Tag Archives: LGBT History

LGBT history made in a room full of LGBT activists.

DADT, hate crimes, marriage, and much more.

JMG reader Dave Evans has dug into the archives once more and compiled more than hour of historical news footage about Anita Bryant’s anti-gay campaign in Florida. From the clip description: Featuring gay rights activists Bob Kunst, Leonard Matlovich, Jack Campbell, Ruth Shack & Melodie Moorehead. Save Our Children, Inc. was a political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida …

The world’s earliest erotic graffiti has been found on a remote Greek island. Amidst two phalluses is a line that boasts of a gay love affair. Chiselled into the outcrops of dolomite limestone that dot the cape, the inscriptions have provided invaluable insight into the private lives of those who inhabited archaic and classical Greece. One, believed to have been …

Thirty-three years ago today the New York Times made what is considered to have been the first, or at least the first widely noticed, mention of what became to be known as AIDS. The article begins: Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight …

It was 45 years ago this week that the queer community of New York City finally said “Enough!” For some historical perspective, I’m again 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 in 45 years and we’ve …

Former Marriage Equality USA president Cathy Marino-Thomas has interviewed Edith Windsor about today’s anniversary of the overturn of DOMA.  Windsor: “There is no wrong time for justice. If you’re going to go for it, go for it.” Watch and learn about how Windsor came to be the plaintiff.

One year ago today the Supreme Court changed the LGBT landscape forever. Tell us where you were and how the DOMA and Prop 8 rulings may have affected you.

“My partner John and I were among the plaintiffs in the New York State Court of Appeals lawsuit challenging the definition of marriage in 2006. Losing that lawsuit made me realize that my legislative priority had to be the passage of New York’s Marriage Equality Act. So we took our struggle to the State Legislature. I introduced and gained passage …

Chris Geidner has interviewed the filmmakers at Buzzfeed. The movie debuts at 9PM tonight on HBO.

In the summer of 1984 my roommate and I returned from one of our twice-weekly record hunts bearing the 12″ of Bronski Beat’s Smalltown Boy – which we’d initially fished out of the import bin purely because we were intrigued by the cover’s pink triangle. The mournful lyrics on the flip side of that 12″ sleeve only hinted at the …

JMG reader Dave Evans has compiled 40 minutes of gay-related news clips that aired in the 2000s. Among the topics: Lawrence V Texas, the Hate Crimes Act, Massachusetts marriage, Proposition 8, DADT, and DOMA. PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Compilations of gay news in the 1970s, gay news in the 1980s, gay news in the 1990s, and the first ten years of …

Via press release: SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders) and the renowned oral history organization, StoryCorps, are proud to announce a new partnership that will help identify stories from LGBT older people around the country for StoryCorps’ “OutLoud” initiative, which is dedicated to recording, preserving, and sharing LGBTQ stories from across America. StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission …

JMG reader Dave Evans has compiled an hour of gay-related news reports that aired in the 1990s. Among the topics: ACT UP demonstrations, the Boy Scouts, gay pride marches, the election of Bill Clinton, the enactment of DADT, the enactment of DOMA, and the murder of Matthew Shepard. PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Compilations of gay news in the 1970s, gay news …

Via the Sunday Times: Pet Shop Boys are to use a new orchestral work about the computer pioneer Alan Turing to call for the “tens of thousands of men” imprisoned or fined for committing homosexual acts to be pardoned. A Man From the Future, created by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, will premiere at the Proms on July 23 . …

For what is believed to be the first time in American history, an armed services color guard marched in a gay pride parade yesterday in Washington DC. Via Stars & Stripes: While no policy has precluded a U.S. armed forces color guard from participating in gay-rights events since the 2011 repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, gay-rights organizations from D.C. …

JMG reader Dave Evans has compiled an hour of gay-related news reports that aired in the 1980s. Among the topics: hate crimes, housing rights, HIV/AIDS, immigration rights, pride parades, Barney Frank, Ronald Reagan, the 20th anniversary of Stonewall, the NAMES Project,  and rather interestingly, Houston’s 1985 battle for LGBT rights. PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Compilations of gay news in the 1970s …

This really takes the…pie. In a discussion about a recent incident involving Brad Pitt, HLN host Nancy Grace brings up the 1977 pie attack on Anita Bryant, who is a “sweet lady” that reminds Grace of her mother. There no mention of Bryant’s vicious (and successful) campaign against gay rights in Miami. The guest speaker chimes in that that Bryant’s …

JMG reader Dave Evans has compiled over 70 minutes of gay-related news reports that aired in the 1970s. Among the topics: Anita Bryant, gay rights marches, the slaying of Harvey Milk, and the riots that erupted after the Dan White verdict. Worth your time. RELATED: Last week Evans compiled news clips from the first ten years of HIV/AIDS.

Gentle readers, I’m rerunning my annual Pride rant for the tenth year. I wrote this post in 2005 a couple of days after attending Pride here in NYC. In the following years I’ve reposted it in advance of Pride in the hope of encouraging you to attend your local events. Check out the bottom of this year’s posting for a …