1973: Infuriated and disgusted by “all those young punks who have been beating up” gay men in San Francisco, a gay Pentecostal Evangelist, the Rev. Ray Broshears, founds the so-called Lavender Panthers, a group of street vigilantes who patrol the city’s gay meeting areas to ward off potential attacks from “fag-bashers.” Shortly after their founding, the … Read More
1889: Jean Cocteau, French Painter / Poet / Actor / Director / Playwright and partner of Jean Marais is born. Two of his best known films are 1946’s La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) and 1949’s Orphée (Orpheus).
1855: Walt Whitman publishes the first edition of his Leaves of Grass. 1965: At Independence Hall in Philadelphia, picketers begin staging the first Reminder Day to call public attention to the lack of civil rights for LGBT people. The gatherings continue annually for five years. 1969: Daughters of Bilitis and Mattachine society members picket Independence Hall in Philadelphia … Read More
1975: The US Civil Service Commission decides to consider applications by lesbians and gay men on a case-by-case basis. Previously, homosexuality was grounds for automatic disqualification. 1978: Actor James Daly, father of actors Tyne Daly and Timothy Daly, dies at the age of 59. His live-in lover, male model Randal G. Jones, files a “palimony” suit … Read More
1969: Just a few days after the riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, 500 marchers confront police in the first “gay pride” demonstration, a march down Christopher Street. 1970: The Fifth Biennial Convention of the Lutheran Church in America expresses its opposition to discrimination and oppression of gay men and lesbians. 1997: … Read More
1919: In Berlin, Magnus Hirschfeld opens the Institute of Sexual Research. 1934: The Hays Code, a self-regulatory code of movie ethics, discouraging filmmakers from including frank depictions of sex and sexuality instituted by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), becomes mandatory. The code is nicknamed after the head of the MPPDA, former … Read More
1969: In Kew Gardens, Queens, a vigilante group cuts down all the trees and bushes in part of a local park popular as a gay male cruising area. Lamenting the loss of greenery, The New York Times runs nine different articles on the ensuing controversy. The Stonewall Uprising and the connected protests in the preceeding … Read More
1969: The Mattachine Action Committee of New York City issues a flier urging organized demonstrations in protest of the previous night’s police raid on the Stonewall Inn. 1981: Two fifteen-year-old lndiana boys stab to death a thirty-seven year-old gay man in a parking lot in Burnham, Illinois. They are later caught and charged with murder … Read More
1934: In Germany, approximately 300 Nazi Party members are arrested and murdered in a purge ordered by Adolf Hitler that comes to be known as the Night of the Long Knives. The most prominent victim of the purge is SA (Brown Shirts) chief Ernst Rohm, a gay man whom Hitler accuses of having formed a … Read More
1952: The McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act bars immigrants “afflicted with psychopathic personality,” a phrase that is interpreted to include all homosexuals. 1972: “Gay News”, England’s first national gay newspaper, makes its debut. 1994: Deborah Batts becomes the first openly LGBTQ U.S. federal judge. 2010: Same-sex marriage in Iceland is legalised with Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir … Read More