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

1998

U.S.: The 11th Creating Change Conference takes place in Pittsburgh. * In Philadelphia, nine demonstrators are arrested at the offices of WCAU (Channel 10). They are protesting a news report about men engaging in sex acts in public bathrooms, in which a hidden camera showed blurred footage of men engaged in sex acts in the bathrooms of area malls and department stores. * The bimonthly TV newsmagazine 'In the Life' begins its seventh season. * In Winston-Salem, N.C., members of Wake Forest Baptist Church vote for its ministers to perform gay unions, in violation of rules set down by the Baptist State Convention. * Hoping to reach an amicable end to a pending lawsuit, the Rutgers University Board of Governors agrees to have school officials begin talks that could lead to health benefits for same-sex domestic partners of its employees. Four professors and a dean had filed a lawsuit against the state for refusing to give health coverage for their partners. * Lesbian comic, Lea DeLaria, stars as Hilda Esterhazy on Broadway in On the Town. * In Michigan, a hate-crime law passes that adds two years in prison and a $5,000 fine for anyone convicted of harassing or assaulting gays and lesbians. * In Palm Springs, police look for 16 suspects who attacked gay men over the Pride weekend. * The chairman of the Miami Herald Publishing Co., David Lawrence Jr., receives an award at the Dade Human Rights Foundation dinner for his work on behalf of the gay community.

1993

U.S.: Chicago's Cardinal Joseph Bernardin is hit with a $10 million damage lawsuit filed by Steven Cook, a Philadelphia man who alleges that Bernardin used him as a sex toy in the mid '70s * Chicago police remove Timothy Holless, a PWA, from an American Airlines plane at O'Hare airport. Holless is arrested for disorderly conduct, after he allegedly refused flight attendants' requests to cover his lesions and take down an intravenous bag, that he had suspended from an oxygen compartment over his seat. Lesbian psychologist JoAnn Loulan, who was on the airplane, told the San Francisco Examiner, 'The cops dragged him off the plane, leaving his cane and glasses. They dragged him face down on his belly. He was screaming, 'Chicago police abuse, Chicago police abuse,' and screaming in pain.' * Totally ****** Up, a movie directed by no-budget guerrilla filmmaker Gregg Araki, is in selected movie theaters.

1988

U.S.: Composer Warren Casey, who co-wrote the hit musical Grease, dies of AIDS at 53. * George Bush is elected President of the United States. * In Oregon, voters repeal a year-old executive order by Gov. Neil Goldschmidt that prohibited employment discrimination against gay men and lesbians in state government. * People Like Us, Chicago's only exclusively gay bookstore, opens at 3321 N. Clark. * The American Friends Service Committee, the social action arm of the Quaker religious bodies, publish Bridges Of Respect, a book about creating support services for gay and lesbian youth.

1983

U.S.: U.S. District Court Judge David Russell rules that Oklahoma City must issue permits for the Miss Gay Oklahoma pageant, ignoring city attorneys objections on the grounds of obscenity. Judge Russell says: 'The First Amendment is not an art critic. Whether the pageant is an open expression of homosexuality is irrelevant.' * A national gathering of Friends for Lesbians and Gays Concerns, an organization of gay and gay-supportive Quakers, takes place in Minneapolis. ---------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------