The Month in Gay History - October

October 7, 1955

Allen Ginsberg gives a riotous public reading of his poem Howl - a protest against conformity and a celebration of sex, gay and straight -- at Six Gallery in San Francisco. On the basis of one line in particular -- "who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy" -- customs officials seize 520 copies of the poem being imported from the printer in London. Charges of obscenity are brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poem's new domestic publisher.

October 8, 1904

Addressing the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in Berlin, women's rights leader Anna Rueling urges feminists to unite with "Uranian" women and men in the fight for social reform.

October 13, 1987

More than 600 lesbians, gay men and their supporters are arrested on the steps of the United States Supreme Court in the largest civil disobedience protest in the history of the gay and lesbian rights movement.

October 26, 1988

The European Court of Human Rights rules that laws in Ireland criminalizing sex between men are in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights after the court is petitioned by David Norris, an MP in the Dáil Éireann (Assembly of Ireland).

October 27, 1970

Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) members stage a sit-in at Harper's magazine's Park Avenue offices to protest a September 1970 cover story, titled "The Struggle for Sexual Identity," in which editor Joseph Epstein, lamenting homosexuals as "an affront to our rationality" and homosexuality as "anathema," states, "If I had the power to do so, I would wish homosexuality off the face of the earth."

The Month in Gay History - September

September 5, 1991  US AIDS activists inflate a 35 foot condom on the roof of homophobic United States Senator Jesse Helms' house.
 
September 6, 1935New York University professor Dr. Louis W. Max tells a meeting of the American Psychological Association that he has successfully treated a "partially fetishistic" homosexual neurosis with electric shock therapy delivered at "intensities considerably higher than those usually employed on human subjects," the first documented instance of aversion therapy used to "cure" homosexuality.
 

September 8, 1983In San Francisco, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that federal immigration authorities cannot prevent lesbians and gay men from entering the United States solely because of their sexual orientation.
 
 
September 9, 1779 Alexander Hamilton writes to John Laurens, his dearest friend, with depths of sentiment that are equaled only in letters he later pens to his wife Eliza: "Like a jealous lover, when I thought you had slighted my caresses, my affection was alarmed and my vanity piqued."


September 11, 1961The Rejected, the first American television documentary about homosexuality, airs on San Francisco's public station KQED with guests including anthropologist Margaret Mead and Dr. Evelyn Hooker, the first psychologist to demonstrate that male homosexuals were no more likely to suffer from mental illness than heterosexual males.
 

September 13, 1996A bill to ban employment discrimination against lesbians and gay men is defeated by one vote in the United States Congress.
 

September 20, 1996Despite protests from Amnesty International, 24 guest workers in Saudi Arabia receive the first 50 lashes of their sentences of 200 lashes for alleged "homosexual behavior."  When their punishment is complete, the government deports the workers.
 

September 23, 1970Although a character on the CBS Television series Medical Center who announces "I am a homosexual" is portrayed as someone with an "unfortunate condition," the program is acclaimed as the first sympathetic treatment of a gay man in an American TV drama.
 
 
September 28, 1292John de Wettre, 29, a knife maker, is burned at the stake in Ghent after being convicted of committing an act "detested by God" with another man, the first execution for sodomy in Western Europe for which records still exist. 

The Month in Gay History - August

August 3, 1982
When a police officer enters Michael Hardwick's Atlanta, Georgia home to serve him with a warrant for a traffic violation and discovers him having oral sex with another male, Hardwick is arrested and charged with sodomy. The case eventually reaches the U. S. Supreme Court as Bowers v. Hardwick, which upholds the constitutionality the state's law that criminalized oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults when applied to homosexuals.

August 4, 2010
Anti-gay marriage legislation Prop. 8 declared unconstitutional.

August 11, 1995
South Korea holds its first Pride Celebration, including a march, in Seoul.

August 12, 1833
After Captain Henry Nicholas Nicholls, 50, is executed for buggery -- a capital offense in Britain until 1861 -- an anonymous poet, in protest, writes and circulates one of the earliest works to argue that the "inborn passions" of men whose "predilection is for males" are normal and natural:

Whence spring these inclinations, rank and strong?
And harming no one, wherefore call them wrong?

August 13, 1975
The Advocate calls 1975 the "Year of the Disco" because, across the United States and around the world, the dance clubs have changed the face of the gay and lesbian subculture.

August 23, 1994
Australia's federal government acts to overturn Tasmania's anti-sodomy law, the last in the nation to penalize same sex relations.

August 31, 1979
Radical Faeries stage their first major gathering.

The Month in Gay History - Pride Edition

June 1, 1947
Lisa Ben (a pseudonym that is an anagram for "lesbian") types and mails 12 copies of Vice Versa, the first lesbian newsletter, which includes book and movie reviews, poems, and articles that encourage women to persevere in their quests for more satisfying lives.

June 16, 1992
k. d. lang comes out in a cover story published in The Advocate, which sets off a year of American media reports about "lesbian chic."

June 19, 1975
The American Medical Association approves a resolution that recommends the repeal of state laws banning same-sex acts between consenting adults.

June 20, 1980
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence make their debut in San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade.

June 27, 1952
The McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act bars immigrants to the United States who are "afflicted with psychopathic personality," which officials say include all homosexuals.

June 30, 1969
A group of residents in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York, cuts down all the trees and bushes in part of a local park that is popular as a gay male cruising area.

- via the GLBT Historical Society

The month in gay history

April 1, 1950
The United States Civil Service Commission intensifies its efforts to locate and dismiss lesbians and gay men working in government, leading to 382 federal employees being fired during the next six months, 382 are fired, compared with 192 for the preceding two and a half years.


April 4, 1976
Pope Paul VI publicly denies press reports that he has had affairs with men.


April 11, 1953
The Mattachine Society holds its first constitutional convention in Los Angeles.


April 1, 1994
Yaroslav Mogutin, Russia's most visible openly gay journalist, makes headlines when the head of Moscow's Wedding Palace No. 4 politely refuses his application attempts to register his marriage to American artist Robert Filippini.


April 22, 1966
Activists Dick Leitsch, John Timmins, Randy Wicker, and Craig Rodwell hold a "sip-in" at Julius, a popular Greenwich Village drinkery, to challenge liquor commission policies that deny gay men and lesbians the right to be served alcoholic beverages in bars.
 

 
April 30, 1921
Marcel Proust publishes the first section of Sodome et Gomorrhe / Cities of the Plain, part of his 16-volume opus A la Recherche du Temps Perdu / Remembrance of Things Past. - via GLBT Historical Society

The month in gay history

March 6, 1923
Shortly after 'The God of Vengeance' opens in New York City, its producer and twelve cast members are arrested and charged with "presenting an obscene, indecent, immoral and impure theatrical production" because of its lesbian love scene, the first in a Broadway play.

March 7, 1934
Article 121 makes sodomy between men illegal in all the republics of the USSR.

March 12, 1984
The European Parliament approves its first resolution in support of lesbian and gay rights.

March 16, 1985
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society is founded.

March 23, 1988
Israel decriminalizes same-sex acts between consenting adults.

March 25, 1985When 'The Times of Harvey Milk' wins the Academy Award for Best Documentary, the first on a gay subject to do so, an estimated one billion viewers hear its director, Robert Epstein, express his thanks "to my partner in life, John Wright."

March 28, 1969
San Francisco's Society for Individual Rights president Leo Laurence and his lover are featured in a photo-illustrated article in the Berkeley Barb.

March 29, 1988After eight years in court, Georgetown University loses its fight, based upon its status as an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, to keep lesbian and gay groups off campus. - via the GLBT Historical Society

The month in gay history

February 1. 1942
A new German law formally extends the death penalty to any man found guilty of having sex with another man.

February 4, 1915
Speaking in Chicago, Edith Lees Ellis, openly lesbian wife of Havelock Ellis, exhorts women to begin "organizing a new love world."

February 7. 1977
The U.S. State Department announces it will begin considering job applications from lesbians and gay men -- previously disqualified from this employment opportunity because of their sexual orientation -- for employment in the Foreign Service and other international agencies.

February 16, 1991

OutRage! organizes a gay and lesbian kiss-in at London's Piccadilly Circus to protest the section of the Sexual Offences Act that makes public displays of affection between men illegal. (As of 2010, OutRage is the world's longest-surviving queer-rights direct-action group.)

February 21, 1903
New York City police conduct the first known raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston on West 55th Street. Of the 26 men arrested, 12 are tried on sodomy charges and 7 receive sentences that range from 4 to 20 years in prison.

February 23, 1990
A group of Taiwanese women form Women Chih Chian (Women Among Us), the first lesbian organization for Chinese-speaking women in Asia.

February 29, 1988
Canadian MP Svend J. Robinson comes out in both French and English on national television -- making him his country's first openly gay or lesbian member of Parliament.

- via GLBT Historical Society

The month in gay history

January 12, 1977
The Advocate reports that the CIA has files on about 300,000 people who have been arrested on charges relating to homosexuality.

January 13, 1958
In a unanimous decision, the United States Supreme Court reverses three lower court rulings that an issue of ONE magazine is obscene, affirming the right to free expression for gay and lesbian publications.

January 18, 1977
Accusing lesbians and gay men of corrupting the nation's youth, former beauty pageant winner Anita Bryant launches her "Save Our Children" crusade against civil rights in response to the new Dade County, Florida, ordinance forbidding housing and employment discrimination against lesbians and gay men.


January 19, 1976Campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Vice President Hubert Humphrey becomes one of the first nationally known politicians to endorse gay and lesbian rights.

January 31, 1975
The American Association for the Advancement of Science approves a resolution denouncing discrimination against lesbians and gay men.

January 31, 1989
To bring attention to the government's slow response to the epidemic, San Francisco AIDS activists stage a protest on the Golden Gate Bridge that brings morning rush-hour traffic to a standstill and results in the arrests of twenty-nine demonstrators.

-via GLBTHistory.org

The month in gay history

December 5, 1984
Berkeley, California, becomes the first city in the United States to extend spousal benefits to the domestic partners of city employees.

December 10, 1924
Henry Gerber, a German-born immigrant and early gay rights activist, receives a charter from the state of Illinois for the Society for Human Rights (SHR), the nation's oldest documented homosexual organization. African American clergyman John T. Graves becomes the group's first president.

December 11, 1975
David Kopay -- a former running back for the San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions, Washington Redskins, New Orleans Saints, and Green Bay Packers -- becomes the first major professional athlete to come out voluntarily.

December 15, 1973
After years of controversy and of frequently stormy debate, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association declares that "by itself, homosexuality does not meet the criteria for being a psychiatric disorder."

December 22, 1970
The San Francisco Free Press publishes Carl Wittman's Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto, which, when reprinted and distributed all across the country in the next year, quickly becomes a guide to gay activism.

December 29, 1971
Wakefield Poole's trend-setting film 'Boys in the Sand' premieres at the 55th Street Playhouse in New York City. A dramatic departure from the low-budget pornography previously available, the slickly produced film prompts Variety to remark, "There are no more closets."

December 31, 1964
San Francisco police harass some 600 guests attending a New Year's Ball sponsored by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. The police photograph guests as they arrive, and then demand entry to the auditorium without search warrants. It is the first time many liberal heterosexuals have witnessed police harassment of lesbians and gay men.

- via The GLBT Historical Society

The month in gay history

November 3, 1992
53 percent of voters in Colorado approve a ballot initiative that bans state and municipal rights ordinances for lesbians and gay men. In Oregon, a similar initiative fails at the polls.

November 5, 1973
The United States Supreme Court rules that Florida's anti-sodomy laws are constitutional.

November 7, 1961
Legendary San Francisco drag performer José Sarria (pictured), the first openly gay person to run for public office in the United States, receives almost 7,000 votes in the election for city supervisor.

November 8, 1977
San Franciscans elect Harvey Milk to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, making him the first openly gay elected official of a large American city.

November 9, 1996
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown signs the landmark Equal Benefits Ordinance, requiring all companies that do business with the City to provide domestic partner benefits to their employees.

November 11, 1950
Rudi Gernreich, Harry Hay, Bob Hull, Dale Jennings, and Chuck Rowland hold the first of the weekly meetings in Los Angeles that lead to the formation of a homophile organization they will name the Mattachine Society.

November 15, 1636
The Plymouth Colony (in present-day Massachusetts) issues English North America's first complete legal code, in which "Sodomy, rapes, buggery" constitute one of eight categories of crimes punishable by death.

November 16, 1964
Randy Wicker is a guest on The Les Crane Show, making him the first openly gay person to appear on national television. Following the broadcast, he receives hundreds of letters from isolated lesbians and gay men across the country.

November 20, 1934
Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour, a largely sympathetic account of two schoolteachers accused of lesbianism by one of their students, loosely based upon an actual case in 19th-century Scotland, opens on Broadway to rave reviews and sellout audiences.

November 30, 1995
On the eve of World AIDS Day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases a public service television announcement cautioning men to have "smart sex," America's first government-sponsored advertising campaign aimed at gays. - via the GLBT Historical Society

The month in gay history

September 3, 1969
The American Sociological Association condemns "oppressive actions against any persons for reasons of sexual preference," making it the first national professional organization to voice support of gay and lesbian civil rights.

September 4, 1983
San Francisco's first Women's Street Fair is held along Valencia Corridor.

September 6, 1935
New York University professor Dr. Louis W. Max tells a meeting of the American Psychological Association that he has successfully treated a "partially fetishistic" homosexual neurosis with electric shock therapy, the first documented instance of aversion therapy used to "cure" homosexuality.

September 15, 1969
Gay Power, "New York's First Homosexual Newspaper" and the first to emerge from the post-Stonewall movement, publishes its premiere issue.

September 25, 1791
The French Revolutionary government effectively decriminalizes sodomy by including no mention of sex between consenting adults in its new code of laws.

September 26, 1970
Gay Liberation Front demonstrators persuade Los Angeles bar owners to allow gay patrons to hold hands.

September 29, 1926
The Captive, Edouard Bourdet's melodrama about a young woman's sexual obsession with the wife of her fiancé's boyhood friend, opens on Broadway starring Helen Menken and Basil Rathbone. Its run of 160 performances causes passage of an amendment to the New York state penal code specifically barring plays "depicting or dealing with the subject of sex degeneracy, or sex perversion."

Find out more about GLBTHistory.org.

The month in Gay History

August 4, 1995
President Bill Clinton signs an executive order forbidding the federal government to deny security clearances on the basis of a person's sexual orientation.

August 9, 1972
The Ohio Secretary of State refuses to grant articles of incorporation to the Greater Cincinnati Gay Society. Two years later, the Ohio Supreme Court upholds the decision, stating, "The promotion of homosexuality as a valid life style is contrary to the public policy of the state."

August 12-17, 1968
With delegates from 26 homophile organizations, the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) passes a five-point "Homosexual Bill of Rights," and chooses "Gay Is Good" as the slogan of the movement.

August 14, 1989
The cultural activist group Boy With Arms Akimbo makes its debut by plastering the San Francisco Federal Building with enormous posters of male nudes. The action protests the withdrawal of federal grants from four leading queer artists and the cancellation of a Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.

August 14, 1996
Howard Crabtree's 'When Pigs Fly' opens in New York.

August 21, 1970
Huey Newton, leader of the Black Panthers, expresses his support for the Gay Liberation movement.

August 25, 1985
Thousands of revelers attend the first Up Your Alley fair.

August 26, 1981
California Governor Jerry Brown appoints Mary Morgan to the San Francisco Municipal Court. Morgan becomes the first openly lesbian judge in the US.

August 28, 1982
An estimated 10,000 spectators and 1,300 athletes attend the opening of Gay Games I in Francisco.

The month in gay history

July 1, 1919
Magnus Hirschfeld opens the Institute of Sexual Research in Berlin.

July 2, 1981
The New York Times publishes its first story about a mysterious disease that will later be named AIDS.

July 7, 1992
Some fifty activists attend the first public meeting of the Lesbian Avengers in New York City.

July 9, 1928
Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness is published in Paris and appears in book stalls--becoming the first major novel written in English with an explicitly pro-lesbian theme.

July 10, 1972
The city council of Ann Arbor, Michigan, passes the first comprehensive gay and lesbian municipal rights ordinance in the United States.

July 13, 1984
Brothers, the first American television show with an openly gay lead character, premiers on the Showtime cable network.

July 15, 1975
Santa Cruz County, California, becomes the first in the United States to outlaw job discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

July 25, 1985
A spokesperson for Rock Hudson acknowledges that the actor is suffering from AIDS, marking a turning point in public awareness of the disease and galvanizing support for efforts to fight it.

July 27, 1982
At a meeting convened by the Centers for Disease Control, representatives of various gay, government, and health organizations agree to use the term "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome," or AIDS, to describe the mysterious disease reaching epidemic proportions among gay men in the United States.

The month in gay history

June 1, 1880
The United States Census finds 63 men in 22 states incarcerated for "crimes against nature."

June 1, 1950 (circa)
A group of black and white men and women, including partners Merton Bird and Dorr Legg, form Knights of the Clock, a support group for interracial gay, lesbian, and heterosexual couples.

June 1, 1975
Drummer magazine debuts, spotlighting the rise of open s/m and leather subcultures within the gay male subculture.


June 12, 1989
Because it is afraid of losing its funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art cancels, "The Perfect Moment," an exhibit of 150 photos and objects by Robert Mapplethorpe that includes 13 S/M images.

June 14, 1950
After months of controversy, the U.S. Senate authorizes a wide-ranging investigation of homosexuals "and other moral perverts" working in national government.

June 15, 1987
The New York Times tells its writers that they now may use the word "gay" as a synonym for "homosexual."

June 24 1970
Myra Breckinridge, Hollywood's mainstream, big-budget transgender classic debuts, starring Mae West and Raquel Welch.

June 25, 1972
The United Church of Christ becomes the first mainstream American denomination to ordain an openly gay man, William Johnson.

June 25, 1978
San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker debuts the first Rainbow Flag in the City's annual Gay Freedom Day Parade.

June 26, 1964
Life magazine's pioneering article "Homosexuality in America," featuring photographs taken at the Jumpin' Frog and the Tool Box in San Francisco, creates mainstream awareness of an emerging American gay and lesbian subculture.

June 27, 1994
Deborah Batts becomes the first openly lesbian or gay U.S. federal judge.

June 28, 1969
New York Police raid the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Fighting back against harassment and discrimination, patrons and on-lookers ignite the American gay liberation movement.

June 28, 1970
A "Gay-In" at Golden Gate Park attracts several thousand participants the day after thirty self-proclaimed "hair fairies" march down Polk Street to celebrate San Francisco's first Christopher Street Liberation Day.

June 30, 1986
Citing Judeo-Christian prohibitions and Anglo-American sodomy laws as precedents,
the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bowers v. Hardwick that the U.S. Constitution gives the states the right to regulate and proscribe same-sex relations.

The month in gay history

May 1, 1970
At the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City, lesbian feminists stage the Lavender Menace action to protest lesbophobia in the women's movement, particularly in the National Organization for Women.

May 2, 1983
Bobby Reynolds, Gary Walsh, and Bobbi Campbell organize the first AIDS Candlelight March in San Francisco, at which PWAs (Persons with AIDS) walk behind a banner proclaiming what will become their motto and their cause: Fighting for Our Lives.

May 6, 1933
Nazis attack and destroy Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sexual Research in Berlin, then, in a public ceremony, burn the center's priceless collection of more than 20,000 publications and 5,000 photographs.

May 7, 1915
The California State Assembly votes unanimously to outlaw oral sex.

May 12, 1975
Thanks to the tireless efforts of Assemblyman Willie Brown and State Senator George Moscone, California becomes the 11th state to decriminalize same-sex acts. Governor Jerry Brown soon after signs the bill into law.


May 17, 2004
Massachusetts becomes the first state in the U.S. to grant same-sex couples the legal right to marry

May 21, 1979
A San Francisco jury finds Dan White guilty of manslaughter, not murder, in the premeditated shooting deaths of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Several thousand demonstrators protest the verdict in a march on City Hall that results in a night of rioting in the Civic Center and the Castro.

May 25, 1976
The San Francisco Chronicle begins running Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, later published in book form.

May 29, 1965
East Coast homophiles stage the first demonstration in front of the White House to protest U.S. government discrimination against gays and lesbians. The picketers include seven men and three women.

This month in GLBT history

April 1. 1930
The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) introduces Hollywood's first self-regulatory code of movie ethics, which discourages filmmakers from including frank depictions of sex and sexuality and bans outright any mention of homosexuality. The so-called "Hays Code" becomes mandatory on July 1, 1934.

April 19, 1929
A New York City appellate court rules that, contrary to a verdict reached earlier by a lower court, Radclyffe Hall's 'The Well of Loneliness' is not obscene. The decision clears the way for even wider distribution of the best-selling novel.

April 23, 1990
President George H. W. Bushsigns The Hate Crime Statistics Act, which requires the Department of Justice to collect and publish statistics for five years about hate crimes motivated by prejudice based upon race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnic origin. It is the first law to extend federal recognition to lesbians and gay men.

April 27, 1953
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs Executive Order 10450, mandating the dismissal of all federal employees determined to be guilty of "criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct . . . [including] sexual perversion." Numerous state and city governments soon adopt similar policies.

April, 1966
The Society for Individual Rights (SIR) opens the first gay community center in the United States in San Francisco.

Rikki Streicher opens Maud's Study, possibly the longest-lasting lesbian bar anywhere, in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury.

This month in gay history

March 1, 1656
New Haven, Connecticut: citing Romans 1:26 as the basis for the law ("If any woman change the natural use into that which is against nature. . . ."), Connecticut becomes the first American colony to make same-sex acts between women punishable by the death penalty.

March 3, 2002
San Francisco, California: the LGBT Community Center opens--the first built in the United States from the ground up.

March 11, 1778
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin becomes the first American to be discharged from the United States Army on a charge of attempted sodomy.

March 14, 1987
New York City: Larry Kramer and some 300 other activists form the direct action group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP).

March 22, 1993
San Francisco, California, and elsewhere: Lawrence Poirier comes out to his best friend Michael in cartoonist Lynn Johnston's popular comic strip For Better or for Worse. Some 40 newspapers in the United States and Canada refuse to run the four-week story.

March 24, 1985
Los Angeles, California: portraying an imprisoned South American hairdresser in Kiss of the Spider Woman, William Hurt wins the first Academy Award for best actor given to someone playing a gay character.

March 29, 1976
Washington, D.C.: the United States Supreme Court rules that Virginia's anti-sodomy laws, which date back to colonial times, are constitutional.

The month in gay history

February 1, 1949
The Paris Prefect of Police issues a decree that forbids men from dancing together in public.

February 4, 2004
The Massachusetts high court rules that only full and equal marriage rights for gay couples, not merely civil unions, are constitutional.

February 5, 1981
Toronto police raid four bathhouses, arresting 20 men as "keepers of a bawdy house" and 286 men as "found-ins." The action set a North American record for the number of men arrested for being gay in a single police campaign.

February 6, 1989
The American Bar Association's House of Delegates passes a referendum urging federal rights legislation for lesbians and gay men. The vote: 251-121.

February 8, 1994
Meeting in Strasbourg, France, the European Parliament approves a resolution affirming a broadly defined gay and lesbian rights agenda, including the right to marry. The next day, Pope John Paul II issues a statement condemning the action.

February 9. 1977
San Francisco hosts the world's first lesbian and gay FILM festival.

February 10, 1976
Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury becomes the first mainstream comic strip to feature a gay male character.

February 11, 1965
At the trial of the four people arrested at the Council on Religion and the Homosexual's New Year's Ball in San Francisco, the judge orders members of the jury to find the defendants not guilty. The decision is a turning point in the homophile movement's fight for gay and lesbian civil rights.

February 12, 2004
City officials in San Francisco begin issuing marriage licenses for same-sex couples and perform the first known civil marriages of same-sex couples in the U.S. The mayor officiates at the first ceremony for human rights activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. More than 80 couples wed the first day.

February 23-24, 1933
Adolf Hitler's government begins its persecution of homosexuals with directives closing gay and lesbian clubs, banning homophile publications, and dissolving homosexual rights groups. On February 1, 1942, a legal amendment formally extends the death penalty to men found guilty of having sex with each other.

This month in gay history

Jan. 1,1978: readers of Good Housekeeping name Anita Bryant as the most admired woman in America.

Jan. 4, 1982: in an effort to combat the growing AIDS epidemic, Edmund White, Larry Kramer, and others form the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York City.

Jan. 6, 1984: Dan White is paroled from prison after having served less than five years for the murders of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. White says he will move to Southern California.

Jan. 8, 1979: acting San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein announces that she will appoint Harry Britt to take Harvey Milk's seat on the city's board of supervisors.

Jan. 10, 1977: the Episcopal Church of New York approves the ordination of an out lesbian.

Jan. 10, 1980: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is formed in San Francisco.

Jan. 18 1977: despite opposition from Anita Bryant and others, Miami becomes the first Southern city in the U.S. to pass a gay-rights ordinance. Bryant denounces the law and vows to mobilize people to oppose it.

Jan. 23, 1978: New York Mayor Ed Koch issues an executive order banning discrimination against gays and lesbians in city government and in organizations that do business with the city. The Salvation Army and the Roman Catholic Church announce plans to challenge the order, which is later struck down in the courts.

Jan. 27, 1972: New York's City Council rejects a proposal to prohibit discrimination against gays in employment, housing, and public accommodations.

Jan. 30, 2003: Belgium approves same-sex marriages.