1. Disjunction In the mid-twentieth century, long before the Stonewall riots of 1969 thrust gay liberation and gay pride into the national consciousness, three homosexual members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--May Swenson, Richard Romney, and Buzz Miller--separately left their homes in the West and migrated to Manhattan, mastering its intricacies and making themselves matter in the city''s cultural maelstrom. May Swenson, born May 28, 1913, in Logan, Utah, struggled in Manhattan for years to become a poet before earning even a glint of recognition. To her poet colleague and friend Edward Field, however, she was "the presiding spirit" of Greenwich Village in the 1950s. Not until the "giants of Modern Poetry"-- Eliot, Moore, Stevens--had died, said Field, could Swenson''s poetry be seen "in its almost Elizabethan grandeur." Despite Swenson''s well-known lesbianism and rejection of Mormonism, her incandescent poetry brings high praise from Mormon critics. She is, in the estimation of scholar Karl Keller, "perhaps the best poet to come out of Mormondom." Essayist Mary Bradford saw Swenson as an "accomplished imagist and devotee of the specific.

" Novelist and poet Emma Lou Thayne told Swenson of her delight that "some of Utah comes out so pure in your poetry." Richard Romney, born July 15, 1918, in Salt Lake City, aspired in his youth to be a New York actor. He was not musically or literarily talented, although he thought he was. An inveterate facilitator and connector of people, he had the knack for being present at important artistic junctures. In the insular world of 57th Street galleries, he was a player, becoming the original owner of Jackson Pollock''s Number 3, 1949 . He brought W. H. Auden''s epic poem, The Age of Anxiety , to composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein''s attention and encouraged Bernstein to write a symphonic work based on it.

Bernstein recognized the soundness of Romney''s inspiration and soon composed his second symphony, naming it The Age of Anxiety . Moreover, Romney''s résumé of male friends and lovers is astonishing. By the time he was thirty, he had met and charmed Leonard Bernstein, Paul Cadmus, Charles Henri Ford, Christopher Isherwood, Philip Johnson, Lincoln Kirstein, Cole Porter, Pavel Tchelitchev, John Van Druten, Gore Vidal, and Tennessee Williams--quite a dance card for a boy from a Utah orphanage. Women, too, enjoyed Romney''s company. His roster of female patrons and benefactors included Fawn McKay Brodie, Helen Coates, Alice Delamar, Josephine Dillon Gable, Betty Parsons, and Lenore Romney. Physical grace and dancing talent ran in Buzz Miller''s family. Born Vernal Philip Miller in Snowflake, Arizona, on December 23, 1923, he was a World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient. At twenty-four, he impressed the iconic choreographer Jack Cole at an unscheduled audition and joined Cole''s dance ensemble.

Miller viscerally understood the wellsprings of Cole''s unique approach to modern dance. Throughout his career, he was well-known as a Jack Cole Dancer and devoted his later years to reconstructing Cole''s choreography. A principal dancer in Broadway musicals from 1948 through 1966, Miller''s incredible leaps and comic flair wowed audiences in Bells Are Ringing , Bravo Giovanni , Funny Girl , Hot Spot , Me and Juliet , Pal Joey , Redhead , and Two''s Company . His definitive performance, in the derbied trio that brought the house down nightly with "Steam Heat," came in The Pajama Game --both on Broadway and in the 1957 Warner Brothers movie. "Steam Heat" enshrined Miller permanently in Broadway lore. However, frustration at not snagging even greater roles in the U.S. prompted him to pursue higher glory with the Ballets de Paris, where choreographer Roland Petit created the modern jazz ballets La Chambre and Les Belles Damnées for him.

In striking out for Manhattan, May Swenson, Richard Romney, and Buzz Miller--who did not know each other--yoked themselves to a highly recurrent American trope: betting on New York as the catalyst for realizing one''s destiny. "Starry-eyed outsiders.succumbed eagerly to the city," effused scholar Thomas Grant, "whose very incomprehensibility inspired wit, goaded memory, and challenged imagination." New York, endowed with "the greatest natural port anywhere on the eastern seaboard," achieved national preeminence in commerce early in the nineteenth century. By the end of the Civil War, it had transmogrified into a "world-city," asserted historian Oswald Spengler--possibly "the most pregnant event of the nineteenth century." Hegemony in intellectual and cultural realms solidified in New York after World War I. "In the 1920s," writes historian Ann Douglas, "the city was cornering, expanding, and reinventing the nation''s cultural market, and it summoned a far-flung generation to its service." The Nation editorialized in 1929 that "New York is the financial and commercial, the literary and artistic leader of the country; it sets the mode in drama and journalism, in dress and deportment, in education, philanthropy, sport, and science.

" A corollary to New York''s becoming a "world-city" was its emergence as "the greatest center of Mormon operations outside of Utah," as reported by the New York Tribune in 1869: "This is the grand depot of their emigration department and all their companies which come from Europe en route for Salt Lake must pass through New York. Mormon missionaries, agents, and elders having from two to a dozen wives apiece are constantly passing freely about the city, doing business with our merchants, and making arrangements for their emigrants." As the nineteenth century ended, Mormons began to recognize New York as a mecca of higher education. Columbia University became a significant draw to such Mormons as future Ambassador to Mexico J. Reuben Clark Jr., and future U.S. senator Arthur V.

Watkins. This early Mormon student migration, writes scholar Thomas W. Simpson, demonstrates "how badly, and for how long, Mormons have wanted to be as ''scientific'' and ''progressive'' as other Americans, even as they have maintained a strong sense of cultural distinctiveness." Joining the cavalcade to Columbia in 1933 would be May Swenson''s first cousin, Clyde Sandgren, future vice-president and general counsel of Brigham Young University and composer of its unforgettable "Cougar Fight Song." The historical admixture of Mormons and Manhattan has no better synecdoche than the year 1914. That April, former Utah senator Frank J. Cannon delivered his "Modern Mormon Kingdom" lecture at Carnegie Hall. Cannon''s contention that the Mormon Church was guilty of treason for secretly sanctioning polygamy riled Mormons in the audience, including Walter Monson, president of the Eastern States Mission, and Ashby Snow Thatcher, a Columbia student.

Syndicated reports of their heated confrontation with Cannon circulated throughout the country. In May, the Deseret News boastfully listed nine concurrent Broadway productions written by or starring native Utahns, including The Dummy , featuring the lesbian actress Ada Dwyer; and High Jinks , a musical with book and lyrics by Otto Harbach. The Girl from Utah , a madcap musical comedy, opened on Broadway in August, followed in December by Polygamy , a drama of sub rosa plural marriage in Utah. News from Manhattan was popular with subscribers to Utah newspapers. From 1901 to 1920, Jeanette Young Easton, a New York-based professional singer and daughter of Brigham Young, wrote a weekly gossip column, "Salt Lakers in Gotham," for the Deseret News . A rival column, "Utahns in New York," authored by Elsie Green, ran contemporaneously in the Salt Lake Telegram . In 1934-1935, the Deseret News carried frequent profiles of "Utahns Who Have Made Good Back East [i.e.

, Manhattan]," by Roscoe A. Grover. The columnists gleaned their news from Mormon meetings and celebrations, or arrivals and departures of missionaries and visitors from the West. By flocking together, Mormons in Manhattan could leave home without really leaving. In contrast to transplanted Mormons who "maintained a strong sense of cultural distinctiveness," May Swenson, Richard Romney, and Buzz Miller came to New York specifically to assume new identities. They regarded Manhattan as the epicenter of artistic fecundity and a proving ground for learning how to be homosexual. To be free of constraints on the flowering of their aesthetic and sexual selves, they made clean breaks with their church. [end of excerpt].