May 6-12
1996
U.S.: A bill to keep states from being forced to recognize marriages between people of the same sex is introduced in both chambers of Congress. The bill is prompted by a pending legal case in Hawaii. Under the U.S. Constitution, the other 49 states would have to accept those marriages as valid. * The White House announces that President Bill Clinton opposes same-sex marriages. * Canada: To commemorate the fight against AIDS, the Canada Post issue an AIDS stamp, to honor the 11th annual AIDS conference in Vancouver. * France: Gay couples get cheap seats on French trains, provided their local town hall certifies they live together. * Britain: Euan Sutherland, 19, asks the European Court of Human Rights to intervene in a challenge over the age of consent for sex between gays. * Egypt: A man …known as Sally …who underwent a sex change and now works as a belly dancer is sentenced to a month in prison for performing in an indecent costume and making lewd gestures.
1991
U.S.: In Concord, Calif., gays are included on a list of groups protected under a human-rights ordinance given approval by the City Council. * The Gaylactic Network, an international organization for gay science fiction fans and their friends, begin a letter-writing campaign to have openly gay characters on Star Trek. * For the first time the International Classification of Diseases published by the World Health Organization does not list homosexuality as a mental disease. * Iceland: State radio relents and allows the word “lesbian” to be broadcast. The word had been banned by “language consultants” because it is not Icelandic. * Italy: According to a public opinion poll, homosexuals are the third least popular group in Italy after gypsies and politicians. * Australia: More than 600 lesbians and gay men block traffic on one of Sydney’s main highways in protest against the rising tide of anti-gay murders and bashings. * Britain: The Channel 4 national TV network is investigated by police because an erect penis is allegedly visible in the background during a talk show. All depictions of erect penises are banned in England. * France: After the Homosexuality and AIDS Conference in Paris, members of ACT UP tackle Dominique Charvet, the director of the government’s French Fight Against AIDS Agency, and try to handcuff him.
1986
U.S.: Culture Club’s 4th and final album, From Luxury to Heartache, enters the top 40. * Trouble In Paradise by Romanovsky & Philips is also in record stores. * In Davenport, Iowa, John H. Nelson admits to shooting his mother Edna, and her roommate Evelyn Kemp, to end the lesbian relationship he believed they were having. * The Minnesota Supreme Court upholds a $2,000 award to Don Potter, who charged that LaSalle Health and Sports Club harassed him because he was gay. The club’s fundamentalist Christian management maintained an illegal policy of harassing gay members to force them to leave. * Russia: A former Soviet deputy health minister tells readers of Literaturnaya Gazeta, a popular weekly newspaper, that AIDS is not a concern in the USSR because homosexuality and drugs use are both illegal.
1981
U.S.: A lesbian consciousness center opens in Sunnybrook, KY. * Popular dance music includes: Pull Up To The Bumper by Grace Jones, Give It To Me Baby by Rick James, and Try It Out by Gino Soccio. * The Rev. Andrew Greeley’s newest book, The Cardinal Sins is a novel about a fictional cardinal archbishop of Chicago who is a bisexual adulterer. Greeley denies that the character is based on Cardinal John Cody. * Norway: King Olav V signs a new law prohibiting discrimination against lesbians and gay men.