Today in LGBT History--September 16

September 16, 2:04 PMGrassroots Equality ExaminerBrandon Santo

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1730: In Amsterdam, Lourens Hosponjon is executed for sodomy.

1992: Robert Sawyer of Brattleboro, Vermont pleads not guilty to charges that he murdered his ex-girlfriend, Judith Hart Fournier, after she left him for a woman. She had a restraining order, but Sawyer violated it repeatedly. The case sparked a demand for anti-stalking legislation.

1992: Fifty-eight year old Roy Downs files a complaint of brutality against the Ft. Worth Police Department. He was arrested during a series of raids on gay bars, and officers beat and verbally abused him.

1994: Richard Hongisto, a former San Francisco police chief, is convicted of civil rights violations for ordering the removal of an issue of Bay Times, a gay newspaper, from the stands. Hongisto began his career championing justice and equality for racial minorities and homosexuals, but his career was later marred by various controversies, ending with the Bay Times controversy. Read more about his career and incarceration here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918978,00.html

1994: The International Lesbian Gay Association loses its non-governmental organization representative status at the United Nations after a campaign by US Senator Jesse Helms revealed that one of its member organizations, NAMBLA, condoned sex with children. As a result, ILGA expelled NAMBLA from its membership.

1997: Alberta singer KD Lang is invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada, a high official Canadian government award recognizing national achievement.

2004: Manitoba becomes the fourth province in Canada to allow gay marriage as the Court of Queen's Bench rules in favor of same-sex weddings in the western province.

Today’s LGBT Birthdays…

1856: Wilheim Von Gloeden, German photographer of beautiful young men, in Wismar, Germany in 1856. At the turn of the 20th century his picture postcards of naked youths from the Sicilian town of Taormina were "must haves". Even though they passed for art they were among the first examples of modern gay porn.

Quote of the day….

"It's like sex. You have to do it to really know what it is." –Richard Hongisto on his experience in jail.