Religious Right Founder Jerry Falwell Dead At 73
Anti-Gay Littered Legacy Includes Outhouses, PTL Water Slides, & Tinky-Winky
By Mike Fitzpatrick
Lynchburg, Virginia - The minister generally credited as launching the Religious Right and called one of the most anti-gay figures in annals of American politics has himself passed into history. TV evangelist and Moral Majority founder Rev. Jerry Falwell collapsed in the campus office at his Liberty University and died May 15. He was 73.
  Falwell was discovered without a pulse and pronounced dead at a hospital an hour later. Dr. Carl Moore, Falwell’s physician, said he had a heart condition and presumably died of a heart rhythm abnormality.
  1973’s Roe Vs. Wade Supreme Court abortion ruling stirred Falwell to abandon the evangelical movement’s long tradition of separating matters of church and state, and ultimately led to his founding of the Moral Majority in 1979. Falwell claimed the Moral Majority got millions of conservative voters registered, resulting in Ronald Reagan’s election victory and Republican Senate control in 1980.
  ``I shudder to think where the country would be right now if the religious right had not evolved,’’ Falwell said in announcing his resignation as Moral Majority president in 1987.
  Over the years, Falwell waged a landmark libel case against Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt over a raunchy parody ad that claimed the preacher lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse after a night of heavy drinking. He also slid down a Christian theme park water slide in a failed attempt to save Jim Bakker’s PTL empire after the latter televangelist was caught in a gay sex scandal.
  Falwell also angered Jews when he claimed that the biblical Anti-Christ was alive and a member of the Jewish community. But he focused his ire most repeatedly on the gay community: calling AIDS God’s punishment for homosexuality, claiming a children’s television character was proselytizing the “gay agenda” to pre-schoolers, and directly blaming gays in part for 9/11 terrorist attacks.
  Falwell showed his anti-gay side early. In 1977 he supported Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign to repeal a gay antidiscrimination ordinance passed in Dade County, Florida. In urging the repeal of the ordinance Falwell told one crowd “gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you.”
  In the early days of the AIDS pandemic in the first years of the 1980’s Falwell swayed public opinion against people living with HIV.  He announced that gays deserved the then always-fatal disease, claiming “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals, it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”
  Probably Falwell’s most hilarious anti-gay outburst occurred in February, 1999 when he denounced a British children’s program as being part of the subversive “gay agenda.”  Falwell denounced the innocent world of the Teletubbies, claiming the BBC-produced children’s show did not provide a good role model for children because one of the characters - Tinky Winky - was gay.
  Falwell “outed” the ever-cheerful purple character with the triangular aerial on his head because he carried a handbag, and was outraged by the complete acceptance offered by Tinky Winky’s friends Laa-Laa, Dipsy and Po. In his self-penned “Parents Alert: Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet” appearing in National Liberty Journal, Falwell wrote: “He is purple - the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle - the gay-pride symbol.”
  Falwell claimed  the “subtle depictions of gay sexuality are intentional.” After the article caused an international uproar - mostly of derisive laughter - Falwell issued a follow-up, explanatory statement that read: “As a Christian I feel that role modeling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children.”
  Two years later, after the September 11 attacks, Falwell said on fellow televangelist Pat Robertson’s 700 Club: “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle. The ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”
  Bowing to heavy criticism, Falwell later apologized for the remarks. However, after his own fellow “social conservatives” called him out for bowing the the liberal left, Falwell reversed himself, issuing a statement saying:  “If we decide to change all the rules on which this Judeo-Christian nation was built, we cannot expect the Lord to put his shield of protection around us as he has in the past.”
  One of the greatest ironies of Falwell’s anti-gay career was his use of now openly-gay author and minister Mel White to ghost-write the minister’s autobiography. White - who was still in the closet at the time - was recruited to pen Falwell: An Autobiography, published in 1987.
  White later came out publicly and exchanged a series of open letters with Falwell on the subject of homosexuality. White, who also founded the Soulforce movement to address Christianity’s response to gay people, later met directly with Falwell to conduct a “dialogue” on the issue.
  White remembered the meeting as he wrote about Falwell the day after his death. “So he said we would have an antiviolence summit, which 183 accredited news crews attended. It was an amazing thing,” White said. “And then the minute he invited us, he started getting dumped on by all his fundamentalist friends and donors - big donors. Like Tim LaHaye and Gary Bauer and Jim Dobson at Focus on the Family. So he started pulling back, and after that event he refused to see me again.”
  White and his life partner Gary Nixon later moved Lynchburg in the hope that Falwell “would be tortured a bit by our presence and he would see a healthy gay couple and realize that he was wrong, because he’s changed on other things.”
  “He died first, which was a chicken way out,” White wrote on May 15.
  Another gay community leader also offered condolences with caveats. “The death of a family member or friend is always a sad occasion and we express our condolences to all those who were close to the Rev. Jerry Falwell,” NGLTF Executive Director Matt Foreman wrote in a statement to the press. “Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America’s anti-gay industry,” Foreman added, “Someone who exacerbated the nation’s appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation.”
  Others were less subtle. On the night of Falwell’s death about a dozen people gathered in the Castro District Tuesday evening to mark the death of Jerry Falwell. Longtime AIDS activist Michael Petrelis organized the so-called “anti-memorial” and said gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders said would speak out about Falwell’s past efforts to demonize the gay community.
  A makeshift grave was surrounded by an assortment of signs, rainbow flags and teletubbies dolls at Castro and 18th streets.  One signed read, “Falwell dies, but the rainbow lives.” At least one person danced on the makeshift grave.
  Yet despite his career-long anti-gay attitudes, Falwell will be remembered for “heresy.” The Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church announced it intended to state a protest at the funeral held May 22 at the Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church Falwell founded, in Lynchburg, Virginia.  On its godhatesfags.com website, Westboro claimed it would “preach” outside the funeral “of the corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell, who spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like ‘God loves everyone.’”

Biennial Budget Bargaining Brings No DP Blessings
Bipartisan Bartering By-Product: Domestic Partner Benefits Out
By Mike Fitzpatrick
Madison - Recent decisions by the Wisconsin Legislature's Joint Finance Committee (JFC) on the 2007-9 biennial budget bill have brought mixed results for state's LGBT community. Governor Jim Doyle's proposed extension of domestic partner benefits to faculty and staff in the University of Wisconsin system made an early exit from the deliberations, while a May lopsided May 17 vote all but insures increased funding for HIV/AIDS care over the next two years.
   In late April, co-chairs of the 16-member Joint Finance Committee State Senator Russ Decker (D-Weston) and Assembly Representative Kitty Rhoades (R-Hudson) agreed to pull 48 non-fiscal items identified by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau from in Doyle's original proposal. Key among the four dozen removed items was the plan to grant state employees in domestic partnerships access to health care benefits similar to those offered to married state employees.
  The proposal may still be brought up in the finance committee, but would require the approval of both co-chairs plus nine votes in support of the plan before it could be included on the committee's final version of the budget. Though it may technically be possible, most insiders believe it is unlikely. Fair Wisconsin reported generating several thousand messages to committee members requesting the benefits be returned to the budget bill.
  The procedural move sidestepped having to deal with growing complaint about UW-Madison, the state's lead campus. having greater difficulty remaining competitive in retaining and recruiting top academics. The school is the only institution among the Big Ten not to offer domestic partner benefits.
  According to Don Nelson, the assistant director of state relations at UW-Madison, the school has had trouble retaining faculty members in recent years. Nelson provided statistics demonstrating that Madison was able to retain only 57% of faculty members who were offered positions at out-of-state institutions last year.
  "In the past, the university has usually retained 75% of faculty members who were offered positions outside the state," Nelson said. "(The proposal) is a business decision that allows us to be on the same footing as our other colleagues. We really find ourselves at a competitive
disadvantage by not being able to offer this benefit."
   On May 9, UW-Madison issued a statement announcing that the school "continues to actively pursue the ability to offer domestic partner health insurance benefits to its faculty and staff."
  "The benefits issue is currently part of the state budget process, which UW–Madison faculty and staff are following intently," Laurie Beth Clark, vice provost for faculty and staff programs and campus point-person for the issue said in the statement.
  The statement also pointed out that the total cost of such benefits in the statewide UW system would be an estimated $550,000, a fact also alluded to in an "open letter" sent a day earlier by Chancellor John D. Wiley to his elected representatives in the Legislature, Assembly Representative Mark Pocan and State Senator Mark Miller, both Madison Democrats.
  "Providing this benefit makes economic sense," Wiley wrote. "The estimated GPR (general public revenue) cost for this benefit UW System-wide is $550,000, and for UW-Madison it is $112,000. In one faculty loss alone, the university lost nearly $3.4 million in private and federal gifts and grants. By any definition, a small GPR investment could yield significant financial benefits."
  “In an environment of limited state resources and increased competition for our faculty and staff, we should do everything in our power to address the specific reasons people leave,” Wiley continued. “We know for a certainty that this issue has been, and continues to be, a major factor for those faculty and staff who are being recruited by other universities. Being able to offer this benefit will allow us to continue to strategically address the recruitment and retention problem. It is crucial we stem this tide.”
  “I understand the budget process, particularly this year, is long and often unpredictable,” Wiley concluded. “While the budget appears to be headed toward a conference committee, I strongly feel that the sooner we can secure this provision in the budget the better. Please feel free to call upon me anytime regarding this or any other issue.”
 The university has taken numerous steps to work with the state to enact change on the issue. For years, UW System has been in agreement with UW–Madison and has included domestic partner health insurance coverage in its compensation plan recommendations to the state.
  The university also has a  website (www.news.wisc.edu/domesticPartnerBenefits) to help the campus community to track the issue through the budget process.
  Though prospects appear dim at the Joint Finance Committee level, the domestic partner proposal still could be inserted in either or both the Senate or Assembly versions of the budget bill, but would have to face final scrutiny in the conference committee, the body that will resolve differences in the budget bills passed by the two chambers.

World & National News:

3rd Anniversary Stunner: Massachusetts Same-Sex-Marriage Rates Decline
Boston - As people celebrated the third anniversary of same-sex marriage May 17, the state released statistics showing the number of gay marriages has dropped sharply since 2004. According to the state Department of Public Health, 6,121 gay couples married in the first seven months after gay marriage became legal on May 17, 2004.
  In 2005, 2,060 gay couples married, and in 2006, the number declined to 1,427, down 31 percent from 2005.
During this year through April 26, only 87 gay couples have tied the knot.
  According to retired professor from the University of Massachusetts Patricia S. Griffin, a who married her longtime partner in 2004, it makes sense that most gay people would marry in the first year. When a right is denied and then suddenly granted, people tend to take advantage of it, she believes.
  "People are now getting married at a more normal rate," Griffin said. "It's kind of settled down."
  The statistics also show that 9,695 gay couples have married in this state. Of that total, 6,209 marriages, or 64%, are lesbian couples.
  Right-wing Massachusetts Family Institute spokesperson Kristian M. Mineau claimed the decline shows gay people aren’t really serious about getting hitched. "The numbers are relatively small and dwindling rapidly," Mineau said. "The actual institution of marriage is not being sought after by the gay community."
  However, hundreds of supporters celebrated the third anniversary at a party in Boston. "It's an historical marker," Marc Solomon, campaign director of party host MassEquality said. "We've come a long way in a few years. More than 9,000 couples are married. It's been important for them, their kids and their families."
  The state Supreme Judicial Court, voting 4-3, legalized gay marriage in November 2003. Governor Deval L. Patrick, a strong supporter of gay marriage, proclaimed May 17 "Marriage Equality Day."
  Patrick opposes a move to put a question on the 2008 statewide ballot that, if approved by voters, would ban future gay marriages. Legislators are scheduled to vote on June 14 on whether to place on the ballot in 2008 a proposed constitutional amendment that would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Update: U.S. Navy Once Again Fires Recalled Openly Gay
Washington, D.C. - The United States Navy has informed Petty Officer Second Class Jason Knight that it intends to fire him under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law just weeks prior to completing his one-year commitment. Knight, an openly gay sailor, was recalled to active duty in June 2006 and recently completed a tour of duty in Kuwait, where he was open about his sexual orientation with his command and fellow sailors. Knight who had told his story to the newspaper Stars & Stripes (see also May 10 issue of Quest) was notified May 11 that he will be receiving an honorable discharge from the Navy based, in part, on his recent media interviews. Knight was scheduled to end his commitment on May 28, but will face early dismissal because he chose to go public about his experience.
  “Jason Knight was an exemplary sailor who gladly returned to active duty when our country needed him,” Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) Director of law and policy Sharra E. Greer said. “Now, despite his dedication and service, and the praise of those he served alongside, the Navy has decided to fire him because he dared to tell his story and put a public face to the courage of lesbian and gay service personnel. Our nation should be embarrassed that our armed forces are forced to respond to Knight’s selfless service with a government-sanctioned pink slip. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ silences lesbians and gays and attempts to make them invisible. Because Knight refused invisibility, he will now be fired.”
  Knight, a trained Hebrew linguist, was re-called to active duty and served with Naval Customs Battalion Romeo in Kuwait. He told Stars & Stripes that, having ‘come out’ to his command during his previous enlistment, he saw no reason to hide his sexual orientation. Many of his colleagues spoke to the newspaper in support of him. “The Navy tends to keep people who don’t want to be here, but Jason does,” Petty Officer 1st Class Tisha Hanson told the paper. “[I]t doesn’t bother me.”
  “I have now spent five years in the Navy, and I have loved every minute of it,” Knight said following notification of his second dismissal. “It is unfortunate that in our country, which prides itself on being a beacon of liberty to the world, discrimination is still alive and well, even in our own government. I am proud to be among the one million gay veterans who have answered the call to duty, and I look forward to working alongside them to topple this un-American and counter-productive law.”

PlanetOut, Inc. In Deep Financial Doo Doo
Owner of Gay.com, Advocate, RSVP Cruises reports a dismal first quarter
San Francisco -  It turned heads in the 1990’s as it gobbled up one top-flight gay brand after another - Gay.com, The Advocate and Out magazines, and RSVP Cruises. Now PlanetOut, Inc., the dominant media holding company catering to the gay community, is now just trying to survive.
  The San Francisco-based company disclosed May 9 that without additional financing it will run out of money before the end of the year. PlanetOut management blamed declining subscriptions for personal ads, a shortfall in advertising revenue and trouble booking passengers on its gay-oriented cruises.
  PlanetOut’s dismal first-quarter earnings report disclosed that every segment of the business needs spilled red ink.  The company reported it lost $6.9 million in its fiscal first quarter, compared with a $132,000 loss a year earlier. Revenue totaled $16.8 million, down from $17.6 million during the same period a year ago.
  “This is deeply disappointing and concerning to me and the rest of the management team,” Karen Magee, PlanetOut’s chief executive officer, said in her explanation to market analysts. “We’ve got major work to do at PlanetOut to generate the healthy revenue growth and solid earnings performance that I believe this company is capable of producing.”
  Magee still hopes for a turnaround over the next two years, during which the company plans to upgrade technology, reorganize and sell some assets, including its adult publishing business. However, PlanetOut will have to come up with an additional $15 million to meet the terms of an existing loan, or face default. Without a cash infusion the lender could foreclose on PlanetOut’s assets.
  The company, which had $11 million in cash and short-term investments at the end of the first quarter, said it would run out of money by year’s end without additional financing.
  Magee pointed to the poor performance by PlanetOut’s RSVP travel agency, which offers cruises to destinations such as the Caribbean. Passenger occupancy has been less than expected and, as a result, the company has had to offer steep discounts to attract travelers and pay penalties to cruise lines.
  Also, PlanetOut’s print and online advertising sales continued to sag over the first quarter. Subscriptions to online personals have also lagged amid growing competition from other gay-oriented websites and social networking giants MySpace and Facebook.
  One bright spot, according to analyst Richard Ingrassia of Roth Capital Partners, is PlanetOut’s name recognition and proven success in reaching the gay demographic.
  However, investors sent PlanetOut’s shares tumbling 33% over the next two days to close on May 11 at $1.64, the lowest point since the company’s initial public offering three years ago.

Eighty Gay Men Arrested In Iran
New York City - Iran’s arbitrary arrests of thousands of men and women in recent weeks under the banner of “countering immoral behavior” threaten basic rights to privacy, Human Rights Watch announced here May 17. Human Rights Watch called for the immediate release of all those detained as part of this campaign, including more than 80 people seized in a raid on a private gathering in the city of Esfahan on May 10, 2007.
  “In Iran, the walls of homes are transparent and the halls of justice are opaque,” Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, said. “This ‘morality’ campaign shows how fragile respect for privacy and personal dignity is in Iran today.”
  Eighty members of the Iranian gay community reportedly have been arrested by the security personnel in the town Isfahan, according to the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO) reports.
  “Close to 10 PM on May 10th, security forces raided Farhad’s birthday party, brutally assaulted the host, his parents, and all the guests. Everyone at the party were arrested on the spot,” the IRQO website reported.
  On Sunday May 13, IRQO received news that “the arrestees were under severe tortures and in bad conditions in the jail in Isfahan. Their lives are in danger.”
  Homosexuality is a capital crime under Sharia, or Islamic, law in Iran. Some international gay rights groups believe that more than 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979.

State News:

Interview: Ravens Owner Opens Up About New Club’s Opening
Interview by Mike Fitzpatrick
Appleton - It may seem hard to believe, but it has been a decade since the Pivot Club, one of the largest gay dance and show bars in the state, closed its doors. Most LGBT folks over a certain age living in northeast Wisconsin likely made at least one trek to the huge club with its enormous thrust stage, extravagant laser-filled lighting system, expansive outdoor patio and plush-padded, curved seating booths. They also might remember the pot-hole covered parking lot and the often cop car-filled drive out into the country to get to and from the Pivot.
  Now a new club - located smack in the middle of Appleton’s city center - has opened and is staking a claim to the Pivot legacy. Ravens, set just a brief walk from the Lawrence University campus at 215 E. College Avenue, opened May 9 and has seen its patronage “doubling nightly,” according to co-owner Jared Korn. Quest’s Mike Fitzpatrick talked with Jared about the new venue during a break from another busy night recently .

Quest: Tell me about Ravens.

Korn: “Well, it’s Appleton’s newest martini lounge - slash - dance bar -slash- video bar. It’s our second weekend open and each day we’ve been doubling the business. It’s strictly been by word of mouth. Quest will be our first ad. Right now I’ve almost got a full house!”

Quest: What are the attractions of Ravens? Is it a gay bar, a mixed bar?

Korn: “This bar is whatever anyone who comes in the door wants it to be. Right now its about 90% gay. It’s gay owned and operated. Right now it’s mostly men, from 21 to 65 so its all over the place!

Quest: Are you the sole owner of Ravens?

Korn: No. I’ve got a business partner. His name is Mike Pautz from Black Creek, but he’s in town most of the time.

Quest: What kind of music will be playing?

Korn: “In the back bar - we’re going to have a separate name (for it) - will be open Thursday through Saturday with a resident DJ, Mark Bray. We also will be bringing in visiting deejays. Dancing will start about 10 o’clock. Videos will run all night. The beat will be a lot heavier and a lot louder in the back.
  “The front also will be a video lounge. We’re not gonna have (TV shows like) ‘Wheel of Fortune.’ Just music videos with a good beat.
  “There’s also a lounge area where its quieter for a little more intimate conversation.”

Quest: Describe what makes Ravens so exciting.

Korn: “We’re one of a kind right now in Appleton. We’re a ‘big city club.’ We’re purple and silver with red accents and lighting. It’s a hot bar. It’s a white-collar bar and something that Appleton needs.

Quest: There hasn’t been a dance bar that catered to the gay community since the Pivot Club closed down.

Korn: We’re going to to try fill that void. I was never fortunate enough to go to the Pivot. I was too young, but I’ve heard stories. We have room for 170 people. We’re also going to have a closed-in patio to accommodate the smokers.

Quest: Will Appleton’s no smoking ordinance be a challenge for you?

Korn: I don’t think so. We’re kind of a destination bar. People that are used to coming to Appleton know they have to go outside to smoke. Quite honestly, its nice to go home and not smell like cigarettes. It keeps the bar cleaner. It’s (the no- smoking law) is going to go statewide, so it’s going to become a non-issue, I think.

Quest: What else do we need to know?

Korn: We’re going to have a website: www.ravenslounge.net.  We’ve also got a happy hour every day from 5-8 PM. Buy one-get one martinis, drink specials including $10 off bottles of wine. I’ve got a great wine selection too. I’m a liquor salesman by day and a bar owner by night - this is my life!