July 29 - Aug. 4
1996
U.S.: Melissa Etheridge announces that her partner Julie Cypher is pregnant and expecting the couple's first child. * A study by University of Georgia researchers lends weight to the theory that homophobia is often a response to subconscious or denied homosexual arousal. The study involved 64 exclusively heterosexual men who volunteered to watch four-minute clips of hard-core pornography while wearing a mercury-filled rubber device called a penile plethysmograph. It gauges arousal by measuring penis circumference. The men were divided into two groups, homophobic and non-homophobic. The results showed that men from both groups were almost equally aroused by the heterosexual and lesbian scenes. But when showed the gay-male videos, 54 percent of the homophobic men showed "definite tumescence," compared to only 24 percent of the non-homophobic men. * Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona becomes the fourth congressman...and second Republican...to come out; it was after an email campaign launched by San Francisco activist Michael Petrelis and others protesting his support of the Defense of Marriage Act. * State drug enforcement agents in San Francisco raid a club that sells marijuana to AIDS and cancer patients.
1991
U.S.: Twenty-eight members of Congress sign a letter to the Mexican ambassador condemning the harassment of gays which forces the displacement of an international gay meeting there in June. * Actor Tom Selleck settles his $20 million libel suit against The Globe tabloid that he says implied he was gay. * Abner Mason, an openly gay, Republican, African-American running for Boston's city council withdraws from the race after falling far short of the signatures on his nominating petitions.
1986
U.S.: The Atlanta police department, facing a shortage of officers, decides to openly recruit gay men for the force. The new policy is to recruit through gay publications and ask radio stations to run public service announcements. * Nineteen bicycle riders finish their AIDS fundraising/education 4,000-mile, 70-day trek from New York to San Francisco. * Germany: Comite International de Dachau, the association of Dachau concentration camp survivors, refuses to allow a plaque at Dachau commemorating the camp's gay victims. The simple, elegant burgundy marble stone...bearing the inscription "Silenced, Murdered: To the Homosexual Victims of National Socialism," is returned to storage. * China: After admitting to only one case of AIDS, Chinese officials say they plan to pass a law that may force foreign visitors who plan to stay for more than six months to undergo "testing" for AIDS and other diseases.
1981
U.S.: The August issue of Playboy has an article entitled "The Most Repressive Leaders in Congress" on issues like gay rights, abortion rights and enforced school prayers. It lists Senators Paul Laxalt ( R-Nev. ) , Jesse Helms ( R-N.C. ) , Strom Thurmond ( R-S.C. ) , James McClure ( R-Idaho ) , and Reps. Larry McDonald ( D-Ga. ) , and John Ashbrook ( R-Ohio ) . * Vegas Gay Times, Las Vegas' only regularly published gay paper, closes down. * Australia: The New South Wales Division of the Young Liberal Movement endorse and adopt as policy two major gay-rights planks at its annual convention.