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What Is A Historyscope?

Westerners are not only known as history ignoramuses, but double dumbass history ignoramuses when it comes to queer (gay and lesbian history). Since I'm the one-and-only Historyscoper (tm), let me quickly bring you up to speed before you dive into my Master Historyscope.

In 2900 B.C.E. a gay caveman is buried near modern-day Prague, Czech. in a way normally reserved for women.

People in the ancient Greek world were like aliens from outer space in their mental outlook, especially about sexuality. The Judeo-Christian concept of sin was completely alien to them, and it was all about honor, family name, saving face, and appeasing the multitude of gods, many of whom were alleycats. It also helped that syphilis hadn't been brought over from the New World by Columbus. As Christians later found out, Jesus hadn't been born yet to save them, hence they weren't, and what's more, didn't care. Meanwhile the Bible God Jehovah only cared about his Chosen People Da Jews.

Then who knows for sure, at the latest by 1000 B.C.E. here cum Da Jews, changing everything by claiming the existence of one God named Jehovah (Yahweh) who created everything and gave us a moral code for the Universe that we must obey or suffer his wrath, I'm sure I have never been naughty in my entire life. The Old Testament, which came out no later than about 500 B.C.E. is blunt about homosexuality, e.g., "There shall be no sodomite of the sons of Israel" - Deut. 23:17. Worse, the Old Testament claims to tell human history authoritatively from the first human pair Adam and Eve, the first true-blue heterosexuals. As an object lesson, about 1900 B.C.E. after some kind of sexual hanky panky goes down that pisses Jehovah off (duh, homosexuality?), Sodom and Gomorrah (part of the five cities of the plain incl. Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar) are destroyed, and Abraham's nephew Lot and his two daughters barely escape, losing Lot's wife to pillarosis voyeurosa - Gen. Ch. 19. The 1st-2nd cent. C.E. New Testament is softer, or maybe blunter: "Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men... shall inherit the kingdom of God" - 1 Cor. 6:9.

In 384 B.C.E. Greek philosopher Plato (-427 to -327) writes Symposium, a discussion on the nature of love by men at a drinking party at the Athenian house of tragedian Agathon; Aristophanes claims that there are three genders, gay male, lesbian female, and heterosexual; from the Greek point of view, homosexual behavior among men is natural, as is lesbian behavior among females, while heterosexual behavior must be learned, therefore the weird anti-sexual Christian cult that develops centuries from now is profoundly sick, wasting human happiness by denying the pleasures of the flesh and making life not worth living, so no wonder it brings on a Dark Ages of looney tunes hoping the world will end any minute so they can become as angels and not have to worry about sex, while avoiding taking baths?

On July 4, 362 B.C.E. the Second Battle of Mantinea becomes Sparta's 3rd military D in history as the Thebans kick their butts while losing their military hero Epaminondas, along with his male lover Caphisodorus, who are buried together like husband and wife; Sparta is occupied by a Theban army; the Mycenaean Helot slaves (the backbone of the Spartan army, since true Spartans have resisted expansion of their ranks until only a few hundred remain) are liberated; this is the end of Sparta as a significant force in Greek politics, supplanted by Thebes (until -338).

In 356 B.C.E. Macedonian world conqueror Alexander III the Great (-356 to -323) is born, along with his gay lover and Macedonian gen. Hephaistion (Hephaestion) (-356 to -324).

On Aug. 2, 338 B.C.E. after annihilating Athens' mercenary force and capturing Amphissa (Amfissa) (Salona) between Mt. Giona and Mt. Parnassus in Phocis 120 mi. NW of Athens, Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander III the Great crush Athens and Thebes in their struggle for independence at the Battle of Chaeronea in Boeotia, at which the Sacred Band of Thebes of 300 paired gay warriors goes down (but not on each other any more?); the era of Greek independence is kaput, and Philip II is master of Greece; Alexander burns all of Thebes except the house of poet Pindar, and garrisons Thebes while letting Athens go free; the Fourth Sacred War (begun -339) ends; Greece loses its independence until 1820 C.E.; Philip II declares the League of Corinth to unite the Greeks in a war against Persia, causing all Greek states except Sparta to join under Macedonian hegemony but with members guaranteed autonomy, with only Thebes, Corinth, Chalcis, and Ambracia garrisoned; the Achaean League joins the opposition to Philip II and is dissolved; Macedonia replaces Thebes as the leading Greek state (hegemon); Athens elects Gen. Phocion (who was touring the Aegean colonies) during the Battle of Cheronea) as strategos for the first of 45x, going on to try unsuccessfully to stop Athens from joining the Hellenic League.

Sorry, historyscopers, but the murky years 30-40 C.E. is where --it happens in the Roman province of Judea; nobody knows for sure, and it depends on whom you want to believe; a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, the greatest coverup in history; the Great Track of Time enters not only a Dark Alley but a Black Hole, becoming an endless source of powerful fiction claiming to be fact, with the dividing line very hazy until centuries later, oh my gosh, I smell an Emmy.

About 200 C.E. Greek rhetorician-gastronome Athenaeus of Naucratis flourishes, leaving Deipnosophistae (Lat. "dinner table philosophers") (15 vols.), the oldest surviving cookbook, about a banquet at the house of Publius Livius Larensi(u)s with 24 guests, becoming the first work to describe the giving of patents by the govt., incl. a discussion about homosexuality; incl. recipes by Mithaecus, Euthydemus of Athens, Epaenetus, Glaucus of Locri, Dionysius, Erasistratus, Diocles of Carystus, Timachidas of Rhodes, Philistion of Locri, Ethydemus of Athens, Chrysippus of Tyana, Paxamus, and Harpocration of Mende; repub. in 1612 by Isaac Casaubon.

Whatever happened with Christ, a bunch of Christians began to appear, mainly in the lower classes, spreading systematically for generations until they created a New World Order with Roman Emperor Constantine I (the Great) (Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus) (271-337) in 312 C.E. After wasting the rest of the cent. in a horrible civil war between Christians and pagans, Rome became officially Roman Catholic, just in time to fall in 476 to heretic (Arian) Gothic tribes, who split it up, after which it has never reunited despite umpteen attempts. Meanwhile, the official moral code of the Church was that homosexuality was a sin, which was adopted by their daughters the Protestants, causing a millennium and a half of repression. Until the late 20th cent. homosexuals were basically forced underground.

Meanwhile across the 3K-mi. Pond of the Atlantic Ocean, the natives were doing who knows what, the Euros later tried to wipe out their history so only fragments remain. In the 12th cent. C.E. the Moon-worshiping Chimu civilization is founded in N Peru (ends 1476), with capital at the adobe city of Chan Chan in the Mochey Valley near Trujillo, competing for lebensraum with the Sun-worshiping Inca; they produce monochromatic Chimu Pottery, known for portraying porno incl. heterosexual and homosexual acts.

The year 1200 C.E. according to Austrian historian Frederick Heer marks the line between the expansionary freedom era of Europe and the contracting repression era, known for persecution of Jews, heretics, women, lepers, witches, and homosexuals; according to Am. historian Norman F. Cantor (1929-2004), it should be 1270.

In 1212 France enacts the death penalty for sodomy, becoming the first Euro criminal law against it since Visigoth Spain in 654, which didn't have a death penalty; in 1250 Norway and Castile enact the death penalty for homosexuals, followed by Bologna, Italy in 1259, Siena, Italy in 1262, England in 1275, France in 1283, and Florence, Italy in the 1340s - Norway or the highway?

Jesus rolls over in his empty tomb? In 1231 now that Bible reading has been prohibited (1229), and pesky Bible-thumpers continue to read it and point out that the Church's doctrines contradict it, 1231 Pope Gregory IX instituted the search-and-destroy Holy Office, AKA the Inquisition, in the hands of the Dominicans, for the apprehension, torture (begun 1252?) and trial of heretics, enacting a law for Rome that heretics condemned by an ecclesiastical court are to be delivered to the secular power to receive their "due punishment", i.e., death by fire, or life in a horrible inhumane prison.

In 1233 in his bulls of Apr. 13, 20, and 22, in order to combat the Albigenses in France, Pope Gregory IX founded the Monastic Inquisition, and appointed the Dominicans as the official Inquisitors for all dioceses of France; the smoke-choked Burning Times in France began - ah, ah, I need some help here?

In 1234 Franciscan monks publicly burned copies of the works of Jewish brain man Maimonides (1135-1204) in Montpellier, France, setting a precedent that makes books too hot to handle in Catholic lands; knowing that if you can get away with books, why not people, on June 13 Pope Gregory IX pub. the 5-vol. Liber Extra (Decretals of Gregory IX), a collection of 2K decretals which he has sent to the univs. of Bologna and Paris, repeating St. Augustine's belief that "every pagan, Jew, heretic, and schismatic will go to the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his demons", containing the oldest surviving detailed Description of a Diabolical (Witches') Sabbath, describing the novice having to kiss an enormous toad, then a cold, pale, thin man, which causes him to forget the Catholic faith, then, after a feast, having to kiss a black cat, then the head devil (or devil's head), and finally participate in an orgy; Pope Boniface VIII added a 6th book in 1298 - dominica, nica, what? This wonderful development in Catholic theology goes on to morph into the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, and the Portuguese Inquisition in 1531, burning its first Protestants in Spain in 1543; it is finally abolished (suspended until future notice?) after 666, er, 603 fun years in 1834. Gregory IX absolves those who violated the ban by the 1215 Fourth Lateran Council on teaching Aristotle, but renews it "provisionally, until the books of the philosopher had been examined and expurgated", appointing three Parisian masters to the job, which they give up on. One good thing: Gregory IX exempts the Jews from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, except when they attack Christianity, attempt to Judaize Christians, or revert to Judaism after Christian conversion.

In 1265 Italian #1 Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas ranks sodomy second to murder in sinfulness - you're killing his little angels in your Hell?

On July 24, 1307 the Knights Templar hold a gen. chapter meeting in Paris; pocket pope Clement V writes to his boss Philip IV on Aug. 24 with a sealed mandate, not to be opened until dawn on Oct. 13 (Fri.), telling of his vision that the Knights Templar are heretics and blasphemers, devil worshipers, homosexuals, sodomites, defilers of Christ and other blimey, and that God had told him to cleanse the Earth by rounding them all up and torturing them until they confess (roasting of the feet is particularly favored?); too bad, at midnight just before the big day dawns, Templar ships under the Admiral of the Fleet leave from La Rochelle, carrying all their big secret documents, portable treasures, and other neat stuff; on Oct. 13 (Fri.) (Oct. 21 Gregorian), AKA Black Friday the 13th, Templar grandmaster (since 1297) Jacques de Molay (1244-1314) is arrested in the Paris Temple by dozens of seneschals, accompanied by Philip IV, who gets pissed-off at not finding their treasure or documents; meanwhile the whole Templar Order throughout France is arrested (15K men), and its assets seized by the crown; the Order is charged with 127 blasphemous crimes; some Templars escape to Argyll, Scotland, where the war with England causes the papal bulls dissolving the order to never be proclaimed, and their allies the Freemasons protect them, admitting them into their lodges under the Accepted Rites of Freemasonry; others flee to Jewish-friendly Spain, Portugal and Poland; de Molay's deputy Geoffroy de Charnay (1251-1314), and a few others barely survive under cruel chief torturer Gaspard Chaix, only to be burned on Mar. 18, 1314 after they refuse to give up the big secrets of where the loot is?; tortures incl. having heavy weights attached to their testicles, being jerked over heavy beams, held in dungeons for months, feet-roasting et al. - you can't take the Fifth with Clement the Fifth? On Aug. 8, 1308 Pope Clement V summons witnesses for the Templar Trials in Poitiers, bringing 72 Templars to testify about worshiping Head 58 AKA Baphomet (Muhammad?) (Sofia after applying the Atbash Cypher?) (the Shroud of Turin or Mandylion?); on Aug. 17 senior officers of the Templars are interviewed by three cardinals in Chinon; on Sept. 13 English common law stops a pair of French inquisitors arriving in England from prosecuting the Templars, causing Pope Clement V to write to Edward II: "We hear that you forbid torture as contrary to the laws of your land. But no state law can override canon law, our law. Therefore I command you at once to submit those men to torture", causing Edward II to flop, holding the first English tribunal of the Inquisition, and becoming the last use of torture in England until Queen Bloody Mary in 1553-8; the tribunal suppresses the Templar Order and seizes its assets for Edward II, making him and Philip IV the two kings who make out the best?; in Oct. 2007 the Vatican announces the release of the trial documents, showing that they were absolved of heresy charges but burned anyway - and all those Vatican bureaucrats kept their silence all that time?

In 1492 41-y.-o. W Euro explorer Christopher (Gr. "Christ-bearer") Columbus (Lat. "dove") (1451-1506) discovers the New World for Spain, opening it up to conquest and plunder backed by the horrible intolerant Roman Catholic Church, why do I got an awful feeling about this?

It all happened in the kitchen? In 1493 the proposed reforms of the Dominican Order in Tuscany by Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98) are accepted by Pope Alexander VI, and he is appointed vicar-gen., going on to have hos beaten and homos burned, and send gangs of militant youths out to enforce his reign of terror, er, kingdom of God on Earth; Pope Alexander VI absolves Pico della Mirandola (last of the Schoolmen) of heresy, and appoints his own 18-y.-o. son Cesare Borgia (1476-1507) as a cardinal, becoming notorious for licentious habits and violent temper; Mirandola visits Florence, and is turned on by religious reformer Savonarola and his prophecies of the coming Antichrist and how Florence will soon become "the reformation of all Italy" and its people will become God's elect, promising to give away his possessions and become a wandering preacher, but dies next year before he can do it. Also in 1493 Pope Alexander VI's 13-y.-o. probably virginal daughter Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519) is married in the papal palace to Giovanni Sforza d'Aragona (1466-1510), lord of Pesaro in a long white gown whose train is borne by a black boy, followed by 150 women (incl. the pope's mistress Giulia Farnese) to the papal throne surrounded by 11 cardinals; the marriage is annulled in 1497 - the black boy got to her?

What's that noise? In Mar. 1511 insane tyrant Diego de Nicuesa is voted out of power in Antigua and deported on a dilapidated ship that wrecks en route to Espanola, killing all aboard; meanwhile after sending Enciso back to Spain, Vasco Nunez (Núñez) de Balboa (1474-1519) has fun enslaving and looting the local pop. the Catholic Spanish way, incl. setting wild dogs on same-sex married females (lesbians), gays, and other Indians he thinks are too un-Christian to fool with; after cents. of suppression of same-sex marriage and homosexuality, followed by a coverup for the winning side, in 2004 U.S. Pres. George W. Bush utters the immortal soundbyte: "The union of a man and woman is the most eduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith."

In May 1725 Dutch ship officer Leendert Hasenbosch (b. 1695) is marooned at Clarence Bay on Ascension Island for sodomy, and dies of thirst after failing to find the freshwater spring in Breakneck Valley or Dampier's Drip lower down and drinking urine and turtle blood instead, and leaving a diary.

In 1728 James Dalton pub. a Narrative of My Street Crime Career along with his experience with "back door gentlemen" (sodomites).

In the 1770s the sodomy-friendly Macaroni Craze sweeps London, named after the Italian dish brought back by the idle fops making their Grand Tour during the 1760s, after which "The word Macaroni then changed its meaning to that of a person who exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion; and is now justly used as a term of reproach to all ranks of people, indifferently, who fall into this absurdity." (The Macaroni and Theatrical Mag.); the macaronis like to wear fine sprigged fabric, tight clothes, oversized sword, tasseled walking stick, delicate shoes, and an enormous wig with tall front and a fat queue or club of hair behind, with a ridiculous litle hat that is so high up that it has to be removed at sword point, becoming the source of the allusion in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" to "stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni".

In Mar. 1771 true to English form, the matter of whether the effeminate but expert swordsman, former spy, feminist lit. collector, professed lifelong virgin (yet rumored to have fathered George IV) and diplomat Chevalier D'Eon (1728-1810) (born in Tonerre, France) is a male or a female dominates the news in London, and a betting pool opens with 3-2 odds that he/she is a male; it climbs to 10-1 for male, but by 1776 reverses to 7-4 for female; a total of £280K is eventually wagered. In 1775 Louis XVI sends playwright Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-99) (who gives his daughter harp lessons) on a secret mission to England to negotiate a settlement with Chevalier D'Eon over the embarrassing gender matter (and to get back secret documents he/she obtained as a spy that could be even more embarrassing); D'Eon agrees to return the documents in exchange for a pension and a royal statement that he/she is a woman; starting in 1777 he/she spends the rest of his/her life (till 1810) dressed as a woman (the first time in history a man does an Orlando or reverse Joan of Arc at midlife?); since he/she refuses to be examined, and leaves the bettors up in the air, he/she sinks into poverty, occasionally entering British fencing tournaments to earn some money, and gaining a rep as the best female (dress-wearing) sword fighter on earth (she brings up the rear of the women's movement?); while in England negotiating with Chevalier D'Eon, Beaumarchais meets Arthur Lee, the 3rd Am. commissioner to England (brother of William and Richard Henry Lee), who convinces him to lobby the French king to supply arms for the upcoming Am. Rev.

In 1775 in Mexico Manuel Arroyo of Real del Monte confesses to 30 counts of oral sex (fellatio) on men, claiming that his doctor told him it was good for his health and a way to avoid evil thoughts about women; he is sentenced to three years in prison by the Inquisition - or 3K more priests, whichever cums first?

In Aug. 1867 lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs urges the Sixth Congress of German Jurists in Munich to repeal laws forbidding gay male sex, launching the gay rights movement in Germany.

In 1869 Austrian writer Karl Maria Kertbeny coins the term "homosexuality".

In 1870 Chester County, Penn.-born Bayard Taylor (1825-78) pub. Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania, the first gay novel in the U.S.?

In 1873 English artist Simeon Solomon (1840-1905) is arrested for sodomy in a public urinal, and ends up dying in St. Giles' Workhouse in London.

In the 1880s Berlin, Germany police commissioner Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hullesem allows Gay Berlin to blossom, incl. counseling to gay blackmail victims - by putting one leg in front of the other, you can walk?

In 1883 South African-born Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner (1855-1920) (daughter of a Lutheran clergyman) pub. The Story of an African Farm in London under the alias Ralph Iron, shocking the Victorian readers with agnostic freethought, feminism, premarital sex, pregnancy out of wedlock, even transvestitism, becoming a bestseller.

In 1885 after anti-gay hysteria in London, the Labouchere Amendment (Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885) is passed, sponsored by Liberal MP Henry Du Pre Labouchere (Du Pré Labouchère) (1831-1912), outlawing all sexual activity between men under the euphemism "gross indecency", ending draconian punishments to make successful prosecutions more likely; it is later used to prosecute Oscar Wilde (2 years hard labor) and Alan Turing (chemical castration); lesbianism is not addressed.

In Nov. 1890 English nurse-missionary Kate Marsden (1859-1931) is sent by Tsarina Maria Fedorovna on a 2K-mi. journey across Siberia to find a fabled herb that cures leprosy, which turns out not to work; too bad, when she returns, the Victorian establishment hounds her for lesbianism instead of praising her for heroism.

In 1893 after the 1866 discovery of dynamite finally makes it possible, the Corinth Canal in Greece, first begun by Nero in 67 C.E. opens after 40M francs are spent in 1830 by Greece, another 30M in 1869 by Austria, and 5M more are given to a Greek co. in 1890 to finish it; this is all probably irrelevant, but it's nice to stretch our imaginations and connect it with you know what.

On June 23, 1894 French Baron Pierre de Fredy (Frédy), Baron de Coubertin (1863-1937) holds an internat. congress at the Sorbonne in Paris to resurrect the ancient Greek Olympics, and founds the Internat. Olympic Committee (IOC) - if this Millennium doesn't bring Christ back, it's time to give the ancient pagans another chance? On Apr. 6-15, 1896 the modern I (1st) Summer Olympic Games, organized by Pierre de Coubertin and the Union des Sport Athletiques are held in Athens, Greece (that's in Europe not Asia), with 241 athletes (all men) from 14 countries; the U.S. team is almost late in arriving on the German freighter Barbarossa because they didn't know that Greece still uses the Old Style calendar; the first championship (silver not gold) medal is awarded to Boston-born James Brendan Bennet Connolly (1868-1957) of the U.S. (who takes a leave of absence from Harvard, and is robbed in Naples and has to chase the bum down to get his boat ticket back) for the hop, skip, and jump (triple jump) (13.71m, almost 1m ahead of #2), making him the first Olympic champ since 389 C.E. (he also comes in 2nd in the high jump and 3rd in the long jump); crouch-starter (Boston U. student) Thomas Edmund "Tom" Burke (1875-1929) of the U.S. wins the 100m dash in 12.0 sec. and the 400m in 54.2 sec.; the Greeks remain winless until the last event, the marathon (ending in Panathenaic Stadium), which is won by 23-y.-o. mineral water supplier Spiridon (Spyridon) "Spiros" Louis (1873-1940); Haralambos Vassilakos of Greece places 2nd, and yet another Greek, Dimitries Velokas places 3rd; later it is discovered that Velokas had hidden a horse and carriage in a park and ridden part of the way, so his medal is stripped from him and awarded to Gyulla Kellner (1871-1940) of Hungary.

In 1894 Ghent, Belgium-born French poet-novelist Pierre Louys (Pierre Félix Louis) (1870-1925) (friend of Andre Gide and Oscar Wilde, known for his love of Greek culture) pub. Les Chansons de Bilitis (The Songs of Bilitis), lesbian poetry supposedly translated from the walls of a Greek tomb in Cyprus written by Sappho's contemporary, a courtesan; fools scholars; becomes popular with illustrators incl. Louis Icart, Willy Pogany, Georges Barbier et al.

Feasting with panthers, or, Cruel to be kind means that I love ya, or, He calls me his lucky penny but I am the lucky one, or, Explain it to my lawyer, prick? A new meaning to Gay Nineties? This love story is no fairy tale? Assume the position? The original Gay Eye for the Straight Guy? A seminal event in modern history? On Feb. 14, 1895 Dublin-born Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900) debuts his final play The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People at St. James's Theatre in London (86 perf.), giving him three hit plays playing simultaneusly, later becoming his most popular play; orphan Ernest/Jack Worthing finds his daddy's name is Gen. Ernest John Moncrieff; Ernest and Gwendolyn Fairfax (daughter of Lady Bracknell), Algernon Moncrieff and Cecily Cardew (ward of Jack Worthing), Dr. Rev. Canon Frederick Chausuble and Miss Laetitia Prism; Lady Bracknell: "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality"; "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Ernest"; filmed in 1952, 1992, and 2002; too bad, he is accused (via a card left at Oscar's club) of "posing as a Somdomite" (sic) by the marquess of er, John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensbury (1844-1900) over his relationship with his son Lord Alfred Bruce "Bosie" Douglas (1870-1945), the love of Wilde's gay life, whom he met as an undergrad at Oxford (after Bosie had read Wilde's wild gay book "The Picture of Dorian Gray", and was obsessed with its gay imagery); at Bosie's insistence, Wilde makes the big mistake of suing for libel, which ends up exposing his long list of young male lovers in court, causing him to drop his suit, and the crown to have him arrested while drinking hock and seltzer and talking to Bosie at the Cadogan Hotel in London by a Scotland Yard Inspector for the crime of sodomy (carrying up to 10 inches, er, years); his prosecutor is future Liberal PM (1908-16) Herbert Henry Asquith (1852-1928), whose gay son Anthony Asquith (1902-68) dir. the Earnest play in 1952; after a great speech from the courtroom dock, where he uses Bosie's line "the love that dare not speak its name", he ends up convicted on May 25 and sentenced to two years for offenses to minors; the British govt. doesn't declassify its memos on the trial until 1999.

In 1896 Adolf Brand (1874-1945) of Berlin, Germany founds Der Eigene, the first homosexual journal in the world (ends 1931), followed in 1903 by Geimeinschaft der Eigenen, the 2nd gay org. in the world; too bad, after he outs German chancellor Prince von Bulow in 1907, and ends up in priz for 18 mo., then gets two more mo. for obscenity, he joins the German army in WWI and marries a female nurse, then returns to activism during the 1920s, only to see the Nazis come down on him so hard that he gives it up completely by the early 1930s.

On May 14-15, 1897 German Jewish gay physician Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) organizes the Scientific Humanitarian Committee to lobby for the repeal of German penal code paragraph 175 criminalizing homosexuality, and goes on to gather 5K signatures, incl. Albert Einstein, Hermann Hesse, Kathe Kollwitz, Thomas Mann, and Martin Buber, causing him to become known as "the Einstein of Sex"; the Reichstag nixes his proposals even under threat of outing some of its members. In 1919 he opens the Inst. for Sexual Research (Institue fur Sexualwissenschaft) in new loose postwar Berlin to study sexuality and promote gay rights; it houses a giant porno, er, sexual research library, and the popular Museum of Sex; when the Nazis take power, one of their first actions on May 6, 1933 is to guess what? In 1896 he pub. Sappho and Socrates; gay love is okay if you don't mind it?

Can you grasp this? In 1897 English sexologist Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), who is impotent until he discovers urolagnia at age 60, and is still a virgin at age 32 when he marries lesbian writer Edith Mary Oldham Lees (1891-1916) in Nov. 1891, then goes back to his bachelor life in Paddington with an open marriage, and English gay poet John Addington Symonds (1840-93) pub. Studies in the Psychology of Sex: Sexual Inversion (vol. 2 of 6) (1897-1910), the first English medical textbook on homosexuality ("a barbarously hybrid word... I claim no responsibility for it"), which Ellis approves of, and denies is immoral, a disease or a crime; 7 of the 20 examples are of man-boy love; after a celebrated obscenity trial it is banned in England as a "wicked, bawdy, scandalous, and obscene book", causing a U.S. publisher to pub. it, changing it from vol. 1 to vol. 2 of the series; it is limited to medical profs. until 1935; the 3rd ed. (1915) talks about the "great prevalence of sexual inversion in American cities", and how the fellatio-seeking "fairies" wear red ties as their badge - like Ronald Reagan?

In June 1903 Austrian Jewish philosopher Otto Weininger (1880-1903) pub. Sex and Character (Geschlecht und Charakter), which claims that all people have elements of both masculinity and femininity, and there is a deeper psychical realm beyond sexuality and gender which can liberate mankind, er, humanity from original sin; homosexuals are "intermediate sexual forms"; when it doesn't make the big splash he thought it should, he commits suicide, after it which it begins to sell and gains true believers.

On Sept. 7, 1907 San Francisco, Calif.-born ticklish lesbian feminist Alice Babette Toklas (1877-1967) meets Allegheny, Penn.-born Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) in Paris on the first day she arrives, and they become lovers, moving in together and hosting a salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus for Am. expatriate writers incl. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), Thornton Wilder (1897-1975), and Paul Bowles (1910-99), and avant-garde artists incl. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), and Georges Braque (1882-1963) - B as in bi? On Mar. 7, 1967 Toklas dies in Paris in poverty after converting to Roman Catholicism and asking the priest if she will meet her lover Gertrude Stein in heaven - they do that lezzie thing up there too?

In 1907 the Harden-Eulenburg Affair exposes the homosexuality of Prince Philip of Eulenberg-Hertefeld, Count Bernhard von er, Bulow and other cabinet members, discrediting them and causing the Kaiser to end up relying more on his military leaders, setting Germany up for WWI?

In the 1910s scientists (except Havelock Ellis?) begin categorizing Homosexuality as a deviant and socially threatening disorder - take a look at my girlfriend, she's the only one I got, heads and asses don't mix, but we've got a secret handshake?

In Feb. 1910 the Dreadnought Hoax sees English super-hoaxer William Horace de Vere Cole (1881-1936) gets the British to officially greet a group of Abyssinian princes accompanied by high-ranking Foreign Office rep. Herbert Cholmondeley (pr. CHUM-lee) with a good part of the British fleet in Weymouth Bay in Dorsetshire, incl. HMS Dreadnought, and to have crowds see off their train as they return to London; later it is revealed that the princes, who like to say "Bunga-bunga", are phonies in makeup applied by Sarah Bernhardt's makeup man Willy Clarkson, incl. writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), artist Duncan Grant, cricketer Anthony Buxton, judge's son Guy Ridley, and Virginia's brother Adrian Stephen (the "interpreter"), also that Cholmondeley is Cole. In 1912 Lit. dynamo Adeline Virginia Stephen, known for sexual abuse by half-brothers and nervous breakdowns caused by the deaths of her mother, half-sister Stella and daddy Sir Leslie Stephen marries London ed. ("penniless Jew") Leonard Sidney Woolf (1880-1969), becoming "Who's Afraid of" Virginia Woolf (1882-1941); together they set up a hand press for publishing limited eds. of modern lit., which develops into Hogarth Press in 1917; they live at 46 Gordon Square in the Bloomsbury section of London (near the British Museum), and set up the Bloomsbury Group, incl. E.M. (Edward Morgan) Forster (1879-1970), John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970), Giles Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), Duncan James Corrow Grant (1885-1978), Arthur Clive Heward Bell (1881-1964), and Saxon Sydney-Turner (1880-1962); the 1910 Dreadnought Hoax was a dress rehearsal?; the members like to engage in homosexuality, lesbianism, and wife-swapping. Robert Frost (1874-1963) sails to England and embarks on a lit. career. Mary Pickford introduces D.W. Griffith to her friends Dorothy and Lillian Gish, and he signs them up for "An Unseen Enemy"; one or both go on to star in 100+ short films and features.

In 1913 E.M. Forster (1879-1970) writes the novel Maurice, about homosexuality; it is pub. posth. in 1971.

In June 1917 Kiwi surgeon Sir Harold Delf Gillies (1882-1960) opens Queens Hospital in Sidcup, England for injured British soldiers, pioneering modern Plastic Surgery; in 1946 he performs the first British sex reassignment surgery from female to male on British physician Laurence Michael (Laura Maud) Dillon (1915-62), who becomes the world's first transsexual; in 1951 after Dillon perfoms an orchidectomy on her, Gillies performs the first British sex reassignment surgery (vaginoplasty) from male to female using a flap technique on Roberta Elizabeth (Robert) Marshall Cowell (1918-2011).

On Nov. 19, 1922 E. Mason Hopper's Brothers Under the Skin (Goldwyn Pictures) debuts, starring Pat O'Malley, Helene Chadwick, Norman Kerry, and Claire Windsor, becoming the film debut (uncredited) of William "Billy" Haines (Charles William Haines) (1900-73), an open gay who in 1926 hooks up with James "Jimmie" Shields and becomes brothers under the skin, staying with him for life ("the happiest married couple in Hollywood" - Joan Crawford); with the studio covering for him, he becomes a top star from 1928-32; too bad, in 1933 he is arrested in a YMCA doing the wild thing with a sailor, causing Louis B. Mayer to give him an ultimatum to engage in a sham "lavender" marriage or be fired, and he chooses the latter, becoming a top interior designer with his gay bud Shields.

In 1923 gay German publisher Friedrich Radszuweit (1876-1932) founds the Bund fur Menschenrecht E.V. (Bfm), which works for gay rights and legalization of homosexuality, going on to found Die Freunden, the first lesbian mag.

In 1924 after being inspired by Magnus Hirschfeld, Bavarian-born Henry Gerbert (Henry Joseph Dittmar) (1892-1972) founds the Society for Human Rights (SHR) in Chicago, Ill., becoming the first homosexual org. in the U.S.; too bad, the police shut it down after a few mo.; on June 22, 2015 the Henry Gerber House in Chicago is designated a nat. historic landmark.

In 1924 French writer Andre Paul Guillaume Gide (1869-1951) pub. Corydon, which defends homosexuality as more natural than exclusive heterosexuality, making him unpopular.

On Mar. 26, 1927 Dorothy Arzner's Fashions for Women (Paramount Pictures) debuts, becoming the dir. debut of Dorothy Emma Arzner (1897-1979), an open lesbian who dresses in men's suits and ties, and goes on to dir. Clara Bowe's first talkie "The Wild Party", creating the boom mike for it, launching the careers of Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, Sylvia Sidney, and Lucille Ball, and becoming the first woman admitted to the Directors Guild of Am. in 1936.

In 1926 Harrow on the Hill-born Communist lesbian Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) pub. Lolly Willowes; Or, The Loving Huntsman; an aging (lesbian?) spinster breaks from her family.

In 1926 Jane Mast (Mae West) (1893-1980) writes her first play Sex with her atty.; it features hos in arousing embraces, a jewelry heist, and shootouts; after the Society for the Suppression of Vice complains, the pigs arrest the entire cast in its 41st week, and West is given 10 days in jail, getting eight off for good behavior; her next play The Drag then debuts in N.J., becoming the first to address homosexuality, folding after two weeks.

On Oct. 11, 1928 English writer "Who's Afraid of" Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) pub. Orlando: A Biography, about a man born in the reign of Elizabeth I who decides to never grow old and changes into a woman, based on the life of lezzie lovers Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) (as Orlando) and Violet Trefusis (1894-1972) (as Slavic princess Sasha); gets around censorship by having a woman sprout a you know what before going to bed with another woman?; after Vita left Violet in 1923, Violet hooked up with Singer sewing machine heiress and musical patron Winnaretta Singer (1865-1943) until 1933. In 1929 Woolf pub. the essays A Room of One's Own, containing pleas for women's economic independence; "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." On Mar. 28, 1941 in Lewes, England she jumps in a body of water with a rock in her pocket after writing that "I am certain now that I am going mad again."

In 1928 Bournemouth-born lesbian Marguerite Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) pub. The Well of Loneliness; lesbian novel about Englishwoman Stephen Gordon, who meets lover Mary Llewellyn in WWI and together experience the social wipeout zone; censored by the English govt.; based on the life of rich expatriate Am. lezzie Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972), lover of expatriate Am. lezzie Romaine Brooks (1874-1970) - the Barney without the Frank?

On Oct. 29, 1929 Black Tues. sees the U.S. stock market crash, throwing the world into the Great Depression; a final vote in the German Reichstag to decriminalize homosexuality is prevented by the crash.

In June 1931 after being castrated in 1922, Dora Richter (born Rudolph Richter) (b. 1891) of Berlin, Germany becomes the first transgender woman to undergo a vaginoplasty by Dr. Levy-Lenz and Dr. Gohrbrandt in Germany; meanwhile "the Einstein of Sex" Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), who performs sex reassignment surgery on Danish painter Lili Elbe (Einar Magnus Andreas Wegener) (1882-1931) in Dresden, who dies of cardiac arrest and organ rejection on Sept. 13 Dresden, Germany from an unsuccessful uterine transplant.

On Nov. 27, 1931 Leontine Sagan's Madchen (Mädchen) in Uniform debuts, based on the play "Gestern und Heute" by Christa Winsloe, becoming the first sympathetic onscreen portrayal of lesbians.

On Mar. 12, 1933 Sachsenhausen (Oranienburg), the first German Nazi concentration camp opens N of Berlin, followed on Mar. 22 by Dachau concentration camp; homosexuals are identified by pink triangles on their stripey uniforms, Jews by yellow, and vagrants by black; Paragraph 175, which is passed this year making homosexuality a capital crime is left on the books for 24 years after the end of WWII, and many of the pink triangle POWs are kept in prison by the FRG, after which the pink triangle becomes the symbol of the gay movement, and it takes until 2002 for the German govt. to issue an official apology; by 1945 8M-10M are interned in concentration camps, and at least half die? On Nov. 15, 1941 Heinrich Hitler issues a decree in Hitler's name making homosexual behavior by SS or police subject to the death penalty. On Dec. 16, 1942 Heinrich Himmler orders all people with mixed Gypsy blood who won't agree to be sterilized sent to Auschwitz; meanwhile 90 castration experiments are made on non-Jewish Poles, who after crawling on the floor in pain are gassed. On Oct. 1, 1944 castration experiments are carried out on seven homosexuals in Buchenwald; ditto to 11 more on Oct. 10; several die.

In 1933 the Soviet Union reverses its course and begins going socially to the right, starting with criminalizing homosexuality, which is connected with the Nazis.

On Feb. 18, 1938 Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby debuts, starring Cary Grant as paleontologist David Huxley, who has a series of adventures with heiress Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) and her pet Leopard, uttering the soundbyte "Susan, Susan, Susan", which comedian Larry Storch later turns into "Judy, Judy, Judy"; Grant first uses the term "gay" in the context of homosexuality - he ought to know?; does $1.1M box office on a $1.1M budget, causing Hepburn to be labelled as box office poison, but after it begins to be shown on TV in the 1950s it beomes a classic.

In 1942 Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Margaret Wise Brown (1910-52) pub. The Runaway Bunny, illustrated by Clement G. Hurd (1908-88), which makes her a hit children's writer; speaking of runaway bunnies, next year Brown shacks up with her rich lezzie lover Michael Strange (Blanche Oelrichs) (1890-1950) (wife of John Barrymore in 1920-5) at 10 Gracie Square, Manhattan, N.Y. until her 1950 death.

In 1943 Castres-born French gay novelist-diplomat ("Pope of the Homosexuals") Roger Peyrefitte (1907-2000) pub. the novel Les Amities Particulieres (Les Les Amitiés Particulières), about a Roman Catholic boarding school where teenies Georges de Sarre, Lucien Rouviere, and Alexandre Motier dally in homosexualty, making Father de Trennes and Father Lauzon jealous, becoming an instant hit. In 1953 he pub. Les Cles de Saint Pierre, which attacks the Vatican and Pope Pius XII, gaining him the title "Pope of the Homosexuals", but pisses-off Francois Mauriac (1885-1970), causing Peyrefitte to accuse him of being a closet homo "Tartuffe". In 1959 he pub. Les Ambassades (Diplomatic Diversions). In 1967 he pub. Notre Amour, about his gay love affair with Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villele (1951-2000), who later becomes the husband of transsexual singer Amanda Lear. In 1968 he pub. Les Americains (Américains). In 1978 he pub. L'Enfant de Coeur; more on his love with 12-y.-o. Alain Philippe Malagnac (1950-).

In 1944 Am. poet Robert Edward Duncan (1919-88) pub. The Homosexual in Society, which compares discrimination against gays to blacks and Jews; written while hooking up with artist Robert De Niro Sr. (1922-93), father of newborn future actor Robert De Niro Jr. (1943-).

In 1948 sexologist Alfred Charles Kinsey (1894-1956) of the U. of Ind. pub. The Kinsey Report (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male), which claims to prove that a large percentage of U.S. males have homosexual relations sometime in their lives, that male virility peaks at 16-17, and that men who begin sexual activity early keep their power longer; the Kinsey Scale starts at zero for pure heterosexual; the Western Sexual Rev. has a bible?

In 1948 West Point, N.Y.-born Eugene Luther "Gore" Vidal Jr. (1925-2012) (son of the lover of Amelia Earhart) pub. The City and the Pillar, the first Am. novel to give a dispassionate presentation of homosexuality; dedicated to his gay bud "J.T.", Jimmie Trimble (-1945), who was KIA at Iwo Jima; pisses-off the New York Times, which refuses to review his next five books.

In 1952 Am. actor James Byron Dean (1931-55) is helped by gay roommate (future TV scriptwriter) William Edwin "Bill" Bast (1931-2015) to write a letter to the U.S. Draft Board declaring that he is a "practicing homosexual", winning him a draft exemption.

On Feb. 14, 1953 (Valentine's Day) true love happens when gay English-born writer Christopher Isherwood (1904-86) (former lit. mentor of W.H. Auden) meets 16-y.-o. Don Bachardy (1936-) at a beach in Santa Monica, Calif., and they move in together for the rest of Isherwood's life.

On Mar. 31, 1953 the U.N. Gen. Assembly elects Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjold (Hammarskjöld) (1905-61) of Sweden as U.N. secy.-gen. #2, taking office on Apr. 10 (until Sept. 18, 1961); he never marries and is never seen in the company of the opposite gender - that makes him a metrosexual, or a workaholic?

On Aug. 18, 1953 sexologist Alfred Charles Kinsey (1894-1956) of the U. of Ind. pub. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, a companion vol. to his 1948 study on males, predicting the sexual rev. and women's lib movement based on interviews with 5K women; results: almost half had sexual relations before marriage (one third with two or more men), a quarter are unfaithful afterward, and a quarter of the unmarried women have had lesbian relationships; 22% of the married women admit to at least one abortion, and 62% admit to masturbating (92% for males); the 1950 U.S. Nat. Research Council committee to study Kinsey, which incl. Am. statistician John Wilder Tukey (1915-2000) (1958 coiner of the word "software", a coincidence?) (who antagonized Kinsey by singing Gilbert and Sullivan tunes aloud while working) issues its Report on the Jerk Kinsey, which finds his sampling method seriously flawed, since the subjects he selects are always white, middle-class, and college-educated; after Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy attacks the Rockefeller Foundation for funding him, they withdraw funding next year, after which Kinsey's grants dry up.

In Dec. 1954 Am. gay "Jewish Buddhist" poet Irwin Allen Ginsberg (1926-97) meets poet-model Peter Orlovsky (1933-) in San Francisco, Calif., and they become lifetime lovers; Ginsberg undergoes a year of psychotherapy this year and next, and ditches his career as a fledgling market research consultant, producing his poem "Howl!" in a nonstop frenzy.

On Nov. 9, 1955 Hollyweird star Cock Suck, er, Rock Hard, er, Rock Hudson (Roy Harold Scherer Jr.) (1925-85) marries his agent's secy. Phyllis Lucille Gates (1926-2006) to counter press reports of his homosexuality; they divorce in 1958, and after she dies it is revealed that she was a lesbian who knew he was gay and married him for his money - no sex in the office?

In 1955 the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian org. opens in San Francisco, Calif.; homosexual relations between women are illegal in all U.S. states, but they face that problem and lick it in the closet?

On Jan. 6, 1956 Edward R. Murrow interviews 35-y.-o. eternal bachelor (closet gay) entertainer Liberace (1919-87) on Person to Person in his bedroom in Sherman Oaks, Calif., and after Murrow asks him if he'd like to get married one day, Liberace zings him with the soundbyte "Princess Margaret... she's looking for her dream man too"; he later says "I have nothing against old ladies, but I like young ladies too."

On Jan. 13, 1958 after years of govt. suppression of gay mags., the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 in One Inc. v. Olesen that pro-homosexual writing is not obscene per se, freeing gay mags. from govt. censorship.

In 1958 retired gay dancer Joseph "Joe" Cino (1931-67) founds Caffe Chino at 31 Cornelia St. in Greenwich Village, N.Y., debuting James Howard's "Flyspray" in summer 1960, introducing acts with the phrase "It's magic time!", founding the Off-Off-Broadway movement consisting of theaters with less than 100 seats and often using non-union actors; in May 1964 Lanford Wilson debuts his play "The Madness of Lady Bright" (205 perf.), becoming Cino's breakthrough hit; he goes on to launch the careers of Doric Wilson, William Hoffman, Robert Patrick, John Guare, Tom Eyen, Sam Shepard, Robert Heide, Paul Foster, Jean-Claude van Italie, Lanford Wilson, Tom O'Horgan, Marshall W. Mason, Al Pacino, and Bernadette Peters.

In 1960 John Frederick Lehmann (1907-87) pub. his autobio. I Am My Brother, about being gay in England.

On Aug. 31, 1961 Basil Dearden's B&W Victim (Allied Film Makers) (Rank Org.) debuts, starring Dirk Bogarde as London barrister Melville Farr, who has a gay affair with young working class stud Boy Barrett (Peter McEnery), who is blackmailed and commits suicide, causing Farr to decide to go public and get them caught; meanwhile Farr's wife Laura Farr (Sylvia Syms) tries to understand; it becomes the first English language film to use the word "homosexual", pissing-off the British Board of Film Censors and the Motion Picture Assoc. of Am. (MPAA), which refuse to grant it their seals of approval; watch trailer.

In 1961 Ill. becomes the first U.S. state to decriminalize sodomy, incl. homosexual acts such as sucking, licking, and butt, er, fellatio, cunnilingus, and anal sex between consenting adults in private; Conn. follows in 1971, followed by Colo., Del., Hawaii, N.D., and Ore. in 1973, Ohio in 1974, N.M. in 1975, Calif., Ind., Maine, Wash. and W. Va. in 1976, Vt. and Wyo. in 1977, Alaska and N.Y. in 1980, Wisc. in 1983, Mich. in 1990, Ky. in 1992, Nev. in 1993, the District of Columbia in 1995, Mont. in 1997, Ga., Md. and R.I. in 1998, Ariz. and Ark. in 2001, Mass. in 2002, Minn. in 2001, and all 50 states in 2003 (U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas) - next week I can work you in between Rainman and the guy from My Left Foot? He walked in from the Windy City with his gay hat acock? Just because a toothbrush is electronic doesn't mean it works like a Sonicare?

On Sept. 19, 1963 the first gay rights demonstration in the U.S. takes place in New York City at the Whitehall Induction Center, protesting against discrimination in the military - I'm old enough to kill and die, so I'm old enough to you know what?

In 1963 El Paso, Tex.-born John Rechy (1934-) pub. his first novel City of Night, an internat. bestseller about explicit gay male prostitution. In 1967 he pub. Numbers; Johnny Rio tests himself in the arena of male love in gay Griffith Park in L.A., vowing to do thirty "numbers" in 10 days. In 1969 he pub. This Day's Death. In 1971 he pub. The Vampires. In 1972 he pub. The Fourth Angel; three 16-y.-o. angels recruit a 4th and go out and play games with bums and deviants. In 1977 he pub. The Sexual Outlaw; his gay hustling exploits in gay L.A. vs. horrible homophobia, tsk tsk. In 1979 he pub. Rushes; a gay leather and Western bar on the waterfront in the yummy gay days before AIDS. In 1983 he pub. Bodies and Souls; Los Angeles, "the most spiritual and physical of cities". In 1988 he pub. Marilyn's Daughter (July); 18-y.-o. Normalyn believes she's the daughter of Marilyn Monroe and Bobby Kennedy. On Oct. 18, 1991 Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho, debuts, based on the 1963 John Rechy novel "City of Night" and Shakespeare's "Henry IV" and "Henry V" stars River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as gay street hustlers Mike and Scott Favor, who don't think they're gay; the title is taken from a 1980 B-52's song, which isn't played in the film. In 1996 he pub. Our Lady of Babylon. In 1999 he pub. The Coming of the Night; gay fun just before AIDS arrives.

In Jan. 1964 Sidney J. Furie's B&W The Leather Boys (British Lion-Columbia) debuts, based on the 1961 Gillian Freeman (alias Eliot George) novel, a British kitchen sink realist film about a biker gang with gay member Reggie (Colin Campbell), who starts out married to Dot, played by what-a-name Rita Tushingham until he meets his real love Pete (Dudley Sutton).

In May 1964 Lebanon, Mo.-born gay playwright Lanford Wilson (1937-2011) debuts his play The Madness of Lady Bright at Caffe Chino in Greenwich Village, N.Y. (205 perf.), about aging drag queen Leslie Bright, becoming the first play to portray gays as normal people; it closes after the Apr. 2, 1967 suicide of gay owner Joe Cino (b. 1931).

In 1964 the Council on Religion and the Homosexual is founded in San Francisco, Calif. by Rev. Robert Warren Cromey (1931-) of St. Aidan's Episcopal Church and Rev. Robert Theodore "Ted" McIlvenna (1932-) of Glide Memorial Church to bring together straight religious leaders and gay activists for a "continuing dialogue"; too bad, a gay drag Mardi Gras Ball on Dec. 31 (New Year's Eve) is raided by the pigs, causing a legal battle over harassment and discrimination that gets them mucho publicity and helps make San Francisco a gay mecca; in 1968 Cromey performs a wedding ceremony for a lezzie couple, followed by one for a gay male couple in 1982; in 1999 after a lifetime of spiritual growth, Cromey pub. Sex Priest, with the soundbyte: "Priests are sexual creatures. We masturbate, have intercourse, anal and oral sex, same gender sex, commit adultery, bestiality, incest, fornicate, enjoy bondage, abuse children and commit any and all forms of sex known to human beings. We spend most of our time in ministry but we are sexual beings too. Most priests, bishops, deacons, ministers, mullahs and rabbis in the world religions are sex positive in their outlook. We enjoy ecstasy, orgasm, pleasure and joy in our sexuality. We love to kiss, fondle and embrace. We enjoy fucking, sucking and licking."

In 1964 Kilgore, Tex.-born gay playwright Robert Patrick (O'Connor) (1937-) debuts his first play The Haunted Host at Caffe Cino in Greenwich Village, launching his career in Off-Off-Broadway gay theater, with 300+ productions by the end of the decade.

On Feb. 23, 1967 John Herbert Brundage (1926-2001) debuts his play Fortune and Men's Eyes at the Actors Playhouse in New York (382 perf.); title taken from Shakespeare's Sonnet 39; autobio. gay-friendly interracial prison drama exploring sexual slavery becomes most successful Canadian play to date; stars Robert Christian and Victor Arnold; filmed in 1971 by Harvey Hart.

On Sept. 5, 1967 (Tue.) (9:30 p.m.) the half-hour crime drama N.Y.P.D. debuts on ABC-TV for 49 episodes (until Mar. 25, 1969), starring Jack Warden (John Warden Lebzelter Jr.) (1920-2006) as Lt. Mike Haines, African-Am. actor Robert Dean "Bobby" Hooks (1937-) as Det. Jeff Ward, and Frank Converse (1938-) as Det. Johnny Corso; episode 1 is about a man blackmailing gays, becoming the first U.S. TV series with a gay-themed episode.

The cops tell gays to suck my stick, and they do? On June 27-28, 1969 patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village at 53 Christopher St. clash with NYPD Public Morals cops sent there to harass them in the Stonewall Rebellion, which becomes the birth (pardon the expression?) of the "gay power" movement, resulting in a decade of gay orgying in the piers off West Street along the Hudson River, the Paradise Garage, St. Mark's Bathhouse, Fire Island, Central Park, Studio 54 and elsewhere, resulting in the AIDS epidemic beginning in June 1981 - as the sperm-soaked buds shift into reverse repro and shrivel up and die?

In 1969 the United Order Family of Christ is founded in Denver, Colo. by David-Edward Desmond for young gay Mormon men of sucking, er, ages 18-30; it becomes defunct by 1974.

On Jan. 6, 1971 the first gay rights bill in the U.S. is introduced to the New York City council by Shirley Carter Burden Jr. (1941-96) and Eldon R. Clingan; it dies in committee, and a similar bill is not passed until 1986.

On July 1, 1971 John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday (United Artists) debuts, written by Penelope Gilliatt, starring Peter Finch as wealthy gay Jewish physician Daniel Hirsh, Glenda Jackson as divorced working woman Alex Greville, and Murray Head as young gay artist Bob Elkin, who services both of them separately until an offer to open his own art gallery in New York and a wet winter weekend in London causes them to bump into each other; released before the real Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland on Jan. 30, 1972; depicts gays as successful and well-adjusted, as contrasted with his 1969 film "Midnight Cowboy", which portrays them as self-loathing?

In 1971 the Jim Nabors-Rock Hudson Rumor is spread by gays in S Calif. as a joke, to the effect that they're going to get married and be called Rock Pyle; meanwhile the real Nabors hooks up with Stan Cadwallader, and in 1976 they move to Maui, Hawaii and live happily ever after together, getting married on Jan. 15, 2013.

On Feb. 16, 1973 the right-wing Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. is founded with financial backing by Colo. Coors beer magnate Joseph Coors and Philly banking heir Richard Mellon Scaife, headed by Wisc.-born Paul M. Weyrich (1942-2008), a Roman Catholic turned Greek Orthodox religious zealot, whose 180-employee think tank begins grinding out studies against gay rights, abortion, marijuana, gun control, and big govt., gaining support from evangelicals, helping found the Moral Majority with Rev. Jerry Falwell, and growing into the largest public policy research inst. in the U.S. In 1980 Falwell widely distributes the pamphlet Listen, America!, containing the soundbyte "We must stand against the Equal Rights Amendment, the feminist revolution, and the homosexual revolution" - I'm Kilroy, Kilroy, Kilroy?

In 1973 Pflag (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) is founded in Greenwich Village, N.Y.

On Apr. 21, 1975 six homosexual couples in Colo. are granted marriage licenses by Boulder County Clerk Clela Rorex; Anthony Corbett Sullivan and Richard Frank Adams, who met in the Closet Bar in Los Angeles in 1971 use their license as grounds for applying for permanent residency in the U.S. for Aussie Sullivan; on Dec. 7 the INS denies their petition, saying, "You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots"; they leave the U.S. on Nov. 23, 1985 after a losing court battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court - don't cry over spilt milk?

On Aug. 14, 1975 Jim Sharman's The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Michael White Productions) (20th Cent. Fox) debuts, based on the 1973 musical by Richard O'Brien and filmed at Oakley Court, owned by Hammer Film Productions, starring Tim Curry as punk rock transvestite scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter, while Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick play it straight as couple Janet Weiss and Brad Majors; O'Brien plays butler Riff Raff; Patricia Quinn plays maid Magenta; Meat Loff plays ex-delivery boy Eddie; Peter Hinwood plays Rocky Horror; does $140.2M box office on a $1.4M budget; turns the young set onto musicals and generates a midnight cult following at the Waverly Theater in NYC in 1976 that loyally shows up weekly for years dressed in TV clothing carrying rice and squirt guns, ready to sing along with songs incl. Time Warp, Sweet Transvestite, I Can Make You A Man, and Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me; a "Lips" poster is created parodying the Jaws poster, with the legend: "A different set of jaws." Watch trailer; view clip.

On Oct. 7, 1976 British rock star Elton John (1947-) gives an interview in Rolling Stone titled Elton's Frank Talk, proclaiming his bisexuality; adverse reaction causes him to retire from performing in Nov. 1977.

On Jan. 24, 1977 Miami-Dade County, Fla. passes an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, causing $100K/year Fla. orange juice spokesperson (since 1969) Anita Jane Bryant (1940-) ("a day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine") to lead the Save Our Children Coalition, based on her Bible-thumping Christian beliefs that teach that homosexuality is sinful and against the laws of God, with the soundbytes "I believe more than ever before that there are evil forces round about us, disguised as something good", and "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children, therefore, they must recruit our children"; after Rev. Jerry Falwell supports her, the campaign goes nationwide, and on June 7 the Dade County ordinance is overturned by the Fla. legislature by 69-31, followed by a law outlawing adoption by gays and lesbians in Fla., causing the gay community, supported by Hollyweird celebs Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda, Carroll O'Connor, Mary Tyler Moore et al. to fight back by boycotting orange juice and replacing Screwdrivers with Anita Bryants (vodka and apple juice) in bars; on Oct. 14 in Des Moines, Iowa she is publicly pied by a gay activist ("Well at least it's a fruit pie") (after which the pie-thrower gets one in his face); too bad, her political activism ruins her entertainment career, and in 1979 her contract with the Fla. Citrus Commission is not renewed, and she divorces her hubby Bob Green in 1980, leaving her with four kids, after which she flirts with bankruptcy while being harassed by gay extremists; in 1998 Dade County reauthorizes the anti-discrimination ordinance.

On Nov. 8, 1977 Harvey Bernard Milk (1930-78) is elected city supervisor in San Francisco, Calif., becoming the first openly gay man elected to public office in Calif. history, known for the soundbyte "Hello, I'm Harvey Milk, and I'm here to recruit you" - bend over backwards jokes here? Speaking of saving butts? White milk moustaches on gays jokes here? On Nov. 7, 1978 Calif. Proposition 6 (Briggs Initiative), which would have banned gays, lesbians, and "anyone advocating a homosexual lifestyle" from teaching in Calif. public schools, sponsored by conservative Orange County legislator (1967-75) John V. Briggs (1930-) and backed by Anita Bryant is defeated, becoming a big V for new (since Jan. 8) gay Jewish San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk; too bad, on Nov. 27 he and San Francisco mayor #37 (since Jan. 1976) George Richard Moscone (b. 1929) are gunned down inside City Hall by straight Roman Catholic ex-supervisor Daniel James "Dan" White (1946-85), who resigned on Nov. 10 but wants his job back, and gets pissed-off at Moscone's refusal to reinstate him, killing Moscone, then figuring it's 2-for-1 day and going to Milk's office, shooting him 5x then turning himself in 35 min. later at the city's Northern Police Station, after which he gets a voluntary manslaughter instead of murder conviction by raising the yummy "Twinkie Defense", then serves five years, and commits suicide two years later after becoming the most hated man in San Francisco history; in 2016 the U.S. Navy announces plans to name a U.S. Military Sealift Command fleet oiler after Milk - sweet harvest milk with mascarpone = twinkies?

On Dec. 31, 1977 Larry Kramer (1935-) pub. his first novel Faggots, about screenwriter Fred Lemish at the Everard Baths in New York City, and his elusive boyfriend Dinky Adams; it gets dissed by the gay community for its portrayal of shallow promiscuous gay sex sans awareness of HIV. On Mar. 24, 1987 ACT-UP, which he founded stages its first demonstration at the New York Stock Exchange over the high prices of AZT and the long FDA process for approving drugs; on Mar. 25 the FDA announces a 2-year reduction in the process.

In 1978 Gilbert Baker (1951-) designs the Rainbow Gay Pride (Queer) Flag; hot pink=sexuality, red=life, orange=healing, yellow=sunlight, green=nature, turquoise=magic/art, blue=serenity, violet=spirit; pink and turquoise are later removed because of manufacturing difficulty.

On Oct. 14, 1979 the First Nat. March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Washington, D.C. sees 75K-125K march demanding equal civil rights for LGBTs along with protective civil rights legislation; 2nd march on Oct. 11, 1987.

In 1979 Baptist Rev. Jerry Lamon Falwell Sr. (1933-2007), who since 1950 built up the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va. to nat. prominence, along with his "Old Time Gospel Hour", aired on 300 U.S. and 64 foreign TV stations founds the Moral Majority along with Heritage Inst. dir. Paul M. Weyrich (who coins the term) to give conservative Christian evangelicals a voice in politics, encouraging voter registration and becoming instrumental in the election of pres. Ronald Reagan and the blocking of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and gay and abortion rights legislation, becoming one of the top 25 most influential Americans by 1983, lashing out against his foes, incl. liberals, abortionists, ACLU, feminists, gay rights activists, and the faithless; he disbands it in the late 1980s to concentrate on his Christian school, Liberty U. - you either wish him well or wish he'd fall down a well?

A red ribbon event for medicine? In 1980 Kenneth ?, a 30-y.-o. gay man living in San Francisco, Calif. goes to his doctor complaining of diarrhea and tiredness; he wastes away for a year, and dies of pneumonia, and AIDS (HIV) arrives in the U.S.; next June five gay men are officially diagnosed, causing a frantic search by scientists for the source of the infection, taking them from U.S. and European cities to Haiti and finally the Congo, where "a single transmission event from a single chimpanzee in west central Africa to one human" (George Shaw) is the answer?

In 1980 the Human Rights Campaign is founded in Washington, D.C. by Stephen Robert "Steve" Endean (1948-93) to fight for gay rights, becoming the largest LGBT political lobbying org. in the U.S.; you guessed it, Endean dies of AIDS.

The original brokeback mountain? On June 5, 1981 an issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly by the Federal Centers for Disease Control reports the occurrence of a rare form of pneumonia in five otherwise healthy gay men in Los Angeles, Calif. who have weakened immune systems, and suggests that it might be related to their homosexual activities - head or bareback? On July 3 the New York Times runs its first article on a mysterious gay disease by Dr. Lawrence K. Altman titled "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals"; on Aug. 28 the Nat. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), noting a high incidence of Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia in homosexual men announce that a medical task force has been formed to investigate; an editorial in the Dec. 10 New England Journal of Medicine discounts the possibility of an unknown infectious agent and sticks with the poppers (amyl and butyl nitrite) theory; meanwhile HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is discovered in C Africa, and the CDC issues its first warning about a rare disease, originally called Gay Related Immune Deficiency (GRID), and changed in 1982 to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome).

On Feb. 12, 1982 Arthur Hiller's Making Love, written by A. Scott Berg debus, starring Kate Jackson, Harry Hamlin, and Michael Ontkean, becoming the first major studio film to deal with homosexuality.

In 1982 a Gallup Poll reveals that 51% of Americans don't accept homosexuality as normal.

Everybody wants a piece of the Rock? On July 15, 1985 gaunt, sick-looking, once-hunky Hollywood actor and pretty boy lover Rock Hudson (1925-85) appears at a news conference with actress Doris Day to promote her cable TV program, stirring rumors that he is a h--o with AIDS; on July 21 after treatment with the French drug HPA-23, Hudson collapses at the Paris Ritz; on July 25 a spokeswoman announces that he has AIDS, and is being hospitalized in Paris; the reaction starts a worldwide search for a cure, esp. when he dies on Oct. 2 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. at age 59; close friend Elizabeth Taylor rises to the forefront of anti-AIDS fundraising, eventually raising $100M; by 1995 the number of new HIV infections in the U.S. declines from 140K to 40K per year; meanwhile on May 11 the U.S. FDA approves trials of the AIDS drug Isoprinosine, which proves to be a dud.

On Aug. 23, 1985 the gay-friendly Restoration Church of Jesus Christ is founded in Los Angeles, Calif. by Antonio A. Feliz, an LDS Church bishop who was excommunicated for homosexuality, reaching 500 members by the time it is dissolved in 2010.

In 1985 Brazilian Franciscan liberation theologian Leonardo Boff (1938-), known for supporting Communism and homosexuality while trying to help the poor and downtrodden is silenced for a year for his 1981 book Charism and Power by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whom he calls a "religious terrorist"; he later quits the priesthood to become a professor, and toys with ideas about democratizing the Church, then stinks himself up by calling 9/11 "a new planetary and humanistic paradigm"?

In 1985 GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) is founded in New York City by Vito Russo (1946-2011), Jewell Gomez (1948-), and Gregory Kolovakos; in Mar. 2013 it drops the title and just uses the acronym.

In spring 1986 after founding the Stonewell Park Assoc. in 1984, mixed-race gay buds Alfred Parkinson and Fred Schoonmaker( 1942-87) begin soliciting donations for the all-gay Stonewall Park in Oct.. and signing a $2.25M contract in Nov. with Rhyolite, Nye County on the edge of Death Valley (pop. 12K), using an old Union Pacific caboose as their home; too bad, on May 20, 1987 Schoonmaker dies of AIDs, and Parkinson moves to the San Francisco Bay area with his gay husband's ashes, and the all-gay paradise town never materializes.

On June 30, 1986 the U.S. Supreme (Burger) Court rules 5-4 in Bowers v. Hardwick that a Ga. law criminalizing oral and anal sex between private consenting adults is constitutional, with chief justice Warren E. Burger writing the soundbyte: "To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching"; Harry Blackmun dissents based on the right to privacy, with the soundbyte: "That certain, but by no means all, religious groups condemn the behavior at issue gives the State no license to impose their judgments on the entire citizenry. The legitimacy of secular legislation depends, instead, on whether the State can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine"; too bad, the Ga. law also criminalized hetero oral sex.; after the Internet shoves it in everybody's face 24/7, it flip-flops on June 26, 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas with a 6-3 decision - all interfaces are now open for fun?

On Oct. 11, 1987 the Second Nat. March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights AKA The Great March (first on Oct. 14. 1979) sees 200K homosexual/gay rights activists march in Washington, D.C. demanding protection from discrimination and federal money for AIDS research and treatment, becoming the first nat. coverage of AIDS Coalition to Unlease Power (ACT UP) (formed in Mar.); future Dem. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi participates in the march; the AIDS Quilt is displayed for the first time at the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C., containing 1,920 panels; 7K watch 2K same-sex couples being married on the Nat. Mall, becoming known as The Wedding.

Shut yo' mouth or you're outta here, this is the land of the free, as long as you like being unemployed? On Jan. 16, 1988 CBS-TV sports commentator Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder (1919-96), famous for predicting the outcome of 18 of 21 Super Bowls is summarily fired one day after telling a TV reporter in Washington, D.C. that "During the slave period, the slave owner would breed his big black with his big woman so that he would have a big black kid"; this event signals the arrival of the Regime of Political Correctness in the U.S., where the leftist mainly Jewish-controlled media attempt to stifle all free speech by creating an atmosphere where anybody expressing an opinion not in line with their super-liberal agenda of acceptance for integration, racemixing, homosexuality, feminism, affirmative action, and secularization (de-Christianization) of the govt. is open season for any govt. entity, univ., or corporation to fire at will, with the action accepted without question and applauded openly by the media as not to be questioned - actually the horrible boat trip from Africa aboard slave ships already weeded out the weak and left the main pop. ready for prime time?

On Feb. 10, 1988 a 3-gay, er, 3-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco strikes down the Army's ban on homosexuals, saying gays are entitled to the same protection against discrimination as racial minorities; the ruling is later set aside by the full-blown appeals court.

On June 22, 1988 gay rights activist T/Sgt. Leonard Matlovich (b. 1934), recipient of a purple heart and bronze star who was discharged from the USAF and excommunicated from the Mormon Church because of his homosexuality, appeared on the cover of Time mag. in 1975 and became the most famous gay man in the U.S. gives his cause a black eye when he dies of AIDS at age 54 - judged by God too?

In Mar. 1989 English-born Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee (1955-) of CERN in Switzeland invents the World Wide Web (WWW), which starts out as a company-only net called Enquire Within Upon Everything, and is released globally in 1991, based on the HTML (HyperText Mark-Up Language), URLs (universal resource locators), and HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol); the French trans. World Wide Web as "Toile d'Araignee Mondiale"; the Hebrew letter waw is equivalent to 6, so WWW equals 666? - could it have something to do with the Swiss love of fondue? The WWW causes porno to explode globally, for a sea change in sexual awareness about gays and lesbians and everything else.

In July 1983 Mr. Universe Robert Clark "Bob" Paris (1959-) comes out in Ironman mag., becoming the first male pro athlete to come out while still an active competitor; he appears on the Oprah Winfrey Show with his hubby Rod Jackson to come out, ruining his er, business; they break up after seven years together, then in 1996 Paris meets his new hubby Brian LeFurgey, marrying him in Canada in 2003.

On Feb. 8, 1990 CBS-TV suspends 60 Minutes curmudgeonly commentator Andy Rooney (1919-2011) for 3 mo. without pay for anti-gay and anti-black remarks, incl. a Dec. 28 CBS special in which he cited homosexual unions as one of a list of things causing "self-induced" death, a statement in an interview in the gay mag. The Advocate to the effect that blacks had "watered down their genes", and a letter to them in which he said he finds male homosexual acts "repugnant"; after the NAACP backs him, his suspension is lifted in time for the Mar. 5 show.

On Mar. 1, 1990 Martin Luther King III (1957-) (son of MLK Jr.) apologizes for saying that "something may be wrong" with homosexuals, saying that he needs to examine his own feelings.

On May 17, 1990 the World Health Org. (WHO) declassifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, causing annual celebration of the Internat. Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT).

On Sept. 8, 1991 Hollywood actor Robert Creel "Brad" Davis (b. 1949) (memorable for Chariots of Fire and Midnight Express) becomes the first allegedly heterosexual actor to die of AIDS; it later comes out that he was bi - the Gatorade didn't work?

In Dec. 1991 Hollywood actor Mel Gibson (1956-) gives an interview to El Pais mag. in Spain, with the soundbyte: "With this look, who's going to think I'm gay? It would be hard to take me for someone like that. Do I sound like a homosexual? Do I talk like them? Do I move like them?", pissing-off the gay community; he refuses to apologize, telling Playboy in 1995: "I'll apologize when Hell freezes over. They can fuck off."

In 1991 new English Archbishop of Canterbury (1990-2002) George Leonard Carey (1935-) approves a resolution asking for more study of homosexual rights, causing Colo. Bishop William C. Frey to warn that the issue could be a "disaster" for the Anglican Church.

In 1991 after Pittsburgh, Penn.-born gay psychiatrist Richard Alexander Isay (1934-2012) threatens to sue them, the Am. Psychoanalytic Assoc. (APsaA) (founded 1911) changes its position statement on homosexuality and adopts a non-discrimination policy for trainees, and in 1997 becomes the first nat. mental health org. in the U.S. to support same-sex marriage. In 1992 U.S. psychoanalytic institutions agree to promote teachers and supervisors without regard to sexual orientation. In 1996 Isay pub. Becoming Gay: The Journey to Self-Acceptance, promoting the view that homosexuality is inborn, describing a developmental pathway specific to gay men, which is considered a breakthrough.

On Sept. 11, 1993 Roger Spottiswoode's made-for-HBO movie And the Band Played On (produced by Aaron Spelling) debuts, based on the 1987 Randy Shilts book, showing the gay movement objectively as a death style while documenting the monumental efforts of researchers to fight govt. inertia and isolate and identify the Satanic (or Godsent?) HIV virus.

In Sept. 1993 a federal judge tries to bar the new Don't Ask Don't Tell Don't Pursue policy of the U.S. military (effective Dec. 21), prohibiting its members from engaging in homosexual acts or openly declaring themselves gay, while preventing them from bending, er, being asked about their sexual orientation; the U.S. Supreme Court later lifts his injunction - and soldiers in the Navy continue to bring a plate of calamari when they gather around the table?

On Nov. 3, 1993 Colo. Amendment 2 passes in Colo., prohibiting all govt. entities from giving protected status based on homosexuality or bisexuality, which causes a nat. boycott of the "Hate State"; on May 20, 1996 the U.S. Supreme Court by 6-3 rules in Romer v. Evans that it is unconstitutional because of the Equal Protection Clause and because it fails a rational basis review; Justice Antonin Scalia writes the soundbyte: "And the Supreme Court said, 'Yes, it is unconstitutional.' On the basis of - I don't know, the Sexual Preference Clause of the Bill of Rights, presumably. And the liberals loved it, and the conservatives gnashed their teeth."

In July1996 the 2.5M-member Ky.-based Presbyterian Church (USA) in its 208th gen. assembly in Albuquerque, N.M. votes 313-236 (308-213?) to approve a report labeling homosexual practice a sin and declaring against appointing active homosexuals/gays as elders, deacons, or ministers.

On Aug. 16, 1996 41-y.-o. female lezzie USAF major Debra L. Meeks (1955-) is acquitted of charges of sodomy and conduct unbecoming an officer by a 17-member jury at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Tex., becoming the first test of the Clinton admin. "don't ask don't tell" policy for queers - all that comes out of Texas are steers and queers, and I don't see any horns?

On Dec. 3, 1996 Hawaiian judge Kevin Chang rules that the state must issue same-sex marriage licenses, making Hawaii the 1st state.

On Dec. 23, 1993 Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia (the city of brotherly love, get it?) debuts, starring Tom Hanks as able atty. Andrew Beckett, who happens to suck, er, be gay and gets AIDS, causing his firm's homophobic yogurt-joking boss Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards) to fire him, after which he hires married straight black atty. Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) to fight back in court and win one of the Gipper while his partner Miguel Alvarez (Antonio Banderas) cheers from the sidelines and manages to avoid contracting AIDS himself; "Explain it to me like I'm a four-year-old"; features the song Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen; does $74M in the U.S. and $201M worldwide.

On May 20, 1991 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 6-3 in Romer v. Evans to strike down Colo. Amendment 2 nullifying special civil rights protections for homosexuals and barring passage of any future discrimination laws, with the majority calling the provision "grounded in animus", and ruling that it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. On May 22 seven reps. of China's two state-owned arms cos. are arrested by U.S. authorities on charges of smuggling illegal arms into the U.S. which they believe were en route to street gangs.

On July 11, 1996 the 11th Int. AIDS Conference in Vancouver, Canada announces that the HIV virus can be successfully suppressed for significant periods of time with the Triple Cocktail Therapy (perfect name for male homos?), developed by Taiwan-born David Da-i Ho (1952-), who becomes Time mag.'s Man of the Year; the research was made possible by the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, funded by rich former Hollywood scout and real estate developer's wife Irene Diamond (nee Levine) (1911-2003); too bad that it costs as much as $16K a year and requires taking 30-50 pills a day at varying intervals with varying dietary restrictions - call today about our $99 special?

In July 1996 the 2.5M-member Ky.-based Presbyterian Church (USA) in its 208th gen. assembly in Albuquerque, N.M. votes 313-236 (308-213?) to approve a report labeling homosexual practice a sin and declaring against appointing active homosexuals as elders, deacons or ministers.

The Aug. 1996 issue of Journal of Abnormal Psychology contains an article by H.E. Adams, L.W. Wright Jr., and B.A. Lohr claiming that heterosexual men who are homophobic experience homosexual arousal when viewing gay porno.

On Sept. 21, 1996 (1 a.m.) Pres. Clinton signs the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), defining marriage as between one man and one woman, and allowing a state to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage legalized in another state; it passed the House by 85-14 and the Senate by 342-67 after fears that Obamaland Hawaii is about to legalize same-sex marriage; on Mar. 7, 2013 Clinton repents signing the act, saying it should be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1997 the Dot-Com Boom and Bust (Bubble) begins, with new cos. sprouting up and floating stock on little more than a Web site and an angle (ends 2001); despite big bucks invested by dopes, a string of spectacular dot-com flops results, incl. eToys.com, MVP.com (sporting goods), and Go.com (Disney); meanwhile the phenomenal growth of the World Wide Web leads to domain name speculation and instant wealth without needing big investment just by selecting a likely name, e.g., sex.com (sold for $13M in 2010), whitehouse.com, beer.com, pizza.com, and roses.com. For the first time in history, adult (porno) material becomes available for virtually free to the masses worldwide, incl. gay and lesbian, taking the mystery out of what they do, freeing many to begin experimenting while the retro Christian, Muslim and other religious types go nonlinear, attempting to stifle it in vain (until ?).

In 1997 the Am. Psychoanalytic Assoc. (APsaA) (founded 1911) becomes the first nat. mental health org. in the U.S. to support same-sex marriage.

On Apr. 30, 1997 New Orleans, La.-born white blonde comedian Ellen DeGeneres (1954-) comes out on a 1-hour special ed. of her ABC-TV show (1994-7) Ellen (in "The Puppy Episode"), announcing "I'm gay" before an audience of 36M-42M after an Apr. 6 interview with Time mag. where she admits that yes, she's a lesbian, and stopped dating men at age 20 (and has been you know what for 23 years?); Chrysler pulls its ads, but Viacom-Paramount, the Gap, VW and Warner Bros. stay with her; Moral Majority leader Rev. Jerry Falwell steps up to bat and calls her "Ellen Degenerate", then launches a campaign to boycott ABC-TV and its owner Walt Disney (1901-66), and her career almost goes kaput, but after the Hollyweird machine cuts in, she comes, er, returns bigger than ever? - I like uncircumcised clit and that's it?

On Feb. 10, 1998 Maine voters repeal a law barring discrimination against homosexuals.

On Feb. 14, 1998 Stephen Trask (1966-) and John Cameron Mitchell (1963-) debut their musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Jane Street Theatre in New York (857 perf.); dir. by Peter Askin; the rock & roll band The Angry Inch fronted by transgender East German singer Hedwig Robinson AKA Hansel Schmidt, who met GI Luther Robinson AKA Sugar Daddy and underwent a sex change to marry him; too bad, the operation was botched, leaving a 1-in. thing between her legs, "with a scar running down it like a sideways grimace on an eyeless face"; her band follows rock star Tommy Gnosis around the U.S.: the theater is located in the ballroom of the Hotel Riverview, which once housed the surviving crew of the Titanic; filmed in 2001.

On Oct. 12, 1998 21-y.-o. openly gay U. of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard (b. 1976) dies after being severely beaten and left like a scarecrow on a fence by two gay-bashing men; the incident spurs efforts to pass federal anti-gay hate crime legislation, which are blocked for years, incl. the U.S. Matthew Shepard Act in 2007; he was really killed because of a methamphetamine deal by his gay lover, not because he was gay?

In Dec. 1998 Miami-Dade County is kept safe for homosexuals as its county commission passes a law banning discrimination in housing and employment.

In 1998 the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church votes that homosexual practices are "contrary to Scripture"; pro-gay rights bishop Jerry Winterrowd of Colo. votes with the majority, saying the church isn't ready to accept it yet.

In 1998 Lukas Moodysson's Fucking Amal (Show Me Love) debuts, about two Swedish girls going lez with each other, becoming a box office smash in Sweden - the Swedish Brokeback Mountain?

In 1998 Denver, Colo.-born T.L. Winslow (TLW) (1953-) pub. the really cool and deep novel Isn't Jack in Jail? under the alias Hamda Lindleton, showing how lesbianism inevitably takes over the world, becoming the best novel ever written on the subject. Too bad, it only sells about three copies before the publisher goes out of biz. Any major publisher is free to contact me about publishing it.

On Dec. 20, 1999 the Vt. Supreme Court rules that homosexual couples are entitled to the same benefits and protections as wedding couples - maple syrup flows from many kinds of holes?

In 1999 Bruce Bagemihl pub. Biological Exuberance, Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, listing 450 animal species that are known for males mounting males - and how many penetrate the anus and ejaculate semen or perform fellatio, but true, all perform cunnilingus and anal licking, or am I just jealous?

In 2000 Netherlands legalizes prostitution, allowing hos to own windows in Amsterdam's Red Light District and pay taxes on their earnings; it also legalizes same-sex marriage. On Apr. 25, 2000 Vt. approves civil same-sex unions. On Apr. 28-30, 2000 the Millennium March on Washington in suport of LGBT rights in Washington, D.C. is attended by 200K-1M, and incl. the Equality Rocks Concert, featuring Melissa Etheridge, k.d. lang, George Michael, Pet Shop Boys, and Garth Brooks. On June 21, 2000 the Scottish parliament votes 99-17 to scrap Section 28, a law preventing the promotion of homosexuality - men wearing skirts jokes here?

In 2001 among the zillions of other porno sites on the Web, the unique Australian Web site Abby Winters starts up, showing a future where every young woman is a happy guilt-free uninhibited naked active lesbian; are thousands of years of male supremacist religious control really about over?; when will Australian schools for girls start teaching them girl-girl sex as part of the curriculum?; men are how far from becoming obsolete, stay tuned while putting your quarters in the slot? - a new meaning to Down Under?

On June 24, 2002 the first sperm bank for lesbians is launched in the U.K. - baggies, not bags?

On June 26, 2003 the U.S. (Rehnquist) Supreme Court rules 6-3 in Lawrence v. Tex. that states can't enforce sodomy (gay sex) laws because they violate the Constitutional right to privacy first invented, er, enunciated in Griswold v. Conn. (1965), overturning Bowers v. Hardwick (1986); "The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime" (Anthony Kennedy) - so you like English muffins?

On Nov. 18, 2003 the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court rules 4-3 in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health that the state constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry, and the stampede to the courthouse steps for happy brides and brides and grooms and grooms begins starting Jan. 1, 2004, becoming the first state court decision giving same-sex couples the right to marry - there is no Big C difference between face and ass in Mass.?

On Mar. 3, 2004 the first same-sex marriage licenses are issued in Multnomah County, Ore., starting an successful political battle to amend the Ore. constitution to prohibit it.

On June 26, 2004 Paul Etheredge-Ouzts' HellBent debuts, billing itself as the first gay slasher film.

On Nov. 2, 2004 (Tue.) the 2004 U.S. Pres. Election sees the "compassionate conservatism" campaign by incumbent pres. George W. "Dubya" Bush and running mate Dick Cheney pay off with a high voter turnout (60% of the electorate voting, most since 1968), getting reelected by 51% to 48%, capturing the Solid South and the heartland states, with the swing states of Ohio, Mich., and Fla. going for him, and only Penn. going for Kerry, the first Roman Catholic pres. candidate since 1960, who garners less Catholic votes than the Methodist Bush, and fares worse with them than Gore did in 2000; Hispanic voters (8% of the electorate, up from 6% in 2000) give Bush 44% of their vote, up from 35% in 2000; millions of pre-Brokeback Mountain Billy Bobs in the heartland states who never voted in past elections wait in line for hours to vote against the perceived threat of Kerry of legalizing gay marriage, ensuring straight Billy Bob Bush's election; 11 states pass constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, and Kerry's opposition to a federal constitutional ban is blamed for uniting many religious denominations behind Bush, although Bush garners 20% of the gay vote also.

On Nov. 2, 2004 Utah Constitutional Amendment 3 is passed, defining marriage as the legal union between a man and a woman; on Dec. 20, 2013 it is ruled unconstitutinal by Judge Robert J. Shelby of the U.S. District Court for Utah.

On Nov. 18, 2004 the U.K. Civil Partnership Act of 2004 is given royal assent, creating parallel rights to married couples; full same-sex marriage is legalized in ? In Dec. 2004 New Zealand legalizes same-sex unions.

On Jan. 10, 2005 Pope John Paul II puts lobbying against same-sex marriage at the top of the Vatican's agenda for the year; also on the anti-list are abortion, cloning, assisted procreation, and embryonic stem cell use. On Jan. 19 in Tampa, Fla. U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. issues the first-ever ruling upholding the federal law letting states ban same-sex marriages, dismissing a lawsuit by two women seeking to have their Mass. marriage recognized in Fla. - well blow me down? On Feb. 14 Maya Jeane Marcel-Keyes (1985-), daughter of conservative black politician Alan Keyes comes out as a "liberal queer" at a rally sponsored by the gay rights group Equality Maryland. On Apr. 13 Conn. becomes the 2nd U.S. state to legalize same-sex civil unions, and the first to do it without a court order; marriage is still legally defined as being between one man and one woman - but I just have to do it even if it's illegal? On July 4 the United Church of Christ votes by 80% to endorse same-sex marriage, making it the largest Christian denomination to do so (until ?). On Sept. 29 Repub. Calif. Gov. Ahnuld (Arnold Schwarzenegger) fulfills a campaign and vetoes a bill attempting to legalize same-sex marriages - don't be a girlie man?

In Oct. 2005 WNBA basketball star Sheryl Swoopes comes out as a lesbian after divorcing her hubby with whom she had a child, announcing a relationship with Comets asst. coach Alisa Scott; in 2011 she gets engaged to a man, Chris Unclesho, and marries him.

I'm too sexy for my Volvo? On Dec. 19, 2005 lezzies Shannon Sickels of Northern Ireland and Grainne Close of New York City become the first gay couple in the U.K. to legally form a civil partnership in Belfast, as North Ireland, the last region of the U.K. to legalize homosexuality (1982) becomes the first to legalize same-sex partnerships; Scotland follows its lead on Dec. 20, and England and Wales on Dec. 21; Denmark was the first country (1989), and by now Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden permit them.

On Dec. 21, 2005 singer Sir Elton John (1947-) weds his male partner of 12 years, Canadian ad man David Furnish (1962-) in the 17th cent. Windsor Town Hall (where Prince Charles and Camilla got married in Apr.) after Britain's civil partnership law takes effect, along with hundreds of same-sex couples; the wedding reception at Elton John's Windsor mansion for 700 guests incl. George Michaels, Donatella Versace, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, and Posh Spice Girl Victoria Beckham costs $1.75M.

Two big thumbs up? The Holy Grail of Social Engineering Pictures is launched by Hollyweird in Oh-nly-Six? On Dec. 9, 2005 Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana based on an Oct. 13, 1997 New Yorker short story by Annie Proulx is about two 1963 sheep cowboys, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Wyo., who go gay and do the bob-and-weave (and bareback?) in high altitude in secret, causing sperm o flow like champagne, after which they separate and marry straight women Alma (Mont.-born Michelle Williams) (Ennis) and Laureen (Anne Hathaway) (Jack); too bad, "this thing gets hold of them again" and they continue to meet once a year for 20 sperm-filled years, fighting the feelings of missed same-sex marital bliss (not just fast food that melts in your mouth?) to the hauntingly sterile "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" as yet more sperm flows, but not in chicks, because it's a dick flick, although not a single one is seen; grosses only $83M in the U.S. despite the ploy of using non-gay actors to keep audiences from getting the feeling they're in a gay movie house, where male-male marriage is a 4-letter word?; in real life Heath Ledger (1979-2008) falls in love on the set with Michelle Williams (1980-), and they marry and have daughter Matilda on Oct. 28, 2005 - one could substitute a man and a boy, two women, a woman and a girl, a father and his son, etc., and the values stay free-floating - welcome to the 21st century of sin is in?

On Feb. 7, 2007 Boston, Mass.-born English-raised African-Am. retired former NBA player John Uzoma Ekwugha Amaechi (1970-) announces that he's gay, causing fellow Chicago-born African-Am. player Timothy Duane "Tim" Hardaway (1966-) to comment during a Feb. 14 interview with a sports radio show in Miami, Fla. that he would try to keep an arm's, er, distance himself from a gay player, with the soundbyte: "Well, you know I hate gay people, so I let it be known I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States", adding that he if he found he had a gay teammate he would try to get them fired, bringing out the PC police, which by this time incl. criticism from straights, with Shaquille O'Neal saying that anybody who wants to 'get' a gay player will have to go through him first, causing him to flop and apologize the same day, and make amends forever after?

On Nov. 4, 2008 after enthusiastic support by the LDS Church, whose members contribute $20M, along with the Roman Catholic Church, Calif. Proposition 8 is passed by 52.2%-47.8%, making same-sex marriage illegal, invalidating 18K marriages made over 4 mo. and causing protests to begin; after a court challenge, on May 26, 2009 the Calif. Supreme Court rules the proposition constitutional but lets the marriages stand because it didn't explicitly nullify them; in Aug. 2010 federal judge Vaughn Walker rules the amendment unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.

As smooth as a baby's behind? On Apr. 19, 2009 Donald Trump's Miss USA 2009 (58th) Pageant at the Theatre for the Performing Arts in Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev. (known for not promoting tons of non-whites over the heads of whites but being mostly fair, until now?) is won by blonde-blue Miss N.C. Kristen Jeannine Dalton (1986-) (not to be confused with the redheaded actress Kristen Dalton, b. 1966) after gorgeous blonde-blue Miss Calif. Caroline Michelle "Carrie" Prejean (1987-) (a Bible-believing Creationist) honestly answers a question about same-sex marriage by ugly bigmouth gay celeb Perez Hilton (1978-), saying "I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there", after which Hilton gives away that he voted her down for her beliefs, calling her answer "the worst answer in pageant history", and adding on his blog "She lost not because she doesn't believe in gay marriage, she lost because she's a dumb bitch" (duh, like him?); on Apr. 21 Repub. state rep. (since 2002) Jay Love (1968-) introduces a resolution to the Ala. legislature to praise Prejean for standing by her beliefs; the gays then begin a systematic harassment campaign, announcing that she had breast implants and dredging up old photos to use against her, but Donald Trump intervenes, allowing her to keep her crown; meanwhile the U.S. liberal media takes to calling her comments "controversial"; too bad, after the heat dies down, Trump fires her anyway on June 10 on er, trumped-up excuses.

On Apr. 29, 2009 the U.S. House by 249-175 passes the U.S. Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, giving special federal protection to gays and providing state and local authorities with federal funds; a weaker bill died two years ago under a veto threat by Pres. Bush; the bill was spurred by the 1998 killing of Wyo. college student Matthew Shepard; in the wrong hands it could be used to put people on trial for their beliefs and org. memberships?; too bad, it is snuck through the House on Oct. 8 in a defense authorization bill, passing by 281-146, and passed 68-29 by the Senate on Oct. 22, then signed by Pres. Obama on Oct. 28.

On Oct. 10, 2009 Pres. Obama appears at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington, D.C. and renews his pledge to end the military's ban on openly gay service members, with the soundbyte: "You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman"; on Oct. 11 (Nat. Coming Out Day) (11th anniv. of the murder of Matthew Shepard) the Nat. Equality March in Washington, D.C. (first in the city since the 2000 Millennium March) sees hundreds of thousands march for across-the-board equal federal protection for LGBTs throughout the U.S.

On Dec. 12, 2009 Houston, Tex. elects its first openly gay mayor Annise Danette Parker (1956-); she is sworn-in as Houston mayor #61 on Jan. 2, 2010 (until Jan. 2, 2016).

On Dec. 25, 2010 white gay couple Steven Adams and Kevin Powell are murdered in their home Wilton Manors, Fla. by white convicted felon Peter Avsenew (1984-), who is turned in by his mother, writes the soundbyte: "It is my duty as a white man to cull the weak and timid from existence. I will always stand up for what I believe in and eradicate anything in my way. Homosexuals are a disgrace to mankind and must be put down. These weren't the first and won't be the last. I must secure an existance (sic) for white people and a future for white children. I regret nothing and am proud of every choice I've made in my life... I will not ask for mercy and am not sorry"; in June 2018 he utters the soundbyte: "I have no consequences for my actions. I plan on hurting people... I wholeheartedly have nothing to lose, and I’m going to take it out on everybody I can"; on Aug. 28, 2018 he is sentenced to death, and gives the victims' family the middle finger.

On Jan. 26, 2013 Kathleen O'Day Wynne (1953-) becomes leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, followed on Feb. 11 by PM #25 of Ontario (until ?), becoming the first openly gay head of govt. in Canada.

On Feb. 1, 2009 Social Dem. Johanna Sigurdardottir (1942-), known for the slogan "My time will come" becomes PM of Iceland (until May 23, 2013), becoming the first female and first gay/lez. On Apr. 3 the Iowa Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage, licking the marital problem of Trish Varnum (1975-) and Kate Varnum (1966-).

On Dec. 4, 2009 Episcopalians in Los Angles, Calif. elect openly lesbian bishop Mary Douglas Glasspool (1954-), who becomes the first since Gene Robinson of N.H. in 2004.

On Jan. 8, 2010 Portugal legalizes same-sex marriages, but still won't allow gay couples to adopt. On Feb. 11 Gordon D. Fox (1961-) (D-R.I.) becomes the first openly gay house speaker in the U.S. On Mar. 3 same-sex marriage becomes legal in Washington, D.C., becoming #6 after Conn., Iowa, Mass., N.H., and Vt. On Mar. 11 six same-sex couples (4 women, 8 men) marry in Mexico City under the first law in Latin Am. allowing it; the thousandth same-sex marriage is performed on Aug. 15, 2011, 548 male, 452 women, 6% foreigners, 85% between partners age 31+. On Apr. 15 Pres. Obama signs an executive order to the Dept. of Health ending discrimination in hospital visitation and power of atty. against same-sex partners. In May Nepal census takers recognize a "third gender" for gay and transgender people; they decriminalized gay sex in 2008. On July 8 a federal judge in Mass. strikes down as unconstitutional the 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act that blocks the federal govt. from recognizing same-sex marriage.

On May 3, 2010 Chely Wright (1970-) releases album #37 Lifted Off the Ground, becoming the first major country music artist to come out as gay. On June 22 Hillary Clinton attends a Gay Pride Month celebration, and encourages U.S. State Dept. employees to let their teenie kids know that it's okay to be gay. On Sept. 22 an appeals court in Miami, Fla. rules 3-0 that the 33-y.-o. Fla. law banning adoption by gays and lesbians is unconstitutional; the Fla. supreme court will rule next. On Sept. 22 18-y.-o. Rutgers U. student Tyler Clementi (b. 1991) commits suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge in New York City after a video of him having sex with a dude is put on the Internet by roommate Dharun Ravi. On Sept. 24 lesbian USAF flight nurse Maj. Margaret Witt is ordered reinstated by a federal judge, making her the first openly gay U.S. military member and challenging the Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy; on Oct. 12 U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips of Riverside, Calif. suspends enforcement of the DADT policy after a lawsuit by gay GOP grop Log Cabin Repubs., requiring the govt. to appeal to reinstate it; meanwhile on Oct. 19 they announce that they will begin admitting openly gay recruits, subject to a court reversal. On Dec. 22 Pres. Obama signs the 2010 U.S. Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act.

On Feb. 25, 2011 Pres. Obama names Jeremy Bernard as the first openly gay White House social secy. On Mar. 2 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 8-1 in Snyder v. Phelps that protests by the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. at military funerals where they shout that God is killing U.S. soldiers to punish the U.S. for homosexuality are constitionally protected, trumping a jury verdict that they're offensive; Samuel Alito is the lone dissenter, saying a family has a right to bury their dead sons in peace. On Mar. 18 an ABC News - Washington Post Poll finds that for the first time over 50% (53%) of Americans say it should be legal for gays and lesbians to marry; in 2004 it was 32%; 44% are opposed, vs. 62% in 2004. On May 9 the U.S. Navy announces that it will soon authorize chaplains to perform same-sex marriages in Navy chapels; on May 11 after howls from Congress, it suspends the idea. In May Taiga Ishikawa of Tokyo's Toshima ward becomes the first openly gay political office holder in modern Japan. In June the first Christian-Muslim gay marriage in the Nordic countries sees Knut Egil Asprusten (1967-) and Kaltham Alexander Lie (1962-) get hitched in Oslo, Norway. On July 14 Calif. gov. Jerry Brown signs a controversial law requiring public schools to teach gay history in social studies classes - this in a nation of history ignoramuses? On July 24 the state of N.Y. allows the first same-sex couples to marry, with New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg officiating the wedding of staff members Jonathan Mintz and John Feinblatt along with their two daughters Georgia and Maeve - watch where you kiss me? On Sept. 30 the Pentagon announces that military chaplains may perform same-sex weddings, even in states where it is illegal, causing U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) to say that the Obama admin. is "bordering on lawlessness"; meanwhile on Oct. 3 White House press secy. Jay Carney dodges a question about a letter written by U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pres. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who wrote Obama in late Sept. warning him that his Justice Dept.'s argument that federal courts should hold that opposing same-sex marriage is the legal equivalent of racial discrimination will precipitate an enormous nat. conflict between church and state. On Dec. 1 the U.S. Senate votes 93-7 to pass the $662B U.S. Nat. Defense Authorization Act despite Obama's threat to veto it over a provision mandating military custody of any suspected terrorist caught on U.S. soil; the U.S. Senate votes 45-55 to reject an amendment by Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would have excluded U.S. citizens from indefinite detention after being captured on or off U.S. soil; the Defense Authorization Bill incl. a provision repealing the military prohibition on sodomy and bestiality; another amendment allows military chaplains to decline to perform same-sex marriages; on Dec. 15 (Bill of Rights Day) after Pres. Obama drops his veto threat, the U.S. Senate passes it by 86-13.

On Feb. 1, 2012 the state senate of Wash. state legalizes same-sex marriage, and gov. Christine Gregoire signs it on Feb. 13. On Feb. 13 the senate of N.J. legalizes same-sex marriages by a 24-16 vote. On Mar. 1 Md. gov. Martin O'Malley signs a law legalizing same-sex marriage in Md. On May 8 (Tues.) N.C. by 61%-39% approves a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. On May 9 Pres. Obama flip-flops and comes out in support of same-sex marriage, very gay of him, hard to imagine a closet Muslim now except the gay kind of closet; maybe this proves he's really a New Ager. On May 18 Am. psychiatrist Robert Leopold Spitzer (1932-) apologizes for for his "fatally flawed" 2001 study that claimed that gays could be "cured". In July 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colo. Civil Rights Commission begins when same-sex couple Charlie Craig and David Mullins order a custom wedding cake from Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver, Colo., and Christian anti-gay owner Jack Phillips refuses their business because of their sexuality, and they decline to seek another cake shop, instead going straight to the Colo. Civil Rights Commission, which comes down on the shop bigtime, showering them with bureaucratic demands, causing Phillips to fight back in court while threatening to go out of biz rather than comply; on Dec. 5, 2017 the U.S. Supreme Court takes oral arguments.

On Jan. 21, 2013 Pres. Obama's 2nd Inaguration Speech makes the first-ever mention of gay rights. On Jan. 30 "Gomer Pyle" actor-singer Jim Nabors announces that he's gay, and married his partner of 38 years Stan Cadwallader on Jan. 15.

On Feb. 5, 2013 the British House of Commons by 400-175 approves same-sex marriage; over half of Conservative Party MPs vote against it or abstain.

On Mar. 15, 2013 after learning that his son is gay, Ohio Repub. Sen. (2011-) Robert Jones "Rob" Portman (1955-) announces that he's flopped about marriage of same-sex couples, and believes that the govt. "shouldn't deny" them the right, becoming the first Repub. Sen. to support gay marriage. On Mar. 18 former secy. of state Hillary Rodham Clinton announces that she now supports same-sex marriage; her hubby Bill Clinton already endorsed it while she was serving in Pres. Obama's cabinet after Chelsea talked him into it. On Mar. 27 Hilde Raastad, Norway's first pastor (since 1997) (a Lutheran) quits over the "exclusionary" church; church and state were officially separated in 2012; same-sex marriage was legalized in 2009; ordination of gays was officially authorized in 2007.

On Apr. 4, 2013 topless feminists stage anti-Islamist oppression rallies in front of mosques and Tunisian embassies in Berlin, Germany and across Europe, protesting Islamist crackdowns on Arab women's rights.

On Apr. 11, 2013 Uruguay legalizes same-sex marriage, making it #3 in America after Canada and Argentina. On Apr. 17 New Zealand becomes the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. On Apr. 23 France becomes country #14 to legalize same-sex marriage.

On Apr. 29, 2013 the May 6 issue of Sports Illustrated mag. carries a cover of Jason Paul Collins (1978-), 7'0" center for the NBA Washington Wizards, who becomes the first openly gay prof. athlete in North Am.

On May 2, 2013 Rhode Island becomes state #10 to legalize same-sex marriage. On May 21 the Peace Corps allows gay couples to volunteer together. On May 23 the Boy Scouts of Am. opens its ranks to gay Scouts but not scout leaders. On May 23 a court in Ukraine bans Ukraine's first-ever gay pride rally. On May 29 Vincent Aubin and Bruno Boileau take part in the first same-sex wedding ceremony in France in Montpellier amid massive protests, making France country #14 to permit same-sex marriage. On May 31 R. Guy Erwin becomes the first gay priest in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Am., becoming the 2nd denomination after the Episcopal Church. In May Pakistan-born students Rehana Kausar (1978-) and Sobia Kamar (1983-) become the first Muslim lesbians to wed in the U.K.

On June 10, 2013 Pres. Obama names Daniel Baer as U.S. ambassador to the Org. for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, becoming the first open homosexual U.S. ambassador to a multilaterial inst.; he follows by naming four more openly homosexual foreign ambassadors within a week, making eight. On June 11 by 436-0 Russia passes a law banning "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors, incl. any that tries to equate straight and gay relationships, along with material on gay rights. On June 18 the Russian Duma votes overwhelmingly to ban gay adoption for couples abroad, and for singles living in countries where same-sex marriage is legal. On June 20 Del. gov. Jack Markell signs the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Act, giving equal protection to transgender people. On June 24 the Am. Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) releases a policy statement recommending pediatricians to create offices that are "teen-friendly and welcoming to all adolescents, regardless of sexual orientation or behavior", and to do more to fight "heterosexism" and "homophobia".

A new meaning for "to have and to hold" in America? On June 26, 2013 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in U.S. v. Windsor to strike down the 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) for violating the Fifth Amendment by depriving people of equal liberty, meaning that legally married (in their state) gay married couples can't be treated differently than legally married straight couples by the federal govt.; John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Bryer, and Elena Kagan are opposed by Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Sonia Sotomayor; John Roberts writes for the majority that the private proponents of Calif. Proposition 8 don't have standing to defend the measure in federal courts, but that same-sex couples are entitled to federal benefits; Anthony Kennedy writes the soundbyte that DOMA "violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the federal government", and calls it "an intrusion on states' traditional role defining marriage", adding "DOMA undermines both the public and private significance of state-sanctioned same-sex marriages, for it tells those couples, and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition"; Pres. Obama calls DOMA "discrimination enshrined in law", uttering the soundbyte: "It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it. We are a people who declared that we are all created equal, and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well"; Obama announces that he has directed his admin. to "review all relevant federal statutes to ensure this decision, including its implications for federal benefits and obligations, is implemented swiftly and smoothly", adding "The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free"; he calls the plaintiffs in the Calif. Proposition 8 case from Air Force One en route to Senegal to congratulate them, with the soundbyte: "It's because of your leadership things are heading the right way." On June 28 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down DOMA, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifts its stay on same-sex marriage, making Calif. state #11, causing a rush of applications.

On July 1, 2013 Del. becomes state #12 to legalize same-sex marriage. On July 1 DHS head Janet Napolitano issues a directive ordering the U.S. Immigration Service to consider same-sex visa petitions. On July 6 90+ gay Girl Scouts and their families march in the San Francisco, Calif. Gay Pride Parade for the first time ever. On July 7 Benjamin Medrano (1966-) is elected mayor of Fresnillo, Zacatecas, becoming Mexico's first openly gay elected mayor. On July 12 gay men hold protests in 52 U.S. cities calling for an end to the FDA's gay blood bank ban. On July 25 Pope Francis kicks off World Youth Day at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; on July 28 (a.m.) he addresses 3M at a final Mass at Copacabana Beach, and utters the soundbyte "Who am I to judge a gay person?" to reporters on the plane back to Rome, er, "If a person is gay and accepts the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge them?", adding that this only applies if they don't engage in active homosexuality, adding "The tendency is not the problem... they're our brothers." On July 26 U.S. federal election regulators vote to treat political contributions from same-sex couples the same way as married hetero couples.

On Aug. 1, 2013 Minn. becomes state #13 to legalize same-sex marriage. On Aug. 8 Pres. Obama posth. awards the Pres. Medal of Freedom to black gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin (1912-87). On Aug. 12 Calif. gov. Jerry Brown signs a law ordering public schools to accomodate transgender students, incl. use of bathrooms, effective Jan. 1, affecting 6.2M students. On Aug. 14 WWE wrestler Darren Young (Fredrick Douglas "Fred" Rosser) (1983-) becomes the first prof. wrestler to come out as gay. On Aug. 29 the U.S. Treasury Dept. announces that legally-married same-sex couples must file jointly, and may request refunds back to 2010.

On Oct. 21, 2013 N.J. gov. Chris Christie drops the appeal, making N.J. state #14 to allow same-sex marriage - the sound of a unisex hand clapping?

On Nov. 5, 2013 the house of reps in Ill. votes 61-54 to legalize same-sex marriage, with lawmakers citing Pope Francis' recent comments in support; on Nov. 20 Dem. Gov. Pat Quinn signs it, making Ill. state #16. On Nov. 12 the senate of Hawaii votes to legalize same-sex marriage, making Hawaii state #15; after being signed by Gov. Neil Abercrombie on Nov. 13, it takes effect Dec. 2, with Pres. Obama uttering the soundbyte that the move "exemplifies the values we hold dear as a nation." In Nov. 2013 Germany becomes the first country in Europe to allow parents to opt out of determining their baby's gender with an indeterminate gender designation for birth certificates.

On Dec. 11, 2013 the supreme court of India reinstates a colonial-era law criminalizing homosexuality, pissing-off multitudes of gays and non-gays. On Dec. 19 the Supreme Court of N.M. legalizes same-sex marriage, making it state #16.

On Dec. 18, 2013 Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson is suspended by A&E for voicing his opinion that homosexuality is a sin; the work of GLAAD? On Dec. 19 the Supreme Court of N.M. legalizes same-sex marriage, making it state #17. On Dec. 20 a judge in Utah strikes down the state's same-sex marriage ban, making it state #18; on Jan. 6, 2014 the Utah Supreme Court halts the granting of same-sex marriages pending review by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. In Dec. the gay mag. The Advocate names Pope Francis its Person of the Year.

In 2013 Israel erects a Monument to Gay Holocaust Victims.

On Jan. 1, 2014 the Boy Scouts of Am. begin accepting gay youths. On Jan. 1 the 2014 Rose Bowl sees Michigan State defeat Stanford 24-20; the 2014 Rose Parade contains a gay marriage float that features Aubrey Loots and Danny Leclair getting hitched. On Jan. 2 German environment minister Barbara Hendricks becomes the first German lesbian cabinet minister to come out. On Jan. 8 Thomas Hitzlsperger (1982-) of Germany becomes the first prominent prof. soccer player to come out as gay. On Jan. 14 Nigerian pres. Jonathan Goodluck signs a law giving up to 14-year prison sentences for homosexuality and banning same-sex marriages, causing U.S. secy. of state John Kerry to utter the soundbyte that the U.S. is "deeply concerned". On Jan. 19 (Sun.) Russian pres. Vladimir Putin utters the soundbyte that the way Russians love Elton John proves they don't discriminate against gays, saying "People have different sexual orientation. We will welcome all athletes and all guests of the Olympics", telling other reporters: "We do not have a ban on non-traditional sexual relationships. We have a ban on the propaganda of homosexuality and paedophilia. I want to underline this. Propaganda among children. These are absolutely different things, a ban on something or a ban on the propaganda of that thing... We are not forbidding anything and nobody is being grabbed off the street, and there is no punishment for such kinds of relations. You can feel relaxed and calm [in Russia], but leave children alone please"; meanwhile Elton John performs in Beijing, shocking the audience by announcing that he's dedicating his performance to dissident Ai Weiwei.

On Feb. 8, 2014 U.S. atty. gen. Eric Holder announces that the U.S. Justice Dept. will vigorously enforce same-sex marriage rights on a level with hetero marriages, and on Feb. 24 tells state attys. gen. to fall in line regardless of state laws; on Feb. 25 the Coalition of African-Am. Pastors calls for him impeachment for violating his oath of office by trying "to coerce states to fall in line with the same-sex 'marriage' agenda." On Feb. 9 Mo. Tigers defensive lineman Michael Sam announces his homosexuality on Twitter, becoming the first openly gay NFL draft pick on May 10, by the St. Louis er, Rams, weeping and kissing his white boyfriend on TV. On Feb. 23 basketball center Jason Paul Collins (1978-) becomes the first openly gay athlete in North Am. pro sports, signing with the New York Nets of the NBA for a 10-day contract, then getting two rebounds in a 108-102 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On Feb. 24 Ugandan pres. Yoweri Museveni signs a harsh anti-gay law that gives out sentences of up to life in priz for sucking er, and drinking er, homosexuality, pissing-off the Obama admin., with secy. of state John Kerry calling it "a tragic day for Uganda and for all who care about the cause of human rights", announcing "an internal review of our relationship with the government of Uganda"; on Feb. 25 the Ugandan newspaper Red Pepper pub. a list of the Uganda's "200 top homosexuals", outing several incl. a Roman Catholic priest. On Feb. 26 after intense pressure by the PC establishment, Ariz. Gov. Jan Brewer vetoes the Senate Bill 1062 ("the Religious-Freedom Bill"), which would have allowed businesses to refuse to serve gays on religious grounds.

On Mar. 13, 2014 New York rapper Le1f (Khalif Diouf) becomes the first openly gay rapper to perform on a late night TV show when he debuts on the Late Show with David Letterman. On Mar. 22 Glenna DeJong (53) and Marsha Caspar of Lansing become the first gay couple to marry in Mich. one day after the 2004 landslide ban was overturned by a federal judge. On Mar. 26 (midnight) same-sex marriage becomes legal in the U.K. (England and Wales).

On Apr. 2, 2014 during March Madness UMass guard Derrick Gordon comes out, becoming the first openly gay male athlete in NCAA Div. 1 basketball. On Apr. 3 Brendan Eich (1961-), creator of JavaScript steps down as CEO of Mozilla after online dating service OKCupid urges a boycott because he donated $1K to support Proposition 8 in 2008 that opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage in Calif., which passed by a slim majority after pres. candidate Barack Obama came out in support. On Apr. 15 India's supreme court issues a landmark ruling recognizing transgender rights as human rights, giving them the right to identify themselves as a third gender on official documents.

On May 11, 2014 U.S. defense secy. Chuck Hagel gives an interview to ABC-TV's "This Week", saying that the prohibition on transgender people in the U.S. military should be "continually" reviewed, floating the possibility with "I'm open to that." On May 13 U.S. judge Candy Dale rules that Idaho's 2006 same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional; Repub. Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter vows to appeal. On May 19 U.S. district judge Michael J. Shane strikes down the 2004 marriage amendment in Ore., saying that it has no "rationally related government purpose"; on May 20 U.S. district judge John E. Jones III strikes down the 1996 marriage law in Penn., with the soundbyte: "We are a better people than what these laws represent. It is time to discard them into the ash heap of history". On May 21 (eve.) gay buds Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) get married on an episode of the ABC-TV sitcom Modern Family. On May 28 the city council of Houston, Tex. pass an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. On May 30 Pres. Obama issues a proclamation declaring June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month; meanwhile speaking outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City, U.S. interior secy. Sally Jewell announces that the Nat. Park Service will begin marking places of significance for LGBT Americans to mark their contributions to er, history.

On June 7, 2014 (Sat.) the first-ever U.S. military color guard marches in the gay pride parade in Washington, D.C.. On June 10 the U.S. ambassador to Israel hoists a gay pride flag over the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv for the first time ever. On June 12 U.S. Sen. (D-Ma.) Ed Markey introduces the Internat. Human Rights Defense Act of 2014, to establish a special envoy at the U.S. State Dept. to coordinate America's "global response" on LGBT issues and to allow LGBT persons "who have a well-founded fear of persecution... to seek protection in the United States." On June 19 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry issues a soundbyte that the U.S. govt. recognizes same-sex marriages of foreign diplomats, and expects all other countries to follow suit, calling any effort to deny visas for gays "discriminatory... unacceptable... no place in the 21st century." On June 20 Pres. Obama issues an executive order granting the same benefits to same-sex couples as hetero couples, incl. in the majority of states where gay marriage is still against the law. On June 22 (Sun.) Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge becomes the first openly transgender priest to deliver a sermon from the Canterbury Pulpit at the Nat. Cathedral in Washington, D.C.; presiding over the service is the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Right Rev. Gene Robinson - Sodom and Gomorrah jokes here? On June 25 the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colo. rules regarding a Utah case that states can't prevent same-sex marriages, causing Boulder, Colo. county clerk Hillary Hall to begin issuing marriage licenses, pissing-off Repub. Colo. atty. gen. John Suthers, who sends her a letter ordering her to stop without specifying consequences; on July 1 six gay couples file a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Colo. gay marriage ban.

On July 1, 2014 federal judge John G. Heyburn II strikes down the ban on same-sex marriage in Ky., with the soundbyte: "In America, even sincere and long-held religious beliefs do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been outvoted", dissing Ky. Dem. Gov. Steve Beshear for arguing that the ban preserves the state's birth rate and contributes to economic stability, with the soundbyte "These arguments are not those of serious people." On July 21 Pres. Obama signs an executive order prohibiting discrimination against LGBT employees working for the federal govt. or its contractors.

On Sept. 2, 2014 the first same-sex marriage in Turkey hitches Ekin Keser and Emrullah Tuzun. On Sept. 3 U.S. District Judge Martin L.c. Feldman upholds the same-sex marriage ban (by a 78% vote) in La., calling the concept "inconceivable until very recently". On Sept. 4 the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals issues a ruling that the same-sex marriage bans in Wisc. and Ind. are unconstitutional; meanwhile 31 states ask the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the issue. On Sept. 22 Calif. gov. Jerry Brown signs a law that deletes the terms "husband" and "wife" from the state marriage law, and substitutes "spouse" in order to accommodate same-sex marriages. On Oct. 6 (Mon.) the U.S. Supreme Court begins its session, promptly denying seven petitions regarding same-sex marriages, allowing them to to proceed in five states incl. Va. On Oct. 12 U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Burgess strikes down the same-sex marriage ban in Alaska, calling the legislature's actions "irrational". On Oct. 17 Ariz. and Alaska become U.S. states #30 and #31 to recognize same-sex marriage. On Oct. 18 Roman Catholic bishop in the Vatican scrap a landmark welcome to gays after breaking ranks with Pope Francis. On Oct. 21 a judge upholds the same-sex marriage ban in Puerto Rico.

On Nov. 4, 2014 U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree rules that the same-sex marriage ban in Kan. is unconstitutional, citing the 10th Circuit and Supreme Court. On Nov. 20 Am. country music star Ty Herndon (1962-) comes out as gay, followed hours later by country singer Billy Gilman (1988-). On Dec. 23 the U.S. FDA announces that it's lifting its 31-y.-o. ban on gays donating blood as long as they haven't sucked, er, had sex for one year.

On Jan. 12, 2015 U.S. District Court Judge Karen E. Schreier overturns the same-sex marriage ban in S.D. On Jan. 15 a federal judge orders Mich. to recognize 300+ same-sex marriages performed during a 1-day window of opportunity 10 mo. earlier. On Jan. 18 (Sun.) Tom Lanting (34) and Iain Robertson (39) hold the first pagan same-sex marriage in the U.K. in Marlin's Wynd, Edinburgh.

On Feb. 3, 2015 Los Angeles, Calif.-born TV broadcaster Robert "Bob" "Zoey" Tur (1960-) (inventor of the TV news helicopter) is hired by Inside Edition, becoming the first transgender TV reporter.

On Feb. 18, 2015 Ore. Gov. John Kitzhaber resigns over allegations of misconduct by fiancee Cylvia Hayes, allowing Katherine "Kate" Brown (1960-) to become gov. of Ore. (until ?), becoming the first openly bisexual U.S. state gov., and in 2016 the highest-ranking bisexual elected official in the U.S.

On Mar. 1, 2015 Psychology Today announces that it will no longer carry ads for gay conversion therapy, and is deleting medical practitioners whose profile lists such therapy. On Mar. 3 Rev. Ann Kansfield (1975-) becomes the first female and first openly gay chaplain in the New York Fire Dept. On Mar. 8 Pope Francis demotes ultraconservative Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, the highest-ranking U.S. cardinal in the Vatican for his stance against homosexuality. On Mar. 15 gay fashionistas Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana give an interview to Italian mag. Panorama, expressing support for the traditional hetero family, calling IVF children "synthetic" and claiming that Nature "should not be changed."

On Apr. 14, 2015 Chilean pres. Michelle Bachelet signs a same-sex marriage law, to come into effect in Oct., recognizing civil unions but not full marriage rights like in Argentina and Uruguay.

On May 23, 2015 Ireland votes to legalize same-sex marriage, becoming the first to do it with an amendment to the nat. constitution.

On June 1, 2015 after an interview with Diane Sawyer on 20/20 on Apr. 24 where he reveals his open secret, Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner (1949-) introduces his new transgender persona, Caitlyn Jenner on ABC-TV's 20/20, complete with a Vanity Fair cover shot by Annie Leibovitz, setting a record by amassing 1M new Twitter followers in 4 hours (vs. 4.5 hours for Pres. Obama in Apr.). On June 6 "Sophia Burset in Orange Is the New Black" star Laverne Cox becomes the first openly transgender person to appear on the cover of Time mag; on June 26 Madame Tussauds unveils a wax figure of her, becoming their first transgender wax figure. On June 9 the 2015 Pentagon 4th Gay Pride Celebration features top brass incl. U.S. defense secy. Ashton Carter, U.S. Army secy. John McHugh, transgender Army Office of Energy Initiatives exec dir. Amanda Simpson et al.; MC is U.S. Brig. Gen. Randy S. Taylor, who introduces his husband Lucas; meanwhile seven oepely gay U.S. ambassadors, along with Randy Berry, the U.S. State Dept.'s first special envoy for LGBTI persons pub. a joint letter in The Advocate, which is reposted on the White House Web site, calling for internat. free trade agreements to help export U.S. values incl. human and LGBTI rights. On June 10 a coalition of religious groups incl. the Common Good Foundation, Liberty Council, and Vision America Action pub. a full-page ad in the Washington Post, which vows that they will not accept a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, with Common Good Foundation founder (Roman Catholic deacon) Keith Fournier uttering the soundybte: "One of the silver linings of this dark cloud, and it is a dark cloud is that we're coming together, Evangelicals, Protestants out of the mainstream traditions, Catholics and Orthodox, and faithful Jews and other people of good will are coming together to stand up again for what cannot be changed, and that is the nature of marriage." On June 10 Mich. gov. Rick Snyder signs the Mich. LGBT Adoption Bill, permitting faith-based agencies that contract with state agencies to refuse service to prospective parents on religious grounds and refer them to other state child placement agencies. On June 11 in celebration of Gay Pride Week, Boston, Mass. mayor Martin Walsh signs an executive order making all bathrooms in city hall "gender-neutral". On June 11 the legislature of N.C. overrides the governor's veto of S.B. 2, a bill to protect the religious liberty of state civil servants by allowing them to refuse to perform same-sex marriages or issue marriage license. On June 15 (Mon.) (night) U.S. Rep. (D-Fla.) Debbie Wasserman Schultz becomes the first voting member of Congress to officiate a same-sex marriage in Washington, D.C. in Fla. House near the Supreme Court Bldg. and U.S. Capitol; the lucky suckers are Robert Wolfarth and Alex Fernandez. On June 18 after Pres. Obama attends her investiture ceremony at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. on June 17, new U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch addresses LGBT activists of Lambda Legal in Washington, D.C., uttering the soundbyte: "We are finally witnessing the cascade of equality... that will forever reshape this country", adding that the U.S. Justice Dept. and Pres. Obama back them 100%. On June 24 Pres. Obama is heckled at a gay pride event in the East Room of the White House by illegal alien and transgender activist Jennice Gutierrez, causing Obama to order him/her removed after uttering the soundbyte: "As a general rule I am fine with a few hecklers, but not when I am up in the house."

On June 26, 2015 (Fri.) the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-3 in Obergefell v. Hodges that all states must issue same-sex marriage licenses, and recognize those from other states, citing the "fundamental right to marry"; there are 390K married same-sex couples in the U.S. already, and 37 states that permit same-sex marriage; after calling gay plaintiff Jim Obergefell, Pres. Obama praises the decision as "a victory for America", saying that it's an example of a day when justice "arrives like a thunderbolt", with the soundbyte: "This morning the Supreme Court recognized that the Constitution guarantees marriage equality. In doing so, they've reaffirmed that all Americans are entitled to the equal protection of the law, that all people should be treated equally regardless of who they are or who they love"; Repub. appointee Anthony Kennedy joins the liberal wing of Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan to back the ruling, with Kennedy delivering the majority opinion, with the soundbyte: "No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say that disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right"; dissenter Chief Justice John Roberts sets a precedent by reading his dissent from the bench, saying that gays should celebrate their ruling, but "do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it. This court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us"; Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas issue a scating dissent calling the decision a "putsch", and Kennedy's lightweight reasoning "the mystical aphorisms of a fortune cookie" and a "threat to American democracy" threatening the main principle of the Am. Rev., viz. "the freedom [of the People] to govern themselves", destroying the age-old definition of marriage as one man and one woman "in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law", "a naked judicial claim to legislative - even super-legislative -power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government", dissing the "notorious nine" as "hardly a cross-section of America", all people from elite law schools sans a single person from middle-America, or a single Protestant, which has turned the U.S. govt. 180 degrees from "no taxation without representation" to "social transformation without representation", comparing it with the Pearl Harbor Attack by saying the decision will live in infamy, implying that the Court is drunk with power and is moving "one step closer to being reminded of our impotence"; "Today's decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact - and the furthest extension one can even imagine - of the Court's claimed power to create 'liberties' that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves"; dissenting Justice Clarence Thomas writes the soundbyte that the court's "decision threatens the religious liberty our Nation has long sought to protect.. In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well. Today's decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter. It appears all but inevitable that the two will come into conflict, particularly as individuals and churches are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples. The majority appears unmoved by that inevitability"; Michelle Cretella, pres. of the Am. College of Pediatricians utters the soundbyte: "The SCOTUS has just undermined the single greatest pro-child institution in the history of mankind: the natural family. Just as it did in the joint Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, the SCOTUS has elevated and enshrined the wants of adults over the needs of children"; on Apr. 11, 2017 the Uphold Historical Marriage Act is introduced into the N.C. legislature, declaring the Obergefell v. Hodges decision "null and void" in the state in preference to Sect. 6 Article XIV of the 2012 N.C. Constitution, which defines marriage as only between one man and one woman - it's all the women's fault, hence it's time to not only impeach the justices but repeal the 19th Amendment? ;)

On July 7, 2015 former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter gives an interview to HuffPost Live, uttering the soundbyte: "I believe that Jesus would approve gay marriage... I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don't see that gay marriage damages anyone else", adding "The only thing I would draw a line on, I wouldn't be in favor of the government being able to force a local church congregation to perform gay marriages if they didn't want to. But those two partners should be able to go to the local courthouse or to a different church and get married"; Carter adds that he does have a "problem with abortion", saying: "I have a hard time believing that Jesus, for instance, would approve abortions, unless it was because of rape or incest, or if the mother's life was in danger. So I've had that struggle, but my oath of office was to obey the Constitution... as interpreted by the Supreme Court." On July 9 U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynn, er, Lynch announces that the U.S. govt. will make federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples. On July 27 the exec committee of the Boy Scouts of Am. (BSA) votes to lift its restriction on "openly gay adult leaders and employees". On July 30 (eve.) ultra-orthodox Jew Yishai Schlissel stabs six at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem; he was convicted of stabbing three at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem in 2005.

On Aug. 18, 2015 the White House appoints its first transgender staff member Raffi (Rafael) Freedman-Gurspa (1987-) as dir. for outreach and recruitment for pres. personnel. On Aug. 24 the U.N. Security Countil holds its first-ever meeting on the persecution of gays by ISIS, sponsored by the U.S. and Chile, with U.S. ambassador Samantha Power uttering the soundbyte: "We're getting this issue into the DNA of the United Nations."

On Sept. 18, 2015 Pres. Obama appoints Eric Fanning as new U.S. Army secy., to succeed John McHugh, who has announced his departure on Nov. 1, becoming the first openly gay secy. of a U.S. military branch. On Sept. 18 the supreme court of Ala. refuses to recognize a lesbian adoption.

On Oct. 3, 2015 the Vatican fires Monsignor Kryzsztof Charamsa after he comes out as gay; he and his boyfriend Eduard hold a news conference in downtown Rome. On Nov. 5 the Mormon Church announces that same-sex couples will be considered as apostates, and that their children cannot be baptized. On Nov. 6 Mass. Repub. Gov. Charlie Baker issues an executive order making Mass. the first state adding LGBT-owned businesses to its affirmative action Supplier Diversity Program (SDP). On Nov. 10 Pres. Obama makes the cover of Out mag. becoming the first U.S. pres. on the cover of a gay mag. On Nov. 24 (night) the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt is painted pink by gays to protest Arab homophobia, complete with a banner reading "Let the Queer Arab people go!"; the Homoarabian Liberation Front (HLF) claims responsibility, uploading a video to YouTube with the message: "Nothing will be safe - not the Sphinx, the Burj Khalifa, the Al-Aqsa Mosque or even the Kaaba in Mecca - until the pharaohs of the region cease their terrorist campaign against us LGBTQI + Arabs."

On Dec. 27, 2015 Amir Ohana of Likud becomes the first openly gay member of the Knesset in Israel. The Am. Dialect Society selects they as the word of the year for 2015 for the way it can get around having to use him/her with gays, transsexuals etc.

On Sept. 5, 2015 Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl (Focus Features) (Universal Pictures) debuts, based on the 2000 novel by David Ebershoff and the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener, starring Alicia Vikander (after Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Palstrow, and Marion Cotillad pass it up) as 1920s Copenhagen portraitist Gerda Wegener, who asks her hubby Einar (Eddie Redmayne) to pose in drag, causing him to realize he's really a woman named Lili Elbe, causing them to relocate to Paris and sell the portraits to art dealer Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts), starting a love triangle that screws with their heads, causing Lili and Gerda to seek the help of German Dr. Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch), who performs a pioneering sex reassignment surgery on Lili, which proves fatal; does $64.2M box office on a $15M budget.

On Feb. 4, 2016 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announce that gay men make up 67% of all new HIV diagnoses, even though they are 2% of the U.S. pop. - they suck? On Feb. 23 the Israeli Knesset holds its first-ever LGBT Rights Day, supported by PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Mar. 1, 2016 Repub. S.D. Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoes legislation that would have prohibited public school students from using opposite-sex restrooms, shocking conservatives. On Mar. 28 after pressure by Coca-Cola, Disney, Time Warner, the NFL, the NCAA and other big corps., Ga. gov. Nathan Deal vetoes House Bill 757, which was aimed at protecting faith-based believers from being forced to participate in gay weddings, calling Ga. a "welcoming state". On Mar. 31 U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan strikes down a Miss. law banning same-sex couples from adopting, making it legal in all 50 U.S. states.

On Apr. 8, 2016 Pope Francis pub. the 260-page paper Amoris Laetitia (On Love in the Family), urging priests to be more accepting of gays and lesbians along with divorce Catholics, dissing the idea of "living in sin". On Apr. 13 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announce that the rate of syphilis infection among gay men is the highest since the start of the HIV/AIDs epidemic in the 1980s; they also announce that there were 1.4M cases of chlamydia in 2014, the "highest number of annual cases of any condition ever reported". On Apr. 16 British digital spy agency GCHQ head Robert Hannigan apologizes for the org.'s historical prejudice against gays, saying it failed to learn from the maltreatment of WWII codebreaker Alan Turing. On Apr. 19 the Target retail chain announces that they "welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity", causing their stock to drop by 4.2% ($1.5B) by Apr. 28.

On May 6, 2016 Ala. state supreme court chief justice Roy Moore is suspended from office after telling state probate judges to refuwe to issue same-sex marriage licenses until the legal conflict is resolved. On May 11 by a 372-51-99 vote, Italy recognizes same-sex marriages. On May 12 the Obama admin. issues a directive requiring every school district in the U.S. to allow transgenders to use the bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms of their choice, threatening lawsuits or withholding of funds to any who disobey. On May 17 Pres. Obama celebrates Internat. Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, with the soundbyte that he's "proud" of his record in "advancing the human rights of LGBT individuals".

On June 10, 2016 Ore. judge Amy Holmes Hehn legally changes the sex of Jamie Shupe from female to "non-binary", becoming a first in the U.S. On June 12 (2:00 a.m.) Muslim shooter Omar Seddique Mateen (b. 1986) attacks the hot gay Pulse Orlando Nightclub in Orlando, Fla., killing 50 and injuring 53 of 300 before being killed by police, becoming the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history (until ?); ISIS claims credit, er, responsibility; Pres. Obama calls the mass shooting (#24 since he took office) "an act of terror and an act of hate", blaming the "assault rifle" (e.g., the NRA), and never mentioning radical Islam, causing Donald Trump to call him a "weak" leader who should be impeached, with the soundbyte: "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore"- how long can Obama be pro-gay and pro-Muslim at the same time? On June 30 U.S. defense secy. Ash Carter annunces an end to the ban on open transgenders in the U.S. military, incl. those who are actively transitioning.

On July 21, 2016 two weeks late, lying sack of er, Pres. Obama holds a celebration in honor of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday (end of Ramadan), inviting notorious Islamists from CAIR et al. then turning around and praising LGBT Muslims, uttering the soundbytes: "Muslim-Americans are as patriotic, as integrated, as American as any other members of the American family", and "Whether your family's been here for generations or you're a new arrival, you're an essential part of the fabric of our country", lying that for "centuries" Am. Muslims have helped to build America as farmers, merchants, factory workers, architects, teachers and community leaders, adding "And Muslim Americans have enriched our lives every single day" - this is my party?

On Oct. 3, 2016 the U.S. military begins paying for surgery and other procedures for transgender sevice members, incl. reassignment surgery. On Oct. 12 Lawrence S. Mayer and Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins U. pub. a report in The New Atlantis revealing that there is little scientific evidence that people are born gay or transgender, pissing-off the Human Rights Campaign and other LGBTQ orgs., who call for their er, heads; on Oct. 21 Rachel H. Farr of the U. of Ky. pub. an article in Developmental Psychology, claiming that children of LGBT parents are well-adjusted into middle childhood. On Oct. 26 U.S. nat. security advisor Susan Rice gives a speech at Am. U, with the soundbyte: "The United States must continue to integrated LGBT rights into our government and foreign policy", praising a new rule announced on Oct. 25 by the U.S. Agency for Internat. Development (USAID) prohibiting discrimination by contractors.

On Dec. 19, 2016 the cover of Nat. Geographic features Avery Jackson (2007-), who lived as a boy until 2012, becoming their first transgender cover model.

On Jan. 1, 2017 the Transgender Mandate, a new federal regulation prohibiting discrimination in health care against transgenders, due to come into effect today is blocked by a federal judge in Tex. On Jan. 6 57-y.-o. convicted murderer Shiloh Heavenly Quine (1959-) in Calif. becomes the first U.S. inmate to receive state-funded sex reassignment surgery. On Jan. 31 Turing's Law in Britain receives royal assent, pardoning Alan Turing and other gays convicted of homosexuality.

On Feb. 2, 2017 the Boy Scouts of Am. (BSA) announce that they're completely folding to the demands of LGBT activists and admitting everybody incl. transgenders; on Feb. 7 Joe Maldonado becomes the first transgender boy scout in the U.S. On Feb. 27 (eve.) the 8-hour LGBT docudrama miniseries When We Rise debuts on ABC-TV (until Mar. 3, 2017), pushing the gay agenda on the viewing audience Hollyweird style; too bad, ratings tank (2.07M viewers).

On Apr. 12, 2017 N.Y. Court of Appeals judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam (b. 1952) (ex-wife of a Muslim, who never converted herself) commits suicide in the Hudson River of New York City after issuing a landmark ruling in Aug. in Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A. that a lesbian from a broken partnership has the right to seek visitation rights of their adopted son.

On May 5, 2017 gay organist George Nathaniel Stang (1981-) at St. David's Episcopal Church in Bean Blossom, Minn. admits that he spray-painted anti-Trump hate graffiti "Heil Trump" and "Fag Church" on the church on Nov. 13; it received nat. publicity from the anti-Trump PC press. On May 11 the LDS (Mormon) Church announces that effective Jan. 1 it will pull out, er, drop the Boy Scouts of Am. (BSA) from its young men's program for ages 14-17, a total of 180K boys in the U.S. and Canada, causing evangelist Franklin Graham to call on all churches to do ditto; church leaders deny that their decision has anything to do with BSA decisions to accept gay Scout leaders and Scouts, and to admit more girls. On May 24 the supreme court of Taiwan rules in favor of same-sex marriage, giving the govt. two years to implement the ruling.

On June 1, 2017 Ontario Province, Canada passes a law allowing the govt. to remove children from families that refuse to accept their chosen gender identity. On June 7 U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson issues a declaration for 2017 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Pride Month.

On July 9, 2017 the Gen. Synod of the Church of England votes 30-2-0 (House of Bishops) and 127-28-16 (House of Clergy) and 127-48-8 (House of Laity) to "welcome and affirm" transgenders. On July 26 Pres. Trump announces a ban on transgender people in the U.S. armed forces, citing costs and disruption.

On Oct. 10, 2017 Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown signs a law criminalizing willful failure to address transgender patients by their preferred pronouns by health care workers.

On Nov. 7, 2017 (Tues.) the 2017 U.S. election elects anti-Trump Dem. physician Ralph Shearer Northam (1959-) as gov. of Va., and Danica Roem (1984-) to the Va. legislature, who becomes the first openly transgender person; Dem. Andrea Jenkins is elected to the city council of Minneapolis, Minn., becoming the first openly transgender black woman. On Dec. 14 Bermuda bans same-sex marriage 6 mo. after its supreme court approved them.

On Feb. 26, 2018 the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rules that Title VII of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act protects gays from being fired from their jobs by straining to find a loophole in the wording, making hay of its wording of "sex" instead of "gender", with the soundbyte: "Sexual orientation discrimination is a subset of sex discrimination because sexual orientation is defined by one's sex in relation to the sex of those to whom one is attracted, making it impossible for an employer to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation without taking sex into account"; too bad, the Act doesn't mention sexual orientation, and they legislated from the bench? - lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman? On Mar. 19 a court in Pisa, Italy orders the birth certificate of a baby born to a lesbian couple modified to carry the two mothers' names only.

On Apr. 11, 2018 Free Pride Glasgow in Scotland bans drag queens from its LGBT parade to allegedly prevent the oppression of transgenders.

On Apr. 14, 2018 Batavia, N.Y.-born gay rights and environmental activist atty. David Stoh Buckel (b. 1957) immolates himself with gasoline in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N.Y. to protest the use of fossil fuels; he leaves a suicide note reading: "Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result - my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves" - Stroh's is fire-brewed?

On Apr. 16, 2018 Chinese social media Web site Weibo reverses its ban on gay content after an online protest.

On May 22, 2018 (Internat. Day Against Homophobia) Belarus slams its U.K. embassy for flying a rainbow flag, calling LGBT relationships "fake".

On June 1, 2018 U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo releases a statement expressing support for LGBTI people throughout the world, posting it on Web sites of U.S. embassies in every country except Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Libya.

On June 4, 2018 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colo. Civil Rights Commission that a Denver, Colo. bakery owned by conservative Christians was within its rights in refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, but doesn't rule on the larger issue of whether all business may hide behind the First Amendment to discriminate against gays, limiting their decision to language used by the commissioners that showed hostility toward religion rather than neutrality; Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissent on the grounds that the gays were discriminated against for what they were, not for any offensive message on the cake - having to show one butt-fucking the other didn't matter?

On June 25, 2018 the U.N.'s WHO announces that for purposes of the 11th ed. of its Internat. Classification of Diseases (ICD), transgender individuals will no longer be classified as mentally ill.

On July 26, 2018 Land O'Lakes of Minn. names COO Beth Ford as its CEO, becoming the first openly gay woman to head a Fortune 500 co.

On Aug. 7, 2016 16-y.-o. Maxim Neverov (2002-) from Blysk is fined 50K rubles for pub. pro-gay photos on social network site Vkontakte, becoming the first minor prosecuted under Russian anti-gay propaganda laws.

On Sept. 6, 2018 India's supreme court strikes down a colonial-era law banning gay sex, causing celebrations across India.

On Sept. 28, 2018 Romania's highest court in Bucharest approves same-sex marriage; a nat. referendum is set for Oct. 6-7.

On Oct. 10, 2018 the U.K.'s supreme court rules that a bakery in Belfast, Northern Ireland run by evangelical Christians can't be forced to make a cake with slogans supporting gay marriage, pissing-off gay activists - it's really about kowtowing to Muslim bakers?

On Nov. 15, 2018 Costa Rica's supreme court legalizes same-sex marriage starting next year.

On Nov. 18, 2018 former Dallas Cowboys linebacker #50 (1982-9) Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Rohrer (1958-) comes out and marries his partner Joshua Ross, becoming the first NFL player in a same-sex marriage.

In Nov. 2018 Twitter bans users who "misgender" and "deadname" transgender people, incl. feminist Meghan Murphy for saying "Women aren't men", and "How are transwomen not men? What is the difference between a man and a transwoman?"

On Dec. 8, 2018 Patricio Manuel defeats Mexican super-featherweight boxer Hugo Aguilar at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, Calif., becoming the first transgender male boxer in U.S. history.

On Jan. 1, 2019 Kimberly Mutcherson becomes co-dean of Rutgers Law School, becoming the first woman, African-Am., and lesbian.

On Jan. 24, 2019 the Supreme Court of Japan upholds a law requiring transgenders who want their official documents changed to be sterilized to protect society from "confusion" and "abrupt changes", and to prevent "problems" in parent-child relationships.

On Jan. 29, 2019 (2:00 a.m.) gay biracial "Jamal Lyon in Empire" actor Jussie Smollett (1982-) claims to be attacked in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Ill. by two white men wearing ski masks who shout racial and homophobic slurs, incl. the soundbyte "This is MAGA country"; after all the usual PC leftist media personalities and politicians incl. Kamala Harris (who tweets that it is "a modern-day lynching") jump to label it a hate crime proving that Pres. Trump's supporters are all violent bigots that he fostered, it turns out that Smollett staged the event to get publicity, causing a backlash against the Never Trumpers that they're the bigots, who jump to judge white males but pretend to reserve judgment as long as possible for black males, women, gays, etc.; on Feb. 20 after the Nigerian-born brothers Abimbola "Abel" Osundairo and Olabinjo "Ola" Osundairo testify before a grand jury, Feb. 20 Smollett is charged with felony

On Feb. 17, 2019 after getting in a Twitter debate with transgender cycling champ Rachel McKinnon last Dec., lesbian tennis champ Martina Navratilova pub. an op-ed in the Sunday Times speaking out against allowing transgender (female hormone treatment but still with male anatomy) athletes to compete against women, with the soundbyte: "To put my argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organisation, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies. It's insane and it's cheating"; meanwhile in Feb. 17 transgender FX Network TV star Indya Moore tweets the soundbyte: "If a women has a penis, her penis is a biologically female penis", drawing laughing criticism.

On Feb. 19, 2019 NBC News reports that the Trump admin. led by openly gay U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell will launch a global effort to decriminalize homosexuality in an effort to isolate strict Sharialand Iran; no surprise, after the leftists have gotten into er, bed with Muslims, Out Mag. pub. an article on Feb. 20 claiming that it would be racist and colonialist for Trump to try to pressure Iran into decriminalizing homosexuality, and that Iran is "not that bad" anyway.

On Feb. 21, 20190 Taiwan proposes a draft same-sex marriage law, sparking a heated debate.

On Feb. 26, 2019 the United Methodist Church (2nd largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.) by 56% votes for the Traditional Plan to strengthen their ban on same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy.

On Apr. 14, 2019 gay Dem. South er, Bend, Ind. mayor (since Jan. 2012) Peter Paul Montgomery "Pete" Butigieg (1982-) (pr. BU-dah-jij) annnounces his candidacy for the 2020 U.S. pres. election, becoming #19, introducing his husband Chasten - jiggle my booty?

On May 6, 2019 Converse launches an ad campaign for their Pride Collection of shoes for the LGBTQ+ community, featuring 11-y.-o. "drag kid" Desmond Napoles.

On May 12-June 30, 2019 Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light launches its "first-ever rainbow aluminum bottle to celebrate World Pride" for LGBTs.

On May 13, 2019 PBS-TV debuts the episode Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone, of the cartoon Arthur, featuring a same-sex marriage, pissing-off religious conservatives, who howl at PBS receiving taxpayer funding.

On May 22, 2019 a Gallup Poll reveals that the percentage of Americans who believe that gay sex is acceptable has risen from 40% in 2001 to 63%, and the percentage who believe that same-sex marriage should be legal has risen from 27% in 1996 to 63%; same-sex marriage support reached 50% in 2011.

On June 1, 2019 Disney Paris holds its first Magical Pride party celebrating LGBT Pride Month.

On June 2, 2019 Cartoon Network tweets the soundbyte: "We want to wish everyone a HAPPY PRIDE and encourage all of our LGBTQ+ fans to stand proud all year long!"; the tweet incl. heart, unicorn, and gay-rainbow emojis and #pride, #happypride, #powerpuffyourself, #pridemonth, and #powerpuffgirls.

On Aug. 1, 2019 Krakow archbishop Marek Jedraszewski delivers a sermon on the 75th anniv. of the Warsaw Uprising, rejoicing that Poland is no longer tormented by the "red plague" of Soviet Communism, but lamenting that is has been replaced by the "rainbow plague" of homosexuality, with the soundbyte: "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

In Aug. 2019 Victoria's Secret lingerie maker features its first transgender model, Brazilian actress Valentina Sampaio.

On Feb. 13, 2020 the Wall Street Journal pub. an op-ed declaring that sex is binary, and that there is no 3rd sex or spectrum of sexes, with the soundbyte: "In humans, reproductive anatomy is unambiguously male or female at birth more than 99.98% of the time. The evolutionary function of these two anatomies is to aid in reproduction via the fusion of sperm and ova. No third type of sex cell exists in humans, and therefore there is no sex 'spectrum' or additional sexes beyond male and female. Sex is binary."

On June 12, 2020 Pres. Trump finalizes a rule defining gender as a person's biological sex, reversing Pres. Obama's attempt to accomodate transgenders.

On July 4, 2020 after a referendum which votes 78% for it, a new Russian constitution takes effect, with 206 amendments, allowing pres. Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036, and banning gay marriage.

On Oct. 28, 2020 Dem. candidate Joe Biden promises that on his first day as U.S. pres. he will implement his Biden Plan to Advance LGBTQ+ Equality in America and Around the World, "which will restore transgender students' access to sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity."

On Dec. 1, 2020 (Tue.) Canadian "Juno", "Inception", "X-Men" actress Ellen Page (1987-), who came out as a lesbian in 2014 comes out again as a transgender with the name Elliot.

On Mar. 31, 2022 the Biden-backed Transgender Day of Visibility in the U.S. features the transgender flag flown in front of the U.S. HHS bldg. in Washington, D.C.; Pres. Biden hosts transgender Jeopardy! star Amy Schneider to promote it.

To cut to the chase with a plug, only I have seen the future, and it's a world where men and sperm are extinct, and all humans are female lesbians. That's right, lesbianism is bound to take over the world, it's an evolutionary process, like why we don't have dinosaurs and cavemen, see my cool controversial eye-opening novel Isn't Jack in Jail? (1998).