June 10-16
1996
U.S.: In spite of having a lesbian daughter and having a gay congressman as a good friend, Rep. Sonny Bono says he felt compelled to support a bill restricting same-sex marriages. * The NAMES Project Foundation's AIDS Memorial Quilt Archive Project receives a grant of $100,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to help photograph and document the AIDS Memorial Quilt. * President Clinton, a life-long Southern Baptist says, through his press secretary Mike McCurry, that he opposes a boycott of Walt Disney Co. by Southern Baptists over the issue of gay rights. * A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press finds that 28 percent of the public favors gay marriage. The poll also found that white evangelicals were the least likely to support "gay marriage," with only 13 percent supportive. Twenty-five percent of Black Christians favored the policy, as did 27 percent of white "non-evangelicals." * Canada: The human-rights tribunal rules that the federal government must extend health benefits to same-sex partners of government employees. The tribunal's decision is based on complaints by two federal employees against the departments of Immigration and Foreign Affairs.
1991
U.S.: In Baltimore, nearly 600 commissioners to the 203rd Presbyterian Church General Assembly vote to reject a sex study that concluded the Church should validate committed relationships between gays and unmarried heterosexuals. * More than 1,000 copies of Love Bites, a lesbian photography book, are released by U.S. customs officials after being held for over a month on obscenity charges. * In Fresno, Calif., police arrest Glen Bates of San Francisco after he allegedly pulled the hood off a Ku Klux Klan member who was heckling parade marchers during the city's Gay Pride Celebration. * In Clarkesville, Tenn., the Montgomery County School Board propose a sex-education curriculum that includes a "detailed and unbiased" unit on homosexuality for seventh and eighth graders. The proposal comes under attack from the Parent Advisory Council, who issue a statement saying their children "do not need to know about deviant behavior."
1986
U.S.: "Whatyawanabe," a recently opened campground for lesbians near Bad Axe, Mich., faces increasingly hostile attacks from local residents led by fundamentalist preacher James Willet and his wife, Judy, who describe the camp as "a stench in God's nostrils." * In Boston, employees from local television stations aren't the only people filming the Lesbian/Gay Pride Parade. Chief of Capitol Police, Daniel Skelley, was also spotted videotaping the entire march. He assured local gay papers that it was only for "training purposes." * Quote of the Week: Novelist James Baldwin says: "It's not important to be gay ... or important to be white ... or important to be Black. What is important is to be you."
1981
U.S.: The East Coast Women's Festival takes place on a large farm in western Massachusetts. * Two and a half years after their skeletal remains were found in a basement crawl space, the nine unidentified victims of John Wayne Gacy are memorialized in a mass funeral service in the Chicago area. * Britain: John Bruce, 28, a soldier who was dismissed because of his homosexuality, decides to challenge his dismissal before the European Court of Human Rights. * Netherlands: The Foundation for the Homosexual Monument announces plans to erect the first monument to homosexuals. It will be a pink triangle and will be erected along one of the city's canals.