May 21 - National
Candidate Jimmy Carter announces that if elected he will support and sign a federal civil rights bill outlawing discrimination against gays and lesbians.
June 26 - Rhode Island
Denied use of the Old State House on Benefit Street for a symposium on gay issues and denied permission to hold a pride parade in Providence, a gay rights group sues in U.S. District Court. Federal Judge Raymond J. Pettine rules for the gay group. A parade of about 70 marchers goes forth around Kennedy Plaza on June 26.
June 20 - Oregon
Parents Ann Shepherd and Charles Knapp set up a table at the Gay Pride rally for folks to sign up for Parents of Gays. Later the group grows into the Portland chapter of PFLAG.
November 1 - California
The Bi Monthly newsletter begins circulation to connect the bisexual community in San Francisco.
January 1 – Oregon
Larry Copeland and the Shepherds help launch the PTC Legal Resources Committee — the predecessor to OGALLA, the Oregon LGBT Bar Association -- which provides attorneys to promote the fair and just treatment of all people under the law regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and furthers the professional development and advancement of LGBT lawyers, legal workers and law students.
United States LGBT History for 1976
Rabih Alameddine
January 1 – National
Randy Shilts published “Familiar Faces, Hidden Lives: The Story of Homosexual Men in America Today” A former senior health-services official speaks honestly and plainly about what it is like to be gay in America.
January 1 – Oregon
The Community Law Project begins. It includes a number of lesbian attorneys. According to former CLP lawyer Katharine English, “The CLP won the first contested lesbian custody case in Oregon. The firm represented gay men and lesbians in a variety of causes.”
Less AuCoin
Oregon Congress
March 1 - Oregon
The PTC publishes an 80-page booklet titled A Legislative Guide to Gay Rights. PTC hopes the guide will educate legislatures about gay issues so that eventually a gay civil rights bill will pass. The primary author is Susie Shepherd.
June 1 - Virginia
In June, Our Own, an LGBT publication, begins in Norfolk, Virginia, and soon extends coverage and availability to Richmond. It was started by the Unitarian Universalist Gay Caucus.
President Gerald Ford
January 1 – National
The Vatican publishes a statement on sex that reiterates the Roman Catholic Church’s positions on the immorality of sex outside of marriage, birth control, and homosexuality, which it calls ‘intrinsically disordered.’” The Archbishop of Canterbury later calls the Vatican report as “‘somewhat lacking in pastoral guidance and tenderness toward those who find these problems quite agonizing.”
January 1 – Michigan
Leaping Lesbian begins publishing in Ann Arbor.
January 1 – California
Rabih Alameddine Lebanese-American painter and writer moved to America. Since relocating in the 70’s he is an accomplished and award winning novelist.
April 1 - National
Barefootz’s artist pal HEADRACK comes out as gay, becoming the first continuing LGBT character in comic books, in Howard Cruse’s BAREFOOTZ FUNNIES #2.
January 1 – National
Ruth Simpson was the founder of the first lesbian community center. Her book From the Closet to the Courts chronicled her time as president of Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian civil and political rights organization.
Mary Jo Risher
Renee Richards
January 1 – National
San Francisco Bisexual Center opens
February 1 - New York
Bishop Francis Mugavero of the Diocese of Brooklyn issues a “pastoral letter defending the ‘legitimate’ rights of all people including homosexuals,” and urging “‘priests, counselors, and others to express concern and compassion for those…who experience pain and confusion due to a sexual orientation.” The letter furthermore “urge[s] homosexual men and women to avoid identifying their personhood with their sexual orientations,” and states that homosexuality should not be one’s claim to “acceptance or human rights.” Mugavero’s congregation later comes out in support of his statements.
August 20 - Michigan
First Michigan Womyn's Music Festival is held on original site in Hesperia.
June 1 - Oregon
At the Southern Baptist Convention, the first official resolution on homosexuality is released, upholding that homosexuality is a sin and urging local churches not to “afford the practice of homosexuality any degree of approval.” Stricken from the resolution is a final paragraph that would have urged “Christian compassion for all persons whatever their lifestyle.”
December 26 - California
Mary Jo Risher loses custody of her son after a jury finds that she is unfit to be a mother because she is a lesbian.
June 26 - Georgia
Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson officially proclaims Gay Pride Day in Atlanta.
November 1 - Oregon
In the general election, Congressman Les AuCoin of Oregon, who co-sponsored the federal sexual orientation civil rights bill is targeted by opponent Phil Bladine for his sponsorship, but wins reelection handily.
Vera Katz
June 1 - Oregon
At urging of PTC’s Larry Copeland, Governor Bob Straub creates the Task Force on Sexual Preference to study discrimination against gays. Gladys McCoy, a straight ally since 1972, facilitates the formation in her then current role as the Governor’s Ombudsman.
January 1 – Washington D.C.
Washington, D.C. becomes first jurisdiction in the country to prohibit judges from making custody decisions based solely on sexual orientation.
October 2 - Utah
General Conference Apostle Boyd K. Packer gives his now infamous talk entitled “To Young Men Only.” He said some young men are “tempted to handle one another, to have contact with one another in unusual ways.” He commented that “such practices are perversion…. Physical mischief with another man is forbidden.” Packer also essentially advocated anti-gay violence in his speech when he recounted the story of a male missionary who had “hit” and “floored” his mission companion, apparently for simply revealing his sexual orientation. Because Packer does not specify the reason for the violent response, the talk leaves interpretation open. Packer told the missionary, “Well, thanks. Somebody had to do it and it wouldn’t be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way.” Packer told his audience, “I am not recommending that course [of violence] to you but I am not omitting it. You must protect yourself.” The talk was published and is distributed today.
January 1 – National
Roberta Gregory self-publishes the lesbian-themed Dynamite Damsels
November 21 - Washington State
Northwest Washington, [Wayne] Schwandt and [John] Fortunato walked down the aisle side by side, wearing matching embroidered tunics. Reporters wrote about what Fortunato and Schwandt called a holy union, which was controversial not because there was talk of legalizing gay marriage but because the two men publicly ask for -- and were denied -- the blessing of the Episcopal Church.
Robert Straub
Oregon Governor
August 1 - Utah
Max Ford McBride completes his dissertation at BYU. He experimented on 14 gay BYU students to determine if using photographs of nude men and women from pornographic magazines helped during electroshock therapy. Two of the 14 men committed suicide after the torturous study. He was awarded a PhD for his completion of the study. Read the entire dissertation below:
January 1 – Colorado
Out Front Magazine launches and remains, to this day, the third oldest LGBT publication in the United States.
Boyd Packer
January 1 – National
George Whitmore publishes his poem “Getting Gay in New York”
June 1 - Oregon
Portland Town Council has a fundraiser for Vera Katz and Stephen Kafoury. The spaghetti feed nets $230. PTC splits the money between Vera and Stephen.
January 1 – National
Patrick Cuccaro and Michael Chafin produce the first gay male theater piece shown in Atlanta, “The Boys in the Band” at Buckhead’s Academy Theatre.
January 1 – Michigan
Michigan legislature enacts Eliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act without protections for lesbians and gays.
November 12 - National
The U.S. Catholic Conference hosts a conference on social justice. Five of its final recommendations promote pastoral care for gay and lesbian people and oppose discrimination against them. The American bishops’ To Live in Christ Jesus states gays “should have an active role in the Christian community.” The Diocese of Richmond, Va., establishes the first diocesan ministry to gay and lesbian Catholics.
August 25 - National
At age 52, Renée Richards (born Richard Raskin) enters a women’s tennis tournament where she is recognized by people who had known her as Raskin. A battle ensues between Richards and the tournament authorities, and she goes to court to defend her right to be recognized as female. The court rules that once the full transition and sex-reassignment surgery are completed, transsexuals should legally be recognized according to their new gender. This ruling establishes an important legal precedent regarding the civil and private lives of transsexual people. After the controversy abates, Richards plays competitive tennis as a woman. Later, she serves as Martina Navratilova’s first coach and introduces Navratilova when she is inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Richards also continues to practice medicine in New York and serve on the editorial board of the Journal of Pediatric Ophthalmology & Strabismus.
January 1 – National
Gay heart throbs #1, the first all-gay-male comic, is released, followed by #2 in 1979 and #3 in 1981.
January 1 – National
“Doonesbury“ is the first mainstream comic strip to feature a gay male character
January 1 – California
The serialized “Tales of the City” is published by the San Francisco Chronicle and includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender characters.
June 20 - Oregon
Lesbian activist Kathleen Saadat organizes Portland’s first Gay Pride march.
January 1 – National
Jesuit Father John McNeill publishes The Church and the Homosexual, the first full-length theological challenge to the magisterial prohibition of same-sex activity. He receives the imprimi potest, (it can be printed) from the Jesuit superiors. In this "brave and good book which shatters bad myths" (Commonweal), McNeill shows that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, and argues that the Church must not continue its homophobic practices.
State equality and discrimination bills
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