1998
U.S.: Scott Cozza, the Boy Scout troop leader who, with his son, rallied against the group's ban on gays, resigns, a week after leaders of Petaluma's Troop 74 decided not to renew his appointment at the end of the year. * Levi Strauss joins a growing list of companies with advertisements targeting gays and lesbians. In the November issue of Out magazine, there's a 12-page photo insert of 10 gay men and women wearing Levi's Dockers-brand khaki pants. * Five hundred people turn up for a memorial service for Harvey Milk nearly 20 years after he was slain by Dan White in 1978. * In Columbus, Ga., Baptists meeting at their annual convention vote overwhelmingly to exclude churches that condone homosexual behavior. * Head of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., Rev. Fred Phelps, arrives in Chicago to protest Rev. Gregory Dell marrying two gay men at the Broadway United Methodist church. He is met by hundreds of demonstrators.
1993
U.S.: Emile Ardolino, director of classics Dirty Dancing and Sister Act, dies of AIDS at age 50. * Superstars: Twelve Lesbians Who Changed The World by Dell Richards is in bookstores. * According to a CDC report, in 1992 AIDS was the second leading killer of young Americans, between the ages of 25 and 44. It was the leading killer of young American men of all races. The leading killer of young Black men. The leading killer of young Latino men. The second leading killer of young white men. The fourth leading killer of young women of all races. The second leading killer of young Black women and the third leading killer of Latino women. * Fourteen people are arrested at an AIDS demonstration at the State capitol in Albany, N.Y. They were calling for increased state-subsidized housing for people with AIDS.
1988
U.S.: The 4th annual National Conference of Gay/Lesbian Public Officials takes place in San Diego. * Celebrating its 15th anniversary, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force convene a 'Creating Change Conference' in Washington, D.C.., where 200 people gather to discuss strategies. * Archbishop John R. Quinn not only bans the San Francisco Chapter of Dignity from meeting in any Roman Catholic church in the diocese, but also states that he will discipline any priest who participates in liturgy sponsored by the lesbian and gay Catholic support group. * Describing himself as Jim Bakker's 'pimp,' former PTL co-host John Wesley Fletcher tells a grand jury that he procured young men for the defrocked televangelist. A federal jury in Charlotte, N.C., has indicted Bakker and four associates on criminal charges, including wire and mail fraud, and violation of federal tax laws. * Scott Allan Thorson, who once sued Liberace for palimony, is given three years probation for his role in a series of drug-related robberies. * Canada: Svend Robinson, Canada's first openly gay member of the Canadian parliament, is reelected in his first campaign since 'coming out' last March.
1983
U.S.: Martin Price, publisher of the anti-gay Deep Backgrounder publication, dies in a Washington hospital. The Backgrounder, an extremely sensationalistic publication, specialized in exposing the 'shadowy world, one that exists behind the everyday facades' of Washington, D.C. On the gay community Price once wrote: 'Here (in a gay pornographic movie theater) it is totally dark and just about everyone present enters into this section where all types of perverted sex acts occur among partners unknown to each other.'
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