1971: Andy Warhol’s play Pork opens at the La Mama Experimental Theater in New York City. Among the cast, making his acting debut, is an extremely talented, sixteen-year-old drag queen named Harvey Fierstein.

1981: After customs officials at New York’s JFK Airport find a gay love letter in his luggage, British traveler Phillip Fotheringham is denied entry into the United States and forced to return home on the next flight back to London.

1983: Wisconsin becomes the twenty-seventh state to legalize homosexual acts between consenting adults.

1993: In Baehr v. Lewin, the Hawaii Supreme Court rules that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples constitutes discrimination based on sex under the Hawaii Constitution. The court remands the case to the trial court to determine whether the state had a “compelling” state interest in barring such marriages.

2009: New Hampshire passes the same-sex marriage bill by a Senate vote of 13–11 and a House vote of 186–179.

2011: The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approves a constitutional amendment allowing for the ordination of clergy in same-sex relationships.