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Today in LGBT History--July 5
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George Melly in one of his famous suits
1977: Canada's Fifth Annual National Gay Rights Conference closes in the prairie city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
1980: National convention of the Liberal Party, one of Canada's large mainstream political parties, adopts resolution to include sexual orientation in Canadian Human Right Act.
1986: In London, England, 7,500 join the Gay Pride March from Hyde Park, where it rained.
1987: James Donovan, a New York state senator, suggested that giving teens rosary beads would prevent the spread of AIDS more effectively than the distribution of condoms.
1991: British gays go to the Isle Of Man to protest the Opening of Tinwald, the local parliament on this island south of England.
1996: The New Zealand Presbyterian Church rules that lesbian and gay people may not be licensed or ordained as elders or ministers or put in positions of leadership. The decision is also referred back to churches for a decision in two years.
1999: A 21-year-old American soldier is bludgeoned to death while sleeping on his cot in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, by a fellow GI who thought he was gay. The attacker was later convicted of murder.
2007: George Melly, British bisexual jazz singer, music critic, author, anarchist, lush, and raconteur, dies in London, England, of lung cancer at age 80. He was also an art lecturer specializing in surrealism, a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, and widely noted for his loud suits, louder ties and the image he cultivated of a hard-drinking throwback to the jazz age.
Today’s Birthdays…
1889: Jean Cocteau, avant-garde French artist, in Maisoms-Lafitte, France. He was a poet, playwright, film director, novelist and artist. His lover of many years was actor, Jean Marais.
1979: Amelie Mauresmo, French tennis-player, born in Laye.
Happy 4th of July weekend everyone! To celebrate, and to reflect, compare these words from the Declaration of Independence to some written in an email from President Barack Obama to his supporters this holiday weekend. Consider this some Independence Day food for thought.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
--The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
"Our country began as a unique experiment in liberty -- a bold, evolving quest to achieve a more perfect union. And in every generation, another courageous group of patriots has taken us one step closer to fully realizing the dream our founders enshrined on that great day.
"Today, all Americans have a hard-fought birthright to a freedom which enables each of us, no matter our views or background, to help set our nation's course. America's greatness has always depended on her citizens embracing that freedom -- and fulfilling the duty that comes with it.
"As free people, we must each take the challenges and opportunities that face this nation as our own. As long as some Americans still must struggle, none of us can be fully content. And as America comes ever closer to achieving the perfect Union our founders dreamed, that triumph -- that pride -- belongs to all of us."
--President Barack Obama, July 4th, 2009
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