1977: Diversions and Delights, a one-man play starring Vincent Price as Oscar Wilde, has its world premiere in San Francisco. Nine months later, it moves to Broadway. 1984: Boston Mayor Ray Flynn approves a gay rights ordinance that prohibits job and credit discrimination against lesbians and gay men. 1990: Hong Kong repeals its sodomy laws.
1973: Infuriated and disgusted by “all those young punks who have been beating up” gay men in San Francisco, a gay Pentecostal Evangelist, the Rev. Ray Broshears, founds the so-called Lavender Panthers, a group of street vigilantes who patrol the city’s gay meeting areas to ward off potential attacks from “fag-bashers.” Shortly after their founding, the … Read More
1970: New York City: Police arrest Gay Activists Alliance members Tom Doerr, Arthur Evans, Jim Owles, Phil Raia, and Marty Robinson for staging a sit-in at the headquarters of the Republican State Committee. The men, who wanted to present their demands for “fair employment” practices to New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller, become known as … 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
1971: E. M. Forster-famous for such novels as Maurice, Howard’s End, A Passage to India, and A Room with a View-dies at the age of ninety-one in Coventry, England. 1985: A New Orleans man, Johnny Greene, writes an article for People magazine about his personal struggle with AIDS-Related Complex, and is rewarded for his honesty … Read More
1983: Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli comes out in an interview with The Advocate, saying, “I’m gay…. This is the first time I’ve talked about it openly. I don’t like to talk about my sexual inclinations. People are not special because they like one thing better than another in bed.” 1990: John Brownell, deputy managing editor … Read More
1982: Voters in Lincoln, Nebraska, go to the polls to decide whether or not to accept a proposed gay rights ordinance for the city. Leading the fight against the initiative is local psychologist Paul Cameron who has asserted, among other things, that gay and lesbian teachers are forty-three times more likely to molest a child than … Read More
1990: Fitness trainer and former model Paul Barresi “outs” actor John Travolta in an interview in the National Enquirer, claiming that Travolta first propositioned him in the showers of a health club and that over the next two years they “had sex dozens of times while [Travolta] was dating girl stars.” Barresi later apologizes for … Read More
1980: “Young, Gay and Proud”-the first gay-themed title from the Boston-based publisher Alyson Publications-arrives in bookstores. The publishing house, founded by gay activist Sasha Alyson, goes on to become the country’s principal gay small press giving many prominent gay writers their start. 1983: More than eighteen thousand people fill Madison Square Garden for what is … Read More
1978: Following the recent gay rights defeat in Dade County, Florida,voters in St. Paul, Minnesota, vote to repeal their four year-old gay rights ordinance by a margin of 2 to 1. 1981: Former Beverly Hills hairdresser Marilyn Barnett files a multimillion-dollar “palimony” suit against tennis pro Billie Jean King, claiming the two had a lesbian … Read More