1976: Mayor George Sullivan of Anchorage, Alaska vetoes a municipal civil rights ordinance that would have extended protections in housing and employment to LGBT people, proclaiming that the “people of Anchorage should not be forced to associate with sexual deviates.” 1982: Wisconsin becomes the first U.S. state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual … Read More
1903: New York City police conduct the first United States recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston Hotel Baths. 26 men were arrested and 12 brought to trial on sodomy charges; 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison. 1976: A Detroit jury awards more than $200,000 in damages to a … Read More
1976: Gay actor, Sal Mineo, is stabbed to death in the garage of his West Hollywood apartment building at 8569 Holloway Drive. He is only 37 years old. The crime goes unsolved for a number of years until his murderer, Lionel Ray Williams, is caught and convicted. 1982: Making Love opens nationwide. Producers timed the release of the film with … Read More
1976: Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury introduces a gay character, Andy Lippincott (who had first appeared a month earlier). Five newspapers refuse to carry the story arc of Andy’s coming out to Joanie Caucus. Lippincott appears on and off in the daily strip for years. In 1989, he returned to the strip when he is diagnosed with … Read More
1976: The Vatican calls homosexuality “a serious depravity” that “can in no case be approved of” in its newly released “Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics” 1982: On the syndicated “Helen Gurley Brown Show”, the host (and Cosmopolitan editor) asks National Gay Task Force director Lucia Valeska, “Is it true that gay people are … Read More
1976: The Vatican calls homosexuality “a serious depravity” that “can in no case be approved of” in its newly released “Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics” 1982: On the syndicated “Helen Gurley Brown Show”, the host (and Cosmopolitan editor) asks National Gay Task Force director Lucia Valeska, “Is it true that gay people are … Read More
1976: Patrick Dennis, author of “Auntie Mame” dies at the age of 55 in NYC. 1984: California voters decided to turn a previously unincorporated portion of Los Angeles into the nation’s first “Gay City”, West Hollywood. An estimated 40% of the population is LGBTQ.