2000s

2000  

"Teletubbies" cartoon character Tinky Winky is "outed" as gay in a "Parents' Alert" in Jerry Falwell's "Liberty Journal," which asserts, "He is purple--the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle--the gay-pride symbol."  

April  Millennium March on Washington for Equality Agenda. Activists push for: hate crime legislation; equality in the workplace; linking racial and sexual justice; equal rights for parenting and marriage; the right to serve openly in the military; privacy laws; access to quality health care and more research dollars; and increased education and support for all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.  

June 28  U.S. Supreme Court enforces the Boy Scouts of America policy that excludes openly gay scouts and scoutmasters. The Court rules by a 5-to-4 vote that the Boy Scouts have a constitutional right to exclude gay members because opposition to homosexuality is part of the organization's "expressive message." Anti-gay activists like Robert Knight of the Family Research Council use the scouting controversy to revive anti-gay "child molester" propaganda. (After CBS morning-show host Bryant Gumbel interviews Knight, he is heard on air commenting, "What a fucking idiot." Anti-gay groups label CBS the "Christian Bashing System" and lobby unsuccessfully for Gumbel's firing.)  

Matthew Limon, a mildly mentally retarded youth from Kansas, is convicted of criminal sodomy and is sentenced to 17 years in prison for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old when Limon was 18.  

2001  

Sept 11  The World Trade Center is bombed.  

On "The 700 Club" two days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Jerry Falwell blames the tragedy on "the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle." Host Pat Robertson responds: "Well, I totally concur."  

2002  

Feb  The Kansas Court of Appeals upholds Limon's conviction and sentence based on the U.S. Supreme Court's 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick.  

Dec  Jeffrey Medis, an openly gay man, is beaten outside the Replay Lounge, 946 Mass. Lawrence Police conclude that the beating was not anti-gay-motivated in spite of the fact that Medis was wearing makeup.  

2003  

Alan Sears, head of the Alliance Defense Fund, co-authors "The Homosexual Agenda," a book that asserts gay activists' ultimate goal is "silencing" conservative Christians. Sears also accuses cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants of being gay.

March  Susan Wagle, a conservative Republican in the Kansas Senate, investigates complaints from several students who allege that Social Welfare Professor Dennis Dailey showed pornographic images during the course “Human Sexuality in Everyday Life,” and that he made vulgar and inappropriate comments to female students. As a result, Kansas' state universities now have a policy governing the use of sexually explicit and other controversial material in the classroom.

July  Shawnee county (Topeka) commissioners unanimously approve a measure that prohibits discrimination against county employees based on sexual orientation. Shawnee County joins Lawrence as the second jurisdiction in Kansas prohibiting this type of discrimination.  

The Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire elects an “openly gay” priest, the Rev. Canon V. Eugene Robinson, to the office of diocesan bishop--the only openly homosexual bishop in the Worldwide Anglican Communion.  

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples have a right to marry. In the "Washington Dispatch," legendary fundamentalist organizer Paul Weyrich declares marriage "The Final Frontier for Civilization as We Know It."  

June  The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Texas state law that bans private consensual sex between adults of the same sex, ruling that gay people are entitled to "an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct." The ruling invalidates other sodomy laws in the remaining states that have them, including Kansas: "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime." Dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia complains that "the court has largely signed onto the so-called homosexual agenda. " In Kansas the U.S. Supreme Court orders the Kansas Court of Appeals to reconsider the conviction of gay teenager Matthew Limon.  

December  Lawrence men form NetworQ, an lgbt group that includes older men and women and focuses on social and political issues.  

2004  

Jan 30  The Kansas Court of Appeals once again upholds Limon's conviction and sentence, finding it constitutional because the conviction was connected to the state's interests in protecting the normal sexual development of children and preventing sexually transmitted diseases, as well as encouraging and preserving the “traditional sexual mores of society" (Judge Henry W. Green Jr). The ruling dictates that Matthew Limon will remain in prison until he is 35.

San Francisco officials begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in February, with a handful of other U.S. municipalities following suit. Later that month, President George W. Bush announces his support for a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution.

James Dobson's Focus on the Family Action organizes "Mayday for Marriage" rallies in six major cities to promote anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives in 11 states. An estimated 150,000 turn out for Oct. 15 protest in Washington , D.C., where Dobson declares, "[E]verything we care about is on the line. It's now or never."

Constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage pass by wide margins in all 11 states, including Ohio and Oregon. Anti-gay groups meet in Washington, D.C., to plan for 10 more state initiatives in 2005. For more information, view the 2004 Anti-gay marriage laws: http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=15576.

2005  

April  Kansas becomes the 18th state to pass an anti-gay marriage amendment. The amendment defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It also declares that only such unions are entitled to the "rights and incidents" of marriage. Sprint and SBC Communications in Topeka said they have no intention of canceling benefits. Douglas and Wyandotte counties vote against the amendment. 

April  Mayor Mike Rundle (Lawrence) announces that he is gay at the City Commission meeting. He is applauded by other commissioners at the conclusion of his announcement. His announcement makes national news.

April  Daniel Lippold, a gay man living in California but originally from Atwood, Kansas, redesigns the Atwood Web site (which he owns) after discovering that his hometown backed the anti-gay marriage amendment, 984-130. The home page includes a letter where Lippold vents his anger and disappointment over people backing the amendment even though everyone in town knows him and knows he’s gay. The altered Web site is viewed around the world until Lippold takes it down and sells it to Atwood officials.  

May  The Missouri Department of Social Services says Lisa Johnston and Dawn Roginski are exceptionally qualified to be foster parents, but an unwritten state policy prevents them from taking children into their home because they are openly gay. Johnston, with the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, sues the state.

July  A conservative Kansas legislator wants to review a policy that allows gays and lesbians to adopt children in state custody. The issue goes nowhere.

Sept California's legislature passes a bill to legalize gay marriage (the first state to do so without judicial intervention). Governor Schwarzenegger vetoes the bill less than 24 hours later.

Oct  Lawrence Mayor Highberger and Kansas Senator Marci Francisco are judges at the NetworQ Halloween party.

Oct  The Kansas Supreme Court rules that Kansas may not use its laws to express "moral disapproval" of homosexuality--denying any "rational basis" for the Kansas law's distinction between homosexual and heterosexual acts. "Neither the court of appeals nor the state cites any scientific research or other evidence justifying the position that homosexual sexual activity is more harmful to minors than adults," the court said. This overturns Matthew Limon’s conviction.  

Oct 29  Westboro Church (Fred Phelps) announces it will picket funerals of service members who dies in Iraq to protest  the United States' tolerance for homosexuality. In response, a new group made up of motorcyclists forms, the Patriot Guard Riders, to act as a buffer between mourners and protesters. Many states are preparing legislation to make protesting at military funerals a felony. The Phelps eagerly await the court challenges. The ACLU is defending the Phelps' right to free speech.

Nov   Kansas Equality Coalition, a statewide lgbt PAC, forms. Chapters begin to form in Lawrence-Douglas County, Manhattan, Topeka, Wichita, and Johnson County (http://www.kansasequalitycoalition.org).

Nov 4  Matthew Limon is freed. Miami County Atty. David Miller says he feels the high court wrongly interpreted the Romeo and Juliet law, which mandates lighter sentences for illegal sex when partners are 14 to 19 years old and less than four years apart. “I think the Legislature’s intent was clear that it was to apply to members of the opposite sex,” he said.

Reports indicate that a new LGBT Civil Rights Bill is expected to be introduced in this session. For the first time, lgbt rights groups are making a major push to ensure the legislation provides protections for the transgendered. Jerry Falwell, a longtime opponent of gay rights legislation, says he would not oppose basic civil rights for gays and lesbians: “Well, housing and employment are not special rights. I think - I think the right to live somewhere and to live where you please or to work where you please, as long as you’re not bothering anybody else, is a basic right, not a - not a special right.”   

2006

March 8  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia states in a speech to law students at the University of Freiberg in Switzerland: ""Question comes up: is there a constitutional right to homosexual conduct? Not a hard question for me. It's absolutely clear that nobody ever thought when the Bill of Rights was adopted that it gave a right to homosexual conduct. Homosexual conduct was criminal for 200 years in every state. Easy question."

June  U.S. Senate votes on a controversial constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Despite the fact that even supporters agreed that the measure would not pass, conservatives nevertheless wanted to vote on this during the mid-election-year cycle. The measure does not pass. [To become part of the Constitution an amendment needs approval from at least two-thirds of the Senate (67 of the 100 members), at least two-thirds of the House (290 of the 435 members) and three-fourths of the states (38 of the 50 states), or by a convention called by three-fourths of the states.]

June   A 1996 Pentagon document surfaces that places homosexuality as a mental disorder alongside mental retardation, impulse control disorders, and personality disorders. Under recommendation by the American Psychiatric Association and a handful of lawmakers, the Pentagon removes the language, stating ""Homosexuality should not have been characterized as a mental disorder in an appendix of a procedural instruction." The reversal has no impact on U.S. policy prohibiting openly gay people from serving in the military.

July  The Washington Supreme Court upholds the state’s ban on gay marriage. This reverses two lower court rulings that had found the ban violated the Washington Constitution’s “privileges and immunities” section. The Supreme Court stated that the gay-marriage ban “is constitutional because the Legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival.”

July  The New York Court of Appeals rules that a state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman is constitutional, finding that any new meaning for such an old institution would have to be written by the state legislature, not the courts. The court focuses on whether the state legislature have a rational, nondiscriminatory basis for limiting marriage to a man and a woman. The judges conclude that legislators can reasonably believe that such marriages benefit children. Unlike racism, the judges conclude, "the traditional definition of marriage is not merely a by-product of historical injustice." 

That same day, the Georgia Supreme Court upholds an amendment to that state's constitution, approved by three-fourths of Georgia voters, that prohibits gay partners from marrying or claiming benefits under a civil union.

August   Hotel owners in Meade Kansas who fly a rainbow flag that was purchased by their son are subjected to town scorn. The owners state that they did not fly the flag to make a political statement but to enjoy its pretty colors. Townspeople damage the store front and steal the flag. The hotel owners continue to raise more flags.

Since "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was adopted in 1993, over 11,000 service members have been discharged from the armed forces.

This page was updated on August 31, 2006.

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