February 18th in Queer History

Born this day

Tuulikki Pietila (1917 –   2009) Finnish
Artist

David March (1925 – 1999) UK
Actor

Ned Sherrin  (1931 –  2007) UK
Presenter / Author / Director

Duane Michals  (1932 – ) US
Photographer

Audre Lorde  (1934 –  1992) US
Author / Poet / Activist

David Ehrenstein  (1947 –  ) US
Film Critic / Journalist / Author / Blogger

Margaret Smith  (1961 – ) UK
Politician

Christopher Sieber  (1969 –  ) US
Actor / Singer

Ben Harvey  (1979 –  ) US
Presenter

Died this day

Michelangelo  (1475 -  1564 ) Italian
Sculptor / Painter / Architect / Poet / Engineer

Charlotte Cushman  (1816 - 1876 ) US
Actress / Singer / Playwright / Director

Scott O’Hara  (1961 - 1998 )  US
Porn / Poet / Editor / Publisher / Author

Laurel Hester  (1956 - 2006)  US
Police Officer

Barbara Gittings (1932 - 2007) US
Activist 

A prominent American activist for gay equality. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) from 1958 to 1963, edited the national DOB magazine The Ladder from 1963 to 1966, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in the 1960s on the first picket lines that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people by the largest employer in the US at that time: the United States government.

Sodomy in history, February

1854 — Alabama is the first state in the nation to make conviction of the "crime against nature" a specific grounds for divorce.

1893 — The Washington Supreme Court notes that Washington has no sodomy law, even though it is indictable under the common-law statute.

1930 — The Iowa Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction despite "conflict and contradictions" in the testimony.

1937 — Vermont outlaws oral sex, which the statute calls "fellation."

1957 — The Arkansas Supreme Court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man committed on a blind boy of borderline intelligence, after the trial judge determined him competent to testify because "he believes in God" and had the Bible read to him.

Sources:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia