Queering Up History: Sept 19th

"Queer Events On This Day In History...

1963 The first gay rights demonstration in the USA took place at the Whitehall Induction Center in New York City, protesting against discrimination in the military.

1964 The Homosexual League of New York and the League for Sexual Freedom demonstrated in front of the US Army Whitehall Induction Center in New York City to protest the military's exclusion of gays and lesbians.

1975 A three-member US Air Force panel recommended that Sgt. Leonard Matlovich be given a general discharge for being openly gay.

1985 Aids makes the A-List in Hollywood as $1.3 million is raised at a benefit sponsored by Los Angeles AIDS Project. It was organized by Elizabeth Taylor, and among those attending were Betty Ford, Burt Lancaster, Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Davis Jr, Linda Evans, and Burt Reynolds.

1992 Frederick Combs, who played Donald in the 1970 film version of "The Boys in the Band," dies of complications from AIDS at age 57.

2003 California passes a law giving gay couples many of the same rights as straight couples, but not marriage.

2005 Less than a week after the Vatican announced a witch hunt to identify homosexuals in the US Catholic priesthood, Pope Benedict XVI, a former Nazi, approves a new policy document which says men with homosexual tendencies should not be ordained as Catholic priests anywhere."

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