July 1

Today is CANADA DAY – In 1867 the Confederation of Canada was formed. Happy Canada Day to all you gay guys living in this great country!

1663 – English politician Samuel Pepys writes in his diary of his displeasure at how common sodomy had become in the country’s military.

1828 – In the UK, The Buggery Act is repealed then reenacted, criminalizing sodomy.

1923 – Scotty Bowers (d.2019) was a Hollywood figure who published an explicit, best-selling 2012 memoir Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars which revealed a covert realm of Golden Age Hollywood sexuality. The former U.S. Marine and gas station attendant turned erotic fixer to the stars was also the subject of an acclaimed 2017 documentary, Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood.

George Albert "Scotty" Bowers was born in Ottawa, Illinois. After weathering the Great Depression in Chicago during the '30s, Bowers joined the Marine Corps and fought during World War II. Upon returning from combat, he relocated from San Diego to Los Angeles simply because, in his words, he "loved the weather."

The ride, which Bowers said led to a brief affair between the men, would change Bowers' life as it kick-started a side career arranging liaisons for stars, a business he would later describe as sexual matchmaking. According to Bowers, Pidgeon spread the word about his new friend, and soon other notable Hollywood figures were stopping by the station for trysts and to be set up with Bowers' network of prostitutes — both men and women. In order to keep up with the demand, he started to invite "clients" into a trailer parked at the service station.

Bowers also became a bartender for hire at many well-heeled Hollywood events, during which he became familiar with major A-list stars of the Golden Era. He would claim to have set up or slept with a long list of beloved actors, including Rock Hudson, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Bette Davis, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

Bowers also developed trusted relationships with many of his clients; people like acclaimed director George Cukor, for whom he provided more than sexual favors — he did landscaping, shopping and other assistant-style jobs.

Among Bowers' claims: He once hooked up closeted actors Grant and Hudson at the gas station for $20; he arranged more than 100 get-togethers for Hepburn over five decades; he personally slept with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover while the latter was dressed in drag; he organized orgies for composer Cole Porter; and he participated in numerous studies with sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, who was keen to learn more about Bowers' pansexuality.

A character based on Bowers during the heyday of his gas station operation is portrayed by Dylan McDermott in the 2020 Ryan Murphy Netflix miniseries Hollywood.

1925 – Born: Farley Granger, American actor. Born Farley Earle Granger II in San Jose, California, Granger was acting in theatre in Los Angeles, California when he was signed to a film contract by Samuel Goldwyn. He made his debut in The North Star (1943) and appeared in The Purple Heart (1944). Goldwyn was unsure how to use Granger, and it would be four years before he was able to make another film. However, making the film The North Star he met composer Aaron Copland, who remained a friend in later years.

During WWII, Granger enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He sailed to Honolulu. During the 17-day crossing, he suffered from chronic seasickness, lost 23 pounds, and upon arrival in Hawaii he was admitted to the hospital for several days of rehydration. The remainder of his military career was spent onshore, where he first was assigned to an enlisted men's club situated at the end of Waikiki Beach and then to a unit commanded by classical actor Maurice Evans.It was during his naval stint in Honolulu that Granger says he had his first sexual experiences, one with a hostess at a private club and the other with a handsome Naval officer visiting the same venue, both on the same night.

He was startled to discover he was attracted to both men and women equally and in his memoir he observed,

In 1948 Goldwyn cast him in a supporting role in Enchantment but the film failed to live up to Goldwyn's expectations. He was then approached by Alfred Hitchcock to loan him Granger for his new film; the script of which was written by Granger's then-lover Arthur Laurents. The film, Rope (1948), based partly on the Leopold and Loeb murder case, saw Granger co-starring opposite John Dall as two friends who commit a 'thrill kill'. James Stewart played the part of their mentor. The film was not a box office success. Its subject matter was dark, the relationship between Granger and Dall had a homosexual subtext - incidentally, both Granger and Dall were gay - and Hitchcock's gimmick of filming the piece in continuous scenes and in real time produced a result that many critics dismissed as 'stagey'. Granger received very good reviews however, and the film has achieved a level of appreciation in more recent times, while stopping short of becoming a cult film.

While filming Side Street on location in Manhattan, Granger briefly became involved with Leonard Bernstein, who invited him to join him on his South American tour. By the time Granger completed the film, the composer/conductor had married Chilean pianist and actress Felicia Montealegre. The two men remained friends until Bernstein's death.

Goldwyn again agreed to loan Granger to Alfred Hitchcock. Strangers on a Train (1951) was a genuine box office hit, the first major success of Granger's career. Once again Hitchcock attempted to reveal the troubled nature that lay beneath the surface of a seemingly upright young man, in this case a professional tennis player, when introduced to a persuasive character. This character, played by Robert Walker, provides a homosexual subtext, one of many similarities to Rope.

Granger continued to focus on theater in the early 1960s. He accepted an invitation from Eva Le Gallienne to join her National Repertory Theatre. During their first season, while the company was in Philadelphia, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The President had attended NRT's opening night and post-performance gala in the nation's capital, so the news hit everyone in the company especially hard. Granger had become close friends with production supervisor Robert Calhoun, and although both had felt a mutual attraction, they never had discussed it. That night they became lovers. Thier partnership lasted for the next 45 years until Calhoun's death in 2008.

After this, Granger appeared regularly on television during this period but his film career foundered. The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing was his only mainstream success during the 1950s and Granger made no cinematic films during the 1960s. During this time he achieved some success on Broadway, appearing in several productions including The Crucible and The Glass Menagerie.

In the 1990s Granger appeared in several documentaries discussing Hollywood and often specifically Alfred Hitchcock. In 1995 he was one of the people interviewed on camera for The Celluloid Closet discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, and the use of subtext in various films, including his own. Rope, for example, was based on the story of two gay men, the actors chosen to portray them were both gay, and one of the play's writers, Arthur Laurents was also gay, and claimed to have had a 'fling' with Granger shortly before the film was made. In his book, Original Story By: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood, playwright and screenwriter Laurents states that he had a long-term homosexual relationship with Granger.

In 2007, Granger spent time promoting his autobiography, Include Me Out, co-written with his life partner Robert Calhoun, who died of lung cancer in 2008 In the book Granger's bisexuality is not hidden, nor the names of some of his lovers, including Leonard Bernstein and Patricia Neal. He said about his bisexuality, 'I never hid it or felt guilt about being who I was, but I didn't blare it either.'

Granger died of natural causes on March 27, 2011, at age 85.

1926 – Hans Werner Henze (d.2012) was a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life". His music is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition.

Henze was also known for his political convictions. He left Germany for Italy in 1953 because of a perceived intolerance towards his leftist politics and homosexuality. Late in life he lived in the village of Marino in the central Italian region of Lazio, and in his final years still travelled extensively, in particular to Britain and Germany, as part of his work.

Henze was born in Gütersloh, Westphalia, the oldest of six children of a teacher, and showed early interest in art and music. Henze's father, Franz, fell under the spell of Nazi propaganda. Books by Jewish and Christian authors were replaced in the Henze household by literature reflecting Nazi views; the whole family was expected to fall into line with Franz's new thinking. The older boys, including Hans, were enrolled in the Hitler Youth.

Although the Henze household was filled with talk of current affairs, Hans was also able to hear broadcasts of classical music (especially Mozart) and eventually his father realized that his son had a vocation as a musician.

In 1944, Henze had to break off his studies after being conscripted into the army towards the end of Second World War. He was trained as a radio officer. He was soon captured by the British and held in a prisoner-of-war camp for the remainder of the war. In 1945, he became an accompanist in the Bielefeld City Theatre and continued his studies under Wolfgang Fortner at Heidelberg University in 1946.

In 1953 he left Germany in disappointment, in reaction against homophobia and the country's general political climate, and moved to Italy, where he remained for most of his life. Henze settled on the island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples. Also resident on the island were the composer William Walton and his Argentine wife Susana, who took a great interest in the young German composer. In 1955, his Quattro poemi for orchestra made clear that Henze had moved far from the principles of the Darmstadt avant-garde. In January 1956, Henze left Ischia and moved to the mainland to live in Naples. In 1961, Henze moved to a secluded villa, La Leprara, on the hills of Marino, overlooking the Tiber south of Rome.

An avowed Marxist and member of the Communist Party of Italy, Henze produced compositions honoring Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. At the 1968 Hamburg premiere of his requiem for Che Guevara, titled Das Floß der Medusa (The Raft of Medusa), the placing of a red flag on the stage sparked a riot and the arrest of several people, including the librettist. Henze spent a year teaching in Cuba, though he later became disillusioned with Castro.

Henze lived with his partner Fausto Moroni from the early sixties and Moroni planned and planted the hillside garden around La Leprara. Moroni cared for the composer when he suffered a spectacular emotional collapse during which he barely spoke and had to be encouraged to eat, living as though in a coma. Shortly after Henze's sudden recovery in 2007, Moroni died after a lengthy battle with cancer. Elogium Musicum (2008) for large orchestra and chorus singing a text in Latin of Henze's own is an obituary to his partner of more than forty years.

Hans Werner Henze died in Dresden on 27 October 2012 at the age of 86. He was buried near his home, outside Rome.

1933 – (Domingo Stephen) Dom Orejudos (d.1991), also widely known by the pen names Etienne and Stephen, was an openly gay artist, ballet dancer, and choreographer, best known for his ground-breaking masculine gay male erotica beginning in the 1950s.

Along with artists George Quaintance and Tom of Finland (with whom he became friends), Orejudos' leather-themed art promoted an image of gay men as strong and masculine, as an alternative to the then-dominant stereotype as weak and effeminate. With his lover and business partner Chuck Renslow, Orejudos established many landmarks of late-20th-century gay male culture, including the Gold Coast bar, Man's Country Baths, the International Mr. Leather competition, Chicago's August White Party, and the magazines Triumph, Rawhide, and Mars. He was also active and influential in the Chicago ballet community.

Dom Orejudos was born in Chicago, where he attended McKinley High School, playing violin in the school orchestra and competing on the gymnastics team. He attended Ellis-DuBoulay School of Ballet on a scholarship, then joined the Illinois Ballet Company, where he was resident choreographer and principle dancer for nine years. He received three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. He went on to choreograph for 20 ballet companies, and staged his own ballet to inaugurate color broadcasts by Chicago station WTTW, for which it won three Emmy Awards. He danced in the touring companies for West Side Story, The King and I, and Song of Norway.

Orejudos attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a semester, but was frustrated by the approach taught there. When he was 20 years old, he was approached on Chicago's Oak Street Beach by Chuck Renslow (then 23), inviting him to model for photographs. They began an open – later also polyamorous – relationship, and together established a photography studio specializing in semi-nude beefcake portraits, named Kris Studio in part to honor transgender pioneer Christine Jorgensen.

Orejudos began drawing commercially in 1953, when he was commissioned to draw erotic illustrations for Tomorrow's Man, a magazine published by Irv Johnson, the owner of the gym where he worked out. To protect his professional reputation as a possible fine artist and as a dancer, he adopted the pen name Etienne, the French equivalent of his middle name. He signed pen-and-ink drawings done in a slightly different style with his middle name Stephen, to imply that the studio employed multiple artists. The latter kind of drawings became the basis for storybooks, among the first explicit homoerotic comics published.

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In 1958, Orejudos and Renslow bought the gym from Johnson, which they renamed Triumph Gymnasium and Health Studio, moving the photography studio to an upper floor. In 1963 they expanded their publishing enterprise to launch Mars, an overtly leather-focused magazine. They also produced non-explicit gay-themed 16mm movie shorts, written and directed by Orejudos. After losing much of his archive in a plumbing flood in the 1970s, he gave the remainder of it to Target Studio, which became his primary publisher. In 1978, he had a joint gallery exhibition in San Francisco with erotic artist Al Shapiro (A. Jay).

In addition to his relationship with Chuck Renslow, in 1969 Orejudos began a relationship with Robert Yuhnke, which continued until Orejudos' death. They established a residence in Boulder, Colorado in 1981, though Orejudos continued to spend time in Chicago.

Orejudos contracted pneumonia during a visit to Tibet in 1987. This illness contributed to his declining health, leading to his death from AIDS complications on September 24, 1991.

1934 – Hollywood makes adherence to the Hays Code –  after Will H. Hays, the president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America – mandatory. Among its provisions: "Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationships are the accepted or common thing," and "Sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden on the screen."

1934 – The Rev. Dr. Tom Hanks has served as a missionary in Latin America since 1963, first with the Latin American Mission as professor of Hebrew Bible at the Latin America Biblical Seminary in San Jose, Costa Rica (1963 to 1985), and then in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1986 to 2003) with the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches and as executive director of Other Sheep.

Born July 1, 1934, in St. Louis, Missouri, he became active as a child in the Nelson Presbyterian Church, where he experienced an evangelical conversion. . He earned a B.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1960 and was ordained in the St. Louis Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for work with the Latin America Mission in Costa Rica.

Beginning in 1963, Tom and his wife Joyce were engaged in university work in Costa Rica as counselors for the Inter-Varsity organization. Their children, Stanley (b. 1964) and Elizabeth (b. 1966) were born there. In 1986, Tom and Joyce moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Tom worked for three years.

Hanks had been aware of his sexual orientation from earliest adolescence. While at college and university, he was encouraged by counselors and psychologists to try to change his sexual orientation by psychoanalysis and marriage. Later missionary colleagues involved in ex-gay type ministries sought to "cure" his homosexuality with prayer, fasting and involvement in charismatic movements.

Tom had told Joyce about his homosexuality before their engagement, but after 28 years of marriage and trying to conform to heterosexual norms, Tom and Joyce separated in December of 1988. The following month (January 1989) Hanks was obliged to resign from his position with the Latin American Mission and in writing his resignation letter came out as gay.

As Tom notes: "When the Holy Spirit finally got through to me and taught me to accept myself as gay and begin to come out, I learned that I not only had a daughter who was left-handed like her mother, but also a son who is gay like me. So after more than 40 years in the closet I finally learned that some good things just run in families!"

In 1992, Hanks and John P. Doner (founder of the MCC in Mexico) founded Other Sheep, the only worldwide ecumenical ministry working with sexual minorities. An all-volunteer organization based in St. Louis, the scope of Other Sheep is international. Hanks and Other Sheep were instrumental in establishing a Working Party on Homophobia, Ideology and Religion within the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

Hanks served as executive director of Other Sheep from 1992 to 2000 and continues to be active in counseling, giving Bible courses especially for sexual minorities, and writing.

1947 – U.S. Congress discontinues the military “Blue Discharges” with two new classifications: general and undesirable. The Army then changes its regulations so that gay and lesbian service members would not qualify for general discharges.

The U.S. military had a long-standing policy that service members found to be homosexual or to have engaged in homosexual conduct were to be court-martialed for sodomy, imprisoned and dishonorably discharged. However, with the mobilization of troops following the United States’ entry into World War II, it became impractical to convene court-martial boards of commissioned officers so some commanders began issuing administrative discharges instead.

Several waves of reform addressing the handling of homosexuals in the military resulted in a 1944 policy directive that called for homosexuals to be committed to military hospitals, examined by psychiatrists, and discharged under Regulation 615-360, section 8 as “unfit for service”. It is unknown exactly how many gay and lesbian service members were given blue discharges under this regulation, but in 1946 the Army estimated that it had issued between 49,000 and 68,000 blue discharges, with approximately 5,000 of them issued to homosexuals. The Navy’s estimates of blue-discharge homosexuals was around 4,000.

Blue discharges were discontinued as of July 1, 1947, when the two new headings of general and undesirable took their place.  A general discharge was considered to be under honorable conditions – distinct from an “honorable discharge” – and an undesirable discharge was under conditions other than honorable – distinct from a “dishonorable discharge.” At the same time, the Army changed its regulations to ensure that gay and lesbian service members would not qualify for general discharges. Those found guilty of engaging in homosexual conduct still received dishonorable discharges, while those identified as homosexuals but not to have committed any homosexual acts now received undesirable discharges.

1956 – Novelist Paul Russell is known for his intricate narratives and eloquent prose style. His works often focus, in a non-stereotypical manner, on the sexual and emotional complexities of gay male relationships, especially those that cross generations.

Russell was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He studied English at Oberlin College, and was then admitted to the graduate program in English and Creative Writing at Cornell University. He was awarded an M.A. in English, as well as an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, for a collection of short stories and a novella titled "The Longing in Darkness," which remains unpublished.

Russell received his doctorate from Cornell in 1983 for a dissertation on the novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Upon receiving his degree, Russell was hired to teach English at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Before the publication of his first novel, a number of Russell's short stories appeared in literary journals.

Russell's first published novel, The Salt Point (1990), is set in the 1980s in Poughkeepsie, New York. The story concerns Anatole, a gay hairdresser in his early 30s, and his closest friends Lydia, who is heterosexual, and Christopher, an enigmatic bisexual.

Russell followed that novel with the publication of Boys of Life (1991), Sea of Tranquility (1994), The Coming Storm (1999, War Against the Animals (2003), and most recently The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov, based on the extraordinary life of the gay brother of Vladimir Nabokov.

Russell is also the author of The Gay 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Gay Men and Lesbians, Past and Present (1994). The book contains short biographies of such luminaries as Socrates, Sappho, Oscar Wilde, and Gertrude Stein, among others.

1963 – (Roswell Christopher) Roddy Bottum is an American musician, best known as the keyboardist for the San Francisco hard rock band Faith No More. He is also a part of Imperial Teen, best known for their 1999 single "Yoo Hoo" used in the movie Jawbreaker. In addition to popular musical career, Bottum also scored three Hollywood movies and composed an opera entitled Sasquatch: The Opera, which premiered in New York on April 2, 2015.

Bottum was born in Los Angeles, California. He studied classical piano from an early age, until moving to San Francisco when he was 18.

Bottum came out as gay in 1993. In a 2001 article in The Advocate, Bottum stated that "I would never have thought as a gay teen I'd be in a band that would be considered heavy metal or hard rock."

One of his contributions to Faith No More was "Be Aggressive," a song about oral sex. Bottum has said in interviews that he wrote the song largely as a joke at Mike Patton's expense, enjoying the potential humiliation a straight vocalist would subject himself to onstage. "Be Aggressive" became the second most-played song at Faith No More concerts. Bottum would also describe gerbil stuffing in graphic detail to shocked interviewers.

A 1999 article in The Advocate said of Imperial Teen, "With lyrical allusions to wearing lipstick and male pronouns used to address love objects, Imperial Teen serves up a gay sensibility that ordinarily surfaces only from straight bands like Pulp or Pizzicato Five."

Bottum noted "I think there's a resistance from gay artists to go that route just because it's so predictable. But it is annoying to see bands play it as safe as they do these days. That's why something that visually screams as loud as Marilyn Manson is such a breath of fresh air."

Before he came out as gay, Bottum was actually involved in a brief heterosexual relationship with Courtney Love in the early 80s, concurrent with the time she sang for Faith No More. The two remain friends to this day.

1971 The Parliament of Austria rescinds laws against sex between consenting adults but adds legislation penalizing individuals who make public statements or join organizations that favor homosexuality. Although the new legislation is used to harass lesbians and gay men and, later, to prevent the import of gay and lesbian pornography, including safer sex literature, no individuals or organizations are successfully prosecuted under the laws.

 Added 2023

1979 – Joe Babcock is the Lambda Book Award, Lambda Literary Foundation, and Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Award, 2003, for The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers a novel of coming out.

Babcock was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. About his motivation to write the novel, he says:

While working as a waiter, Babcock plugged away at his debut novel. "It took me about three and a half years to write (and produce) the book," he told Fab magazine. "It started out as an exercise. I wanted to write a kick-ass coming out scene, it just kept going. By the time I reached 50 pages I realized I had a novel on my hands."

Joe Babcock's novel The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers tells the coming-of-age story of sixteen-year-old Erick, a homosexual boy who narrates the story of his entrance into the world of drugs and drag queens.

When Babcock failed to sell the manuscript immediately, he decided to publish it himself, charging the cost of printing 2,500 copies on his credit card. While this might not be the route to success for everyone, it was the path for Babcock; the novel won the Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Award and was offered a contract with Carroll & Graff. Jodie Rhodes, one of the contest judges was quoted at the Writer's Digest Web site as saying, "We know this kid, he comes alive for us, jumps off the page and captures our heart."

Joe Babcock is also the author of a second novel The Boys and the Bees. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with his husband, Dan Freeman, and his dog, Lucky, a.k.a. Little Missy.

1981 – Orlando Cruz is a Puerto Rican professional boxer. As an amateur, Cruz represented Puerto Rico at the 2000 Olympic Games in Australia.

Cruz made his professional debut on December 15, 2000 against Alfredo Valdéz in Puerto Rico. He did not lose until 2009, when he lost against Cornelius Lock by TKO. Cruz is currently ranked at #4 among featherweights by the World Boxing Organization (WBO).

In October 2012, Cruz became the first boxer to come out as gay while still active professionally commenting that he is a "Proud Gay Man".

On October 3, 2012, Cruz released a statement in which he said,

He told Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Tmes, he was compelled to address the topic,

Cruz attributed his two career losses to the pressures of being closeted: "those two losses I had were part of this big distraction [of being closeted] I was going through. It's not there anymore. I'm glad I'm past that."

He told Pugmire that since his announcement he has received "unconditional, 100% support," including messages and notes of endorsement from his 2000 Olympic teammate and former multi-division world champion Miguel Cotto and singer Ricky Martin.

"I was physically and mentally prepared for whatever the reaction would be before this, and I can tell you from the response, this will never bother me again," Cruz said. "I feel comfortable with myself."

Cyd Zeigler, Jr. of OutSports.com hailed Cruz's coming out:

Zeigler observed that boxers have a lot to lose, particularly in endorsement deals, and concluded, "I wish I could shake Cruz's hand. This took a lot of guts."

1987 – President Reagan nominates openly homophobic Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court. The nomination is rejected by the U.S. Senate for a wide-variety of reasons.

1989 – Professional body builder Bob Paris comes out in an interview in Ironman magazine.

1989 – The Center for Disease Control announces that the number of confirmed AIDS cases in the United States has topped the 100,000 mark.

 Revised 2023

And we still have our own site at www.CanadianGay.org

And to conclude today's posting, the Molson Canadian Beer Beer Bottle Oh, Canada: