1998U.S.: Hundreds of counter-protestors gather at the All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church in Minneapolis to ‘peacefully challenge an anti-gay demonstration by Fred Phelps and his family across the street.’ * Comedienne Lea Delaria tells Seattle Gay News: ‘High-school theater saved my life. I was a drug addict. An alcoholic. An open lesbian. I was ready to slit my wrists but theater was there for me.’ * Time features an article called ‘Trans Across America,’ on FTMs and MTFs across the country. * A meeting with AIDS czar Sandra Thurman is a cover for protestors from ACT UP/New York to seize an office in the White House complex. Ten are arrested. * Latvia: Saeima, the country’s parliament, enacts a new law that equalizes the age of consent for gay and straight sex at 16. Previously male-male sex was prohibited until 18. * Fiji: The nation’s new constitution bans discrimination based on sexual orientation.
1993U.S.: Those Two Homos, a monthly cable-TV public-access talk show, hosted by Kim Painter and Richard Shannon, makes its debut in Iowa City. * The U.S. Senate votes 55-43 to void a D.C. ordinance that extends spousel health insurance benefits to the domestic partners of municipal employees. * San Francisco federal judge Philip Leadbetter rules that 30-year-old Brazilian national Marcelo Tenorio is entitled to asylum status because he faces anti-gay persecution at home. * Britain: Police arrest Colin Ireland, a 32-year-old unemployed man, for the murders of five gay men.
1988U.S.: Uncommon Calling: A Gay Man’s Struggle To Serve The Church by Chris Glaser is in the bookstores. * Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis becomes the Democratic candidate for president. In his acceptance speech, he describes AIDS as, ‘the greatest public health emergency of our lifetime, and a disease that must be conquered.’ * In Parris Island, S.C., Drill Sgt. Cheryl Jameson is court martialed and sentenced to one year in jail, the forfeiture of her pay, and a dishonorable discharge, for engaging in ‘indecent acts’ with two female Marines. * Three Nicaraguan AIDS educators scheduled to address the Second International Lesbian and Gay Health Conference and AIDS Forum, are denied entry into the U.S. by the State Department.
1983U.S.: Anita Bryant becomes the national spokeswoman for ‘Silent Witness’ sunglasses. The religious ‘shades’ are adorned with crosses, fish and other Christian symbols. Their slogan reads :’The Subtle Way To Tell The World You’re A Christian.’ * Making her second bid for public office, Sister Boom Boom of San Francisco’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, enters the race for Mayor. In a press release signed by Sister Vicious Power-Hungry Bitch, her campaign manager, people are invited to attend an organizational meeting. * Robert Wang, the owner of China Treasure, a Chinese furniture store in Washington, D.C., cancels an ad in the Washington Blade, saying he feared contracting AIDS from gay patrons entering the store. * Dr. Paul Cameron, a Nebraska homophobe, describes the gay community as a, ‘living, breathing cesspool of pathogens.’ * The first AIDS ward in the U.S. opens in San Francisco. * Canada: In his autobiography, Desobeir (to disobey), Claude Charron, the ‘spoiled child’ of Quebecois politics, writes that a quasi-scandal in which he was publicly linked to an alleged gay pornography ring (later disproved totally) began the ‘inner turmoil’ which caused him to come out. During his political career, Charron was involved with several scandals, and was forced to resign after he was caught shoplifting in a department store in 1982.