1965: Ten gay and lesbian demonstrators picket the White House in Washington, D.C., the first in a series of demonstrations staged this year by the East Coast Homophile Organization (ECHO) 1976: The Lavender World’s Fair – the first all-gay world’s fair, featuring a “Spectacular Grandstand Concert,” “Special Lesbian Guest Stars,” “The World’s Largest Outdoor Disco” … Read More

1977: A New York judge rules that transsexual tennis player Renee Richards is eligible to play in the women’s division of the U.S. Open tennis championships and does not have to undergo a chromosome test. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDu7mvm8CvE] 2001: Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg steps down from an advisory board of the Boy Scouts of America, citing … Read More

1973: Gay playwright, Noel Coward, dies in Jamaica at the age of 73. 1975: After the local district attorney’s office rules that there are no county laws preventing two people of the same-sex from getting married, Boulder, Colorado county clerk Clela Rorex issues a marriage license to two gay men. It is the first same-sex marriage … Read More

1972: The Equal Rights Amendment, banning discrimination on the basis of sex, passes the U.S. Senate.  Opponents of the amendment claim it will destroy the nuclear family, give broad civil rights to homosexuals, and even mandate unisex rest rooms in public.  Though by the end of 1972 twenty-two of the required thirty-eight states had ratified … Read More

1982: Victor Victoria opens nationwide to generally rave reviews.  Blake Edward’s farce, based on a 1933 German film, Viktor und Viktoria features Robert Preston as perhaps the most relaxed and affable homosexual ever scripted into a major Hollywood motion picture.  The movie becomes a box office hit and accomplishes what many years of gay liberation … Read More

1976: At a campaign stop in Los Angeles, Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter tells an audience that, if elected, he would be willing to issue an executive order banning discrimination against gay people in housing, employment, immigration and the military. 2004: The Wisconsin State Senate approves of an amendment to the state constitution (20-13) that would ban … Read More

2004: The Wisconsin State Assembly approved of an amendment to the state constitution (68-27) that would ban both same-sex marriages and civil unions.

2010: Congress approves a law signed in December 2009 that legalizes same-sex marriage in the Washington, DC