1997: In New Jersey, same-sex couples are given the right to jointly adopt children

1983: Mel Brook’s To Be or Not To Be, a remake of the Ernst Lubitsch classic becomes the first mainstream Hollywood film to not only acknowledge Nazi persecution of homosexuals, but also makes it a key plot element.

1924: Henry Gerber, a German-born immigrant, receives a charter from the state of Illinois for a nonprofit corporation in Chicago named the Society for Human Rights. It becomes the earliest documented gay rights organization in the United States. Though the organization was intended to be an American equivalent of contemporary German LGBTQ emancipation groups, Gerber is arrested soon after and the society falls apart.

2013: The first official day that LGBTQ couples in Hawaii (both residents as well as tourists) can marry in the Aloha State.

1985: At an AIDS candlelight vigil in San Francisco, Activist Cleve Jones conceives The Names Project.

1961: In Hollywood, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) announces a revision of its production code. “In keeping with the culture, the mores and the values of our time,” the revision advises, “homosexuality and other sexual aberrations may now be treated with care, discretion and restraint.” The new ruling paves the way for the release of films like The Children’s Hour and Advise and Consent, but the MPPDA later amends the revision to specify that “sexual aberration” may be “suggested but not actually spelled out.”

1977: Soap premieres on ABC with then unknown Billy Crystal playing Jodie Dallas, one of TV’s first prominent and sympathetic gay characters. 1996: In the U.S. Congress, a bill that would ban employment discrimination against lesbians and gay men is defeated by one vote. 1997: The newly crowned Miss America, Kate Shindle, vows to dedicate her … Read More

1969: Just a few days after the riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, 500 marchers confront police in the first “gay pride” demonstration, a march down Christopher Street. 1970: The Fifth Biennial Convention of the Lutheran Church in America expresses its opposition to discrimination and oppression of gay men and lesbians. 1997: … Read More