Sept. 18-14
1997
U.S.: Linda Birner, editor of the Sacramento gay newspaper Mom Guess What, writes: “Lesbians don’t go out anymore on Saturday nights. Everyone’s home watching Xena.” * A hotly contested measure to add “sexual orientation” to Louisville, Kentucky’s human-rights law is defeated. * The California state Senate approves a measure to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in housing and employment by a vote of 22 to 18. * Michigan State University’s (MSU) trustees approve extending spousal benefits to the same-gender partners of its gay and lesbian employees. * The new Miss America, Katherine Shindle, says she is anxious to get out on the speech circuit and talk about AIDS. * Canada: The gay-themed Hanging Garden takes two top honors at the Toronto International Film Festival: the Air Canada People’s Choice Award, and the Toronto-CITY award for Best Canadian Feature Film. * Britain: Angela Eagle, Labour Member of Parliament for Wallasey and Junior Environment Minister, becomes Britain’s first government minister to publicly identify herself as a lesbian.
1992
U.S.: Former San Francisco police chief, Richard Hongisto, who was fired in May for condoning the seizure of 2000 copies of Bay Times…he was depicted on the cover, holding a nightstick in a suggestive manner…is sued by the gay newspaper, for violating its right to free expression. * After being arrested during a raid on a gay bar, Roy Downs files a suit against the Forth Worth, Texas, police department, claiming that officers kicked him in the shin, and accused him of ‘wearing more jewelry than the tooth fairy.’ * Japan: A symposium called Society Living With AIDS takes place at the Toshi Center Hotel, in Tokyo. The hotel, however, refuses accommodation to Sean Duque, an AIDS activist from Honolulu and one of the speakers, because he is HIV-positive. * Italy: Massimo Consoli, editor of Rome Gay News, challenges composer Franco Battiato to a duel, over his new opera Gilgamesh. The 4000-year-old poem The Epic Of Gilgamesh, on which the opera is based, contains the oldest known depiction of same-sex love, but Battiato decides to leave it out of his work, saying, “I don’t care about it.”
1987
U.S.: A San Francisco Superior Court awards James B. Short $2.28 million in palimony payments, for the 19 years he lived with Charles Gale. This is believed to be the first gay palimony case settled by a jury. * South Africa: The government announces plans to deport all migrant workers found to be carrying the AIDS virus, and to draft legislation for the “isolation and compulsory treatment” of persons with the disease. Health Minister Willie van Nierkerk says infected migrant workers “had become a reservoir from which the virus could be spread.”
1982:
U.S.: The Atlas Savings & Loan, the country’s only gay-oriented financial institution, is robbed for the second time in three months. * Vice officers in Houston raid the River Oaks Theater, where they seize a copy of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s controversial film, Salo, 120 Days Of Sodom. The theater’s owner, Don Bonetati, is arrested for ‘promoting obscene material.’ * Documents released under the Freedom Of Information Act confirm that the FBI routinely spied on homosexual rights groups, and made lists of their members, back in the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s. * Ireland: A gay man is murdered in Cork, and detectives working on the case ask the Irish Gay Rights Movement to hand over their membership lists. They refuse. Ireland and Cyprus are the only countries in Western Europe where gay sex is illegal.