Entkriminalisierung der Homosexualität
1290 First mention in English common law of a punishment for homosexuality
1300 Treatise in England prescribed that sodomites should be burned alive
1532 Constitutio Criminalis Carolina Straff der vnkeusch, so wider die natur beschicht 116. Item so eyn mensch mit eynem vihe, mann mit mann, weib mit weib, vnkeusch treiben, die haben auch das leben verwürckt, vnd man soll sie der gemeynen gewonheyt nach mit dem fewer vom leben zum todt richten.
1533 Buggery Act introduced by Henry VIII brought sodomy within the scope of statute law for the first time and made it punishable by hanging.
1861 Offences Against the Person Act formally abolished the death penalty for buggery in England and Wales.
1869 First published use of the term ‘homosexuality’ (Homosexualitat) by Karoly Maria Kertbeny, a German-Hungarian campaigner.
1885 Labouchere amendment passed 7 August (Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act). Created the offence of ‘gross indecency’ and thus became the first specifically anti-homosexual act. It became known as the ‘blackmailer’s charter’.
1895 The trials of Oscar Wilde and his sentencing to two years prison with hard labour under the 1885 Act.
1897 English edition of the book Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds published. First book in English to treat homosexuality as neither a disease nor a crime, maintaining that it was inborn and unchangeable.
1954 Appointment of the Wolfenden Committee on 24 August to consider the law in Britain relating to homosexual offences.
1956 The Sexual Offences Act became law, determining much police activity against homosexuals in the UK for the rest of the century.
1957 Wolfenden Report published on 3 September.
1958 Foundation of the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS) on 12 May.
1961 Release of the film Victim, the most important British film on a gay theme pleading for tolerance towards homosexuals and an end to the blackmail of gay men.
1967 Sexual Offences Act came into force in England and Wales and decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age and ‘in private.’
1970 First ever organised lesbian and gay pride march took place on 28 June in New York City commemorating the previous year’s Stonewall riot. - London Gay Liberation Front GLF) founded at the London School of Economics on 13 October. First gay demonstration in the UK took place in Highbury Fields in Islington.
1971 Committee for Homosexual Equality changed its name to the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. First gay march through London took place, ending with a rally in Trafalgar Square, protesting against the unequal age of consent for gay men. - Lesbians invaded the platform of the Women’s Liberation Conference in Skegness, demanding recognition.
1972 Law Lords found the International Times magazine guilty of ‘conspiracy to corrupt public morals’ for publishing gay contact advertisements. Gay News, UK’s first gay newspaper, founded. SMG launched a campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in Scotland. First UK Pride carnival and march through London held on 1 July.
1973 First UK gay helpline founded in Oxford. First national gay rights conference was held by CHE in Morecombe
1974 Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform (Northern Ireland) appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to force the UK to extend the 1967 Sexual Offences Act to them. First national lesbian conference held in Canterbury. SMG bought a building to set up a Gay Centre in Edinburgh (where homosexual acts were still illegal). London Gay Switchboard (later London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard) was launched. It went 24 hours within a year. First International Gay Rights Conference held in Edinburgh. South London Gay Community Centre opened in a Brixton squat.
1975 Action for Lesbian Parents founded after three high-profile custody cases where lesbians were refused custody of their children. British Home Stores sacked openly gay trainee Tony Whitehead; a national campaign subsequently picketed their stores.
1977 Lord Arran’s Bill to reduce the gay age of consent to 18 defeated in the House of Lords. Ian Paisley launched ‘Save Ulster From Sodomy’ campaign. Gay News prosecuted by Mary Whitehouse for ‘blasphemy’ after printing James Kirkup’s poem about a Roman centurion having sex with Jesus of Nazareth.
1978 International Gay Association (later International Lesbian and Gay Association – ILGA) launched at a meeting in Coventry.
1979 Gay Life, the first ever gay TV series, commissioned for British TV by London Weekend Television. Gays the Word bookshop is established in London
1980 Male homosexuality decriminalised in Scotland. European Commission ruled unanimously that the British government was guilty of breaching Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by refusing to legalise consenting homosexual behaviour in Ulster. First black lesbian and gay group founded.
1981 European Court of Human Rights found in favour of Northern Irish gays. Ken Livingstone, the new leader of the Greater London Council (GLC), promised support to gays and gave the first ‘gay grant’ to London Gay Switchboard.
1982 Male homosexuality decriminalised in Northern Ireland with the passing of law reform in the House of Commons. Terrence Higgins Trust launched, named after the gay man thought to be the first to have died with AIDS in the UK
1983 New lesbian and gay television series, One in Five, shown on Channel 4.
1985 GLC published Changing the World, a charter of gay rights.London Lesbian and Gay Centre opened in Cowcross Street, Farringdon with a grant from the GLC. South Wales miners joined the Pride march to thank lesbians and gay men who supported them during the coalminers strike. The first BiCon (a get together for bisexual people and allies) was held.
1988 Section 28, preventing the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality by local authorities, came into force on 24 May with backing from Local Government minister Michael Howard. 10,000 protested in London and 15,000 in Manchester.
1989 Stonewall Group set up to oppose Section 28 and other blocks to equality for lesbians and gay men. Founder members include Ian McKellen and Michael Cashman. Stonewall organised first lesbian and gay receptions at the Liberal Democrat, Labour & Conservative Party conferences.
1990 Mai: Die WHO streicht die Homosexualitaet aus dem Katalog der Geisteskrankheiten.
- Mai: Direct action group Outrage! set up after the murder in London of gay actor Michael Boothe.
1991 Lesbian & Gay Police Association (LAGPA, later the Gay Police Assoiciation GPA) formed.
1992 London hosted the first Europride Isle of Man decriminalised homosexuality.
1993 Stonewall launched first challenge to the European Court of Human Rights on the age of consent with three gay teenagers aged 16 - 18; Hugo Grennhalgh, Will Parry and Ralph Wild.
1994 House of Commons voted to reduce gay male age of consent to 18. Huge disappointment that it had not been reduced to 16.
1995 Gay Times went on sale in high street stores owned by the John Menzies newsagents chain for the first time in May. Biggest ever London Pride - almost 200,000 people attended the celebrations in the East End's Victoria Park. Rank Outsiders and Stonewall launched a major campaign against the ban on gays in the military.
2015 *U.S. Supreme Court: "The Constitution grants them this right" (gay marriage)
Weblinks und Literatur
- History of Lesbian, gay, and bisexual equality
- Dutch gay emancipation history
- Gay marriage ruling Supreme Court, June 2015, in: The Atlantic July 2015
- May 18, 1970, Jack Baker and Michael McConnell walked into a courthouse in Minneapolis, paid $10, and applied for a marriage license. The county clerk, Gerald Nelson, refused to give it to them. Obviously, he told them, marriage was for people of the opposite sex; it was silly to think otherwise. Baker, a law student, didn’t agree. He and McConnell, a librarian, had met at a Halloween party in Oklahoma in 1966, shortly after Baker was pushed out of the Air Force for his sexuality. From the beginning, the men were committed to one another. In 1967, Baker proposed that they move in together. McConnell replied that he wanted to get married—really, legally married.