A month-by-month breakdown of the important LGBT news events of 2008.
Bertrand Delanoë
JANUARY
5: Threats to attack Paris’s Eiffel Tower and the city’s gay mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, are posted on a website catering to Islamic fundamentalists. The mayor -- who was stabbed in a 2002 antigay attack -- later announces his interest in running for president of France.
14: E. Denise Simmons becomes the nation’s first openly lesbian black mayor when the city council in Cambridge, Mass., appoints her to lead.
16: Keith Hill, who admitted to raping five young men in 2006, is found guilty of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old at gunpoint and sentenced to 99 years in prison. The 20-year-old says he targeted men instead of women during an eight-month spree in Baytown, Texas, because “it would be less hard on them.”
22: Brokeback Mountain actor Heath Ledger is found dead in his New York City apartment after an apparent accidental drug overdose. Ledger had just finished filming The Dark Knight, in which he played the demented, mysterious Joker.
FEBRUARY
1: A New York appellate court rules that state agencies must recognize the marriage of a lesbian couple married in Canada in 2004. In 2005, Patricia Martinez had sued her employer, Monroe Community College, after the school denied health care benefits for her wife.
10: The Israeli government allows same-sex couples to adopt children -- previously permissible only when one parent was biologically related to the child.
12: Out eighth-grader Lawrence King is shot in the head by classmate Brandon McInerney at E.O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, Calif. He dies two days later. McInerney, 14, awaiting trial, has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder with a hate-crime enhancement.
19: Jason Bartlett breaks a double barrier when he comes out to his constituents in Connecticut’s second district -- becoming the first openly gay African-American state legislator in the nation. Bart-lett later wins reelection in November with 54% of the vote.
22: Gay teenager Simmie Williams Jr. is found slain in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. His mother, Denise King, tells the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, “I gave him two dollars for the bus and he never came back.” She adds that she wasn’t aware that he often dressed as a woman. His killer is still being sought.
MARCH
7: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledges $100 million to innovative research projects dedicated to fighting tuberculosis, HIV, infectious diseases, and drug resistance worldwide.
7: Oklahoma state legislator Sally Kern is heard on an audio recording telling fellow Republicans that gays pose “the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism and Islam,” and that gays will “destroy this nation.” Kern added that gays have higher suicide rates, feel more discouraged, are more frequently ill, and have shorter lifespans. Despite widespread outrage, Kern wins reelection in November with 58% of the vote.
12: New York governor Eliot Spitzer, once dubbed the “Sheriff of Wall Street” for his aggressive ethics reform, announces his resignation after a federal investigation uncovers attempts to conceal thousands of dollars in financial dealings traced to a high-end prostitution ring. Lt. Gov. David Paterson takes over and quickly becomes a gay rights ally.
31: A gay couple from New York, whose wedding image was used by Polish president Lech Kaczynski in a March 19 television address to deride gay marriage, trek to Warsaw to meet with him. Brendan Fay and Tom Moulton’s trip sparks a media frenzy.
APRIL
9: PlanetOut Inc., parent company of The Advocate and Out, announces the sale of its publishing properties to Regent Entertainment, owner of here! TV.
18: CNN reporter Richard Quest is arrested in Central Park with a rope tied around his neck and genitals and a sex toy in his boot. He’s charged with possessing methamphetamine and loitering.
24: Conservative group Protect Marriage submits more than 1.1 million signatures to place a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage -- later known as Proposition 8 -- on California’s November ballot. Out-of-state religious organizations contributed to the signature effort.
28: The highest court in the Presbyterian Church rules that the Reverend Jane Adams Spahr did not violate denominational law by officiating same-sex commitments because the unions were not legally recognized. The Louisville, Ky., court emphasizes that same-sex ceremonies cannot be marriages under church law.
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