1998
U.S.: Rolling Stone magazine features John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig and the Angry Inch on the cover. * A jury rules that the District of Columbia must pay $2.9 million to Tyra Hunter, a transgendered woman, because she was denied treatment when it was discovered she was ‘trans. * A ruling handed down by an Oregon Court of Appeals outlaws job discrimination based on sexual orientation for the entire state. * Toledo city council members make history by unanimously passing a civil-rights ordinance that includes ‘gender-identity.’ * Colombia: Two gay men, Luis Antonio Arias Bolivar and Isauro Rincon Angarita, get married at Notary Office No 46 in Bogota, the same location in which heterosexuals get married. * Mexico: City police raid the gay bar Tare in Mexicali and insult, beat and jail 14 patrons.
1993
U.S.: The Clinton Administration reaches a settlement in the class-action lawsuit filed by a former FBI agent who says he was fired for being gay. Although Frank Buttino will not get his job back, the agency agrees to implement a non-discrimination policy, pay an undisclosed portion of his pension and $53,000 in legal fees. * Massachusetts becomes the first state in the country to ban anti-gay discrimination against public high school students. * The 1994 Gay Games signs up Miller Brewing Company and Continental Airlines as its first major marketers. * Tom Hanks on playing Antonio Banderas’ boyfriend in the soon-to-be-released movie Philadelphia: “I’m the envy of most of the women of the world, and quite a few of the men from what I understand.” * In Vellejo, Calif., a court orders Roseann Peterson to stand trial for the murder of her lover Laura Venable, whose decomposed body was found stuffed in a wicker hamper in a litter-strewn field earlier in the year. A friend of Peterson’s testified that her friend had admitted to killing Venable’s after becoming ‘mixed up with magic’ and ‘Satanic stuff.’ * The Advocate holiday gift guide suggests a man’s shirt by Dolce & Gabbana ($433), a belt by Thierry Mugler ($375), or a pillow by J.M. Paquet ($1,300). * In Helena, six people file suit against the Montana sodomy statute that makes homosexual sex punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $50,000 in fines. * Australia: The Australian Institute of Criminology finds that 20 percent of gay men and 11 percent of lesbians in the nation say they have been the target of anti-gay abuse.
1988
U.S.: The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the firing of a National Security Agency cryptography technician because he had admitted that he was gay. * Rolland Swain, superintendent of Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Park—a popular cruising area for gay men orders a dusk to dawn curfew, after local residents complain about crime in the area. * Police in Portland, Maine, investigate a neo-nazi youth group called Portland Area Skinheads, after an unprovoked attack on two local gay men. * Literary Outlaw: The Life And Times Of William Burroughs, by Ted Morgan, is in bookstores. * Ex-Soft Cell singer Marc Almond’s album The Stars We Are is in the record stores
1983
U.S.: Actor Victor Mature, who played Samson to Hedy Lamarr’s Delilah, in Cecil B. DeMille’s epic Samson and Delilah, will be playing Samson’s father in a forthcoming TV remake. Mature tells TV Guide that he would have played Samson’s mother ‘if the price were right.’ * Hot Disco club hits include: ‘Love Is A Stranger’ by The Eurythmics, ‘I Am What I Am’ by Gloria Gaynor, and ‘Where Is My Man’ by Eartha Kitt.