1962: In New York City, Randy Wicker talks listener-supported radio station WBAI into broadcasting a taped program in which seven gay people discuss homosexuality. Widely publicized in the local press, the program is believed to be the first favorable broadcast on the subject in the U.S. 1975: Santa Cruz County, California, is the first US county to … Read More
1969: The Mattachine Society of New York invites activists to gather in Greenwich Village for the first “gay power” meeting. 1986: New Zealand repeals its laws prohibiting homosexual acts between consenting adults. 2008: The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Thomas Cook v. Robert Gates upholds the constitutionality of the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, … 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
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
1981: More than twenty people marching in a gay rights demonstration in Helsinki, Finland, are arrested by the police and charged with “encouraging lewd behavior.” 1986: Top Gun opens nationwide in the U.S. and is applauded for years as a homoerotic fantasy.
1986: Vanessa Redgrave stars as Renee Richards in the CBS made-for-TV movie, Second Serve.
1986: Jean Genet dies in Paris at the age of seventy-five. 1990: Screen legend Greta Garbo, eighty-four, dies in New York City. Several obituaries allude to persistent rumors about the reclusive star’s alleged sexual affairs with writer Mercedes de Acosta and various other women.
1982: An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association claims that gay men who take the passive role in anal intercourse may have a twenty-five to fifty times greater risk of anal cancer than heterosexual men. 1986: Georgia outlaws gay bathhouses. 2009: Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signs a domestic partner benefits bill effective … Read More
1971: In defiance of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a federal judge grants U.S. citizenship to a 24-year old gay man from Cuba, ruling that an applicant’s homosexuality cannot, in itself, bar a person from becoming a citizen. 1986: William Hurt wins the Best Actor Oscar for his role as an imprisoned homosexual window … Read More
1961: The United States Supreme Court denies certiorari to Frank Kameny’s petition to review the legality of his firing by the United States Army’s Map Service in 1957, bringing his four-year legal battle to a close. 1970: Twenty-three year old David Bowie marries nineteen year old American Mary Angela Barnett. A few years later, Bowie … Read More