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

June 3-9

1996

U.S.: About 200 people noisily protest President Bill Clinton's opposition to same-sex marriage during a visit to San Francisco. Mayor Willie Brown had urged Clinton to stay away from the city to avoid protests by gay activists. * Iceland: The Althing, Iceland's legislative assembly, gives the go-ahead to gay marriage. Under the new law, lesbians and gay men who officially register are granted the same rights and duties as married heterosexual couples...excluding the right to adopt or use artificial insemination technology. * Canada: A legislative measure guaranteeing civil-rights protection for lesbians and gay men becomes law.

1991

U.S.: A study by the University of Minnesota reports that 30 percent of gay male youth interviewed said they had attempted suicide. The full report is published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. * Chicago performance artist Brigid Murphy ( AKA Milly May Smithy ) said: "Just take what God gave you, honey, put a couple of sequins on it, and you got yourself a star." * Rabbi Alexander Schindler, head of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, writes to President Bush urging him to rescind the military's ban on lesbians and gay men. * ACT UP Philadelphia chants outside Catholic Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua's first prayer service for PWA's: "Bevilacqua is a mess. He's a Nazi in a dress. Every minute someone dies. Fuck your stupid moral lies." * In Dallas, the director of a community production of Jerker, an explicitly homoerotic play by the late Robert Chesley, is fired from his teaching job at Bishop Lynch Roman Catholic High School. School policy demands that teachers "uphold the Catholic Church's philosophy inside and outside school."

1986

U.S.: The 7th Gay Father's Coalition International Conference takes place in Chicago. * Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund announces the appointment of Paula L. Ettelbrick to the position of staff attorney to assist Lambda cooperating attorneys across the country in major litigation advancing the rights of lesbians and gay men. * Lesbian-feminist poet Adrienne-Rich receives the $25,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

1981

U.S.: After tennis player Billie Jean King's affair with Marilyn Barnett becomes public knowledge, Sporting News writes: "Despite the efforts of gay-rights activists, it is safe to say that most citizens view the practice of homosexuality as deviant, if not revolting. The world of women's sports has suffered an injury which only time can heal." * A Maryland court upholds a state law making oral sex...between homosexuals or heterosexuals...a crime. The court's written decision quotes heavily from Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Exodus. * The first AP news wire story on AIDS in San Francisco begins, "An outbreak of a pneumonia strain usually restricted to infants, the elderly, and pregnant women, has surfaced among young gay adults in the city's gay community, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health." * Charles F. Brydon, co-executive director of the New York-based National Gay Task Force, resigns as part of staff restructuring. * The Rev. James Robison, one of the most anti-gay television ministers, falls on hard times. Finding himself over $1 million in debt he cuts his staff by one third. * Brent Harris, associate editor of The Advocate, dies of a rare form of cancer. This is possibly one of the earliest cases of AIDS.