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Feature
 Queer Utah History
Ten Most Significant Events for Queer Utah in the 20th Century
Bohemian Club (1890s-1910s)
The Bohemian Club was an elite intellectual club associated with the University of Utah from the 1890s through the early part of the 20th century. The club was named for the free thinking communities of New York City and other east coast cities. Bohemian is equivalent to the hip, beatnik, hippie, new wave, punk, and grunge movements of the latter half of the 20th century. In most counter-cultures, gay and lesbians are at the forefront of alternative ways of thinking and living. Within the Bohemian Club young gentile and Mormon Utahns met and shared ideas outside the parameters of the dominant Mormon culture.
WWII era and the Kinsey Report (1939-50)
World War II brought the largest inland military installation in the U.S. to Utah, located at Kearns Field. This installation in western Salt Lake County brought in the greatest number of gentiles to Utah ever, which, by its very nature, challenged the dominant culture. Young gay and lesbian Mormons were able to experience during the war years a relaxing of the strict prohibition against fraternizing with the forbidden gentile world. Lesbians were freed from the restriction of male supervision, and gay men were thrown into close intimate situations with other gay men. Fort Douglas became the main cruising spot for gay men. Shortly after World War II, Dr. Alfred Kinsey published his work on male sexuality that claimed that 10 percent of men were homosexual to some degree. This powerful concept cemented the notion that gays could be found in significant numbers in any given community—even in Utah.
Cleon Skousen’s Morality Drive (1955–60)
The topic of homosexuality was breached in the 1940s, but by the 1950s homosexuality became identified as un-American and subversive. The far right, fueled by the McCarthy era’s “homosexual panic,” led a crusade against homosexuals in America. In Utah, Salt Lake City’s Chief of Police, Cleon Skousen, used “immorality” as a political opportunity. He began a public education program that instilled the fear of gay men as the enemy of children. He increased his budget by enlarging his vice department, which was then sent out to arrest more gay men and drive them underground. His well-publicized crusade against “perverts” justified his budget, but so ruthless was his tactics that in 1959 even the Salt Lake Tribune pleaded for compassion towards homosexuals. Progressive citizens began to see Skousen’s scapegoating homosexuals as part of his conservative political agenda. Progressive judges started sentencing homosexuals to psychiatric treatment instead of jail.
Utah Gay Liberation (1969)
Within months of the Stonewall riots in NYC, gay liberation was organized in Utah. Forming coalitions with other oppressed minorities and joining the anti-Vietnam War movement, gay liberation allowed gay Utahns to view themselves historically as part of a great civil rights movement. By elevating the nature of the gay struggle from oppression, homosexuals by the thousands came out of closets in the 1970s. “Proud to be gay” was a paradigm shift in the consciousness of homosexuals. Within a few short years, Salt Lake City had the Lesbian and Gay Student Union at the University of Utah, a gay-friendly church, and several gay and lesbian bars.
The Sun Tavern (1973)
While it was not the first tavern to cater to a homosexual clientele, the Sun was the first to be solely owned by a social activist who saw his bar as more than just a business, and it quickly became the unofficial home of the blossoming gay community. Gay politics, the anti-war movement, the Equal Rights Amendment and other social agendas were as part of the atmosphere of the Sun as disco dancing and cruising. The Sun embodied gay liberation in the 1970s and was the university for the post-Stonewall man and woman. The Sun set the standard for future gay-oriented businesses catering to gays and lesbians wherein its patrons demanded to be treated with respect.
The Anita Bryant Utah Fairgrounds Protest (1977)
In 1977 for the first time, gay Utahns felt empowered enough to say to the anti-progressive establishment that it would not tolerate homophobia without protest. The broad base community protest formed coalitions between diverse elements in the newly formed gay and lesbian communities. Many gay and lesbian individuals allowed themselves to accept—for the first time—the concept that they belonged to a collective community working towards a common good through the form of protest.
AIDS Project Utah and Salt Lake AIDS Foundation (1985-89)
Two organizations founded separately but simultaneously formed the core of Utah’s response to the AIDS epidemic. Almost as if divinely inspired, the two organizations emerged to educate Utahns against the disease, while at the same time the gay men’s community was being devastated by the plague until uncaring authorities could muster an official response. The proudest moments in the history of the gay and lesbian movement occurred in these first few years of the epidemic when no one would help us but each other. Those who lived during these times are forever marked by the experience.
Gay and Lesbian Community Council of Utah (1986)
The formation of the Gay and Lesbian Community Council of Utah was a visionary attempt to unify a diverse (and some what cantankerous gay and lesbian community) through the networking of its organizations and activists. GLCCU overcame distrust by some and diversionary tactics from others to become the premier clearing house for Utah’s gay communities for nearly a decade. Among its achievements were the following: the community council formed a liaison with the SLC police department, elected chairs for the Anti-Violence Project, Out Reach Program, AIDS Awareness, and Pride Day. But probably the most successful of all the committees of GLCCU was the Utah Stonewall Center established in 1991. In 1998 this name was changed to the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Utah, which, fittingly, had the same acronym (GLCCU) as the old council.
East High Gay Straight Alliance (1996)
Began by a courageous set of teenagers and bullied by a homophobic state legislature, the movement to establish a gay club at a high school level sent shock waves through conservative Utah—and much of the nation. Ironically, a federal bill supported by Senator Hatch to permit more religious expression in public schools allowed the Gay Straight Alliance federal protection. Although the Salt Lake School Board cowardly disbanded all non-curricular student clubs at East High, eventually a federal judge upheld the club’s right to legally exist and thus securing the right for other Utah schools to form similar gay clubs.
The Election of Jackie Biskupski (1998)
The election of Biskupski culminated the political process by which gays and lesbians in Utah have been trying to achieve political power and recognition for the past 30 years. Gay men and women have served in Utah political office probably since the first ox cart—but never out of the closet. Stephen Holbrook, a social activist representing the university district in the 1970s, was not able to be open publicly about his homosexuality although he was out to close friends. Social activist Joe Redburn ran against Genevieve Atwood and lost. Willie Marshall ran for Bountiful city council but was smeared as not being “a family man.” Perennial Libertarian, Bob Waldrop, ran openly as a gay man in several state elections but was never elected. Political mover and shaker David Nelson also ran several times as a gay candidate but to no avail. The radical rights’ vicious slander and smear tactics have even been brought down upon just “gay friendly” straight politicians. Therefore Biskupski’s win, in a state where an LDS elite makes all the decisions, is a very significant event. But even more then that, the election showed that even in Salt Lake City, a person’s sexual orientation is no longer an automatic disqualifier from public service. It demonstrated clearly how the struggles of the past 30 years, of constant progressive increments no matter how small, were able to wear down a mountain of ignorance and fear about the true nature of our same-gender love.
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