March 9-15
1998
U.S.: Charles Edward Hall, an AIDS patient who battled unsuccessfully in the Florida Supreme Court for the right to assisted suicide, dies at age 36. * In letters to the White House, the mayors of San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz and West Hollywood claim that closing medical marijuana clubs would hurt those suffering from AIDS and cancer who use the drug to ease their pain and nausea. * In Houston, Jackson Hicks, president of the Board of Directors of the NAMES Project Foundation, announces the appointment of Andy Ilves as executive director of the Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco. * A United Methodist Church jury acquits Rev. Jimmy Creech of violating church law by officiating at a lesbian marriage ceremony. * The Gay and Lesbian Music Awards take place in New York. * The heads of 39 lesbigaytrans groups from across the U.S. gather in Washington, D.C., to attend a National Policy Roundtable hosted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. * Canada: Chrysler Canada is ordered by an arbitrator to provide benefits to employees’ same-sex partners.
1993
U.S.: Singer k.d. lang wins a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocalist, for her song ‘Constant Craving,’ and Melissa Etheridge wins Best Female Rock Vocalist, for ‘Ain’t It Heavy.’ * Lesbian comedienne Lea Delaria appears on The Arsenio Hall Show. * Britain: Two gay men return to prison, after the House of Lords rejects an appeal of their convictions, ruling that sado-masochistic sex between consenting adults constitutes a criminal offense if it inflicts bodily harm. The men were arrested in 1987, during a series of police raids called Operation Spanner.
1988
U.S.: John Holmes, the well-endowed porn star who appeared in such films as Exhausted and Tell Them Johnny Wadd Is Here, dies of AIDS at age 43. * Australia: As a part of a crackdown on homosexuality in the state of Queensland, police arrest a gay couple for committing sodomy in their own bedroom.
1983
U.S.: Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste becomes the first governor in this state to meet with gay and lesbian leaders to discuss discrimination and sexual minorities. He speaks to four activists, including Tom Chorlton, the executive director of the National Association of the Gay and Lesbian Democratic Clubs. * ‘If this article doesn’t scare the shit out of you, we’re in real trouble,’ writes Larry Kramer in The New York Native, in a now-famous controversial article criticizing the Federal Government and gay men for their complacency on AIDS. * In her new autobiography, Elsa Lanchester—whose most famous role was as the Bride of Frankenstein—describes an incident between her husband, Charles Laughton, and Henry Fonda, while filming The Caine Mutiny. Angry because Laughton had cut some of his scenes, Fonda said: ‘What do you know about men, you fat, ugly homosexual?’ * An article in The New York Times describes Robert Mapplethorpe’s works as ‘undeniably distasteful,’ and adds ‘Rather than educate, these pictures titillate. Rather than addressing the conventions of pornography, they are pornography. * In Summerville, Ga., Samuel T. West, 30, receives the death penalty for the murder of gay couple, Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom, who were reputedly Satanists. * Duke J. Armstrong, an openly gay man, is appointed to the central committee of the California Republican Party by Sen. Milton Marks, R-San Francisco. * Ireland: After a court in Dublin give suspended sentences to five youths who beat a 31-year-old gay man to death in a park, 700 people march through the city in the first gay-rights march ever to take place there.