1973: An officially sanctioned gay student dance at Princeton University draws three hundred participants. 1975: Gay porn phenomenon “Jack Wrangler” is born when a sometimes struggling twenty-eight-year-old actor, Jack Stillman, steps onstage between porn films at the Paris Theater in Los Angeles and performs a live striptease in Western drag. The son of an established … Read More
1975: California repeals its 103-year-old sodomy laws. A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department seeks reinstatement of them, saying, “We’re having trouble enough convincing our men that they should accept women as equals. Can you imagine what it would do to morale if we gave them a queer as their partner?” 1985: Seven days … Read More
1965: An estimated 150 people participate in a sit-in when the manager of Dewey’s restaurant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania refused service to several people he thought looked gay. Four people are arrested, including homophile rights leader Clark Polak of Philadelphia’s Janus Society. All four are convicted of disorderly conduct. Members of the society also leaflet outside the … Read More
1975: The Arizona State House of Representatives votes 37 to 3 to pass an “emergency measure” specifically banning same-sex marriages. Two weeks later, the Colorado Attorney General also rules that gay and lesbian marriages are illegal and orders Clela Rorex, the Boulder, Colorado county clerk who had issued a marriage license to two gay men … Read More
1972: The U.S. Supreme Court effectively upholds a lower court ruling giving state governments the right to refuse employment to gay men and lesbians. The court had refused to review the case of an openly gay man turned down for a job at a Minnesota university library because of his homosexuality. 1975: New Mexico becomes … Read More
1973: Gay playwright, Noel Coward, dies in Jamaica at the age of 73. 1975: After the local district attorney’s office rules that there are no county laws preventing two people of the same-sex from getting married, Boulder, Colorado county clerk Clela Rorex issues a marriage license to two gay men. It is the first same-sex marriage … Read More
1975: The American Association for the Advancement of Science passes a resolution deploring discrimination “in any form” against gay men and lesbians. 1977: Washington, D.C.’s Human Rights Commission fines the Grand Central, a local gay bar, over $6,000 for discrimination against women and African-Americans.
1975: Norman Lear’s TV adaptation of Lanford Wilson’s “Hot l Baltimore” premieres on ABC. Though it features a diverse cast of characters, including two gay men and a latent lesbian, it lasts only five months. 1983: Noted gay director George Cukor dies at age 83 in Los Angeles.
1960: U.S. Court of Federal Claims overturns the Other Than Honorable discharge issued by the Air Force to Fannie Mae Clackum for her alleged homosexuality. This is the first known instance of a homosexuality-related discharge being successfully fought, although the case turned on due process issues and did not affect the military’s policy of excluding … Read More
1975: The Chicago Board of Ed. approves a plan that allows, for the first time, the City’s teachers to answer students’ questions about homosexuality. 1977: The Episcopal Church of New York ordains an openly lesbian woman, Ellen Marie Barrett, as a minister. 1980: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence forms in San Francisco. 1982: Paul Lynde, … Read More