Fricke v. Lynch

So, as you may know if you’ve been reading these for a while, I’m a Rhode Islander through-and-through. And I love when I can do an article about local queer history. So that’s why I’m so happy to be sharing this story.

It starts in Cumberland, Rhode Island, in April of 1979. Paul Guillbert, a junior at Cumberland High School had been dating a senior at Brown University, Ed Miskevich. Guillbert sought permission from the principal, Richard Lynch, to bring Miskevich to his prom — Lynch denied the request, citing a concern that the pair might be endangered by the reactions of the other students. Guillbert attempted to move his request up the “chain of command,” but when they learned that Guillbert’s own father did not support him the School Board refused to allow Guillbert a public hearing. I suppose they thought that was the end of the matter.

But the next year, Guillbert’s friend Aaron Fricke — who had recently come out of the closet and begun dating Paul — asked to be allowed to bring his boyfriend to prom. Again, Lynch denied the request — claiming he was concerned that the other students might react violently and that might prove dangerous for Fricke and his “male escort” but also mentioned that approving the request would have an “adverse effect” on the other students, the school, and the town itself. Like Guillbert, Fricke was not satisfied with this response — and so, with the help of the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, he went to court.

They were looking to file a preliminary injunction that would allow Fricke and his beau to go to prom together. They appeared in the United States Court for the District of Rhode Island. Judge Raymond J. Pettine presided over the case. The Court ruled that the school was violating Fricke’s freedom of speech — that “even a legitimate interest in school discipline does not outweigh a student’s right to peacefully express his views in an appropriate time, place, and manner.”

The Court also decided that threats of violence against Fricke would create a “heckler’s veto” — further violating his First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Citing the 1968 Supreme Court case United States v. O’Brien, Pettine noted that the school had failed to meet the legal requirement to seek the “least restrictive alternative” before reaching its decision.

Going even further, the Court also stated that the school had created a second class of students by creating unequal policies between those who wanted to bring different-sex dates to the prom and those who wants to bring same-sex dates.

This picture was on a Buzzfeed article about this. I’m assuming that it’s Frickeand Guillbert at prom but technically that wasn’t stated anywhere so don’t hate me if I’m wrong.

Having soundly won the case, Fricke and Guillbert attended the prom together on May 31, 1980. They were driven there by, according to People magazine, a “protective member of the Gay Liberation Task Force.” The media were outside the school in full force, which prompted Fricke to stick out his tongue at them on his way inside. The school — under the Court’s directions — had six security guards, rather than their traditional two, in order to ensure the safety of the two boys. Though they were definitely heckled, this was a very clear victory for queer teens throughout the United States. According to Fricke’s later writings about the event, the “contagious enthusiasm” of the B-52s song “Rock Lobster” helped dissipate the tensions when he and Guillbert hit the dance floor in a scene that sounds like it’s right out of a cheesy 80’s movie. I guess the 80’s really were like that.

Although this landmark case has made this a very clear-cut case for public schools — the issue has persisted. Fortunately for queer students unwilling to take “no” for answer, the legal precedent is pretty undeniable. As a result, more and more public schools allow students to bring same-sex dates to school dances. This case was cited against Murray High School in 2004, forcing them to reverse a decision regarding same-sex students at prom. Fricke v. Lynch was confirmed in 2010 in a law suit against Itawamba Agricultural School in Mississippi.

Meanwhile, Aaron Fricke has gone on to become an accomplished writer and activist. His best known work — an autobiography entitled Reflections of a Rock Lobster — details his experiences leading up to the court case and subsequent dance. This book was adapted into a play by Burgess Clark, which was presented by Boston Children’s Theater in 2012 and 2013 — the first children’s theater production in the US to tackle LGBTQ+ rights issues. Fricke also worked with his father on the book Sudden Strangers: the Story of a Gay Son and his Father.

In 1994 — the same year Fricke received his associate degree from City College of San Francisco — he donated a collection of documents known as the Aaron Fricke Papers which include letters, files, notes, and even drafts of Rock Lobster and Sudden Strangers. I haven’t read these (I don’t think they’re available online, and I have yet to actually go to San Francisco) but I’m particularly interested in an undated file entitled “Gay Terms” and another item entitled “To Sir, Fuck You.”

As for what happened to Paul Guillbert? I know he kept in touch with Fricke at least until 1981 (because there’s letters in the Aaron Fricke Papers) but I haven’t been able to find anything else. I would assume no news is good news, that he’s alive and well and content in the part he played in securing the legal right of LGBTQ+ kids to take whomever they want to prom.

The Publick Universal Friend

Jemima Wilkinson — also known simply as “the Friend” (short for “the Publick Universal Friend” — was a preacher who declared independence from gender in the same year that America declared independence from Britain, and advocated for equality for all in the early years of the United States’ existence. (And since Jemima is not around to ask what pronouns to use, I’m going to be using “they/them” for the rest of this.)

Jemima Wilkinson was born on November 29, 1758 in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Their parents were Quakers. Their early life appears to have been fairly uneventful until they became ill with a fever in 1776. Although they came close to death, they did recover — and declared that Jemima had died, and they had been reborn as the genderless Publick Universal Friend. The Friend not only did not identify with any gender, but was also quite openly asexual and promoted abstinence.

On October 13, less than a week after recovering from the fever, the Friend gave their first public sermon. Although the Friend’s teachings included a lot of Quaker values like pacificism, abolitionism, et cetera — they were still labeled a heretic by the Quakers. The Friend’s teachings also included sexual abstinence, being friendly to everyone, and gender equality (that’s the heretical part, if you weren’t sure). During the American Revolution, the Friend provided medical attention to soldiers on both sides of the war. Despite preaching about dressing plainly, the Friend’s outfits were a big part of what brought people out to listen to their sermons — the Friend wore the traditional black robes of the clergy, over petticoats, as well as a broad-brimmed black man’s hat and brightly colored women’s scarves.

The Friend preached throughout Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut before heading to Pennsylvania. By this time, there were a number of followers calling themselves “Universal Friends” and in 1783 the Friend organized the Society of the Universal Friends. Although the Friend only claimed to be a vessel for the Holy Spirit, the Universal Friends made claims that they were “the Messiah Reborn” and “Christ in female form”.

These claims — as well as the Friend’s flagrant challenge to the patriarchy — made the Friend a target. They were publicly slandered time and time again, especially in Philadelphia — an area rife with Quakers. In 1788, the Society of Universal Friends pooled their resources and purchased land near the northern end of Keuka Lake in New York. In March of 1790, they actually began journeying to the land they had purchased and on April 13, 1790 they officially declared the settlement of Jerusalem at that location. (Although Jerusalem is still a town, this particular part of it where they settled is now the village of “Penn Yan”. Which stands for “Pennsylvania Yankee”. Apparently.)

In 1800, was taken to court for blasphemy but — in what would be a landmark decision — it was ruled that American courts could not try people for blasphemy due to the separation of church and state. This would go on to influence the laws around the First Amendment as the United States developed.

The trouble with having a community where one of the central tenets is sexual abstinence is that the population tends to dwindle. Because like, you if you can’t have babies, you don’t replace the adults when they kick the bucket. Or, should I say, when they “leave time” — that’s how the Friend’s death was described by the Universal Friends when it happened on July 1, 1819. They were 61 years old — and in those years, they had challenged virtually every institution in this country, at it’s very beginning. I also want to note that, despite not identifying as a woman, the Friend is considered the first American-born woman to begin a religious movement (and is definitely, and more accurately, the first American-born non-binary person to begin a religious movement.)