June 8

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1901 – Spain: The first documented same-sex marriage in Spain in post-Roman times is performed. Marcela Gracia Ibeas and Elisa Sanchez Loriga, both teachers, are married by a parish priest in A Coruña (Galicia), with Elisa using the male identity "Mario Sánchez". The couple was exposed by Galician and Madrid newspapers and, as a consequence, both quickly lost their jobs, were excommunicated, and were issued an arrest warrant. So that the ex-communication could take place, the parish priest requested a doctor examine Mario to check if he were a man or a woman. Mario agreed. When the doctor issued his verdict, Mario attempted to pass for a hermaphrodite (intersex) whose condition had been diagnosed in London.

They moved to Portugal where they were tried, imprisoned, and later released. It is rumored that they fled to Argentina after the Spanish government demanded their extradition from Portugal. It is unknown what happened to them after that. Same-sex marriage was legalized in Spain in 2005. Regardless, the marriage certificate was never officially voided. The marriage, according to the Diocesan Archive, is still valid.

1903 – The French author Marguerite Yourcenar was born on this date (d.1987). Marguerite Yourcenar is the pseudonym of Belgian novelist Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour (say that ten times aloud really fast and your daily tongue workouts are complete). Her first novel, Alexis, was published in 1929. Her intimate companion at the time, a translator named Grace Frick, invited her to America, where she lectured in comparative literature in New York City. She and Frick became lovers in 1937, and would remain so until Frick's death in 1979. In 1951 she published, in France, the French-language novel Mémoires d'Hadrien (translated as Memoirs of Hadrian), which she had been writing with pauses for a decade. The novel was an immediate success and met with great critical acclaim.

In this novel Yourcenar recreated the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world, the Roman Emperor Hadrian , who writes a long letter to Marcus Aurelius, his successor and adoptive son. The Emperor meditates on his past, describing both his triumphs and his failures, his love for Antinous, and his philosophy. This novel has become a modern classic, a standard against which fictional recreations of Antiquity are measured. Yourcenar was elected as the first female member of the Académie Française, in 1980. One of the respected writers in French language, she published many novels, essays, and poems, as well as three volumes of memoirs. Yourcenar lived much of her life at Petite Plaisance in Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island, Maine. Petite Plaisance is now a museum dedicated to her memory.

1904 – Angus McBean (d.1990) was a Welsh photographer, associated with surrealism. McBean was born in Newbridge, Monmouthshire, the son of a coal mine surveyor. He bought his first camera and tripod as World War I was ending. Fascinated by the apparently magical properties of photography, he wanted to be able to take pictures of people and sold a gold watch left to him by his grandfather to raise the five pounds necessary for the equipment.

In 1925, after his father's early death, McBean moved with his mother and younger sister to Acton, London. He worked for Liberty's department store in the antiques department learning restoration, while his personal life was spent in photography, mask-making and watching plays in the West End theatre. In 1932 he left Liberty and grew his distinctive beard to symbolise the fact that he would never be a wage-slave again. He then worked as a maker of theatrical props, including a commission of medieval scenery for John Gielgud 's 1933 production of Richard of Bordeaux.

McBean's masks became a talking point in social columns, and were much admired by the leading Bond Street photographer Hugh Cecil. Cecil offered McBean an assistant's post at his Mayfair studio, and having learnt the secrets of Cecil's softer style and after using the studio at night, McBean set up his own studio 18 months later in a basement in Belgrave Road, Victoria, London.

Vivien Leigh

The artist McBean as he was still known as a mask maker, gained a commission in 1936 from Ivor Novello for masks for his play The Happy Hypocrite. Novello was so impressed with McBean's romantic photographs that he commissioned him to take a set of production photographs as well, including young actress Vivien Leigh. The results, taken on stage with McBean's idiosyncratic lighting, instantly replaced the set already made by the long-established but stolid Stage Photo Company. McBean had a new career and a photographic leading lady: he was to photograph Vivien Leigh on stage and in the studio for almost every performance she gave until her death thirty years later.

In the Spring of 1942 his career was temporarily ruined when he was arrested in Bath for committing homosexual acts. He was sentenced to four years in prison and was released in the autumn of 1944. After the Second World War, McBean was able to successfully resume his career.

In 1945, not sure whether he would find work again, McBean set up a new studio in a bomb-damaged building in Covent Garden. He sold his Soho camera for £35, and bought a new half-plate Kodak View monorail camera to which he attached his trusted Zeiss lenses. McBean was commissioned first by the Stratford Memorial Theatre to photograph a production of Anthony and Cleopatra, and all his former clients quickly returned.

McBean's later works included being the photographer for The Beatles' first album, surrealist work as well as classic photographs of individuals such as Agatha Christie, Audrey Hepburn, and Noël Coward . Both periods or his work (pre- and post-war) are now eagerly sought by collectors and his work sits in many major collections around the world.

1923 – Malcolm Boyd, the American best-selling author, civil rights activist, columnist, recording artist, and Episcopal Priest was born (d.2015). The author of more than thirty books, Boyd began as a producer in Hollywood, working with screen legend Mary Pickford. In 1951, he entered the seminary and became a priest.

In the 1960s Malcolm became identified by the media as "the coffeehouse priest" and "the espresso priest" for his work in the coffeehouse scene. It resulted in his being invited to speak at various colleges around the country. In 1959 Boyd was asked to be the convocation speaker for a "Religious Emphasis Week" at Louisiana State University. In his opening address he made a clear, unequivocal statement opposing racial segregation. This was the beginning of a decade of active involvement for Malcolm Boyd in the civil rights movement.

In 1965 his book of prayers, Are You Running with Me, Jesus? was published. At the time no one knew it would become a runaway national bestseller with one million copies in print and translation into a number of different languages.

Malcolm gave many public readings from the book accompanied by musicians including Oscar Brown, Jr., Vince Guaraldi and guitarist Charlie Byrd. In 1966 Malcolm found himself in a major media event when he read his prayers (and engaged in a dialogue with audiences on faith issues) in the famed San Francisco nightclub the hungry i. Dick Gregory headlined the bill and it ran for a full month. The New York Times Magazine printed this observation: "Malcolm Boyd is a latter-day Luther or a more worldly Wesley, trying to move religion out of "ghettoized" churches into the streets where people are."

On February 6, 1968, Malcolm was with Martin Luther King, Jr., for the last time in a nonviolent protest against the Vietnam War. They had gathered in Washington, D.C. in response to a call from Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. All stood together inside Arlington Cemetery, directly below the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

In 1977 Malcolm came out publicly as a Gay man – sending shock waves through the liberal Christian community. Boyd's writing was a touchstone for liberal Christians involved in the civil rights movement and, in coming out, Boyd became the most prominent clergy person to have come out of the closet. A news-magazine at the time described how many had viewed him: "blunt, restless, eloquent and above all, open." Yet it noted the brooding presence of a mask in his public life: "He kept one aspect of his life deeply private: his homosexuality." He went on to publish Take Off The Masks, Look Back in Joy, and Gay Priest: An Inner Journey. In the 1980s he wrote a weekly column for the AARP on spirituality.

In 2008, in celebration of Malcolm's 85th birthday, White Crane Books published A Prophet in His Own Land: A Malcolm Boyd Reader. The book collects the best of Boyd's fifty years of writing. In his final years he lived in Los Angeles, California with his long-time partner, the Gay activist and author Mark Thompson.

1938 – Harry Britt was the gay man who succeeded Harvey Milk on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.(d.2020) Mr. Britt was appointed to the Board of Supervisors in 1979 by then-mayor Dianne Feinstein, following the November 1978 assassination of Milk and then-mayor George Moscone.

Harry Britt was born and grew up in Port Arthur, Texas. He got married in 1960 and subsequently became a Methodist minister in Chicago, where he ministered to two congregations.

After the tumultuous late 1960s, Mr. Britt's marriage ended and he left the Methodist church. After moving to San Francisco in 1972, Mr. Britt began to explore his own homosexuality and subsequently became a protégé to a budding Harvey Milk.

On an audiotape Milk recorded before his death, and which was only played afterward, Harry Britt was named as one of four acceptable candidates to replace Milk on the Board of Supervisors in the event of such an assassination. Mayor Feinstein chose Mr. Britt, who was subsequently returned by elections until he left office in 1993.

During his time on the board, Mr. Britt introduced San Francisco's first domestic partnership legislation, which passed the Board of Supervisors in 1982 but was vetoed by Feinstein. Similar legislation became law in 1989.

His tenure on the board also coincided with the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic. In January 1989 Mr. Britt took part in the protest and sit-in at the old Federal Building in the city's Civic Center area officially known as the ARC/AIDS Vigil, ARC standing for AIDS Related Complex. He chained himself along with other participants to the entrance of the building at 50 UN Plaza to call attention to the federal government's utter failure to deal with the deadly health crisis that killed thousands of the city's gay men.

He died in June, 2020.

1943 – Kenneth Lewes (d.2020) was an Renaissance scholar who became a psychologist who went on to question modern psychoanalysis of homosexuality. In an influential book, he defied the idea that being gay, as he was, is an illness, and took on psychiatry's "history of homophobia."

He was born and grew up in a post-World War II working-class neighborhood of the northeast Bronx, the son of an immigrant couple who never got beyond grade school. He guessed even before he entered junior high school that he was gay.But it wasn't until he was nearly 50 — and publishing what would become a critically acclaimed takedown of post-Freudian psychoanalytic theories of homosexuality — that he confided his sexual orientation to his parents.

"I remember finding my way to the local public library and checking out books on psychology and human development," he said "in hopes of finding some reassurance that my interest in handsome boys was only a stage that I would soon pass through."

Dr. Lewes was married at 23 and divorced by 32 — the age when he had his first homosexual experience.

Dr. Lewes's major work, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Male Homosexuality  (1988), traced the evolution of the prevailing view that homosexuality was a curable illness and explored what he called the psychoanalytic establishment's "century-long history of homophobia." The book's title was changed to Psychoanalysis and Male Homosexuality in later editions.

Drawing on some 500 primary sources, Dr. Lewes's book found that most analysts had adhered to "popular prejudice" against gay people and clichés about them. "Many analysts," he concluded, "have violated basic norms of decency in their treatment of homosexuals."

He said he had been unable to find a single analysis of the subject written by a psychoanalyst who identified as gay.

Dr. Lewes found that the Oedipus complex could lead to 12 alternative resolutions, six of them heterosexual and six homosexual. "All results of the Oedipus complex are traumatic," he wrote, "and, for similar reasons, all are 'normal.'"

Dr. Lewes died of the new coronavirus on April 17 in a Manhattan hospital, his partner, Gary Jacobson, said. He was 76.

1945 – Born: Pioneering filmmaker Donna Deitch, best known for Desert Hearts (1986), a classic of lesbian cinema, one of the first films to present positively a sexual relationship between women. A native of California, born in San Francisco, Deitch enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s with the intention of becoming a painter. She soon became interested in photography, however, working first with a still camera but then discovering that her true vocation lay in making motion pictures.

She concentrated on making documentaries, mostly on the lives of women.The American Film Institute awarded her a grant of $2,600 in 1972 so that she could complete one of her projects. Along with muralist Judith F. Baca and painter Christina Schlesinger, Deitch founded the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in 1976. SPARC "espouses public art as an organizing tool for addressing contemporary issues, fostering cross-cultural understanding, and promoting civic dialogue." Among the artworks that the group has created is a gigantic mural about which Deitch made a documentary, The Great Wall of Los Angeles (1978).

In 1979, after reading Jane Rule 's novel Desert of the Heart (1965), Deitch wrote to the author, seeking to buy the film rights to the story. Rule had received previous proposals from movie studios but had turned them down, wary of how the Hollywood establishment might distort her tale of lesbian love. After meeting with Deitch and seeing her films, Rule decided that she was the right person to make the movie.

After winning kudos at the Telluride, Toronto, and Sundance Film Festivals, Desert Hearts was assured a wider audience when it was picked up for distribution by Samuel Goldwyn Studios in 1986. Although it had a major distributor, however, because of its subject matter the film played mainly in art houses.

Lesbian viewers took Desert Hearts to their hearts, and it quickly became a staple of glbtq film festivals. Deitch has observed that "the most repeated comment" that she received from women who had seen the film was that it had moved them to come out.

Deitch was excited to direct a film version of the stage play Common Ground for the Showtime channel in 2000. "I was knocked out by it," she said of the script. "I saw Common Ground as a gay Our Town." The three-part Common Ground takes place in the fictional town of Homer, Connecticut and traces the experiences of gay and lesbian residents over a half century.

Deitch is currently working on bringing the book Strange Piece of Paradise (2006) by her partner, Terri Jentz, to the screen. It tells the true story of a savage attack upon Jentz and her college roommate Shayna Weiss while they were on a biking and camping trip in Oregon in 1977. The assailant first ran his pick-up truck over the two young women as they slept in a tent and then bludgeoned them with an axe. As suddenly as it had begun, the attack ended, with the man driving away and leaving his victims for dead.

Deitch and Jentz, life partners since the early 1990s, reside in Los Angeles.

1956 – James O'Keefe Jr. is an American author and cardiologist who has conducted studies in the field of cardiovascular medicine, diet and exercise. O'Keefe is a leading proponent of exercise but argues that moderate rather than extreme efforts, in a social setting-like are best for conferring longevity. He has also proposed a hypothesis regarding the evolutionary basis of homosexuality. He is currently a professor of medicine at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, Director of Preventive Cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute of Saint Luke's hospital and Chief Medical Officer of the health supplement company Cardiotabs.

O'Keefe has contributed over 358 articles to peer-reviewed medical literature. These include his studies on the potential dangers of excessive exercise, the evolutionary basis of homosexuality, and that sugar not salt is the evil white crystal that needs to be eliminated from our diets. O'Keefe also focuses on improving sleep, post-meal spikes in blood sugar, and fatty liver to improve health and well-being.

O'Keefe believes that a healthy lifestyle should include some features of the diet and activity patterns of our ancient ancestors. He argues that this is essential because our nutritional needs were established many centuries ago in the remote pre-historic past; thus humans have been genetically adapted to thrive in a Hunter-Gatherer type of lifestyle. O’Keefe believes this mismatch between the diet and lifestyle for which we are genetically adapted, and the very different conditions in which we are living, is the underlying cause for much disease, disability and unhappiness. Our ancestors survived on a diet high in fish, nuts, fruits, vegetables, wild game meat and bones. They also received a large amount of exercise from walking, bending, lifting, carrying, swimming, climbing, and other activities that were necessary to their daily routines. O’Keefe recommends beverages including water, sparkling water, green tea and coffee; also, red wine can be a healthy choice if used in moderation.

O’Keefe gave a TEDx Talk in October 2016, on the natural origin of homosexuality. In this talk, and subsequent scientific paper, he proposes a theory about the evolutionary basis of homosexuality mediated by epigenetics. This theory posits that homosexuality is a naturally intended, normal variant that evolved to improve the interconnectedness and resilience of the family. The suite of psychological traits that tend to co-occur with same-sex orientation include increased IQ, and higher emotional intelligence, with less physical aggression. Through a complex interplay of epigenetics and genetics, homosexuality occurs more often in larger families, especially in a baby boy with multiple older brothers, or at times of increased stress during the pregnancy. In these settings, homosexuality is prescribed by nature largely via epigenetic changes in the developing fetus in response to the mother's environment. This can help to reduce overpopulation pressures at the family level; the gay individual also tends to improve the emotional bonding of their family and friends, thereby improving the strength survivability of the group.

1975 – Michael Buckley is an American Internet celebrity, comedian and vlogger. Noted for his vlog What the Buck?!, Buckley comments on popular culture events and celebrities. He also maintains one of YouTube's most popular channels with several million viewers each month. Buckley "broke all records" of YouTube ratings when four of his shows ended up on the week's ten top-rated videos. Buckley has appeared in magazines and newspapers such as The New York Times discussing Internet entrepreneurship and The Advocate discussing homophobia on the Internet. On March 18, 2008, he won a 2007 YouTube Awards for best commentary with the video "LonelyGirl15 is Dead!"

Buckley is openly gay and lives with his husband, Michael Donegan, in Connecticut with their five dogs Ellie, George, Colin, Buddy and Lucy. In June 2010, Buckley had Lasik eye surgery, but continues to wear empty frames in order to keep his appearance the same and to placate fans who see the glasses as part of his image. Buckley posted a video of his surgery on YouTube, in which he repeated his pledge to continue wearing his glasses on "What the Buck" - though he sometimes appears without them during his BlogTV shows.

1975 – Members of the gay rights group GATE appeared before a Parliamentary Committee in Toronto on Immigration and called for dropping all references to homosexuality in the Canadian Immigration Act.

Nate and Eliza Dushku

1977 – Nate Dushku is an American director, producer and actor. He is the youngest of the three elder brothers of actress Eliza Dushku.

Dushku was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the third son of Philip R. Dushku, an administrator and teacher in the Boston Public Schools, and Judith Dushku (née Rasmussen), a political science professor at Suffolk University in Boston. Dushku's father was Boston-born, of Albanian heritage, with his parents coming from the city of Korçë, and his mother, from Idaho, is of Danish, English, Irish and German descent. His parents were divorced in 1980.

Dushku's mother is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and the children – Nathaniel, two older brothers, Aaron and Benjamin, and one younger sister, Eliza, who started professional acting at age 10, – were raised as Mormons, although Nate, Aaron and their sister, at least, later parted from the LDS Church.

Dushku is openly gay and married to restaurateur turned scriptwriter and film producer Amnon (Ami) Meyer Lourie, from New York.

Nate and Eliza Dushku also worked on the feature film Mapplethorpe for over 12 years, eventually producing it with writer/director Ondi Timoner. Starring Matt Smith, it premiered and won an Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018.

1977 – 10,000 demonstrators marched in NYC to protest the repeal of the gay rights ordinance in Miami the day before. Composer Paul Williams and his wife took out a full-page ad in Variety supporting a boycott of Florida orange juice, the product for which hate-monger Anita Bryant did commercials.

1984 – Homosexuality is declared legal in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

1987 – Cody Rigsby is an American fitness instructor, dancer, and television personality.

Rigsby was born in California but raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. In his freshman year of college at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, he began attending ballet classes at a community theatre. He travelled to New York City after a friend told him about an internship at a dance school.

Rigsby returned to Greensboro in the fall, where he came out as gay to his peers. He permanently moved to New York City in 2009.

After graduating from college, Rigsby danced for multiple night clubs and gay bars; he also worked for Katy Perry, Pitbull, and Saturday Night Live. He danced backup for Nicki Minaj during the 2011 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

While working at The Box Manhattan, a burlesque club, a choreographer told him about Peloton, a fitness company that was looking to hire performers. Rigsby sent in an application and was hired shortly after.

On September 19, 2021, Rigsby was selected to compete on the 30th season of Dancing with the Stars and was paired with professional dancer Cheryl Burke. Rigsby and Burke ultimately placed third.

Rigsby is openly gay

2007 – On this date in an essay in the New York Times magazine, Stephen Baldwin, a former petty officer in the Navy wrote about the pain of the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy of expelling Gay and Lesbian soldiers from the military: "As the friends I once served with head off to 15-month deployments, I regret I'm not there to lessen their burden and to serve my country. I'm trained to fight, I speak Arabic and I'm willing to serve. No recruiter needs to make a persuasive argument to sign me up. I'm ready, and I'm waiting."

2015 – U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announces that the Military Equal Opportunity policy has been adjusted to include gay and lesbian military members.