1996
U.S.: The Houston chapter of PFLAG begins a month-long gay awareness campaign featuring 11 billboards with pro-gay messages. One reads: “Someone you know and love is gay.” * In Key West, The Lower Keys Ministerial Association refuse to permit Metropolitan Community Church participation in its Christmas parade. The group of conservative pastors also banned the gay church in 1995. * String of Pearls: Stories of Crossdressing, Etd. by Tony Ayres is in stores.
1991
U.S.: The U.S. House narrowly defeats an 11th-hour attempt by conservatives to revive an amendment by Sen. Jesse Helms which would have banned the funding of art determined to be “patently offensive.”
1986
U.S.: The Communards debut album is in record stores. * Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio is in movie theaters. * Dykes To Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel is in bookstores, and so is I, Tina, by Tina Turner with Kurt Loder. * Gay and lesbian citizens testify on anti-gay violence before the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority during public hearings to gather ideas on how to spend $3.2 million to fight crime. * U.S. Surgeon General Koop issues a 36-page report on AIDS in which he writes that AIDS is not being addressed “because of our reticence in dealing with the subjects of sex, sexual practices and homosexuality. This silence must end. We can no longer afford to sidestep frank, open discussion about sexual practices…homosexual or heterosexual.” * British gay filmmaker Derek Jarman, on the subject of American television, says: “All these neurotic religious things…it’s why people came (to America) and it is why they are still dominant. Religious fanatics are really considered quite a nuisance back home.” * CBS News broadcasts a report called “AIDS Hits Home” hosted by Dan Rather, who asks one mother: “How can a mother love her son’s lover after her son has died of AIDS.” The mother replies that she loved her son’s lover because her son had loved him and she could not help but love the one who cared for her dying son. * James Brady, author of the new book Designs, and former editor of Women’s Wear Daily, appears on the Oprah Show and says that “gay newsletters” were responsible for spreading rumors about Calvin Klein having AIDS. * Meeting in Washington, D.C., a national panel of experts criticizes the U.S. government’s response to the AIDS epidemic and urges spending of $2 billion a year on education and research by 1990. The event is sponsored by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.
1981
U.S.: Wisconsin takes a major step to becoming the first state in the nation to enact comprehensive gay-rights laws when the state Assembly approves a bill banning “sexual orientation” discrimination and sends it to the Senate for consideration. * Former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Ind.) warns a conference of the ACLU in Chicago that the “radical” New Right is threatening to abolish “the hard won gains for civil liberties” achieved during the past 20 years. * The 3rd National Conference on Gay and Lesbian Issues is held at the Blackstone hotel in Chicago. * Europe: In a case brought to the court by Northern Ireland’s Gay Rights Association member Jeff Dudgeon, the European Court of Human Rights rules that Northern Ireland violates basic human rights by criminalizing gay male sex. * Sicily: Two women are jailed for kissing each other in a public square and resisting arrest. Marianna Fantauzzo and Rosanna Mazza refuse to leave the square after passersby complain. They are charged with performing an obscene act in a public place.