Queering Up History: Sept 13th

"Queer Events On This Day In History...

1974 The first lesbian writer's convention convenes in Chicago sponsored by Womanpress.

1977 The American TV series Soap debuts on ABC with (straight) actor Billy Crystal in an ongoing gay role.

1985 About 20,000 march nation-wide in New Zealand in support of a homosexual law reform bill which proposed to reduce the age of consent for gay sex to 16.

1985 Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahan are thrown out of their Dublin hotel after appearing on "The Late Late Show" on which they identified themselves as lesbians and former nuns.

1989 The US House of Representatives rejects a proposal by right-wing Senator Jesse Helms which sought to deny federal grants to art projects which included homoeroticism.

1992 Two gay men in Manhattan are attacked by at least twenty-five teenagers. New York City mayor David Dinkins condemned the attack and urged state and federal legislation to prevent gay bashing.

1993 Washington DC repeals its sodomy law.

1993 British gays demonstrate at Bromley Council meeting over alleged HIV discrimination.

1994 A domestic partner registration is approved unanimously by the Carrboro North Carolina board of aldermen.

1996 The US Senate votes 49-50 to defeat the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

1999 A man filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, the huge US coffee-shop chain, charging same-sex harassment by a supervisor.

2001 Two days after the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City, American right-wing homophobe Rev. Jerry Falwell on his TV show blames gays and lesbians (along with pagans, abortionists and the American Civil Liberties Union) for the terrorist attack. After a media uproar he apologizes the next day saying his remarks "were taken out of context."

2004 Fifteen months after gay marriage was first legalized in Canada, the country's first gay divorce is granted to two lesbians as an Ontario Superior Court judge strikes down the Canadian Divorce Act's definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

2004 Olympic silver medalist Amelie Mauresmo, 25, a lesbian from France, becomes the world's officially top-ranked woman tennis player."

Brought to you by our friends at Wicked Gay Blog