1970: The Vatican issues a statement reminding the faithful that the Roman Catholic Church considers homosexuality a moral aberration. 1979: Hundreds of demonstrators show up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to protest location shooting for William Friedkin’s new film, Cruising, which deals with a series of grisly mutilation murders within the city’s gay leather community. 1985: In Paris, … Read More
1979: Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King win the women’s doubles championship at Wimbledon. 1986: The United States Supreme Court denies certiorari in the case of Baker v. Wade, thereby refusing to review a constitutional challenge to the sodomy law of Texas. 1987: Arizona gay activist Ed Buck begins a recall effort to have Arizona governor Evan Mecham-known … Read More
1965: Ten men and three women participate in an ECHO (East Coast Homophile Organization) picket of the White House. 1979: Los Angeles outlaws discrimination against homosexuals in private sector employment and in patronization of business establishments in its city. Mayor Thomas Bradley signs bills which go into effect July 2, 1979. 1987: U.S. Representative Barney … Read More
1966: A coalition of homophile organizations across the country organizes simultaneous demonstrations for Armed Forces Day. The Los Angeles group holds a 15-car motorcade (which has been identified as the nation’s first gay pride parade) and activists hold pickets in the other cities. 1970: Bella Abzug-running for the 19th District congressional seat in New York City-addresses … Read More
1979: David Kloss of San Francisco wins the first annual Mr. International Leather title in Chicago. 1988: The first-ever Conference on Homophobia Education convenes in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the Campaign to End Homophobia and cosponsored by a number of church groups and national gay rights organizations, the symposium is held to work out strategies … Read More
1979: “In The Navy” begins a thirteen-week run in the nation’s Top 40. The U.S. Navy briefly considers using the song as a recruitment theme . . . until the full implications of the lyrics are explained. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBXu-iY7cw] 1981: In an article in The Globe, First Lady Nancy Reagan says, “Women’s liberation and gay … Read More
1970: In the wee morning hours, New York City police raid a gay bar called the Snake Pit, arresting 167 patrons. At the police station, one of the arrestees, an Argentine national named Diego Vinales so feared the possibility of deportation that he leapt from a second-story window of the police station, impaling himself on … Read More
1892: Popular openly bisexual poet Edna St. Vincent Millay is born. 1979: Studio 54 throws a gala fifty-second birthday party for closeted gay attorney and former McCarthyite Roy Cohn. The event draws several hundreds of the city’s luminaries – including Donald Trump, Barbara Walters, members of both Democratic and Republican parties and most of the city’s … Read More
1978: Tom of Finland has his first U.S. exhibit at Robert Opel’s Fey Way Gallery in San Francisco. 1979: A gang of teenage boys stands outside Tennessee Williams’s home in Key West, Florida, and begins throwing beer cans and firecrackers at the house while chanting “Come on out, faggot!” The incident is just the latest … Read More
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