April 9th in Queer History

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signs domestic partner benefits bill [becoming effective 1st July 2009]

Born this day

Sir Robert Helpman  (1909 –  1986)  Australian
Ballet Dancer / Actor / Choreographer –

Valerie Solanas   (1936 –   1988)  US
Author / Attempted Murderer

Lar Lubovitch  (1943 – ) US
Choreographer

Marc Jacobs  (1963 – ) US
Fashion Designer

Cynthia Nixon  (1966 – )  US
Actress

Died this day

Lyle Chambers Saxon  ( 1891 -1946 ) US
Author

Emma Willits  (1869 - 1965)  US
Physician

Andrea Dworkin   (1946 -2005 )  US
Author / Activist


Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover (? - 2009), US
An 11-year old Massachusetts boy, who commited suicide after continued “gay” taunts

Sodomy in history, 

April 9

1885 — Colorado outlaws "sex toys."

1924 — The Indiana Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction even though testimony of other sexual partners was introduced into the trial.

1929 — The Utah Supreme Court, although upholding the constitutionality of the 1925 sterilization law, rules that a prisoner caught in the act of consensual sodomy with another prisoner, and who is described as "acting lovingly toward other boys in the prison," can not be sterilized for that reason alone.

1951 — A California appellate court rules that anyone who commits sodomy is also a vagrant.

1956 — Arizona enacts a unique law outlawing kidnapping for purposes of sodomy.

1962 — New York amends its sodomy law to permit both parties in an act of oral sex to be considered guilty, following a 1961 court decision interpreting the law literally that only the "active" partner was guilty.

1965 — In a case from a 1962 Mansfield witch hunt, a federal court in Ohio rules that criminal prosecutions for sodomy can not be brought into federal court under federal civil rights laws.

1970 — The Oregon Court of Appeals overturns the sodomy conviction of a man who pleaded guilty with the understanding that the maximum sentence was 15 years in prison, but who received a life sentence under the indeterminate sentencing law.

Sources:

Wikipedia

glbtq emcyclopedia

On this gay day

Calendar of Sodomy, April