1978: 1,500 gays and supporters rally on the steps of the state capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota, in support of the gay rights provision in the city’s human rights ordinance. 1989: In one of the Navy’s worst peacetime tragedies, a gun turret explosion aboard the U.S. battleship Iowa kills forty-seven sailors while the ship is … Read More
1976: By a vote of 6 to 3, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Virginia’s sodomy laws. 1985: The Los Angeles Times comes out in favor of gay rights and urges the U.S. Supreme Court to take a stand on more gay-related issues. 1988: Georgetown University, the nation’s oldest Roman Catholic university, loses … Read More
1970: The film version of Matt Crowley’s play The Boys in the Band opens in New York, directed by William Friedkin. The director remarks, “I hope there are happy homosexuals. There just don’t happen to be any in my film.” 1977: Two years after having repealed its state sodomy laws, Arkansas’s state legislature votes to … Read More
1989: Noted gay artist Robert Mapplethorpe dies of AIDS in Boston at the age of 42. Mapplethorpe’s work is later at the center of a major arts funding controversy in the United States.
1989: The U.S.S.R. reports the case of twenty-nine infants and six mothers who all contracted AIDS in the same hospital through a single unsterile syringe that was used over and over again.
1989: Chicago’s new gay rights ordinance takes effect. It mandates fines up to $500 for discrimination based on sexual orientation.
1980: William Friedkin’s Cruising opens nationwide and is blasted by critics (gay and straight) for its depiction of homosexuality, but also, as one critic puts it, “[its] narrative loopholes [and] unconvincing plot twists.” 1983: Lesbian playwright Jane Chambers (A Late Snow, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove) dies of a brain tumor at the age of … Read More
1989: After having debated and rejected similar measures for years, the American Bar Association votes 251 to 121 in favor of supporting federal legislation to prohibit discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
1924: The state of Illinois issues a charter to a nonprofit corporation named the Society for Human Rights, located in Chicago. It becomes the earliest documented gay rights organization in the United States. 1971: Nixon Supreme Court Nominee William H. Rehnquist is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. 1989: More than 5,000 activists show up in … Read More
1985: Terry Sweeney, arguably the first openly gay performer on network television, joins the cast of Saturday Night Live, where he quickly gains national attention for his hilarious impersonation of First Lady Nancy Reagan. 1989: Variety reverses an earlier policy and begins listing the surviving same-sex partners (listed as “longtime companions”) in the obituaries of … Read More