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.

Olympic Clean Up

It’s Pride in Montreal this week — and that city has a long and illustrious queer history. The first recorded gay establishment on the North American continent was in Montreal — but that doesn’t mean our history there has always been a pleasant one. One particularly contentious episode in that history began in 1975.

Montreal was selected by the International Olympic Committee to host the 1976 Summer Olympics. In retrospect, there’s a number of reasons this was not exactly the most successful Olympics ever (and by that I mean, just short of being a total disaster). Not least among those reasons, of course, was that preparing for these Olympics sparked a clash between the police and the LGBTQ+ community.

Mayor Jean Drapeau established the Public Morality Program to help clean up the city’s image when the eyes of the world would be upon it. I’m sure I don’t have to explain that “Morality”, in this case, means “not queer”. They began a campaign of oppression, specifically designed to terrorize the LGBTQ+ community. As Gay Times reported, citing a police source, it was “designed to frighten gays from frequenting public places where Olympic tourists [were] likely to be.”

Using a law that was initially designed to allow police to raid brothels, the police launched a series of brutal raids, over the course of which an estimated 175 people were arrested for being in a “bawdy house”.

It began on February 4, 1975 with a raid on Sauna Aquarius. Police broke down the door, and arrested 36 people. (Just a side note — I found some incongruities here, a couple sources said this was on April 4 and one said in August. Also, a couple sources said it was 35 people arrested. So, somewhere in all of that is what actually happened, but I’m pretty sure it was February 4.)

This initial raid was shocking to the LGBTQ+ community — but seemed like an isolated incident until October of that year. On October 17 and 18, police raided five gay bars. That Halloween, two more gay bars — the Limelight in the heart of downtown, and lesbian dance club Baby Face. Anyone at Baby Face who could not produce an ID or refused to show one was taken into custody until proof of their identity was provided by family or friends. The next month, a series of raids in downtown — including another one at the Limelight — led to the arrests of 80 men.

On January 23 of 1976, police raided Club Baths. Although they were provided a master key to each room in the bathhouse, the police officers broke through the doors with axes instead. They caused more than $500 of property damage and arrested 13 men. On February 11, Sauna Cristal was raided.

And then in May (or possible in March, depending on who you ask), things became truly brutal. On May 14, Neptune Sauna was raided and 89 men were arrested. Police also confiscated a membership book, with an estimated 7,000 names of members of the bathhouse. (But like, how amazing must that place have been to have had 7,000 members?) Over the next week, there were raids practically every day — Sauna Cristal was raided again. Police invaded popular lesbian bar Chez Jilly’s — carrying cameras and rifles. No arrests were made — it was clearly an effort to intimidate. And it worked. On Ste. Catherine Street, police demanded IDs from everyone trying to enter the Bellevue Tavern — again, no arrests were made there but the impact was undeniable. On May 22, Club Baths was raided yet again.

And this was the final straw. By this time, there had been eighteen raids — mostly in Montreal but with a few in Ottawa and Toronto (where a handful of the Olympic events would be taking place.) The raids in May alone had led to so many arrests that it was the largest mass arrest in Canadian history since the October Crisis of 1970 — which was a terrorist action that led to martial law being instituted, just so we’re all clear. Like, it could not have been closer to a declaration of martial law on the LGBTQ+ population of Montreal without someone in the government actually declaring martial law.

So the community formed an organization, calling themselves the Comité homosexuel antirépression (CHAR) or the Gay Coalition Against Repression. On June 19, CHAR gathered roughly 300 demonstrators to protest police oppression of their community — at the time, the largest LGBTQ+ protest in Canadian history. They marched through Montreal, down what was then called Dorchester Boulevard, marching in front of both the Olympic headquarters and city hall.

Although this protest was enough to temporarily stop the raids on queer establishments, CHAR accomplished something else pretty remarkable. Prior to the Olympic clean up, the LGBTQ+ community of Montreal was divided by language — English speakers versus French speakers. CHAR bridged that gap. Eventually, CHAR became the L’association pour les droits de gaies du Québec — an effective political organization that began winning legal protections for LGBTQ+ Canadians in Quebec by the end of 1977. The successful protest encouraged Gays of Ottowa (or GO) to hold a press release condemning the police actions, and demanding a meeting with the mayor on the issue.

And yet, the stage had been set for another clash between the queer community of Montreal and law enforcement. All of this laid the groundwork for the Truxx raid of 1977 — one of biggest events in the queerstory of Canada. And one we will cover another day. Stay tuned!

Cooper’s Do-nuts

Pretty much everyone knows about Stonewall, but the LGBTQ+ community has been rioting since a lot longer than 1969. Let’s talk about the Cooper’s Do-nuts Riot.

Picture it: It’s the end of the 1950’s. It’s a simpler time — but things are changing. Despite that fact, minorities — especially LGBTQ+ people — are still cowering in fear from police and never fighting back.

And boy are they fearful in Los Angeles. William H. Parker became the chief of the LAPD in 1950, and decided to make stamping out sexual perversion his number one priority. Arrests for homosexuality increased by more than 85% in the following decade. Because the police tended to target transgender people — who often stood out more — most LA gay bars had tried to stop the police from raiding them by banning anyone who’s perceived gender wasn’t in line with the sex on their driver’s license. That’s right — gay bars with no drag queens! Boring.

Now, on Main Street there was a 24 hour donut shop called Cooper’s Do-nuts. (Yeah, they hyphenated the word “donut” and yeah, I’m annoyed about it. Even though I’m sure it’s grammatically correct.) I haven’t been able to find the exact address which is a total shame because I really want to know what’s there now. During the day, it was a popular hangout for cops — but when the sun went down, it became a hangout for people who had nowhere else to go at night: mainly transgender people and sex workers.

One night in May of 1959 a few cops came by — or possibly stayed late, I’m not really clear on that — and decided to check everyone’s IDs to make sure their perceived gender matched their legal gender. One man present was a young gay man named John Rechy who would later include this incident in his novel City of Night. The police arrested two gay male sex workers, two drag queens, and a “young man just cruising”. One of those five people objected to having all five of them shoved into the back of one police car — and that was the spark that set it off.

The other customers of the donut shop went out into the street — hurling anything they could get their hands on at the police. Coffee cups, napkins, paper plates, donuts — yeah, donuts can be a weapon if you’re queer — and just general trash. The police escaped and came back with reinforcements. They shut down Main Street, but the protesters didn’t care — by this point the crowd had grown; they were simultaneously rioting and dancing in the street. Though the police made a lot of arrests, the street was still shut down for the better part of the day until the crowd dispersed.

This was the first time the LGBTQ+ community in the United States rioted. As we all know, it wouldn’t be the last.

(*Heavily* adapted from this Facebook post.)