1998

U.S.: Savage Love: Straight Answers From America’s Most Popular Sex Columnist by Dan Savage is in bookstores. * VH1’s The RuPaul Show celebrates its 100th episode. * Singer Helen Reddy tells Frontiers magazine: ‘It was up in Sacramento (at an AIDS benefit) and someone yelled out, ‘When are you coming out, Helen?’ and I said, ‘If there’s a woman here with a hairy chest and a big dick, I’m hers!” * An unnamed lesbian is denied joint custody and visitation rights to her ex-partner’s 4-year-old twins by a New Jersey Superior Court. The children were born two years after the couple had first moved in with each other. * Portugal: Joao Soares, the mayor of Lisbon, attends the country’s 2nd Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. He says he is ‘very proud that Lisbon is a city of freedom, tolerance and openness.’ * Colombia: A 1979 law that allowed firing of openly gay teachers is struck down by Colombia’s Constitutional Court.

1993

U.S.: The Dalai Lama talks about the importance of spirituality in the modern world and the need for compassion for people with AIDS, at the Parliament of World’s Religions Conference in Chicago. * The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules that Dr. Susan Love and Dr. Helen Cooksey, who have been together for 10 years, can jointly adopt Katie Love-Cooksey, the daughter whom Love gave birth to in 1988. * Woman to Woman, by Fem2Fem, is in record stores. * And The Band Played On, the movie of Randy Shilts’ book of the same name, premieres on HBO. * The CDC reports that in nine cities AIDS has become the leading cause of death among women of child-bearing age. Those cities are: Baltimore, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Jersey City, Newark, New Haven, Ct., New York, Paterson, N.J., and Stamford, Ct. * Chile: Ex-Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet says the German army is full of ‘marijuana smoking drug addicts, long-haired louts, and homosexuals.’

1988

U.S.: An AIDS Memoir by Paul Monette is in bookstores. * In Laguna Beach, Calif., 34-year-old Dale David Dalton is found not guilty of killing his roommate Edward Ihling. Dalton testified that he strangled Ihling with a shirt in self-defense, after Ihling lunged at him with his teeth bared, threatening to expose him to HIV. * Britain: At Sotheby’s in London, Elton John auctions off some of his personal memorabilia and raises $8 million for AIDS. * London Lighthouse, Britain’s first residential and support facility for PWA’s, opens. * Beatle Paul McCartney, commenting on recent printed allegations that John Lennon was gay, says: ‘If John were a homosexual, I would’ve thought he would have made a pass at me in 20 years, wouldn’t you?’

1983

U.S.: Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the founder and leader of America’s atheist movement, officially recognizes the Houston-based organization of American Gay Atheists. * Quote of the Week: Regarding Jerry Falwell’s assertion that AIDS is God’s punishment for homosexuality, Chicago-based columnist Mike Royko writes: ‘And maybe Jerry Falwell is God’s punishment for owning a TV set.’ * The National Lesbians of Color Conference takes place at the Cottontail Ranch in Malibu, Calif. * Lianna, a film about a married woman who falls in love with another woman, is a big winner at the Alliance for Gay Artists Media Awards. Director John Sayes and performers Linda Griffiths and Jane Hallaran are honored for their work on the movie. * The movie A Star Is Born, starring Judy Garland, is restored to its original length of 181 minutes, and is showing at the Art Theater in New York City.