Queering Up History: Sept 8th

"Queer Events On This Day In History...

1292 John de Wettre, a knife-maker, is executed for sodomy after being condemned at Ghent (present-day Belgium). He was burned to death at the stake. It is the earliest known record of an execution for sodomy in Western Europe.

1504 Michelangelo unveils his famous statue of David. The model for the sculpture was his boyfriend.

1906 In an essay published in the St Louis Medical Review (vol. 54 #10 pp. 213-215) titled "The Problem of Sexual Variants," Dr T.H. Evans claims there are two causes for the increase in homosexuality. 1) The decreased need for propagation of the species, and 2) changes in the sexual division of labour had an impact on erotic interest.

1975 Openly gay US Air Force Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich appears on the cover of Time magazine.

1983 In San Francisco, the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals rules that homosexuals cannot be refused entry into the US solely on the basis of their sexuality.

1992 A fundamentalist minister and two of his followers are sentenced to 18 days in jail for protesting outside a church where President Bill Clinton attends services. They had been arrested for trespassing and harassing the congregation by shouting, "Do you want your son to marry a queer? Do you want your daughter to marry a lesbian?"

1995 The Magnus Hirschfeld Center for Human Rights in New Jersey files a complaint against the Costa Rican government before the Organization of American States. It charges that Costa Rica failed to enforce protection for gays and lesbians after complaints of anti-gay harassment and discrimination.

1995 At the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, about twenty women halt one of the sessions by draping a 25 foot banner reading "Lesbian Rights Are Women's Rights" from the top gallery of the meeting hall.

1996 The offices of the Pink Paper, a London weekly paper, are damaged in an arson attack."

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