2501
(3 votes, average 4.67 out of 5)
Written by Jamakaya
Mar 10, 2011
40 years ago
In 1971, gay people first marched in a public event in Milwaukee. It wasn’t a Pride parade, though. It was an anti-war march sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. About 30 members of an organization called the Gay Liberation Front participated, hoisting a “Gay Liberation” banner all along the route of the march.
The Gay Liberation Front was one of two gay groups founded the year before. The other group called itself the Gay Liberation Organization. Because GLF was anti-war and more leftist-oriented and the two groups were often confused, members of GLO, who wanted to focus only on gay issues, renamed their group the Gay People’s Union. They published GPU News (until 1981) and founded the clinic that continues to function today as the BESTD Clinic.
Also in 1971, two African-American women, Donna Burkett and Manonia Evans, applied for a marriage license in Milwaukee County. Imagine the guts it took to do that 40 years ago. When the license was denied, they filed a lawsuit, but it was dismissed.
30 years ago
In October 1981, a state bill (AB70) prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment and public accommodations was adopted by the Wisconsin Assembly. In February 1982 it was approved by the Senate and signed by Republican Gov. Lee Dreyfus. It is officially ensconced in Chapter 112 of the Laws of 1981. The lobbying effort required careful strategizing and alliances. The support of many churches was considered critical. Wisconsin was the first state to pass a gay civil rights law.
The Cream City Business Association, an alliance of gay and gay-supportive businesses, was founded in 1981. CCBA, in turn, created the Cream City Foundation, which has provided financial grants that have helped to build and sustain dozens of LGBT organizations and projects over the years.
20 years ago
The year 1991 was a long nightmare for Milwaukee’s queer community. In late July, Jeffrey Dahmer’s years-long murder spree was finally uncovered. Also exposed was the entrenched racism and homophobia that allowed the crimes to be undetected for so long. WISN-TV followed up with an exploitive, homophobic series called “Flirting with Danger.”
In November, hundreds of alleged “Christians,” whipped into hysteria by local TV preacher Vic Eliason, stormed a school board meeting to oppose support services for gay and lesbian teens in the schools. The board adopted the modest reforms but not before a media circus that included shockingly ignorant testimony and open intimidation of gay proponents by the self-avowed Christians.
I will have more about 1991 in a future column.
10 years ago
On August 2, 2001, the Milwaukee Common Council approved a labor contract that incorporated benefits for the domestic partners of gay and straight city employees.
In November, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force held its annual “Creating Change” conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Milwaukee. More than 2,000 activists from around the country attended.
Girlfriends magazine declared Milwaukee the “best place in the country for lesbians to live,” resulting in many titters and guffaws. I sent some “Nanner-nanner-nanner” messages to lesbian friends in Madison, the city displaced from the top spot, and cracked in a story for In Step: “Milwaukee IS a great place for lesbians to live. It’s just the lesbians in Milwaukee, many still huddling nervously in the closet, who don’t get it!”
