution to, for the first time in Wisconsin’s history, discriminate against two particular groups of individuals: same-sex couples who seek to marry, and straight and gay couples who do not wish to marry but seek domestic partner and civil union protections,” the editorial said.
“Amending the constitution to require discrimination goes against everything that Wisconsin stands for. It breaks faith with the most fundamental of the values that have guided this state for all of its 158 years,” the editorial concluded.
However, neither the newspaper’s historical review nor Appling’s historical re-write will determine the outcome November 7. Voter turnout will be key, according to Tate and Fair Wisconsin will conduct “the most widely ‘get out the vote’ effort ever seen in the history of this state.” Tate declined specifics, but volunteer and paid staff reportedly working overtime to guarantee a a full-staffed final 72-hour push to turn out the votes necessary to win next month.
World & National News:
U.
S. Supreme Court Turns Down Gay Marriage Case
Washington, D.C - The Supreme Court refused to intervene a legal fight over same-sex marriage October 10, declining an appeal from a gay California couple who were denied a license to wed. The justices declined without comment to take the case of Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer of Mission Viejo, Calif. The men had sought a marriage license in Southern California’s Orange County in 2004 and, after they were turned down, filed a federal lawsuit that challenged federal and state laws against same-sex marriage.
A U.S. District judge said the federal Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional but declined to rule on the state ban because a separate legal challenge is making its way through California state courts. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in May that the couple should await the outcome of the state court challenge. As Quest reported in its last issue, a California appeals court upheld the state ban on same-sex weddings. That case appears headed for the California Supreme Court.
A trial judge in San Francisco last year declared the state marriage ban invalid because it violated the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Major LGBT civil rights groups had opposed the federal lawsuit, preferring to fight for recognition of gay marriage in several states before the Supreme Court is asked to weigh in.
America’s First Openly Gay Congressman Gerry Studds Dies
Boston - Former 12-term Massachusetts Congressional Representative Gerry E. Studds died October 14 at Boston University Medical Center. He had been hospitalized after collapsing October 3 while walking his English springer spaniel Bonnie. The cause of death was complications from a blood clot in the lung. He was 69.
Studds was the first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Congress. His well-known and later widely imitated practice of holding open meetings with his constituents was first launched in Martha’s Vineyard in 1973. Over the next 24 years, he would hold dozens of such meetings, which unfailingly attracted large audiences to engage in lively discussion with their intellectually agile, self-effacing congressman, according to Julia Wells of the town’s newspaper, the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette.
“You remind me what it is I’m doing and why I’m doing this. You send me back reinvigorated,” Wells recalled from one open meeting on the Vineyard in 1990.
A ranking member of the House Democratic leadership who served as chairman of the committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries from 1990-1994, Mr. Studds was a longtime champion of New England fishermen and the ocean environment. He was the major sponsor of the original Magnuson Act of 1973, which among other things created what is today known the 200-mile limit, the offshore boundary for U.S. fishing rights.
In 1996, his final year in office, Congress designated in his honor an 842-square-mile ocean area between Cape Ann and Cape Cod as the Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
Studds was born on May 12, 1937 in Mineola, Nassau County, N.Y., the son of the late Eastman Studds, an architect, and Beatrice Murphy Studds. He moved to Massachusetts at the age of nine. He received a bachelor of arts degree in American Studies and an M.A.T. in History from Yale University in 1959 and 1961 respectively.
He served as a foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., from 1961 to 1963, when he joined the White House staff of President John F. Kennedy as executive assistant to the president’s consultant for a domestic Peace Corps. During those years he served as Congressional liaison for the Domestic Peace Corps Task Force, chaired by Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
Following President Kennedy’s death, Mr. Studds became legislative assistant to U.S. Senator. Harrison Williams, a Democrat from New Jersey. Between 1965 and 1969 he taught history, government and political science at St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H.
He resumed his political activities in 1968 as New Hampshire coordinator for Senator. Eugene McCarthy’s presidential primary campaign. He was elected a delegate to the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and served on its platform committee.
In 1970, he made his first run for Congress and lost narrowly to incumbent Republican Keith Hastings. That year’s race was the closest in the nation. In preparation for the next campaign, Mr. Studds learned to speak Portuguese, the language of the New Bedford area community, and he studied issues related to the fishing industry.
On November 7, 1972, Mr. Studds was elected to the 93rd Congress from the Massachusetts 12th Congressional District, the first Democrat to represent the district since 1914 and only the second in history. Once again, the race was the closest in the nation. In 1974, he won re-election with 75% of the vote - carrying every precinct and every town in the district.
In 1983, he faced controversy when a 27-year-old former page revealed that he had had an affair with the congressman 10 years earlier. Under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, Mr. Studds became the first national politician and member of Congress to publicly acknowledge his homosexuality. He was censured by the House and stripped of his subcommittee chairmanship. Beneath the harsh glare of the national media spotlight, Mr. Studds stood to admit and apologize for his indiscretions of a decade earlier.
“Take Time for Judgment,” warned the headline on the lead editorial in the Vineyard Gazette following the censure. “I’m not sure what the cultural origin of our mores has to do with a good and decent man’s ability to defend the fishing banks and the continental shelf against fat cats,” declared Gazette columnist William A. Caldwell.
Many predicted his political demise, but he survived and was re-elected in 1984, in a redrawn district that was now the 10th Congressional District.
In 1987, he was in line to assume the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, but instead he opted for the interests of his district by accepting chairmanship of the fisheries subcommittee.
Studds also advocated for stronger federal response to the AIDS crisis. He was among the first members of Congress to endorse lifting the ban against gays and lesbians in the military. In 1994, he and Senator Edward M. Kennedy introduced the Employment NonDiscrimination Act, aimed at ending employment discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation.
Over the years, Studds received many awards from environmental and civil rights organizations in Massachusetts and across the country.
In 1995, he traveled to the Vineyard to announce that he would not run again. “My decision is at its core personal, not political,” he said in a lengthy address to more than 250 people.
He moved back to Provincetown where he had had a home since the early 1970s, and had been an accomplished sailor and fisherman. In 2002, he sold his home on Cape Cod and moved to Boston with his partner, Dean T. Hara. In 2004, they were among the first same-sex couples to be legally married in the commonwealth. In addition to his husband and their springer spaniel, he is survived by a brother, Colin Studds of Cohasset; a sister, Gaynor Stewart of Buffalo, N.Y.; and four nephews. A memorial service is planned for November, at a time and place to be announced.
FBI: Anti-Gay Hate Crimes Ranked Third In 2005
Washington, D.C. - Federal Bureau of Investigation figures released October 17 show that homophobic assaults made up 14.2% of over 7000 hate crimes, behind those motivated by race and religious hatred
Human Rights Campaign president Jo Solomonese said the numbers show the need for support in the gay community. “Sexual orientation remains the third-highest recorded bias crime in our country, which underscores that anti-gay hate crimes are a very real problem nationwide,” Solomonese said in a press release. “It is also a stark reminder that there is an immediate need for Congress to enact the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, legislation that would expand the federal government’s reach to serious, violent hate crimes.”
Solomonese called for greater protection for all minorities from all levels of government.
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program includes data from hate crime reports submitted by city, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies throughout the US. The majority (30%) of hate crime incidents in 2005 occurred in or near residences or homes; followed by 18.3% on highways, roads, alleys, or streets; 13.5% at colleges or schools; 6.6% in parking lots or garages; and 4.3% at churches, synagogues, or temples. The remaining 27.3% of hate crime incidents occurred at other specified locations, multiple locations, or other/unknown locations.
Diocese To Investigate Priest Who Gave Foley “Naked Massages”
Miami - A Roman Catholic diocese has opened an investigation of a priest who said he fondled and shared saunas while naked with Mark Foley when the former U.S. congressman was a boy in Florida. In recent interviews, the Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 69, who is now with a diocese on an island off Malta, has given different details about his encounters with Foley four decades ago.
On October 18, he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune by telephone that he massaged the boy in the nude and was naked in the same room on overnight trips with him. A day later, he admitted to the Associated Press that he also was naked in a sauna with Foley and told a Florida TV station that he touched Foley “once, maybe.”
In all of the interviews, he denied having sexual intercourse with Foley. “It’s not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration or anything like that, you know,” Mercieca said. “It was just fondling.”
Foley, a 52-year-old Florida Republican, resigned from Congress last month after the release of his sexually explicit computer messages to young male pages. After Foley’s resignation from Congress, his lawyer said that Foley was an alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a “clergyman.” Foley’s civil lawyer, Gerald Richman, said the alleged abuser was a Catholic priest whose name he shared with Florida state prosecutors.
A statement from the diocese of Gozo, a small Mediterranean island off Malta, said that its bishop, Mario Grech, contacted the Archdiocese of Miami on October 19 seeking further information about the case. The statement said the diocese had learned of the case for the first time in the international press. The Maltese Church instituted the team in 1999 to deal with any sexual abuse allegations.
Gozo, 60 miles south of Sicily, has a population of about 32,000 and is one of Malta’s three inhabited islands - filled with vacation homes and holiday resorts.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s interview with Mercieca described several encounters that the priest said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate. Among the activities described by Mercieca were massaging the boy in the nude, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth, FL, and being nude in the same room on overnight trips while he was a priest and Foley was a parishioner.
Mercieca later told The Associated Press in Rome by phone that the report was “exaggerated.” “We were friends and trusted each other as brothers and loved each other as brothers,” Mercieca said in the AP interview. Asked if their association was sexual, the priest replied: “It wasn’t.”
Mercieca also told the AP that he and Foley would go into saunas naked when he was a priest in Florida and Foley was a parishioner, but he said that “everybody does that.”
Sarasota Herald-Tribune Executive Editor Mike Connelly defended his paper’s story as accurate, including the reference to a night in which Mercieca said he was in a drug-induced stupor due to a nervous breakdown and couldn’t clearly remember what happened. “The reporter talked to the priest four times yesterday and carefully reviewed his account, especially of the one night,” Connelly said. “The story accurately reports what the priest said.”
Mercieca had worked at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth in 1967, according to church records. Foley would have been 13 at the time.
A spokesman for the state attorney’s office in West Palm Beach, Mike Edmondson, said that an email from Foley’s attorney was received October 18 identifying the alleged abuser. He said the email was being forwarded to the Archdiocese of Miami. Edmondson said law enforcement action is over, unless other alleged victims come forward, because Foley’s attorneys have said that the politician doesn’t want to prosecute.
Justin Timberlake’s Hit “SexyBack” Makes Men Feel Gay
Los Angeles - Hip-hop producer Timbaland, who duets with Justin Timberlake on the ex-N’Syncers worldwide hit “SexyBack,” thinks the song can make a straight man question his sexuality.
Timbaland told Blender magazine: “Some people listen to a song like ‘SexyBack’ and think, am I queer? Am I funny? If you are that way, you’re just that way. But if you’re a masculine man, embrace it. Have a glass of wine, put the record on and invite your girl over to get sexy.”
However, one man who won’t be having sex to the song is its creator, Justin. The pop superstar - who is dating actress Cameron Diaz - recently confessed he is unable to make love if music is playing because he gets distracted by the melodies.
Justin, who previously dated Britney Spears, said: “I have trouble having sex to music because I’ll start picking out the chords.”
Grey’s Anatomy’s George Is Gay!
New York - Grey’s Anatomy star T.R. Knight has admitted that he’s gay, but hopes people don’t consider that “the most interesting part of me.” The 33-year-old actor addressed rumors of his sexuality in a statement to People magazine on October 19.
“I guess there have been a few questions about my sexuality, and I’d like to quiet any unnecessary rumors that may be out there,” Knight’s statement read. “While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I’m gay isn’t the most interesting part of me.”
Knight plays Dr. George O’Malley on the popular ABC drama. A former stage actor, his television credits also include CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Knight’s Grey’s Anatomy character, a bumbling, puppy-eyed surgeon, has long been in love with Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo).
Knight’s admission comes days after reports of an ongoing “war” on the set of series. Actor Isaiah Washington allegedly may be in trouble for a gay slur he reportedly hurled at Grey`s Anatomy co-star Patrick Dempsey. The National Enquirer reported on the fight, which occurred October 9, and was about cast members showing up late to the set. During a heated discussion, the Enquirer report said, Washington yelled that “I`m not your little faggot like (name withheld).”
The incident reportedly ended up forcing cast member T.R. Knight to acknowledge he is gay. The yelling of the slur has reportedly caused extreme tension on the Grey`s Anatomy set and could cost Washington, who plays surgeon Dr. Burke his job, the tabloid said.
Washington, D.C - The Supreme Court refused to intervene a legal fight over same-sex marriage October 10, declining an appeal from a gay California couple who were denied a license to wed. The justices declined without comment to take the case of Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer of Mission Viejo, Calif. The men had sought a marriage license in Southern California’s Orange County in 2004 and, after they were turned down, filed a federal lawsuit that challenged federal and state laws against same-sex marriage.
A U.S. District judge said the federal Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional but declined to rule on the state ban because a separate legal challenge is making its way through California state courts. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in May that the couple should await the outcome of the state court challenge. As Quest reported in its last issue, a California appeals court upheld the state ban on same-sex weddings. That case appears headed for the California Supreme Court.
A trial judge in San Francisco last year declared the state marriage ban invalid because it violated the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Major LGBT civil rights groups had opposed the federal lawsuit, preferring to fight for recognition of gay marriage in several states before the Supreme Court is asked to weigh in.
America’s First Openly Gay Congressman Gerry Studds Dies
Boston - Former 12-term Massachusetts Congressional Representative Gerry E. Studds died October 14 at Boston University Medical Center. He had been hospitalized after collapsing October 3 while walking his English springer spaniel Bonnie. The cause of death was complications from a blood clot in the lung. He was 69.
Studds was the first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Congress. His well-known and later widely imitated practice of holding open meetings with his constituents was first launched in Martha’s Vineyard in 1973. Over the next 24 years, he would hold dozens of such meetings, which unfailingly attracted large audiences to engage in lively discussion with their intellectually agile, self-effacing congressman, according to Julia Wells of the town’s newspaper, the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette.
“You remind me what it is I’m doing and why I’m doing this. You send me back reinvigorated,” Wells recalled from one open meeting on the Vineyard in 1990.
A ranking member of the House Democratic leadership who served as chairman of the committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries from 1990-1994, Mr. Studds was a longtime champion of New England fishermen and the ocean environment. He was the major sponsor of the original Magnuson Act of 1973, which among other things created what is today known the 200-mile limit, the offshore boundary for U.S. fishing rights.
In 1996, his final year in office, Congress designated in his honor an 842-square-mile ocean area between Cape Ann and Cape Cod as the Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
Studds was born on May 12, 1937 in Mineola, Nassau County, N.Y., the son of the late Eastman Studds, an architect, and Beatrice Murphy Studds. He moved to Massachusetts at the age of nine. He received a bachelor of arts degree in American Studies and an M.A.T. in History from Yale University in 1959 and 1961 respectively.
He served as a foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., from 1961 to 1963, when he joined the White House staff of President John F. Kennedy as executive assistant to the president’s consultant for a domestic Peace Corps. During those years he served as Congressional liaison for the Domestic Peace Corps Task Force, chaired by Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
Following President Kennedy’s death, Mr. Studds became legislative assistant to U.S. Senator. Harrison Williams, a Democrat from New Jersey. Between 1965 and 1969 he taught history, government and political science at St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H.
He resumed his political activities in 1968 as New Hampshire coordinator for Senator. Eugene McCarthy’s presidential primary campaign. He was elected a delegate to the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and served on its platform committee.
In 1970, he made his first run for Congress and lost narrowly to incumbent Republican Keith Hastings. That year’s race was the closest in the nation. In preparation for the next campaign, Mr. Studds learned to speak Portuguese, the language of the New Bedford area community, and he studied issues related to the fishing industry.
On November 7, 1972, Mr. Studds was elected to the 93rd Congress from the Massachusetts 12th Congressional District, the first Democrat to represent the district since 1914 and only the second in history. Once again, the race was the closest in the nation. In 1974, he won re-election with 75% of the vote - carrying every precinct and every town in the district.
In 1983, he faced controversy when a 27-year-old former page revealed that he had had an affair with the congressman 10 years earlier. Under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, Mr. Studds became the first national politician and member of Congress to publicly acknowledge his homosexuality. He was censured by the House and stripped of his subcommittee chairmanship. Beneath the harsh glare of the national media spotlight, Mr. Studds stood to admit and apologize for his indiscretions of a decade earlier.
“Take Time for Judgment,” warned the headline on the lead editorial in the Vineyard Gazette following the censure. “I’m not sure what the cultural origin of our mores has to do with a good and decent man’s ability to defend the fishing banks and the continental shelf against fat cats,” declared Gazette columnist William A. Caldwell.
Many predicted his political demise, but he survived and was re-elected in 1984, in a redrawn district that was now the 10th Congressional District.
In 1987, he was in line to assume the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, but instead he opted for the interests of his district by accepting chairmanship of the fisheries subcommittee.
Studds also advocated for stronger federal response to the AIDS crisis. He was among the first members of Congress to endorse lifting the ban against gays and lesbians in the military. In 1994, he and Senator Edward M. Kennedy introduced the Employment NonDiscrimination Act, aimed at ending employment discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation.
Over the years, Studds received many awards from environmental and civil rights organizations in Massachusetts and across the country.
In 1995, he traveled to the Vineyard to announce that he would not run again. “My decision is at its core personal, not political,” he said in a lengthy address to more than 250 people.
He moved back to Provincetown where he had had a home since the early 1970s, and had been an accomplished sailor and fisherman. In 2002, he sold his home on Cape Cod and moved to Boston with his partner, Dean T. Hara. In 2004, they were among the first same-sex couples to be legally married in the commonwealth. In addition to his husband and their springer spaniel, he is survived by a brother, Colin Studds of Cohasset; a sister, Gaynor Stewart of Buffalo, N.Y.; and four nephews. A memorial service is planned for November, at a time and place to be announced.
FBI: Anti-Gay Hate Crimes Ranked Third In 2005
Washington, D.C. - Federal Bureau of Investigation figures released October 17 show that homophobic assaults made up 14.2% of over 7000 hate crimes, behind those motivated by race and religious hatred
Human Rights Campaign president Jo Solomonese said the numbers show the need for support in the gay community. “Sexual orientation remains the third-highest recorded bias crime in our country, which underscores that anti-gay hate crimes are a very real problem nationwide,” Solomonese said in a press release. “It is also a stark reminder that there is an immediate need for Congress to enact the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, legislation that would expand the federal government’s reach to serious, violent hate crimes.”
Solomonese called for greater protection for all minorities from all levels of government.
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program includes data from hate crime reports submitted by city, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies throughout the US. The majority (30%) of hate crime incidents in 2005 occurred in or near residences or homes; followed by 18.3% on highways, roads, alleys, or streets; 13.5% at colleges or schools; 6.6% in parking lots or garages; and 4.3% at churches, synagogues, or temples. The remaining 27.3% of hate crime incidents occurred at other specified locations, multiple locations, or other/unknown locations.
Diocese To Investigate Priest Who Gave Foley “Naked Massages”
Miami - A Roman Catholic diocese has opened an investigation of a priest who said he fondled and shared saunas while naked with Mark Foley when the former U.S. congressman was a boy in Florida. In recent interviews, the Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 69, who is now with a diocese on an island off Malta, has given different details about his encounters with Foley four decades ago.
On October 18, he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune by telephone that he massaged the boy in the nude and was naked in the same room on overnight trips with him. A day later, he admitted to the Associated Press that he also was naked in a sauna with Foley and told a Florida TV station that he touched Foley “once, maybe.”
In all of the interviews, he denied having sexual intercourse with Foley. “It’s not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration or anything like that, you know,” Mercieca said. “It was just fondling.”
Foley, a 52-year-old Florida Republican, resigned from Congress last month after the release of his sexually explicit computer messages to young male pages. After Foley’s resignation from Congress, his lawyer said that Foley was an alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a “clergyman.” Foley’s civil lawyer, Gerald Richman, said the alleged abuser was a Catholic priest whose name he shared with Florida state prosecutors.
A statement from the diocese of Gozo, a small Mediterranean island off Malta, said that its bishop, Mario Grech, contacted the Archdiocese of Miami on October 19 seeking further information about the case. The statement said the diocese had learned of the case for the first time in the international press. The Maltese Church instituted the team in 1999 to deal with any sexual abuse allegations.
Gozo, 60 miles south of Sicily, has a population of about 32,000 and is one of Malta’s three inhabited islands - filled with vacation homes and holiday resorts.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s interview with Mercieca described several encounters that the priest said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate. Among the activities described by Mercieca were massaging the boy in the nude, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth, FL, and being nude in the same room on overnight trips while he was a priest and Foley was a parishioner.
Mercieca later told The Associated Press in Rome by phone that the report was “exaggerated.” “We were friends and trusted each other as brothers and loved each other as brothers,” Mercieca said in the AP interview. Asked if their association was sexual, the priest replied: “It wasn’t.”
Mercieca also told the AP that he and Foley would go into saunas naked when he was a priest in Florida and Foley was a parishioner, but he said that “everybody does that.”
Sarasota Herald-Tribune Executive Editor Mike Connelly defended his paper’s story as accurate, including the reference to a night in which Mercieca said he was in a drug-induced stupor due to a nervous breakdown and couldn’t clearly remember what happened. “The reporter talked to the priest four times yesterday and carefully reviewed his account, especially of the one night,” Connelly said. “The story accurately reports what the priest said.”
Mercieca had worked at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth in 1967, according to church records. Foley would have been 13 at the time.
A spokesman for the state attorney’s office in West Palm Beach, Mike Edmondson, said that an email from Foley’s attorney was received October 18 identifying the alleged abuser. He said the email was being forwarded to the Archdiocese of Miami. Edmondson said law enforcement action is over, unless other alleged victims come forward, because Foley’s attorneys have said that the politician doesn’t want to prosecute.
Justin Timberlake’s Hit “SexyBack” Makes Men Feel Gay
Los Angeles - Hip-hop producer Timbaland, who duets with Justin Timberlake on the ex-N’Syncers worldwide hit “SexyBack,” thinks the song can make a straight man question his sexuality.
Timbaland told Blender magazine: “Some people listen to a song like ‘SexyBack’ and think, am I queer? Am I funny? If you are that way, you’re just that way. But if you’re a masculine man, embrace it. Have a glass of wine, put the record on and invite your girl over to get sexy.”
However, one man who won’t be having sex to the song is its creator, Justin. The pop superstar - who is dating actress Cameron Diaz - recently confessed he is unable to make love if music is playing because he gets distracted by the melodies.
Justin, who previously dated Britney Spears, said: “I have trouble having sex to music because I’ll start picking out the chords.”
Grey’s Anatomy’s George Is Gay!
New York - Grey’s Anatomy star T.R. Knight has admitted that he’s gay, but hopes people don’t consider that “the most interesting part of me.” The 33-year-old actor addressed rumors of his sexuality in a statement to People magazine on October 19.
“I guess there have been a few questions about my sexuality, and I’d like to quiet any unnecessary rumors that may be out there,” Knight’s statement read. “While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I’m gay isn’t the most interesting part of me.”
Knight plays Dr. George O’Malley on the popular ABC drama. A former stage actor, his television credits also include CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
Knight’s Grey’s Anatomy character, a bumbling, puppy-eyed surgeon, has long been in love with Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo).
Knight’s admission comes days after reports of an ongoing “war” on the set of series. Actor Isaiah Washington allegedly may be in trouble for a gay slur he reportedly hurled at Grey`s Anatomy co-star Patrick Dempsey. The National Enquirer reported on the fight, which occurred October 9, and was about cast members showing up late to the set. During a heated discussion, the Enquirer report said, Washington yelled that “I`m not your little faggot like (name withheld).”
The incident reportedly ended up forcing cast member T.R. Knight to acknowledge he is gay. The yelling of the slur has reportedly caused extreme tension on the Grey`s Anatomy set and could cost Washington, who plays surgeon Dr. Burke his job, the tabloid said.
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HBO
To Film “Coming Out” Documentary In Madison November 12Hollywood - HBO Films and World of Wonder filmmaker Richard Courtney has announced that the production company will be filming a documentary focusing on when people first realized they were gay or lesbian this November in Madison and two other cities. In a recent email to Quest and other state gay groups Courtney also asked for support in recruiting stories from interested men and women.
“I am working on a documentary for HBO Films and World of Wonder. We are composing a project based on Robert Trachtenberg’s book When I Knew,” Courtney wrote. “We are coming to Madison, WI to feature gay men and woman around the USA that want to share their stories. We are also traveling to Austin and Philadelphia.”
Courtney is looking for 75-100 volunteers to interview with the production team on November 12 and follow-up interviews the following day. “I hope that this event in all the cities covers the gamut of people,” Courtney’s email continued. “We are looking for the regular stories, the fun stories; stories that the American public can identify with, laugh with and possibly be moved towards more acceptance of our lifestyle.”
Courtney is working with Nikki Blaumbatt at Madison OutReach and is seeking support from other LGBT community centers and gay organizations to coordinate promotion and outreach for the project.
Courtney offered several examples of the enthusiastic response he has received thus far. “I have received tales from a 13 year old in Philadelphia to a couple in Chicago who is traveling to Madison to tell their story,” Courtney wrote. “It has been a great adventure!”
World of Wonder has a long history LGBT-themed documentaries and other productions. Although best known for dozens of HBO documentaries and series, the company also has produced The Ru Paul Show and Totally Gay series for VH-1, TransGeneration for The Sundance Channel and LOGO, Gay Hollywood for American Movie Classics, Gay Republicans and Good Clean Porn for the Trio network, The Bruce Villanch Show for Bravo and Pornography: The Secret History of Civilisation for the BBC. WOW also produced the indie film hits Party Monster and The Eyes of Tammy Faye.
However World of Wonder’s long collaboration with cable giant HBO has resulted in a long series of insightful documentaries and features about life in the LGBT community. Among them are The Real Ellen Story, 101 Rent Boys, and Hidden Fuhrer: Debating The Enigma Of Hitler’s Sexuality. WOW also has produced the long-running HBO series Shock Video, a series showing a sampling of some of the bizarre programming broadcast on TV in countries outside the United States and segments of the cable network’s popular late-night Real Sex series.
Mor information about the WOW project is available at: www.myspace.com/wheniknew.
Wisconsin Sees 81% Rise In Gay Couples
Los Angeles - A new population survey released by UCLA’s Williams Institute has documented a stunning 81% rise in same-sex couples in the state of Wisconsin. The report reports Wisconsin rise reflects the significant growth in the number of lesbian and gay couples nationwide in the last five years.
According to Same-sex Couples and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Population: New Estimates from the American Community Survey by Gary J. Gates, PhD released earlier this month, the number of self-reporting lesbian and gay couples grew by more than 30% in the last five years. The survey reports numbers grew from nearly 600,000 in 2000 to almost 777,000 in 2005. The Williams Institute analyzed new data from the American Community Survey, which is part of the U.S. Census Bureau.
The largest percentage increases occurred in the Midwest, an area that had relatively low rates of same-sex couples in Census 2000. Six of the eight states with a 2006 ballot initiative that would ban gay unions saw increases in the number of same-sex couples that exceed the national rate.
Wisconsin ranks number two out of all 50 states, second only to New Hampshire in the percentage increase of gay couples since 2000. 8,232 Wisconsin same-sex couples were identified by the 2000 U.S. Census. In 2005, the number is 14,894. Of those, 6,909 are male couples, and 7,985 are female.
The survey also looked at the 50 largest metropolitan areas. Milwaukee lists 1,804 couples, but the greater Milwaukee area has 3,786. Three of Wisconsin’s seven congressional districts - representing Dane, Milwaukee and Brown counties - have more than two thousand gay couples each.
According to Fair Wisconsin’s public relations director Joshua Freker, the survey suggests more and more gay people are willing to be open about their families. “It’s unlikely that the 81% increase in the percentage of gay couples is attributable to people moving here,” Freker wrote in the “No On The Amendment” blog. “Instead, it’s much more likely that more gay families are willing to identify themselves. Hopefully, if those families are willing to be out on a government survey, they’re also being more open with people in their communities. The number one correlation to being a ‘no’ voter is knowing gay people, especially knowing them well.”
140 Milwaukee Priests Defy Bishop, Urge “No” Vote On Amendment
Milwaukee - An alliance of 140 Roman Catholic priests has defied Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan’s support of the proposed amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage and civil unions by publicly calling on Catholics to vote “No” on the November 7 ballot. The Milwaukee Archdiocese Priest Alliance issued its statement regarding both the marriage and death penalty ballot initiatives October 5.
Drawing on their pastoral experience, the priests of the Alliance at their Fall General Assembly approved a statement asking that the public and the public servants in the state look beyond the issues suggested by the ballot referenda to the more weighty causes of marital instability and violent crime.
“We priests work daily with the joys and sorrows of marriage and family life,” the statement began. “We try to uphold a consistent ethic of life in our preaching and programs of religious instruction. Because we have a stake in policies that touch on these matters, we wish to join the public debate stirred up by the November ballot measures.”
“On the proposed constitutional amendment concerning marriage and the larger concerns for the stability of marriage and family life, we have these concerns and hopes,” the statement continued. “We affirm the call of our bishops to work for the strengthening of marriage and family. We are especially grateful that they have urged that a vote on the defense of marriage amendment be accompanied by a repudiation of ‘words and deeds that demean individuals with a homosexual orientation, many of whom are our brothers and sisters in Christ.’ Many gays and lesbians are a part of the Catholic family and we do not want to see them marginalized or driven away.”
The alliance then concurred with the analysis offered by Fr. Bryan Massingale in his recent Catholic Herald opinion column. “We share his well-founded fear that the amendment may be construed to deny rights and services, including health care, not only to those in civil unions but many other citizens of Wisconsin as well, irrespective of their marital status,” the alliance wrote. “Indeed, our pastoral experience tells us that the prospect of gay unions is not a chief cause of marital instability and family dissolution. Marriage and family are more at risk from more immediate challenges –problems that can and should be addressed by candidates.”
The alliance statement then listed worsening poverty, noting one of every four Milwaukeeans lives below the poverty line; the fragility of jobs, the stagnation of salaries, the loss of pensions and the shrinking access to
health insurance and healthcare; and the commercialization of sex through pornography, prostitution and worldwide internet access.
The Milwaukee Archdiocese Priest Alliance is a grassroots organization of 140 active and retired priests who serve in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and represents the opinion of about one fifth of the 709 diocesan and religious order priests living in the boundaries of the Archdiocese.
Madison Diocese Accused Of Breaking Election Laws
Madison - A political watchdog group has accused the Catholic Diocese of Madison of failing to publicly disclose its attempts to influence the November 7 referendum on gay marriage. On October 17 the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign requested the state Elections Board to take enforcement action against the diocese for failing to register its activities in support of a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions.
The group cited a flier prepared by the diocese and distributed outside a Catholic church in Madison. “A YES vote upholds the Catholic teaching that marriage is a union between a man and a woman,” the flier said.
State law requires groups that spend more than $25 to support or oppose a state referendum to register with the Elections Board. Those who spend more than $1,000 must disclose their fundraising and spending.
Supporters of the gay marriage ban have avoided the disclosure requirement by stopping just short of directly advocating a yes vote in “educational” presentations. The Family Research Institute of Wisconsin claims most of its efforts have been educational in nature and as a result do not have to be disclosed. Its political arm, Vote Yes for Marriage, reported spending only $547 as of June 30.
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign executive director Mike McCabe believes citizens are in the dark about who is paying for efforts advocating the amendment. He said the flier was the first physical evidence of “under the radar campaigning” the group suspected.
MaCabe thinks the Elections Board should use the case to send a message to other churches that have gotten involved in the campaign in support of the amendment. “It appears as though the pro-referendum forces have decided to conceal the full extent of their activity,” McCabe said. “In this case, we found the diocese runs afoul of state law in doing it.”
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is on record opposing the amendment, citing it as bad public policy. McCabe said that had nothing to do with the complaint. Instead, he said it was important to report what he called a clear violation of the state’s campaign finance laws. He said pastors can speak about the issues but state law requires groups who advocate for or against a referendum to register - and it makes no exemption for churches.
The Wisconsin Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s Catholic bishops, has registered in favor of the gay marriage amendment, Elections Board records show.
Elections Board spokesman Kyle Richmond noted the board would need a more formal complaint to be filed before it would consider the matter at its meeting November 29. Such a violation would typically lead to a fine.
Madison Bishop Robert Morlino responded to McCabe on October 18, claiming that seeking to fine the church for its activities backing the proposed amendment was “akin to intimidation and persecution.”
New Exhibit Features “The Guys Next Door”
Milwaukee - A six -week exhibit featuring masculine photographic portraiture has opened at the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center. “The Guy(s) Next Door 1974-2006” opened with an artist’s reception October 21 and will run through November 26.
Like many young artists, Milwaukee native Paul Roberts left his roots for New York City. He now returns, an internationally recognized photographer, to present a solo exhibition of three decades of work at the MGAC.
Roberts told Quest that his interest in photography began in 1972 when his father shared a new Minolta SRT 101 SRL camera he purchased on a trip to Asia. Within a few minutes of his patient instruction, Roberts was hooked and started “taking pictures” of scenic and architectural subject matter. He progressed to animals, people in public places, local performances and, ultimately, to men.
Back in the late 1970s and early-’80s, male physique models in magazines and films (pre-video) were predominantly late-teen and 20-somethings - shaved, with “swimmer’s builds.” That prototype held no interest for Roberts either artistically or sexually.
His attraction in very early years was drawn to ultra-masculine men: construction types, athletes, bodybuilders and the middle-aged hirsute male. As a teenager in the early 1960s, he discovered these men illustrated as sketches or photography in the miniature physique magazines he perused.
Remembering these images became an obsessive “mental vision” - he couldn’t get enough. Consequently, these “physique studies” had a profound influence on both his artistic and sexual sensitivity and sensibility.
“I wanted to find hirsute, middle-aged men, the ones seldom seen on the covers or the pages of ‘gay’ publications from that time,” Roberts said. “As a matter of record, my photographic niche has always been this genre, long before the terms ‘mature,’ ‘bear,’ or ‘daddy’ ever became popularized.”
So, Robert advertised for this specific type and began building his portfolio. He pedaled his unpolished body of work to Charles Leslie, co-founder of the Leslie-Lohman Gallery that is now the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation (LLGAF). “Leslie was especially encouraging and supportive,” Roberts said. “He invited me to participate in a group show of photographic male art in 1980.” The gallery still continues its patronage, allowing me to exhibit with many other artists in the LLGAF annual photography shows over the past two-and-a-half decades.
The many men who have graced Roberts’ lens have educated him about the male psyche as well as lent their varied physical attributes to my photographic interpretations. “While I have made mature men the primary focus of my work, I have, in recent years, diversified to include the 20- and 30-somethings,” he said. “Every man I have photographed has been an artistic learning and growing experience.”
And, for the record, the head shots and portraits exhibit attendees will see are not actors and models. “Okay, there’s one actor and one model, but the rest are everyday guys next door,” Roberts confided to Quest.
Paul Roberts has published his photos in Blueboy, and European publications Jean Paul, Off, and Hommes. Over the years his photographs have appeared in The Advocate, Vice, Bear Magazine, Euro Bear, Playbill, The New York Times, and on the covers of HX, Pump It Up, Naturist Gay-zette, and 100% Beef. In 2001, he published Shadows and Dreams, a calendar with 39 black and white images of men.
Roberts’ works have been included in the volumes Male Bonding I, Male Bonding II, and Anthology II: Beasts, published by the Phenomenon Factory (Venice, California) and have appeared in the exhibition Bears: Icons of Gay Male Masculinity, and book Bear Icons II, created by Les Wright, Mount Ida College, Massachusetts. In 2005, he had a one-man exhibition of 107 images at the Bear Cafe in New York City. In June 2006, the St. Sebastian Exhibition at the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center (MGAC) included some of his work, and in early fall one of Roberts’ pieces will be part of the Tom of Finland Foundation’s Permanent Collection in Los Angeles.
Paul Roberts’ “The Guy(s) Next Door” runs through November 26 at the MGAC, 703 South 2nd St. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 AM - 4 PM and by appointment. For more information, call the MGAC at: 414-383-3727.
Quakers: “Marriage Amendment Is Blatantly Immoral”
Viroqua - The Kickapoo Valley Monthly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) has issued a formal statement the upcoming referendum on the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage and civil unions. The October 20 statement by the historically pacifist group is one of the strongest issued by any religious organization about the ballot issue to date.
“On November’s ballot, Wisconsin will vote on a constitutional ban on same-gender marriages,” David Chakoian, who serves as the clerk the Quaker group wrote. “We of Religious Society of Friends believe the movement to isolate and scapegoat homosexuals, to promote hatred against them, and to impose in law one group’s religious beliefs on us all, is blatantly immoral and contrary to Jesus’ teachings.”
Chakoian continued, citing recent marriage statistics. “With half of marriages ending in divorce, unquestionably the right thing to do is to strengthen marriages. But diverting the question to whether two people of the same sex can have legal rights together completely loses track of the problem of frail marriages,” he wrote.
“The proposed constitutional amendment really has nothing to do with marriage; it is a thinly veiled attack on gays and lesbians, part of a pattern of discrimination and institutionalized hatred,” the statement continued. “It is a strategy of power practiced by would-be tyrants throughout history.”
The Quaker group questioned fundamentalist teaching about homosexuality, comparing it to Muslim extremism. “Some have portrayed persecution and hatred of gays as a Christian thing to do. We can find nowhere that Jesus said anything about homosexuality. Nor did Jesus ever suggest encoding Christian teachings into a Sharia-like law to force religious beliefs on society,” the statement said.
“We believe that God loves us all equally, and that we are called to treat each other with the same love in which God created us. We have no need to hate, or to discriminate against, any group for any reason. It is simply not Christian to do so,” the statement concluded.
Tickets Selling Briskly For ROW Dinner
Green Bay - Tickets are selling rapidly for the third annual “Evening With Rainbow Over Wisconsin” dinner, auction and show to be held Saturday, November 18 at the Liberty Hall Convention and Conference Center in suburban Appleton, according to the group’s ticket sales manager Terry Nicholson. “As of mid-October we are on track to exceed last year’s numbers,” Nicholson told Quest.
Nicholson noted the more than 100 “early bird” sales turned in at the group’s October meeting matched 2005 sales and does not include several corporate tables sold since then. “I think the ROW dinner has become ‘the must go-to’ fall event for the gay and lesbian in this part of the state,” Nicholson said.
Invitations were sent in September to previous attendees and individual Rainbow Over Wisconsin member have tickets for sale, Nicholson added. Tickets are $35 each.
This year’s family-style banquet will feature a new menu that will include Smothered Breast of Chicken, Medallions of Roasted Tenderloin, Baby Red Potatoes, Confetti Rice Pilaf, Stir Fried Vegetables, Spinach Salad, Tropical Fresh Fruit Medley, Creamy Coleslaw, Croissants (or possibly a mix of bakery items), New York Cheesecake and Tropical Carrot Cake.
A silent auction will precede the meal during the cocktail hour. The popular live auction will be helmed this year by ROW President Dean Dayton.
The ROW dinner, auction and show has become the charitable organization’s signature fund-raising event. ROW has already made major grants of $5000 to the Action Wisconsin Education Fund to do outreach education on the proposed civil union and marriage ban and a $4000 grant to ARCW for gay community HIV/AIDS prevention outreach in central, northeast and eastern Wisconsin.
For more information on the “Evening With Rainbow Over Wisconsin” event, visit the group’s website at: www.rainbowoverwisconsin.org or call 920-437-0994.
LaCrosse Sets “Vote No” Rally
LaCrosse - There will be a rally about the proposed constitutional amendment banning civil unions and marriage, cosponsored by Fair Wisconsin and the 7 Rivers LGBT Resource Center, on October 27 from 6 -7 PM at the Cleary Center on the UW-L campus.
“We need all the “NO” votes we can get on November 7,” publicist Mary O’Sullivan told the center’s supporters in announcing th rally. “It is really important for everyone to get out and vote.”
The center has posted information and links on the home page of its website to assist those not registered to vote at: www.7riverslgbt.org. O’Sullivan also reminded all center users and supporters that they can call their respective county clerk’s offices to find out where to vote.
Sheboygan Makes It A “Vote No” Party
Sheboygan - An election eve brat fry and show will energize gay and other supportive voters here. The Blue Lite has sent a mail advisory to hundreds of bar patrons announcing a “Vote No” Party at the tavern on Saturday, November 4 from 3-7 PM. Entertainment will be provided by Colleen Jameson and attendees who may be first-time voters will learn how to and where to cast their vote against the proposed amendment banning civil unions and gay marriage.
“Gay people in Wisconsin only have one job for the next two weeks and that is to get their butts off their barstools and into the voting booths,” owner Dean Dayton told Quest. “While they’re at it they should collect every family member and friend of voting age they know and drive them down to vote as well!”
Quest To Go Twice-Monthly In December
Green Bay, Milwaukee - Za’s Publications has announced that the state’s longest-running LGBT news and entertainment publication will adjust to twice-monthly schedule of publication beginning in December, 2005. Quest magazine will publish on the second and fourth week of each month beginning with the issue appearing December 14. Quest currently hits the streets every two weeks.
“Now that we are also publishing the monthly lifestyle-oriented Outbound, the twice monthly schedule will be a better fit for both readers and advertisers,” publisher Mark Mariucci said. “Currently gay readers are deluged with media choices the first week of every month. Quest’s re-scheduling will even both product distribution and opportunities for advertisers to better spotlight their events and products.”
Mariucci noted that the resumption of the Milwaukee monthly Queer Life factored into his decision. “The editorial content of Wisconsin’s three print media are now more complimentary than ever. Each deserves its moment of attention.” Queer Life and Outbound currently have first week of the month street dates.
Revised deadline and street date schedules will be distributed to advertisers during the next month. Information will also be posted on the Quest website at: www.quest-online.com.
“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” Tickets Go On Sale October 29
Milwaukee - The National Tour of the scamming, scheming, double-crossing hit Broadway musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is coming to Milwaukee at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts from January 2-7, 2007.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels reunites songwriter and lyricist David Yazbek with Tony Award winners director Jack O’Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell, the Tony-nominated team behind The Full Monty. The raucous new musical comedy show features a book by Jeffrey Lane that will keep audiences laughing, humming and guessing to the very end.
Based on the popular 1988 MGM film, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels centers on two con men living on the French Riviera: the suave and sophisticated Lawrence Jameson, who makes his lavish living by talking rich ladies out of their money; and a small-time crook named Freddy Benson, who, more humbly, swindles women by waking their compassion with fabricated stories about his grandmother’s failing health.
After meeting on a train, they unsuccessfully attempt to work together only to find that this small French town isn’t big enough for the two of them. So they make a bet: the first one to swindle $50,000 from a young heiress, triumphs and the other must leave town. What follows are a series of schemes, masquerades and double-crosses in which nothing may ever be exactly what it seems.
The public sale for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is scheduled for Sunday, October 29 at noon. Tickets range in price from $23 - $72 depending upon performance time and seating preference. All prices include applicable facility fees, however, additional charges may apply. Tickets may be purchased at the Marcus Center Box Office at 414-273-7206 or through Ticketmaster at 414-276-4545 or by logging onto www.ticketmaster.com.
Performance dates are Tuesday, January 2 through Sunday, January 7 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 North Water Street, Milwaukee. Show times are Tuesday at 7:30 PM, Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 PM; Friday at 8PM; Saturday at 2 PM and 8 PM; and Sunday at 1 PM and 6:30 PM. Groups of 20 or more should call 414-273-7121, Ext. 210 for information and reservations.
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