August 25 in LGBTQ History
1982: Iran re-institutes Islamic sharia law, proscribing all same-sex acts. Punishments include 100 lashes of the whip, beheading, and stoning to death.
August 17 in LGBTQ History
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.
August 4 in LGBTQ History
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…
August 3 in LGBTQ History
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….
July 27 in LGBTQ History
1940: The Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, is born. 1967: In the United Kingdom, nearly ten years after the publication of the Wolfenden Report, the Sexual Offenses Act takes effect, decriminalizing private homosexual acts in England and Wales. The age of consent for homosexual acts is set at 21, compared to 16…
July 17 in LGBTQ History
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…
July 16 in LGBTQ History
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…
June 22 in LGBTQ History
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…
June 10 in LGBTQ History
1976: West Virginia becomes the sixteenth state to repeal its sodomy statutes. Two weeks later, Iowa becomes the seventeenth. 1982: German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, thirty-six, dies of an overdose of cocaine and tranquilizers in Munich. 2003: Michael Stark and Michael Leshner are wed in Ontario, becoming the first legal same-sex marriage in Canada….
May 31 in LGBTQ History
1718: The death penalty for “sodomy and buggery” is instituted in Pennsylvania, bringing Pennsylvania into conformity with English statute and common law. The law remained in effect until 1786 when, after the Revolution, Pennsylvania legislators were the first to revoke the death penalty for sodomy. 1982: AIDS makes the front page for first time in…
