September 17 in LGBTQ History
1972: M*A*S*H premieres on CBS introducing the world to Corp. Max Klinger, televisions first on-going transvestite (but still heterosexual) character.
1979: California Governor Jerry Brown appoints Stephen M. Lachs to the Los Angeles Superior Court making him the nation’s first openly gay judge.
1986: Arch-Conservative Antonin Scalia joins the U.S. Supreme Court.
2007: The Maryland Court of Appeals overturns a lower court ruling in Deane & Polyak v. Conaway and rules that the Maryland constitution does not require the state to recognize or sanction same-sex marriage.
2011: Alaska Supreme Court Judge Frank Pfiffner rules that denying same-sex couples the senior citizen and property tax exemptions given to mixed-sex married couples violates the state’s constitutional guarantee of equal protection.