1970 in LGBTQ rights

This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the year 1970.

Events

March

• 8 — Police, led by Seymour Pine of the Stonewall raid the year before, raid an illegal gay bar called the Snake Pit in Greenwich Village. 167 people are arrested. ^{[1] [2]}
• 17 — The film The Boys in the Band premieres in New York City. ^[3]

April

• 7
  • Midnight Cowboy, the first major Hollywood film to feature a same-sex sexual encounter between two men, wins the Oscar for Best Picture. ^[4]
  • John Schlesinger wins Best Director at the Academy Awards. ^[5]
• 13 — John Lindsay, the Mayor of New York City, was confronted by protestors from the Gay Activist Alliance at the Metropolitan Opera House. ^[6]

May

• 9 — A high school teacher named Ingrid Mykle Montano in Phoenix, Arizona, is forced to resign after parents complain about her inviting a gay man to speak in one of her sociology classes. ^[7]
• 21 — Bella Abzug speaks at a Gay Activist Alliance meeting, becoming the first politician to court the LGBT community's votes in the United States. ^[8]

June

• 12 — Lesbians Neva Joy Heckmann and Judith Ann Belew marry in Los Angeles. ^[9]
• 24 — The Rockefeller Five, five activists from the Gay Activists Alliance, are arrested during a sit-in at the Republican Senate Committee headquarters. ^[10]
• 27 — Chicago holds the first LGBT Pride parade in the USA. ^[11]
• 28 — On the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots, what started out as a march on Christopher Street in New York City of a few hundred people turned into thousands of people ending in Central Park. It brought gay and lesbian individuals together to demonstrate that they were a sizable minority population. ^[12]

July

• 1 — The Gay Liberation Task Force meets for the first time at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Detroit, Michigan. ^[13]

September

• 5 — Colombia changes "homosexual behavior" from a felony into a misdemeanor, and the maximum penalty is reduced to three years. ^[14]

October

• 13 — London gay activists hold the first meeting of the London incarnation of the Gay Liberation Front. ^{[15] [16]}

See also

• LGBTQ portal

• Timeline of LGBT history — timeline of events from 12,000 BCE to present
• LGBT rights by country or territory — current legal status around the world
• LGBT social movements

Notes

1. "The Snake Pit". NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project.
2. "Homosexuals Hold Protest in 'Village' After Raid Nets 167". The New York Times. 1970-03-09. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-10-29.
3. Canby, Vincent (18 March 1970). "Screen: 'Boys in the Band': Crowley Study of Male Homosexuality Opens". The New York Times.
4. "Midnight Cowboy Awards". IMDB. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
5. "The 42nd Academy Awards | 1970". Oscars. 4 October 2014.
6. Cohen, Sascha (10 July 2018). "How Gay Activists Challenged the Politics of Civility". Smithsonian.
7. "Teacher Quits in Homosexual Dispute". The New York Times. 10 May 1970.
8. Myers, JoAnne (2009). The A to Z of the Lesbian Liberation Movement: Still the Rage . Scarecrow Press. pp.  42. ISBN   978-0810863279.
9. Zeitz, Josh (28 April 2015). "The Making of the Marriage Equality Revolution". Politico. Archived from the original on 2 June 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
10. Bonanos, Christopher (24 June 2014). "A Photographic Look at the Birth of Gay Pride". Intelligencer.
11. Rumore, Kori (24 June 2018). "Pride Parade guide: Map, times, transit and a brief history". Chicago Tribune.
12. "Christopher Street Liberation Day March | Researching Greenwich Village History". greenwichvillagehistory.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2018-04-10.
13. Rayman, Denise (24 October 2013). ""Lots of Love (of both the revolutionary and non-revolutionary kind)": the History of the ALA's GLBT Round Table". University of Illinois Archives.
14. Annetta, Michael (September 5, 2013). "September 5 in LGBTQ History". The Lavender Effect. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
15. "Gay Liberation Front Manifesto". Bishopsgate Institute. Retrieved 2023-10-29. The first meeting was held on 13 October 1970 at the London School of Economics.
16. George, Tom. "Photographs and stories from the first London Pride march in 1972". i-d.vice.com. Retrieved 2023-10-29. 'The picture was a mixture of men and women all having a good time, and it said to meet at six o'clock on Wednesday 13 October. [...] That was the first ever meeting of the UK Gay Liberation Front.'