1982: Iran re-institutes Islamic sharia law, proscribing all same-sex acts. Punishments include 100 lashes of the whip, beheading, and stoning to death.

1982: United States district court Judge Jerry Buchmeyer rules in Baker v. Wade that the sodomy law of the state of Texas violates the right to privacy and due process. 2004: Indiana Governor Joseph Kernan issues an executive order banning gender identity discrimination in the public sector.

1982: In France, the Age of Consent for same-sex acts is lowered from 21 to 15, the same as for heterosexual acts. 2010: Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker rules that Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that banned same-sex marriage in California, violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. 2011: President Barack Obama signs a … Read More

1982: Twenty-eight-year-old gay Atlantan Michael Hardwick is arrested on sodomy charges after police-trying to serve a warrant for a minor traffic violation-show up at his home and find him in bed performing fellatio on a male companion. “I’m in bed with this guy,” says Hardwick later, “and I hear the door to my room open. … Read More

1968: The Wall Street Journal publishes an article entitled, “U.S. Homosexuals Gain in Trying to Persuade Society to Accept Them”. 1982: Queen Elizabeth’s personal bodyguard, fifty-year-old Commander Michael Trestrail, is forced to resign after British newspapers reveal he is gay and has been involved in a long-term relationship with a male prostitute. Later, reports surface that Prime … Read More

1982: A federal judge rules that the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s policy of excluding foreign gays from entering the United States is unconstitutional and violates guarantees of free speech and free association. 1984: U.S. News & World Report reports that gay men and lesbians, with an estimated seventeen million potential voters, now make up the seventh largest … Read More

1969: Gay icon Judy Garland dies of an overdose at the age of 47. Four days later, on June 26, 1969, her remains are taken (by her fifth husband, Mickey Deans) to New York City, where an estimated 20,000 people lined up for hours at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan to pay … Read More