LGBT History

Politico Huddle reports: The House is set to vote today on the Equality Act, which amends the 1964 Civil Rights Act to ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also provides sweeping protections for the LGBTQ community against discrimination. Your Huddle host caught up with Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the House co-sponsor of the bill, …

CBS News reports: President Biden on Wednesday morning is set to swear in Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary, making the former South Bend, Ind., mayor the nation’s first openly LGBTQ Cabinet secretary. The Senate confirmed Buttigieg on Tuesday by 86-13 vote. Biden is scheduled to hold the ceremony at 9:30 a.m. 

The Washington Post reports: The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday morning to decide whether to give a thumbs-up to Pete Buttigieg’s nomination as President Biden’s secretary of transportation. Buttigieg sat for a friendly 2 1/2 hour hearing before the committee last week, delivering a wide-ranging performance that impressed Republicans and Democrats alike. Buttigieg, 39, stands to become …

ABOVE: At the 1985 Xmas party described below: Me, Michael, and Barney. Originally posted May 2004. Reposted for World AIDS Day. Membership Michael didn’t look good. We were at his annual Christmas luau party. Tons and tons of people in the house and the backyard. Standing in his kitchen, wearing a grass skirt and a ridiculous Santa hat covered in …

The Orlando Sentinel reports: Although the Parliament House will be demolished, its distinctive multicolored sign will be preserved as a piece of Orlando history. “The City of Orlando is working on saving the sign,” city spokeswoman Samantha Holstein wrote in an email. “Staff has been in conversations with the property owner and working on coordinating the removal and storage for …

Gentle readers, today is Madonna’s 62nd birthday. Below is a short story that first appeared on JMG on this day in 2006, a date which, as you’ll see, plays a role in the story. Ricky Loved Madonna Twenty years ago today, August 16th 1986, I was a few months into a new job with AMC Theatres, a position that I …

Atlanta’s ABC News affiliate reports: The late Rep. John Lewis arrived back home in Atlanta today, following four days of tributes and services that have taken the congressman and Civil Rights hero back to his native Alabama and then to Washington, D.C. As he did at the Alabama and U.S. capitols, Lewis will lie in state at the Georgia State …

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: Ten years after a historic trial in San Francisco on the right to same-sex marriage, a federal judge on Thursday ordered a videotape of the proceedings unsealed next month so that the public could finally view it. The non-jury trial before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker included testimony by gay and lesbian couples and …

Just in via press release: The Gill Foundation today announced it will match contributions up to $250,000 to protect the Stonewall Inn, which is on the brink of closure due to the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis. The support will be earmarked to support rent and utility costs. In addition to its $250,000 pledge to protect the legacy of …

It was 51 years ago today that the queer community of New York City finally said “Enough!” As I’ve done for the last few years on this day, I’m reposting the story that the New York Daily News ran one week after the Stonewall Riots. Note how the story drips with condescension and ridicule. We’ve come a long, long way …

“We’re almost 51 years since the night when the patrons at the Stonewall Inn stood up for their rights and set one of America’s defining victories for civil rights. “Because of the movement they sparked and the decades of work that followed, marriage equality became the law of the land five years ago, and just this month the Supreme Court …

USA Today reports: The four justices appointed by Democratic presidents were joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Republican appointee. Within two years, more than 150,000 same-sex couples got married. According to U.S. Census estimates, there are more than 500,000 married same-sex couples in the country. The impact of those unions has been more than cultural. Same-sex weddings have generated more …

Billboard Magazine reports: On Tuesday (June 23), Pride Live announced plans for their third annual Stonewall Day, this year taking place online instead of in-person at the Stonewall Inn. The livestream, which will take place on Friday, June 26, is set to benefit LGBTQ organizations that have been financially impacted during the coronavirus outbreak, including Brave Space Alliance, TransLatin Coalition, …

Gentle readers, I’m rerunning my annual Pride rant for the sixteenth year. I wrote this post in 2005 a couple of days after attending Pride in NYC. In the following years I’ve reposted it in advance of NYC Pride in the hope of encouraging you to attend your local events. While the pandemic has canceled most of this year’s festivities, …

Via press release from Lambda Legal: Today, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis sex, also protects employees from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Today’s decisions confirm workplace anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people …

According to multiple reports on social media, longtime gay nightclub DJ Warren Gluck has died at the age of 65. No cause of death is yet known. From his bio: Warren has played almost every major party in the U.S. from coast to coast, including the GMHC Morning Party on Fire Island, The Pines Party, The Saint-at-Large White and Black …

The SFist reports: One of the founding members of the Daughters of Bilitis and one half of the first same-sex couple to be legally married in San Francisco in 2004, Phyllis Lyon, has passed away. She was 95, and reportedly died of natural causes early Thursday. Lyon and her wife Del Martin were famously the first couple to be granted …

Law.com reports: The attorneys who defended Proposition 8, the ill-fated 2008 ballot initiative that barred same-sex marriage in California, are pressing a federal court to block the public release of the video recording of the landmark 2010 trial that concluded the ban was unconstitutional. Charles Cooper, founding member of the Washington litigation boutique Cooper & Kirk, argued in a motion …

NBC News reports: California’s governor announced Wednesday that he is posthumously pardoning a gay civil rights leader while creating a new pardon process for others convicted under outdated laws punishing homosexual activity. Bayard Rustin was a confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a key organizer of the March on Washington in 1963. He also helped plan other nonviolent …

NPR reports: Legendary Broadway songwriter Jerry Herman has died. The author of the hit musicals Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles was 88. Publicist Harlan Boll said Herman was taken to a Miami hospital Thursday night complaining of chest pain and later died of pulmonary complications. The title of Jerry Herman’s autobiography was Showtune, and if there ever …