United States LGBT History for 1977
July 15 - National
In response to Anita Bryant very visible campaign in Florida to repeal anti-discrimination laws, organizations including the Tavern Guild stopped using Florida orange juice in bars and restaurants across the country. In 1969 Florida Orange Juice hired Anita for their ad campaigns. Because this product is the primary resource for the state the impact hit quickly as people stopped buying their products.
October 7 - Virginia
Richmond Citizens for Gay and Lesbian Rights hold the first organized Gay Rights Rally in Richmond’s Monroe Park to protest Anita Bryant’s performance at the University of Richmond. Local activists Bruce Garnett and Neal Parsons confront Bryant at the University of Richmond.
January 1 - Florida
Anita Bryant and Save Our Children succeed in repealing Miami law against discrimination based on sexual orientation. In the largest special election of any in Dade County history, 70% vote to overturn the ordinance. It is a crushing defeat for gay activists.
January 1 – Michigan
Warren City Council endorses Anita Bryant's crusade against gay rights.
May 1 - National
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops faces one of its most controversial agendas as it takes up proposals concerning the elimination of discrimination against homosexuals, as well birth control, ordaining women, and divorce.
January 1 - National
Arnie Kantrowitz publishes “Under the Rainbow: Growing Up Gay” Karnowitz's Under the Rainbow is one of the few genuine gay classics. In an immensely moving account, Karnowitz writes of growing up gay before Stonewall, trying to come to grips with his sexuality at a time when it was generally perceived as an illness; his discovery of the early gay rights movement; and becoming a nationally recognized activist for gay rights.
Bella Abzug
June 15 - Virginia
In Richmond, Virginia, a shooting at the Male Box, a bar with a primarily gay male clientele, leaves one person dead and several injured, and sends shock waves throughout the community.
January 1 - National
Frank Bidart a poet releases “The Book of the Body”
June 14 - Illinois
Chicago’s first major gay rights protest while anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant supports a concert inside the Medinah Temple.
December 31 - Oregon
The Dyketones perform at a New Year’s Eve party. They dress in politically incorrect clothes and put lesbian-themed lyrics to songs – thus changing My Girl into My Dyke.
January 1 – Florida
Bella Abzug, nicknamed “Battling Bella,” was a feisty U.S. Representative gay rights activist from New York. In 1977, she gave an impassioned speech before a crowd of 3,000 people in Dade County, Florida.
June 1 - Georgia
An estimated 1,500 people march in the local Pride Parade, with an estimated 3,000 attending the rally at the parade’s conclusion.
June 1 - National
The Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly approves a business resolution to urge UUs to fight negative propaganda against gays.
January 10 - National
Ellen Marie Barrett becomes the first openly lesbian cleric. Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Jr. Of New York performs the ordination and says that “homosexuality is a condition which one does not choose; it is not a question of morality.”
Robert Hillsborough
July 2 - California
Gil Robison, Liz Throop, Beth Coonan and other gay activists form the city’s first gay political action committee, calling it the First Tuesday Democratic [Party] Club.
President Gerald Ford
Neil Goldschmidt
January 1 - Illinois
Jon-Henri Damski is a writer and starts working for GayLife newspaper. There were a number of gay newsprint papers that he helped write for including the “Gay Chicago Magazine”
January 1 - National
Gerard Donelan’s first cartoon appears in The Advocate (1977), for which he soon begins “IT’S A GAY LIFE.” His work from The Advocate is later collected in two volumes (Liberation, 1987 & 1988).
January 1 - National
“Soap” In this spoof of daytime dramas, Billy Crystal played Jodie Dallas, the first gay main character on an American television series. Over the course of the show’s run, Jodie considers gender- reassignment surgery so he can marry his boyfriend, attempts suicide when he gets dumped, has a one-night stand with a woman (who gets pregnant and leaves him at the altar), tries dating a lesbian, proposes to a woman (again), and emerges from hypnotherapy believing that he is a 90-year-old Jewish man named Julius Kassendorf.
October 1 - California
Harvey Milk runs for city supervisor in San Francisco. He runs on a socially liberal platform and opposes government involvement in personal sexual matters. Milk comes in 10th out of 32 candidates, earning 16,900 votes, winning the Castro District and other liberal neighborhoods. He receives a lot of media attention for his passionate speeches, brave political stance, and media skills. Harvey Milk becomes the United States’ first openly gay elected official.
January 1 - National
The Reverend Anne Holmes becomes the first openly lesbian minister to be ordained in the United Church of Christ.
January 1 - Oregon
Rupert Kinnard’s “CATHARTIC COMICS,” featuring the first African-American gay men in comic strips, begins to run in Cornell College’s student newspaper (1977) and is later collected in B.B. and the Diva (Alyson, 1992).
September 1 - Oregon
The PTC hires gay activist Leo Gaul to lobby for a gay civil rights bill in the Oregon Legislature. He works out of the office of straight ally Representative Gretchen Kafoury who had just been elected to the House for the first time.
January 1 - National
Edmund White publishes his book “The Joys of Gay Sex”
June 21 - California
Robert Hillsborough was stabbed to death in San Francisco by a man shouting "faggot".
State equality and discrimination bills
January 1 - National
Larry Mitchell published “The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions” This is possibly the sweetest gay fantasy book written during the magical post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS epoch. It's a series of poems/stories about fairy men living in a community, spending time together, wearing spangles, and mocking straight society.
June 25 - Oregon
Jann Mitchell’s front-page interview for The Oregon Journal, Gay Pride Day.
January 1 - National
Ricky Wilson is the founding member of the B-52’s. Ricky dies of an AIDS related illness at the age of 32.
January 1 - National
Roger Austen publishes a bibliography “Playing the game: The Homosexual Novel in America” "Gay literature was almost totally in the closet until the 1920s. Even though the 1950s, gay writers had to add a tone of 'respectability' to their novels in order for them to be even partially accepted by straight readers and critics. They 'played the game' by changing pronouns or by tossing their protagonists to the wolves..." Excellent critical discussions of gay literature.
Ellen Marie Barrett
June 29 - Utah
House Bill 3 (HB3), by LDS Rep. Georgia Peterson, R-Salt Lake passed the Utah State House of Representatives by a landslide vote of 71 to 3 making “homosexual marriages in the state of Utah… illegal.”
June 1 - National
The 11th General Synod of the United Church of Christ passes resolutions calling attention to human sexuality studies and to violations of the civil rights of gay and bisexual persons.
In response the national boycott Florida Orange Juice revoked her payment. They didn't cancel her contract but refused to use her and let the contract lapse in 1979. Later Bryant made herself a martyr as she had to declare bankruptcy and her career failed because the gays attacked her livelihood.
January 1 – California
Lawyers Donna Hitchens and Roberta Achtenberg in San Francisco form the Lesbian Rights Project (LRP), which evolves into the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), still helping LGBT parents (and others) today.
January 1 - National
The Village People start releasing their first series of songs “San Francisco", "Macho Man" followed by "Y.M.C.A.
June 25 - Oregon
Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt issues a proclamation for Gay Pride Day.
November 7 - Washington D.C.
Jimmy Carter publicly opposed the Briggs Initiative. However, in March 1980, Carter issued a formal statement indicating he would not issue an executive order banning anti-gay discrimination in the US federal government and that he would not support including a gay rights plank in the Democratic Party platform
January 1 - National
Charles Silverstein publishes “A Family Matter: A Parents' Guide to Homosexuality” Case histories, demonstrating ways in which other parents of homosexuals have dealt with their fears and guilt are included in this discussion of the problems that often follow the discovery of a son's or daughter's homosexuality
December 1 - National
In STAR*REACH #11, Lee Marrs contributes a “STARK’S QUEST” story featuring a bi/lesbian heroine.
March 26 - National
Focus on the Family is founded by James Dobson.
May 1 - Oregon
Parents of Gays, gets a huge break. The first is the live Sunday television show Town Hall on the topic of homosexuality. Within hours, POG’s phone is ringing off the hook.
June 7 - Florida
Singer and conservative Southern Baptist Anita Bryant leads a successful campaign with the "Save Our Children" Crusade to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida.
January 1 - Utah
The Payne Papers are published. After listening to an anti-gay lecture at BYU given by psychology professor. Reed Payne, a gay BYU student, Cloy Jenkins, writes a well-reasoned, thoughtful, articulate response to the lecture. Originally published as The Payne Papers, it is now called Prologue.
June 11 - Utah
Steven James Matthew Price formed Affirmation: Gay Mormons United. (Later renamed Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons.) Members were encouraged to go by a middle name and mother’s maiden name to keep their identities secret. (Price went by the name Matthew Price and later by Stephen J. Zacharias.) The mailing list of members was kept in a safe deposit box in Dallas. Within the year membership skyrocketed thanks to coverage in The Advocate.
November 8 - California
Harvey Milk wins a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and is responsible for introducing a gay rights ordinance protecting gays and lesbians from being fired from their jobs. Milk also leads a successful campaign against Proposition 6, an initiative forbidding homosexual teachers. He is the third “out” elected public official in the United States.
September 4 - Utah
The LDS Church invited Ms. Anita Bryant to come to Utah for the Utah State Fair, and both Spencer Kimball, and the General Relief Society President, Barbara B. Smith, held news conferences praising Anita Bryant and her work to save America from “the homosexual menace.”
January 1 - Florida
Florida forbids adoption by gays and lesbians.
Mark E. Peterson
January 1 - Utah
Mark E. Petersen attacked the Gay Rights movement with six harsh editorials for the Mormon Church News.
January 1 - Arkansas
Arkansas recriminalizes gay sex after two years without such a law
October 27 - Virginia
In Virginia, Neal Parsons, Bruce Garnett, and Tony Segura form the Richmond Gay Rights Association.
January 1 - Oregon
80% of surveyed Oregon doctors say they would refuse to treat a known homosexual
Chicago Protesting Anita Bryant
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