1977 GAY DANCE AT THE STATE ROTUNDA 12 May 2005 Volume 2 2005

UTAH HAS NO MORE BALLS

The year 1977 is simply unprecedented in the development of a Gay Community in Utah. The year started out simple enough. In January, the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Community Church of Salt Lake City (MCC) voted to hold a church dance in the state capitol’s rotunda and applied for permission from the Lieutenant Governor's office for a dance permit.  For decades the state capitol rotunda was available for LDS Stakes to hold their annual Gold and Green Balls as well as other non LDS churches.

1932 Green and Gold Ball

On 3 February 1977, Lt. Governor David Monson granted MCC permission to hold a dance. However two weeks later the Lieutenant Governor’s office rescinded its permission, “due to the restrictions we have placed on the capitol and due to the nature of your organization.” The flabbergasted Monson evidently was not aware that MCC was a church with a Gay outreach until an anonymous caller informed him of the fact.  Monson immediately had his office checked with “reliable sources” that confirmed that indeed MCC was a "Gay organization" and to Monson’s way of thinking that was enough to justify withdrawing his permission.

       

Bob Waldrop

Serendipitously, Gay liberationist Bob Waldrop had just arrived in Utah in February. Bob Waldrop is a 4th generation Oklahoman who converted to Mormonism and served a mission to Australia. Returning from his mission he settled in California  came out as a Gay man and lost faith in the Mormon Church.  He then became an ordained minister in the Metropolitan Community Church. The now Rev. Waldrop was selected along with Vicki Alger to serve as worship coordinators for the church and eventually was chosen by that congregation to be their pastor. 

Incensed over the blatant discrimination on the part of the Lieutenant Governor, Rev. Waldrop urged the church's board to hire a lawyer to fight the state of Utah.  They agreed and Attorney Kendall Perkins was retained. On 25 March 1977 Perkins filed a lawsuit against the state of Utah on behalf of MCC alleging religious discrimination. 

Monson simply turned the lawsuit over to the State Deputy Attorney General, Mike Deamer. To harass the MCC church, Deamer filed a warrant requesting the membership list of MCC. Deamer arrogantly stated that he wanted the church membership records in order to turn them over to police agencies so they could be compared with lists kept by the sheriff and city police departments of “known homosexuals.” Rev. Waldrop felt that Deamer was simply trying to intimidate the church into dropping its suit but they refused. Turning over the church’s membership records, Rev. Waldrop claimed, was a violation of the Bill of Right’s Freedom of Religion clause.

  

The 3rd District Court of Utah on 17 May 1977 upheld MCC and refused to order the church to turn over its records to the state of Utah.  The courts eventually even ruled that the Lieutenant Governor had no right to rescind permission to hold a dance in the state capitol building simply because the church had homosexual members. However rather then permit same sex dancing in the rotunda, the Lieutenant Governor’s office suspended the practice of holding dances at the capitol all together for LDS as well as non LDS groups.  Of course the decision to suspend dances at the rotunda was said to have been for "liability reasons" and not because of the lawsuit by MCC. Can we together all say "bull shit"?

  

The fallout over banning dances at the capitol continued at an open forum sponsored by the Daily Chronicle at the University of Utah in June. Senator Orrin Hatch and Lt. Governor David Monson found that the forum they were asked to speak at quickly became dominated by "questions posed by a vocal group of University of Utah students” regarding the constitutional rights of homosexuals. Both of the Republicans blithely said constitutional rights of homosexuals should be protected but they often conflict with the rights of others.  

  

Lt. Governor Monson then was asked to respond to questions by representatives of the Salt Lake Metropolitan Community Church concerning his decision to bar the church’s use of the state capitol rotunda for a dance. Monson claimed his decision was based on state regulations rejecting use of the rotunda that “may incite demonstrations or pose a threat of damage to the building or hazards to people attending. Based on  investigations and information from the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s office, we felt there was a possibility outside sources would try to disrupt the dance.” 

  

Senator Orrin Hatch

However Perkins, the church’s attorney, said he was unaware of "any instances that would demonstrate a potential for such disruption". Perkins asserted that Monson’s decision to bar the church from the rotunda was made before any investigation ever took place.

  

At this same forum Senator Hatch later piped up and stated that  homosexuality is marked by a “psychological deficiency”. “I do not advocate the denial of constitutional rights," he said but added, " I wouldn't want to see homosexuals teaching school anymore than I’d want to see members of the American Nazi Party teaching school.”  Gay Teachers and Nazis, what a strange analogy! I wonder where he was going with this? Anyway, because the Queer Community had balls in 1977, the State Capitol lost theirs.

As of 2013 Orrin Hatch is still a United States Senator from Utah while Bob Waldrop moved back to his home state of Oklahoma where he converted to Catholicism and founded the Oscar Romero Catholic Workers House and the Oklahoma Food Cooperative and is a part of the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance,. Still a fighter for social justice Bob Waldrop was arrested in May after he walked onto an active construction site for the Keystone XL pipeline in Seminole County Oklahoma and locked himself to an Excavator, a piece of heavy machinery used in the construction of the pipeline. "Waldrop took a stand today in defense of theland and the human and non-humans that depend upon it to survive."