1980: The Democratic Rules Committee states that it will not discriminate against homosexuals. At their National Convention on August 11-14, the Democrats become the first political party to endorse a homosexual rights platform. 2010: United States District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro rules in two separate cases that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is … Read More
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
1952: The McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act bars immigrants “afflicted with psychopathic personality,” a phrase that is interpreted to include all homosexuals. 1972: “Gay News”, England’s first national gay newspaper, makes its debut. 1994: Deborah Batts becomes the first openly LGBTQ U.S. federal judge. 2010: Same-sex marriage in Iceland is legalised with Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir … 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
1981: The so-called McDonald Amendment-prohibiting Legal Services Corporation from assisting in “any case which seeks to promote, defend or protect homosexuality”-is passed by the U.S. House of Rcpresentatives, 281 to 124. The measure was introduced by ardently homophobic congressman Larry McDonald, a conservative Dcmocrat from Georgia. 1992: The soap opera One Life to Live introduces the … Read More
1967: The U.S. Suprme Court strikes down Loving v. Virginia, a Virginia law against interracial marriages declaring that marriage is a “fundamental civil right” and that decisions in this arena are not those with which the State can interfere unless they have good cause. 1970: In what is described as “the first marriage in the nation … Read More
1976: West Virginia becomes the sixteenth state to repeal its sodomy statutes. Two weeks later, Iowa becomes the seventeenth. 1982: German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, thirty-six, dies of an overdose of cocaine and tranquilizers in Munich. 2003: Michael Stark and Michael Leshner are wed in Ontario, becoming the first legal same-sex marriage in Canada. … Read More
1974: The Lambda Rising Bookstore opens its doors in Washington, D.C., with a stock of three hundred titles and average sales of about $25 a day. By 1987, it has opened a second store, established a thriving mail-order business, offers more than twenty thousand titles, and has annual sales of $1.5 million. 2011: Cambridge, Massachusetts announces … Read More