FREEDOM OF THE GAY PRESS 24 Apr 2005 Article published in Salt Lake Metro

Freedom of the Press. So important was this basic concept that it was enshrined into our Constitution as the first article of the Bill of Rights.  The founding fathers knew that a free press was essential for freedom from the tyranny.  They also knew a free press builds a sense of identity for a community or a people.

  

Thirty years ago this month, Utah’s first paper, specifically geared for the burgeoning Queer community, appeared. The early newspapers of the Queer communities of Utah were primarily the work of volunteer editors, layout people, reporters and writers. Many of the papers had to be hand lettered and laid out. These periodicals were barely able to survive, sustained by advertising revenue from Gay friendly businesses.  What one read in these papers was guided not by editorial policy but by whatever the editors were able to persuade people to write. Little news and even less editorial comment were presented in most of these periodicals. 

  

In April 1975 the first Queer publication was launched with Babs De Lay first editor as a project of the Gay Community Center. This periodical was actually more of a newsletter and printed on a mimeograph machine.  The first issue even had no name, as the name was to be chosen from a contest held at Pride Day.  The winning name was The Gayzette.  The paper’s handle only lasted until January 1976 when the center changed the paper’s name to The Salt Lick, keeping  Babs De Lay as editor.  Places willing to distribute The Salt Lick were Cosmic Aeroplane, Open Book, Club Baths, The Sun, Sisters, Radio City, The Sunset Room, the Rape Crisis Center, the Name of the Game Jr., The Munch Shoppe, Mother Earth, MCC, Grace Christian Church, and Round Records. The Salt Lick was abandoned in 1976 after the Gay Community Center closed up shop and Babs De Lay went on to become editor of The Rocky Mountain Woman, a feminist paper.

Utah’s Queer community was without a paper for over a year until the Gay Community Services Coalition officially registered The Open Door with the state of Utah in December 1977. The Open Door, a reference to “coming out of the Closet”, was the primary news organ for the Gay community from 1977 until 1981. Editors and owners were Ray Hencke, Joseph Dover alias “R. Spike Joseph”, Ken A. Kline Michael Perry, and Robert “Bob” Waldrop, pastor of Metropolitan Community Church.  The Open Door’s articles had more substance then the previous papers.  Jeff Howrey's “Mormon and Gay…One Man’s Tale of Bloody Knuckles”, first printed in the Open Door, was later reprinted in the University of Utah’s Daily Chronicle. However it was the “Payne Papers”, printed as a serial, which garnered national attention. Cloy Jenkins, a Gay BYU student, after attending an anti Gay lecture by BYU professor Reed Payne, prepared a thoughtful anonymous  response to the lecture. Now known as Prologue  the paper called for a “well reasoned dialogue on these issues”.  In 1978 The Advocate published an abridged version of Jenkin’s anonymous work.

  

The following year The Open Door ran this classified Ad; “BYU Underground. Note: Community Voice-Persons interested in meeting other gays going to BYU. All correspondence will go through The Open Door for safety reasons. Write The Open Doors Number 1004.”  While the editor of the Open Door vouched for the authenticity of the ad in an editorial piece, it was actually placed by BYU’s security to entrap Gay students. In 1979 when BYU admitted its covert operation, the publisher of The Open Door sold the paper.

The new owners of the Open Door began to charge 25 cents an issue, with 40 percent of the profits purportedly going back into the community.  Religious organizations such as Affirmation, Integrity, and MCC were to received 10%, another 10% was to be divided between the People’s Concern Fund of the Imperial Court of Utah and the Deacon Fund of MCC, another 10 % to the Tony Adams Political Rights Defense Fund and 10 % into a trust fund for the eventual establishment of a Gay community center for Salt Lake City.  The attempt to fund Gay organizations from charging 25 cents for the paper fizzled. But the Open Door continued to crank out monthly issues until 1981 when Bob Waldrop’s amazing social activism burned out. Another paper called the Gay Community News appeared between 1980 and 1981 but no copies of it have been located.

 A series of short lived publications emerged after the demise of the Open Door. Michael Aaron’s  Gay Community News lasted from 1981 to1982. Laura L. Ferreira along with editor “Shar” operated The Salt City Source from 1984 to 1985.  David Nelson created the news magazine The Up Front, a project of Gay Community, a non-profit Utah Corporation, from 1984 to 1985. Michael Aaron and David Nelson teamed to make a go of The Community Reporter which lasted one year 1985.  The Salt City Source, was given in 1985 to the Utah Community Services Center and Clinic and renamed The Best Source.  Michelle Bueachaine under the alias “Michelle Cheney” ran the paper.  

  

Most notably the Best Source ran articles on the deadly AIDS epidemic. AIDS activist Sidney Spears, in a letter published by the paper, was first in the community to exhort Gays to help with the emerging crisis.  “We just have to help ourselves.  We just can’t wait for the help to come to us.  We have to be willing to seek it out where ever it is …just how many have to die before we take action?”  The Best Source became the first newspaper in Utah to accept a condom ad for Trojan Naturallube Ribbed Rolled Latex Condom- “Don’t Leave Home Without One.” Additionally,  Jay E. Lambert M.D.  became the first physician  to advertise in a Utah Gay publication, the Best Source. In the 1980’s there was a major reluctant on the part of physicians to advertised in a Queer publications. One even stated he “was already seeing more than a fair share of patients from the Gay Community.“

In the latter half of the 1980’s a monthly news magazine materialized that replaced all former publications. The first Issue of The Triangle Magazine was published in March 1986. Many of the former editors and publishers of early print media, such as Michael Aaron, and David Nelson joined Scott Dunn, Mark Skeem, Richard (Ragnar) McCall, and John Sasserman in the venture which featured as its premier article- "The Church of Jesus Christ of All Latter Day Saints."  The monthly news magazine was very professional in content but the toll it took on its staff, many who were being diagnosed with AIDS, was devastating. 

In 1987, a Lesbian named Satu Servigna bought out the magazine and renamed it The Triangle Community Digest. Servigna published the paper under the alias C.J. Roux for three years, with Ralph Goff acting as editor for some of that time.  The last Issue of the Triangle Community Digest was July 1990 when a chronic illness forced Servigna to quit publishing.

When the Triangle folded in the summer of 1990, Becky Moorman and Alice Drake became the editor and publisher of a newsmagazine for the Queer community called The Bridge.  The women wanted their paper to be more of an arts and entertainment magazine then was the old Triangle.  The owners were however the first publisher to invest heavily in the hard and software needed to operate a news magazine. Often controversial, local printing shops sometimes would not print the magazine or would censor its cover. The women then would have to drive to Las Vegas to have the paper published. Eventually the Bridge, along with the women’s bookstore, The Rhino Nest, dissolved in 1993 when the pair’s relationship ended.  

In 1992 Ron Shelby and Randy Richardson, with great fanfare, started a small publication called The Out Front.  The pamphlet was printed bi weekly and appeared to be more for the advertising revenue it generated then to be actually a voice of the Queer community. Richardson turned out to be a con artist and after stealing about $10,000 from the community he disappeared. Both the Bridge and The Out Front ended their publications in February 1993 which left only the Womyn's Community Newsletter as a Utah source of information, but it was geared solely towards that particular community.

In the spring of 1993 the only attempt to gear a newspaper specifically to the men’s community appeared. Ben Williams, along with Robert Smith, David Ball, Todd Dayley, members of the Sacred Faeries, and Brandon Creer started a publication called The Pillar of the Mehn’s Community, as a complement to Worthington’s periodical.  Williams wanted to call the publication The Mehn’s Organ but was out voted, but he settled for the publishing label of Uranian.  Uranians were what Queer people were called during the 19th Century’s pioneer homosexual movement. The male oriented concept of the paper was dropped after two issues. Within a few months The Pillar began to report on the entire Gay and Lesbian Community, often with entire sections devoted to women's issues. The content of The Pillar was reflected by it's four principal editors-Ben Williams, Brandon Creer, Kim Russo, and Todd Dayley. The paper’s succession of owners and editors ended in 1997 when Dayley became sole proprietor of The Pillar. In April 2005 The Pillar celebrated its 12th Year and thus has the distinction of being Utah’s longest running Gay publication. 

Kim Russo left the Pillar to start up her own paper in 1997 called the Xchange. This informative paper never found its niche and with Russo having so many other things on her plate, she allowed the paper to expire in 1999.

In April 2004, The Salt Lake Metro was launched by owners Michael Aaron and Jay Peterson for the Queer community. The bi-weekly paper is distributed widely throughout Utah and is on line on the internet.  The first editor of the paper was Brandon Burt followed by Jere Keys.

Women have had about the same amount of control over the news media in Utah’s Queer Community as have men. Indeed several periodicals were published specifically for the women’s community. These were the Women Aware‘s Newsletter, published anonymously by Lesbians, although most noticeably by “Marilyn, Nancy and Terri,”, (1979–1985), Kathy Worthington’s Womyn's Community News (1991-1995), Dina and Whitney Hannah’s The Labrys, (1995-1997) and presently Janice Eberhardt’s Womyn 4 Women.