May


● 1959.05 — The first homosexual uprising in the US occurs at Cooper Do-nuts in Los Angeles.
● 2010.05.03 — Anti-gay legislation Republican senator, Roy Ashburn is arrested on suspicion of drunk driving shortly before 2 a.m., after leaving a Sacramento gay nightclub.
● 1933.05.06 — Nazis attack and destroy Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research. A few days later, the institute’s priceless collection of more than 20,000 publications and 5,000 photographs is burned in a public ceremony.
● 1970.05.11 — “The Late, Great Planet Earth” by Hal Lindsey is published.
● 2011.05.11 — A majority of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.’s 173 presbyteries ratifies an amendment to the church’s constitution removing a provision flatly prohibiting the ordination of sexually active unmarried Presbyterians as church officers.
● 1969.05.15 — Canada decriminalizes private same-sex acts.
● 1977.05.15 — 60 Minutes broadcasts a segment on child pornography, concentrating on “adult homosexuals who prey on small boys.”
● 1988.05.15 — Teenagers from a conservative Catholic high school go on a gay bashing spree, beating one victim to death. They are later sentenced to 35 and 40 years in prison.
● 2004.05.17 — The first legally recognized same-sex marriage in the U.S. takes place in Massachusetts.
● 2007.05.17 — There is a reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church after 80 years of schism.
● 1976.05.21 — Candidate Jimmy Carter announces that if elected he will support and sign a federal civil rights bill outlawing discrimination against gays and lesbians.
● 2003.05.21 — Marilyn Musgrave, U.S. congresswoman from Colorado, introduces the Federal Marriage Amendment in the country’s House of Representatives with 108 co-sponsors.
● 1929.05.22 — Lesbian, Katharine Lee Bates, author of America the Beautiful dies.
● 2013.05.23 — The Boy Scouts of America’s national governing body votes to rescind the long-standing ban on homosexual youth. Effective January 1st 2014: “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.” The ban still exists for Scout leaders.
● 2004.05.24 — The Salvation Army threatens to leave New York City if Mayor Michael Bloomberg enforces a new ordinance requiring all groups with city contracts to offer benefits to the same-sex partners of employees. Bloomberg, who opposed the ordinance, doesn’t enforce it.
● 1987.05.29 — Barney Frank, United States Congressman for Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district since 1981, comes out as gay in an interview with The Boston Globe.
● 1977.05.30 — Columnist George Will applauds Anita Bryant and condemns gay rights ordinances as “part of the moral disarmament of society.”