November 19 in LGBTQ History
1982: A California judge tosses Marilyn Barnett’s so-called “palimony” suit against tennis star Billie Jean King out of court.
Tag: 2009
November 3 in LGBTQ History
1999: Aaron McKinney is found guilty of murdering Matthew Shepard. He is sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.
October 28 in LGBTQ History
1824: The Marquis de Custine is beaten and left for dead after propositioning a male soldier in Saint-Denis. The scandal forces him out of the closet, but he recovers and lives the rest of his life as an open ‘sodomite’ with his partner Edward St. Barbe. Custine maintains a successful social life in Paris.
October 13 in LGBTQ History
1970: Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter host the United Kingdom’s first Gay Liberation Front meeting at the London School of Economics. 1982: Jerry Falwell and National Gay Task Force director Virginia Apuzzo debate gay rights on the Donahue show. 1987: Over 600 lesbians, gay men, and supporters are arrested on the steps of the U.S. … Read More
October 11 in LGBTQ History
1981: In Los Angeles, then twenty-one year old Prince opens for the Rolling Stones. He is booed off the stage with taunts of “Faggot!” and “F*cking queer!” 1987: The Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights (aka “The Great March”) takes place in Washington, DC. The march, demonstration, and rally also included … Read More
October 1 in LGBTQ History
1982: Former Los Angeles Dodger outfielder Glenn Burke comes out in “Inside Sports”, becoming the first professional baseball player to do so.
September 1 in LGBTQ History
1969: West Germany repeals laws prohibiting gay acts between consenting adults-applies to males only as lesbianism was never proscribed by W. German law. 1977: The present-day Log Cabin Republicans organization is founded as the “Gay Republicans” club, a group of lesbians and gays within the United States’ Republican Party. 1979: New Jersey decriminalizes private consensual … Read More
August 12 in LGBTQ History
1833: In London, Captain Nicholas Nicholls, 50, is sentenced to death on a charge of Sodomy. His sentence is protested by the anonymous poet who is writing Don Leon, purportedly an autobiographical poem by Lord Byron but actually by some contemporary who is remarkably familiar with the late poet’s love life. Don Leon is not … Read More
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. … Read More
July 6 in LGBTQ History
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