1998U.S.: Dykes To Watch Out For cartoonist Alison Bechdel tells Toronto Xtra!: ‘People are always disappointed when they meet me. I’m not as funny or interesting in person.’ * The Massachusetts legislature votes to allow Boston to offer health insurance benefits to gay and lesbian city employees’ domestic partners. * Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss, starring Sean Hayes and Brad Rowe, is the new gay movie in theaters. * The Indigo Girls travel the country on their Suffragette Tour. * Britain: Forty gay activists organized by the group Outrage! zap 800 Anglican bishops at London’s Festival Pier as the prelates boarded a boat to cruise the Thames. * Netherlands: At the opening of the Gay Games in Amsterdam, Harvey Fierstein says: ‘We’re not different, we’re extraordinary.’
1993U.S.: Author Brian McNaught is the featured speaker at the gay Catholic group Dignity’s biennial convention in New Orleans. * Newark, N.J., superior court judge Philip M. Freedman allows a lesbian to adopt her lover’s three-year-old daughter, who was conceived through artificial insemination. The women were not identified in court documents. * Nearly 5,000 women attend the 4th annual Northampton Lesbian Festival in the Berkshire Mountains near Cummington, Mass. * Seven gay and lesbian members of the armed services sue the government over the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue’ policy, claiming that it’s unconstitutional.’ * On the cover of the August edition of Vanity Fair is a Herb Ritts photograph of model Cindy Crawford shaving k.d. lang. Ritts describes the photograph as ‘like a Norman Rockwell turned on its head.’ * New Zealand: Parliament approves a nationwide ban on anti-gay discrimination.
1988U.S.: Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, a retrospective of the controversial photographer’s work opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. * President Reagan prohibits federal agencies from discriminating against employees with HIV, but refuses to seek a law banning such discrimination nationwide. * Thailand: Opposition leader Chalerm Yubamrung accuses Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanond of being a homosexual, and says he has two Army officers who can prove it. He challenges Prem to a parliamentary non-confidence debate, but to avoid answering questions, Prem dissolves Parliament and calls for new elections. * South Africa: Ivan Toms, a member of the Organization of Lesbian and Gay Activists is sentenced to 630 days imprisonment for refusing to serve in the South African Defense Forces. * Finland: Reijo Harkonen, editor of SETA, a Finnish gay magazine, is refused a visa to visit Russia, after he published a cover picture of Chairperson Gorbachev flying through the air with a sexy Superman torso.
1983U.S.: The 13th U.S. & Canada Edition of the Gayellow Pages is available in bookstores. * Ann Lewis, political director of the Democratic National Committee, tells The New York Times: ‘Human rights, and that includes gay rights, is no longer a debatable issue within the Democratic Party. Gays now have a track record in which they have worked in our campaigns and demonstrated what they have to offer to our party and the political process.’ * France: The Rallye du Maroc, a Tangiers-to-Agadir, Morocco, road race, has an official gay entry for the first time this year. Sponsored by several Parisian gay establishments, the driver sported a bright yellow Mercedes Benz, and was, according to a press release from the sponsoring groups, ‘working to destroy the stereotypes of homosexuals as ‘cowards,’ who can only drive a pink Volkswagen convertible.’