May 5th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History May 5th

1994 – First issue of Metro Weekly published in Washington D.C., USA
2009 – New Hampshire pass same-sex marriage bill by Senate and House

Born this day

Hans Heinrich von Twardowski (1898 - 1958),  German / US.  Actor

Twardowski appeared in numerous films from the 1920's to 1944, first in Germany, later in Hollywood. Thereafter, he continued to write and direct for the stage. He was homosexual, and left Germany in 1933 to escape the Nazi regime.

James Beard (1903 - 1985 ) US

Chef and food writer. The central figure in the story of the establishment of a gourmet American food identity, Beard was an eccentric personality who brought French cooking to the American middle and upper classes in the 1950s. Beard noted in his memoirs that he knew by the time that he was seven, that he was gay,

Del Martin  (1921 –  2008) US

Pioneer lesbian activist, who together with her life partner Phyllis Lyons made several major contributions over half a century to progress to LGBT equality in the United Sates. They were founder members of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first social and political organization for lesbians in the United States.When they later joined the National Organization for Women (NOW) as the first lesbian couple to do so.They worked  to form the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH), They became politically active in San Francisco's first gay political organization, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club.  Both served in the White House Conference on Aging in 1995, and in 2005 were among the first group of people inducted into the LGBT Journalists' Hall of Fame. 

They had first met in 1952, and moved in together in San Francisco on Valentine's Day the following year. 55 years late they were the first same - sex couple to be married, in June 2008, after the California Supreme Court   briefly legalized same-sex marriage in California. (later overturned by Proposition 8 that same year). 

Kyan Douglas  (1970 – ) US
Presenter

Died this day

George Rose  (1920 – 1988) UK
Actor / Murder Victim

Sodomy in history, May 5th

1722 — Pennsylvania requires registration and duty for certain imported servants, including those convicted of sodomy.

1903 — The Kentucky Supreme Court decides that "Every person of ordinary intelligence understands what is meant by a charge of sodomy."

1947 — The Colorado Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction over the contention that a housekeeper testified as to the defendant’s relationship with another man, but not the one in question.

1983 — Wisconsin repeals its sodomy law.

1987 — A Michigan appellate court, while upholding the constitutionality of the state’s gross indecency law as applied to consensual acts in private, nevertheless overturns the conviction of a man for acts in a restroom due to overhead surveillance.

1993 — The District of Columbia repeals its sodomy law.

Sources:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, May