Feb. 9-15
1998
U.S.: AIDS Project Los Angeles honor four outstanding citizens: Ron Burkle, managing partner of the Yucaipa Companies and chairman of the board of Ralph’s Grocery Company, entertainers Jim Carrey and Rosie O’Donnell, and Joe Roth, Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, during its 10th annual ‘Commitment to Life’ fundraising gala. * Toshi Reagan’s Kindness is in record stores. * Fox TV has a segment called Born Both Sexes including interviews with members of the Intersex Society of North America. * The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation reports that a man committed suicide after his name was published in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette after 24 are arrested in a ‘park sting.’ * South Africa: Jolanda Langemaat, a lesbian cop, files suit against the South African Police Service after it refused to extend medical coverage to her lover of 11 years. * Italy: Alfredo Ormando, a Sicilian man who torched himself in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square to protest the Catholic churches teachings on homosexuality, dies from his burns.
1993
U.S.: The Lavender Screen: The Gay & Lesbian Films—Their Stars, Makers, Characters and Critics, by Boze Hadleigh, is published. * A state appeals court in Austin, Texas, rules that the Dallas Police Dept’s exclusion of gays in employment is unconstitutional. * RuPaul tells the Washington Blade: ‘Fame has not gone to my head. I’ve conducted myself as a star all my life.’ * Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn signs an executive order granting health insurance benefits to domestic partners and household members of city employees. * Kurt Cobain tells The Advocate: ‘If I wouldn’t have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with my bisexual life-style.’ * Israel: Uproar breaks out in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, after a legislator, Yael Dayan, begins quoting from the Old Testament as support for her claim that King David was gay. She was arguing for equal opportunity for gays and straights in the military. Shaul Yahalom of the National Religious Party calls Dayan a ‘foul and dirty creature’ who spreads ‘filth.’
1988
U.S.: Presidential candidate Pat Robertson continues to reassert his theory that AIDS is spread through breathing the same air as a person who is infected. * Nevada becomes the first state to require mandatory HIV tests for boxers. * About 75 lesbians and gay men stage a Valentine’s Day kiss-in outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. * Singer Dionne Warwick, who contributed more than $1.5 million for AIDS research from her hit single ‘That’s What Friends Are For,’ announces that she is forming a foundation to raise money for AIDS education and services. * Three lesbians appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show and are introduced as ‘women who hate men.’
1983
U.S.: Zami: A New Spelling Of My Name, by Audre Lorde is No. 1 on the Washington Blade’s Best Seller Book list. * Frank Robinson, a spokesman for the San Francisco Giants, jokes that the team is planning to have a special seating section for gays. ‘Instead of a grandstand,’ he says, ‘We’re going to call it a fruit stand.’ * The Locker Room bathhouse in Minneapolis is raided by police, who search the building without a search warrant. Several men are arrested. * John Grannan, a gay man who ran for the City Council in Tampa, Fla., comes fifth in the race. He blames lack of funding. * Playwright Harvey Fierstein wins the 1982 Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award for his celebrated Broadway play Torch Song Trilogy.