DAVE KOPAY, professional football player, born; A former American football player in the National Football League who in 1975 became one of the first professional athletes to come out as Gay. After he retired from the NFL, he was considered a top contender for coaching positions, but he believes he was snubbed by professional and college teams because of his sexual orientation. He went to work as a salesman/purchaser in his uncle's floor covering business in Hollywood. He is also a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation. His 1977 biography, The David Kopay Story, written with Perry Dean Young, offers insights into the sexual proclivities of heterosexual football players and their homophobia. In 1986, Kopay also revealed his brief affair with Jerry Smith (1943–1986), who played for the Washington Redskins from 1965–1977 and who died of HIV-AIDS without ever having publicly come out of the closet.

EDWARD CARPENTER, English poet and Gay pioneer, died (b: 1844); Edward Carpenter was a pioneering socialist and radical prophet of a new age of fellowship in which social relations would be transformed by a new spiritual consciousness. The way he lived his life, perhaps even more than his extensive writings, was the essence of his message.

It is perhaps not surprising that his reputation faded quickly after his death, as he lived much of his life modestly spreading his message by personal contact and example rather than by major literary works or through a national political career. He has been described as having that unusual combination of qualities: charisma with modesty.

His ideas became immensely influential during the early years of the Socialist movement in Britain: perhaps Carpenter's most widely remembered legacy to the Socialist and Co-operative movements was his anthem England Arise!

A leading figure in late 19th and early 20th century Britain, he was instrumental in the foundation of the Fabian Society and the Labor Party. A poet and writer, he was a close friend of Walt Whitman and Rabindranath Tagore, corresponding with many famous figures such as Isadora Duncan, Havelock Ellis, Mahatma Ganghi, Jack London.William Morris and John Ruskin among many others.

But it is his writings on the subject of homosexuality and his open espousal of this identity that makes him unique. If you are unfamiliar with Carpenter, find him…read him. He is unquestionably one of the formative, foundational Gay philosophers in the late 19th and early 20th century. His influence was widespread at the time, and is no less innovative and profound, today.

His important writings include:

• • Towards Democracy (1883)
  • England's Ideal (1887)
  • Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure (1889; reissued 1920)
  • Homogenic love and its place in a free society (1894)
  • Love's Coming of Age (1896)
  • Days with Walt Whitman (1906)
  • Iolaus — anthology of friendship (editor, 1908)
  • The Intermediate Sex: a Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women (1908)
  • The Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk (1914)
  • My Days and Dreams (autobiography, 1916)
  • Pagan & Christian Creeds: their origin and meaning (1920)

A strong advocate of sexual freedom, living in a Gay community near Sheffield, he had a profound influence on both D.H. Lawrence and E.M. Forster. On his return from India in 1891, he met George Merrill, a working class man also from Sheffield, and the two men struck up a relationship, eventually moving in together in 1898. Merrill had been raised in the slums of Sheffield and had no formal education.

Two men of different classes living together as a couple was almost unheard of in England in the 1890s, a fact made all the more extraordinary by the hysteria about alternative sexualities generated by the Oscar Wilde trial of 1895 and the Criminal Law Amendment Bill passed a decade earlier "outlawing all forms of male homosexual contact". But their relationship endured and they remained partners for the rest of their lives. Their relationship not only defied Victorian sexual mores but also the highly stratified British class system. Their partnership, in many ways, reflected Carpenter's cherished conviction that same-sex love had the power to subvert class boundaries.

It was his belief that at sometime in the future, Gay people would be the cause of radical social change in the social conditions of man. Carpenter remarks in his work "The Intermediate Sex":

"Eros is a great leveler. Perhaps the true Democracy rests, more firmly than anywhere else, on a sentiment which easily passes the bounds of class and caste, and unites in the closest affection the most estranged ranks of society. It is noticeable how often Uranians of good position and breeding are drawn to rougher types, as of manual workers, and frequently very permanent alliances grow up in this way, which although not publicly acknowledged have a decided influence on social institutions, customs and political tendencies". p.114-115

(Note: The term “uranian", referring to a passage from Plato's Symposium, was often used at the time to describe someone who would be termed "Gay" nowadays. Carpenter is counted among the Uranians himself.)

BRENDA HOWARD -, American LGBT activist died (b. 1946); a bisexual rights activist and sex-positive feminist, who was an important figure in the modern LGBT rights movement.

A militant activist who helped plan and participated in LGBT rights actions for over three decades, Howard was a leader of the Gay Liberation Front and for several years chair of the Gay Activists Alliance in the early post-Stonewall era. She is known as the "Mother of Pride", for her work in coordinating the first month anniversary rally and then the "Christopher Street Liberation Day March" to commemorate the first year anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion.

Howard also originated the idea for a week-long series of events around Pride Day which became the genesis of the annual LGBT Pride celebrations that are now held around the world every June. In 2005 the Queens Chapter of PFLAG announced the creation of the “Brenda Howard Award".

This is the first time a major American LGBT organization has named award after an out bisexual member of the LGBT Community. The award, to be given yearly, recognizes an individual or organization whose work on behalf of the LGBT Community best exemplifies the vision, principals and community service exemplified by the late Brenda Howard and who serves as a positive and visible role model for the Bisexual community.

On the one-year anniversary of the STONEWALL RIOTS, more than 2,000 people march in New York City as part of the first Gay Pride parade in the United States. On several occasions, the President of the United States has officially declared a Pride Month. First, President Bill Clinton declared June "Gay & Lesbian Pride Month" on June 2, 2000. Then, in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 President Barack Obama declared June Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.

In 2016 Pride was marked by the naming of the Stonewall Inn as a National Monument to be administered by the National Park Service.

In the case of BOY SCOUTS V. DALE, the U.S. Supreme Court rules the Boy Scouts of America can discriminate against Gays and bisexuals saying it is a private organization and not bound by local human rights laws.

There has been opposition to BSA's membership policies from organizations and individuals. Some within the Scouting movement, as well as long-time Scouting supporters, parents, chartered organizations, and religious organizations have expressed opposition to the policies in ways ranging from protests to forming organizations that advocate inclusiveness.

Some push for a voluntary change within the BSA, others seek involuntary change by filing lawsuits, still others choose to disassociate themselves from the BSA or encourage others to do so. Some public entities and private institutions have ceased financial or other support the BSA, primarily as a result of conflicts between their nondiscrimination policies and the BSA's membership policies. About 50 of the 1300 local United Ways, including those in Miami, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle, have withdrawn all funding.

The BSA has also lost all funding from several large corporations that had been regular donors, such as Chase Manhattan Bank, Levi Strauss, Fleet Bank, CVS/pharmacy, and Pew Charitable Trusts. For example, Pew Charitable Trusts, which had consistently supported the BSA for over fifty years, decided to cancel a $100,000 donation and cease future donations. A number of public entities (including the cities of Chicago, San Diego, Tempe, Buffalo Grove, Berkeley, and Santa Barbara, as well as the states of California, Illinois, and Connecticut) have canceled charitable donations (of money or preferential land access) that had historically been granted to the Scouts.

Eagle Scout filmmaker Steven Spielberg had been a long-time supporter of Scouting, depicting a young Indiana Jones as a Boy Scout in the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and helping to create the Cinematography merit badge. Spielberg resigned from the BSA Advisory Council in 2001, saying, "it has deeply saddened me to see the Boy Scouts of America actively and publicly participating in discrimination." These policies have led to various disputes and controversies. In 2012, both Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama stated that they opposed the ban on Gay Scouts.

On May 23, 2013, the BSA's National Council approved a resolution to remove the restriction denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone effective January 1, 2014. The policy for adult leaders remained in place until July 27, 2015.