TheBlack Cat Bar orBlack Cat Café was a bar inSan Francisco, California. It originally opened in 1906 and closed in 1921. The Black Cat re-opened in 1933 and operated for another 30 years. During its second run of operation, it was a hangout forBeats andbohemians but over time began attracting more and more of agay clientele, and becoming a flashpoint for what was then known as thehomophile movement, a precursor to thegay liberation movement that gained momentum in the 1960s.
The Black Cat was at the center of a legal fight that was one of the earliest court cases to establish legal protections for gay people in the United States. Despite this victory, continued pressure from law enforcement agencies eventually forced the bar's closure in 1964. (Full article...)
Milk was born and raised in New York. He acknowledged his homosexuality in adolescence, but secretly pursued sexual relationships well into adulthood. Thecounterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and sexual expression. Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972 and opened a camera store. After holding an assortment of jobs and frequently changing addresses, he settled inthe Castro, a neighborhood that was experiencing a mass immigration of gay men and lesbians. He ran for city supervisor in 1973, but the existing gay political establishment resisted him. Milk's campaign was compared to theater due to his personality, earning media attention and votes, although not enough to be elected. He campaigned again in the next two supervisor elections, dubbing himself the "Mayor of Castro Street". The voter response caused him to also run for theCalifornia State Assembly. Due to his growing popularity, he led thegay rights movement in battles against anti-gay initiatives. Milk was elected city supervisor in 1977 after San Francisco began to choose neighborhood representatives rather than city-wide ones. During Milk's almost eleven months in office, he sponsored a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations, housing, and employment. The supervisors passed the bill by a vote of 11–1, and MayorGeorge Moscone signed it into law. On November 27, 1978,Milk and Moscone were assassinated byDan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk's bill. (Full article...)
This 1908 painting by German artist Paul Höcker depicts Nino Cesarini, the Italian lover of BaronJacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen. Fersen had fled from France after a sex scandal and built a mansion onCapri,Villa Lysis, where he lived together with Cesarini. The two edited a short-lived literary magazine together,Akademos, which was partly a discreet defense of homosexual love. A romanticized account of their relationship is given byRoger Peyrefitte in his 1959 novelL'Exilé de Capri ("The Exile of Capri").
... thatABC moved theRoseanne episode "December Bride", which featured asame-sex wedding, from its usual broadcast time slot to one 90 minutes later, citing the episode's "adult humor"?
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