The confrontations between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City the weekend of June 27-29, 1969 mark the beginning of the modern glbtq movement for equal rights.
Formed soon after the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the short-lived but influential Gay Liberation Front brought a new militancy to the movement that became known as gay liberation.
The sexual revolution of post-World War II America changed sexual and gender roles profoundly.
"Leather" is a blanket term for a large array of sexual preferences, identities, relationship structures, and social organizations loosely tied together by the thread of what is conventionally understood as sadomasochistic sex.
Although best known for her crusade for women's suffrage, Susan B. Anthony spoke out on a range of feminist issues.
With reports from hundreds of sub-Saharan African locales of male-male sexual relations and from about fifty of female-female sexual relations, it is clear that same-sex sexual relations existed in traditional African societies, though varying in forms and in the degree of public acceptance
Androgyny, a psychological blending of gender traits, has long been embraced by strong women, soft men, members of queer communities, and others who do not easily fit into traditionally defined gender categories.
A cultural crossroads between Asia and Europe, Russia has a long, rich, and often violent heritage of varied influences and stark confrontations in regard to its patterns of same-sex love.
Daniel O'Donnell (left) and John Banta at their wedding (still from a YouTube video by Jose Rivera).
Congratulations to John Banta and Daniel J. O'Donnell on their wedding in New York City on January 29, 2012. The couple helped give a human face to the need for same-sex marriage in New York. O'Donnell, a Democratic Assemblyman representing New York City's Upper West Side, has served in the state Assembly since 2002 and was one of the lead sponsors of the marriage equality legislation that was finally passed on June 24, 2011. Banta, an events planner and Director of Special Events for the Metropolitan Opera, frequently appeared in Albany to lobby in favor of the legislation.
The ceremony, which was held at Guastavino's in Manhattan, was performed by Judith S. Kaye, former Chief Judge of New York's highest court, who in July 2006 wrote a carefully reasoned but powerful dissent when the court ruled 4-2 that the state constitution did not compel same-sex marriage. She noted then that denying marriage to same-sex couples does not serve the interest of children and predicted that future generations would consider the decision "an unfortunate misstep."
During the wedding ceremony, Judge Kaye read an excerpt from one of O'Donnell's speeches on same-sex marriage during the debate in the legislature: "I don't want a seat in your synagogue, I don't want a church pew. I want a license that all of you have. Some of you have had two or three times."
The wedding was attended by many of O'Donnell's colleagues in the state legislature and by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Also present were members of both grooms' families, including Rosie O'Donnell, the brother of Daniel O'Donnell.
Banta and O'Donnell met in 1978 at the Catholic University of America, where they were freshmen. They became a couple in the fall of their Junior year.
The story of their thirty-year relationship is recounted by Elissa Gootman in the February 3, 2012 edition of New York Times.
In the video below Daniel O'Donnell delivers the closing argument before the vote in the New York State Assembly on June 15, 2011.
Below is a video of the wedding by Jose Rivera.