Bob Crewe
Delaware
Fifteen men are arrested for “sodomy” in Wilmington and Newark. The arrestees are required to name names; are taken from their jobs without notice to their employers, leading to many firings; and are filmed in their “actions and conversations” at the police station. Delaware attorneys are fearful of defending them, due to police reprisals.
Oregon
The Oregon Supreme Court unanimously rules that the state’s very broad sodomy law outlaws cunnilingus.
California
The first US televised documentary about homosexuality airs on a local station in California.
State equality and discrimination bills
Michigan
While serving as Episcopal chaplain at Wayne State University, Malcolm Boyd is punched unconscious by a man he picked up at a Detroit bar.
National
Truman Capote wrote “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and it was turned into a film.
California
In San Francisco, by running for a seat on the Board of Supervisors, drag entertainer Joe Sarria becomes the country’s first openly gay candidate for U.S. public office. He is endorsed by the League for Civil Education, and although he did not win he received 5,600 votes.
President Dwight Eisenhower
United States LGBT History for 1961
Malcolm Boyd
Washington D.C.
Frank Kameny argued against his firing in the U.S. Supreme Court. The court denied his petition, but it was a notable moment because it was the first sexual orientation civil rights claim. Frank began the legal fight for equality and civil rights. Within five years major contributors to launching the revolution in the United States all emerged from various parts of the country. Frank documented his journey.
Illinois
In 1961, Illinois became the first state to repeal its sodomy law; it did so by adopting the Model Penal Code which completes a comprehensive criminal code revision that makes it the first state in the U.S. to repeal its law against sodomy. Homosexual acts between two consenting adults in private are no longer illegal. However the revised code made it a crime to commit a “lewd fondling or caress of the body of another person of the same sex” in a public place.
Oregon
Lesbian Jeannace Freeman is arrested with her lover, Gertrude Jackson, for the murder of the other woman’s two children. Freeman had convinced Jackson that the children were in the way of their relationship. Upon arrest, Freeman tells reporters, “I’m the butch one.” At her trial in Madras several months later, she appears in skirts and lipstick. She is convicted and sentenced to death. She is on death row at the time of the 1964 statewide vote that abolishes the death penalty, so Governor Hatfield commutes her sentence. Freeman’s name is used by death penalty supporters as a reason to oppose abolition.
National
Bob Crewe an accomplished manager and producer forms the group The Four Seasons. They were so successful through the decades that it is estimated that they sold up to 199 million albums worldwide. In the movie The Jersey Boys, his family said that they didn’t portray Bob correctly. He was very private about his sexuality, but the movie makes him look flamboyant and open.
National
The movie “The children’s hour” is released. Longtime friends Martha and Karen run a boarding school for girls. When an unruly child, Mary, is punished for lying, she concocts a story that Karen and Martha are having a lesbian relationship. When the story spreads, parents withdraw their children from the school. The women's lawsuit for libel hits many snags when they lack witnesses to speak for them. All the stress adversely affects Karen's engagement to Joe Cardin.
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