July 15-21
1996
U.S.: In Los Angeles, rapper Warren G. reveals that he was at a lesbian nightclub when he was arrested by police, after they found a loaded 9-mm assault-type handgun in his truck. * In California, the Palm Spring Suns, a minor league baseball team, announce that it will host a "Drag Queen of The Desert Night" to attract gay fans. The event is to to feature a drag queen "parade" and the crowning of a "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert Suns."
1991
U.S.: Police in Milwaukee find at least 11 human heads and other body parts in Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment. * Oakland attorney Elizabeth Hendrickson is named Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. * Campus Review, the University of Iowa's conservative alternative student paper, displays a "Save The Gerbils Memorial Quilt" as a parody to the Names Project Quilt. * The Antiviral Drug Product Advisory Committee, an independent panel of experts, recommends that the FDA approve the anti-viral drug DDI as a treatment for AIDS. * A report by the Christopher Commission that investigated the Los Angeles Police Department reveals that officers regularly use excessive force and routinely express racist, sexist and homophobic sentiments to other officers.
1986
U.S.: A city park overlooking the mostly gay Castro area of San Francisco is renamed for local gay activist Bill Krause. Krause had been a key strategist in the successful drive to defeat the Briggs Initiative. He died in January 1986. * More than 400 AIDS educators, community workers and lesbian and gay activists attend a national conference in Washington, D.C., which focuses on the impact of AIDS on Blacks. * In Philadelphia, approximately 1,500 "sodomites and friends" protest the recent Supreme Court decision upholding Georgia's anti-sodomy law. * In Philadelphia, two bricks are thrown through the windows at Giovanni's Room, the gay and feminist bookstore. Store owner Ed Hermance believes the vandalism is the work of homophobes. * Missouri becomes the first state to cite the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the Georgia sodomy law, to overturn a challenge to their own similar law. The law criminalizes hand-genital, oral genital, or anal-genital activity between consenting same-sex partners and carries a violation of a one year prison sentence and/or a $1,000 fine. * Atlas Savings & Loan, the nation's only gay-owned and operated savings and loan institution, closes its doors for good. The bank, which showed over a $1 million loss the previous year, reopens the next day under new ownership. * In New York, 45 gay legal activists from the Ad Hoc Task Force to Challenge Sodomy Laws meet to plan strategies for overturning remaining state sodomy laws.
1981
U.S.: Six years after she defected from Czechoslovakia, Martina Navratilova is granted U.S. citizenship. * George Hamilton plays the twin roles of Dan Diego Vega and his lookalike gay brother Bunny Wigglesworth in the new farce Zorro, the Gay Blade. * In Santa Ana, Calif., a charge of sexual preference discrimination filed by Andrew Exler against Orange County, Calif., is denied after a hearing. Exler filed his claim with the Orange County Employees Association shortly after being fired from his job as a typist for the the Social Services Department of the county's Human Services Agency. Exler claimed he was fired because he was gay. * At a recent auction of Liberace's personal items only 65 people turn up, bidding is low and many of the items go unsold. * Producer Allan Carr announces the postponement of his stage musical version of the movie La Cage Aux Folles. The show was to have transplanted the story about a female impersonator and his manager-lover from Paris to New Orleans, under the title Queen of Basin Street.