THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

1998

U.S.: An autographed pair of sequined sneakers worn by Elizabeth Taylor are auctioned off to raise money for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Out of the Closet thrift store in Santa Monica. * Polo features an article on Joe Carstairs, a lesbian speedboat champion in the 1920s. * Bahamas: In Nassau, 100 Bahamians wave signs reading 'No gay ships.' They are protesting the arrival of a cruise ship carrying lesbians. One protestor screams through a megaphone, 'We got enough sissies in the Bahamas … we don't need no more!' * Colombia: Colombia's Constitutional Court rules that private religious schools cannot ban gay students.

1993

U.S.: Gov. Arne Carison of Minnesota signs legislation to protect gay men and lesbians against discrimination in housing, employment and education. * There is a firebomb attack on Friends' Lounge, a gay bar in Jacksonville, N.C. The bar is near the U.S. Marine base, Camp Lejeune. * Norway: The Storting, Norway's parliament, passes a bill that extends legal rights to gay couples. It will give registered gay couples the same legal rights as married couples, except the right to marry in church, and the right to adopt children.

1988

U.S.: According to the Centers for Disease Control, 12 percent of U.S.-made condoms, and 21 percent of those produced abroad, fail the reliability test. * William Patrick Debenport, a former manager at the First Texas Savings and Loan Bank and a PWA, is charged with embezzling $1.3 million and giving some of it to gay and AIDS charities. * A fingernail salon in West Hollywood that refused to give a pedicure to a hairdresser with AIDS becomes the first business to be charged under the city's anti-bias law. * Sgt. Michael Foley, a gay officer in Hazel Park, Mich., is awarded $64000, after a federal jury agrees that his rights were violated. He was arrested and ridiculed by Detroit police after he had been taken into custody, when he protested the arrest of a gay male friend.

1983

U.S.: The FBI admits to having kept files on the National Gay Task Force, the Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis, the Gay Activists Alliance, the Gay Liberation Front, the Society for Individual Rights, the East Coast Homophile Organization, and One, Inc.