December 11 in LGBTQ History
1982: San Francisco mayor Dianne Feinstein vetoes a domestic partnership bill.
December 10 in LGBTQ History
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.
December 9 in LGBTQ History
1975: The Washington Star begins a series on homosexuality in American Sports. Inspired, Washington Redskins linebacker Dave Kopay agrees to come out to the series’ author, Lynn Rosellini.
December 8 in LGBTQ History
1981: The NYC Gay Men’s Chorus becomes the first openly gay musical group to play at Carnegie Hall with their Christmas concert.
December 7 in LGBTQ History
1993: In Texas, Williamson County commissioners reverse the previous week’s decision to deny Apple Computer tax breaks for a new facility in the county because of its policy of extending benefits to employees’ same-sex domestic partners. Several of the commissioners, however, continue to express condemnation of “the gay lifestyle.”
December 6 in LGBTQ History
2011: Elio Di Rupo becomes Prime Minister of Belgium and, subsequently, the first openly-gay male head of government.
December 5 in LGBTQ History
1642: A Massachusetts Bay servant is sentenced to be whipped for “unseemly practices” with another woman in the first documented example of legal prosecution in North America for same-sex relations between women.
December 4 in LGBTQ History
1970: New York City’s first gay Community Center opens in Greenwich Village.
December 3 in LGBTQ History
1968: At the Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles, the Reverend Troy Perry officiates at what is probably the first public same-sex union ceremony in the US.
December 2 in LGBTQ History
2013: The first official day that LGBTQ couples in Hawaii (both residents as well as tourists) can marry in the Aloha State.
