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presents THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …
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1608 – John Milton, English poet, born (d.1674); No one can say for sure whether Milton was Gay, but the author of Paradise Lost was known to his Cambridge classmates as "the lady of Christ's" and was portrayed as a repressed homosexual in Robert Graves' novel Wife to Mr. Milton.
From 1743 to 1748, he was the deputy headmaster of the gymnasium of Seehausen in the Altmark. His means were insufficient: his salary was so low that he had to rely on his students' parents for free meals. He was thus obliged to accept a tutorship near Magdeburg. While tutor for the powerful Lamprecht family, he fell into unrequited love with the handsome Lamprecht son. This was one of a series of such loves throughout his life. His enthusiasm for the male form excited Winckelmann's budding admiration of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture and he decided to go to Rome to study. Winckelmann arrived in Rome in November 1755. His first task there was to describe the statues in the Cortile del Belvedere—the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoön, the so-called Antinous, and the Belvedere Torso—which represented to him the "utmost perfection of ancient sculpture." Laocoön and His Sons (Click for larger) Originally, Winckelmann planned to stay in Italy only two years, but the outbreak of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) changed his plans. He was named librarian to Cardinal Passionei, who was impressed by Winckelmann's beautiful Greek writing. Winckelmann also became librarian to Cardinal Archinto, and received much kindness from Cardinal Passionei. After their deaths, Winckelmann was hired as librarian in the house of Alessandro Cardinal Albani, who was forming his magnificent collection of antiquities in the villa at Porta Salaria. With the aid of his new friend and lover, the painter Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-79), with whom he first lived in Rome, Winckelmann devoted himself to the study of Roman antiquities and gradually acquired an unrivalled knowledge of ancient art. Winckelmann's method of careful observation allowed him to identify Roman copies of Greek art, something that was unusual at that time—Roman culture was considered the ultimate achievement of Antiquity. His friend Mengs became the channel through which Winkelmann's ideas were realized in art and spread around Europe.
1861 – Vida Dutton Scudder, an American lesbian saint for our times, Scudder was an educator, writer, and welfare activist in the social gospel movement, who was one of the most prominent lesbian authors of her time. Her career combined academic pursuits, social activism, and religious fervour. Her religious beliefs led her to a commitment to social activism. In 1888, Scudder joined the Companions of the Holy Cross, a group of Episcopalian women dedicated to intercessionary prayer and social reconciliation. Later, she worked constantly for trade union rights and socialism. She is recognized as a saint by the Episcopal Church (USA), with a feast day on October 10.
1902 – Lucius Beebe, journalist, railroad buff, dandy and bon vivant, born (d.1966); Beebe was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, to a prominent Boston family and attended both Harvard University and Yale University. During his tenure at boarding school and university, Beebe was known for his numerous pranks. One of his more outrageous stunts included an attempt at festooning J.P. Morgan's yacht Corsair with toilet paper from a chartered airplane. His pranks were not without consequence and he proudly noted that he had the sole distinction of having been expelled from both Harvard and Yale. Beebe eventually was readmitted to Harvard where he earned his undergraduate degree in 1926. He worked as a journalist for the New York Herald, the San Francisco Examiner, the Boston Telegram, and the Boston Evening Transcript and was a contributing writer to many magazines such as Gourmet, The New Yorker, Town and Country, Holiday, American Heritage and Playboy. Beebe re-launched Nevada's first newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise in 1952. He wrote a column called "This New York," which was quite popular in the 1930s. Brendan Gill has written that the column contained so many references to Beebe's "intimate friend" Jerome Zerbe that Walter Winchell suggested it should be called not "This New York" but "Jerome Never Looked Lovelier." Beebe is said to have been fond of inviting luscious young things to his private railroad car for what one wag described as "whisky and sofa." In addition to his work as a journalist, Beebe wrote over 30 books. His books dealt primarily with railroading and café society. Many of his railroad books were written with longtime companion, Charles Clegg. Beebe met Clegg in 1940 while both were houseguests at the Washington, D.C. home of Evelyn Walsh McLean. The two soon developed a personal and professional relationship that continued for the rest of Beebe's life. By the standards of the era, the homosexual relationship Beebe and Clegg shared was relatively open and well-known. The pair initially lived in New York City, where both men were prominent in café society circles. Eventually tiring of that social life, the two moved in 1950 to Virginia City, Nevada, a tiny community that had once been a fabled mining boomtown. There, they reactivated and began publishing the Territorial Enterprise, a fabled 19th century newspaper that had once been the employer of Mark Twain. Beebe and Clegg shared a renovated mansion in the town, traveled extensively, and remained prominent in social circles. Clegg and Beebe sold the Territorial Enterprise in 1961, and purchased a home in suburban San Francisco. They continued the writing, photography, and travel that had marked their lives until Beebe's death from a heart attack in 1966, at the age of 64. Clegg committed suicide in 1979, on the day that he reached the precise age at which Beebe had died.
1904 – Anthony Santasiere (d.1977) was an American chess master and chess writer, who also wrote extensively on non-chess topics. Santasiere was a middle school mathematics teacher by profession. Santasiere won the 1945 U.S. Open Chess Championship, four New York State championships, and six Marshall Chess Club championships. He competed in four U.S. Chess Championships, with his best finish being a tie for third in 1946. He was a chess organizer. Santasiere, of French and Italian ancestry, was born and raised in New York City, the 12th of 13 children, and grew up in extreme poverty. He graduated from City College with a degree in mathematics. His studies there were financed by Alrick Man, a wealthy chess enthusiast who had served as president of the Marshall Chess Club. Santasiere represented CCNY in intercollegiate chess. Following graduation, beginning in 1927, Santasiere taught mathematics at the Angelo Patri Middle School in the Bronx, and held that position until he retired to south Florida in 1965. Santasiere wrote extensively on chess in the magazine American Chess Bulletin, from 1930 to 1963; he served as Games Editor, working with Editor Hermann Helms. The chess opening Santasiere's Folly (1.Nf3 d5 2.b4), was originated and developed by him, and is named for him. Santasiere was also an expert in the Reti Opening, the King's Gambit, and the Vienna Game. He was an enthusiastic amateur painter, painting over 400 oil paintings, and a prolific poet and creative writer on non-chess topics. He played piano, and was a keen chef who frequently hosted dinner parties. He organized many small-size Master events in his apartment in New York. In 1965, he retired to south Florida, where he continued to play tournament chess for a while, and won several local tournaments. A gay man, he lived with a younger man, Hector; friend Arnold Denker recalls a loving but turbulent relationship between those two, characterizing them as "Felix and Oscar". On his death Santasiere left his estate to his partner.
1936 – Louie Clay (né Louie Crew, Jr.) (d.2019) was an American professor emeritus of English at Rutgers University. He is best known for his long and increasingly successful campaign for the acceptance of gay and lesbian people by Christians in general, and the Episcopal Church in particular. Louie Crew was born in Anniston, Alabama. He has written about "Growing Up Gay in Dixie." While teaching at Fort Valley State University, Crew founded IntegrityUSA, a gay-acceptance group within the Episcopal church (1974). With Julia Penelope Crew co-founded the LGBT caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English (1975). He served on the board of directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force from 1976 to 1978. After he moved to Wisconsin, he served on the Wisconsin Governor's Council on Lesbian and Gay Issues in 1983. When Crew first began working for the inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons in the Episcopal church, he was widely denounced or dismissed, but today the Episcopal Church has come to agree with many of his views, while some churches and dioceses are strongly opposed. Louie Crew married Ernest Clay on February 2, 1974, although at the time their marriage had no legal standing. They married legally on August 22, 2013 and Crew took on his husband's last name. The two are featured together in "Not That Kind of Christian" an 80-minute documentary film by Andrew Grossman, which premiered at the Breckenridge Film Festival in 2007. Crew wrote the first openly lgbt materials ever published by Christianity & Crisis, Change Magazine Chronicle of Higher Education, FOR (Fellowship of Reconciliation), The Living Church and Southern Exposure. With Rictor Norton, Crew co-edited a special issue of College English on "The Homosexual Imagination" (November 1974). He served on the editorial board of the Journal of Homosexuality (1978–83; 1989-2012). He edited the 1978 book The Gay Academic, the book Telling Our Stories and the book 101 Reasons to Be Episcopalian. A CanadianGay member, Steve Giovangelo, tells us, "Louie Crew was a dear friend. He died in 2019. He was known as "Lutibelle" among his friends as that was his grandmother's name, and his friends called him that which he loved. He did more for the acceptance of gay men and women in New Jersey and in the Episcopal Church of which he was a member, than anyone I know."
1950 – British singer, songwriter and guitarist Joan Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She also received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection in 1996. In a recording career spanning almost 40 years she has released a total of 17 studio albums, as well as several live albums and compilations. Armatrading is reluctant to discuss her personal life in interviews. However, in April 2011, it was reported that Armatrading and her girlfriend Maggie Butler were planning to enter a civil partnership on 2 May 2011, in the Shetland Isles.
1959 – Mario Cantone is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor, with numerous appearances on Comedy Central including Chappelle's Show. He also played Anthony Marentino on Sex and the City. His unique style is fast-paced and energetic, with much of the humor coming from his impersonations of various characters ranging from his family members, to celebrities, to stereotypes. Cantone was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts. He occasionally does stand-up concerts where, in addition to impressions of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Bruce Springsteen, and others, he sings original comedic songs such as "Laugh Whore" and an ode to being in love with a bat. Much of his comedy derives from the fact that he is gay, camp, and Italian-American. Cantone's breakout role was that of Charlotte York's gay and incredibly bossy wedding planner in the series Sex and the City on HBO. Much of the humor of that role derived from his regular stand-up persona. In October 2011, Cantone married his partner of 20 years, musical theater director Jerry Dixon. Ironically, the ceremony was officiated by pastor Jay Bakker, son of Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker.
1975 – A six-inch headline on page one of The Minneapolis Star read "State Sen. Allen Spear Declares He's Homosexual." Spear said he was inspired to come out by the election of Elaine Nobel, a lesbian, to the Massachusetts legislature.
1975 – Reporter Lynn Rosellini of the Washington Star began a series of articles about homosexuality in sports, which said "some of the biggest names in football are homosexual or bisexual."
1997 – A federal appeals court in San Francisco refused to reinstate Air Force officer Lt. Col. Kenneth L. Jackson, who was discharged for homosexuality in 1989. He was 11 months short of his 20-year pension. He argued that the evidence against him should not have been turned over to the military by police who were searching his home because his roommate was under suspicion in a case.
1998 – Republican Mecklenburg Country Superior Court Judge Ray Warren (born 1957) acknowledges that he’ gay in a press conference. He becomes the first Republican elected official in North Carolina who is openly gay. He is now a Democrat.
2014 – In Gambia, a government-sponsored anti-gay march went from the National Assembly to the State House. Gambia president Alhaji Yahya Jammeh attended.
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Beebe (R) & Clegg editing 'Territorial Enterprise'
1978 – Metro Toronto police raid the Barracks steambath and charge twenty-three men as found-ins, five as keepers of a common bawdyhouse. It becomes the first raid in Toronto to generate substantial resistance.