kentuckyLGBT.org - Kentucky gay rights movement (and Kentucky Equality Federation) timeline; Kentucky Gay History.

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08/16/2008: Marriage Equality Kentucky is launched as a grassroots movement to bring general neutral marriage equality to the Commonwealth of Kentucky. For additional information, visit marriageequalityky.org.

05/06/2008: Kentucky Equality Federation donates $1,500.00 to pay remaining bills for 2008's Come Together Kentucky hosted by Northern Kentucky University. (more)

03/18/2008: Officers from Kentucky Equality meet with Kentucky House Leadership to kill Senate Bill 112 (House Bill 118), a law passed by the Senate that would redefine domestic-partner to exclude same-sex couples. The bill later dies in a House Committee.

01/05/2008: Kentucky Equality and Bluegrass Fairness of Central Kentucky begin affiliation and form a strategic partnership.

12/12/2007: Kentucky Equality Federation condems legislation to ban same-sex domestic-partner benefits at Kentucky universities. (more)

11/07/2007: Kentucky Equality Federation begins boycott of Wal-Mart. (more)

03/27/2007: Kentucky Equality Federation holds a reception for the 2007 Soulforce Equality Ride. (more)

03/08/2007: Kentucky Equality Federation wins the first (2007) Social Justice Impact Award, $10,000.00 and promotional support from MySpace. (more)

02/22/2007: Hundreds stormed the commonwealth's Capitol on February 22, 2007 to support domestic-partner benefits for heterosexual and homosexual couples. (more)

12/22/2006: Anti-gay Christians miss message; anti-gay protests in Richmond, KY. (more)

10/25/2006: Representative Fischer's (R) statement upsets gays; Kentucky Equality Federation members protest. (more)

09/27/2006: Northern Kentucky University responds to Kentucky Equality Federation's concerns regarding a hate crime/act of intolerance involving a gay student. (more)

2006: A gay male couple in Louisville is stabbed to death. Charles Poynter, 43, died of multiple stab wounds, and his house was set on fire; his partner, Blaine Thackery, was also killed.

09/12/2006: Police in Covington believe two apparent homophobic attacks - one in which a man was stabbed - are not related. The victim in the stabbing was attacked following an encounter in a local restaurant. Police say that he was in the bar of La Tradicion restaurant when a man approached him and asked "if he was really a female." The victim said he was not and walked away. According to the police report, "Suspect then approached victim from rear, stabbing him twice. Suspect stated to victim, 'I got you.'"

Vandals also spray painted hate messages on a local home. The owner, a white woman who says she is not gay, found the graffiti about 2:30 in the morning. KKK and fag were painted on the exterior of the home, along with a swastika.

09/05/2006: Kentucky Equality Federation expands community services to include reporting hate crimes, discrimination, and school bullying; Federation now acts as a buffer between the victim and local officials, ensuring immediate action is taken to correct the situation. You can now complete a report online and submit it to Kentucky Equality Federation. We will do everything possible and necessary to protect your privacy, and we will ensure your constitutional freedoms, rights, and liberties are protected.

08/22/2006: Kentucky Equality Federation demands an immediate apology and investigation from Steak n' Shake after the Manager on Duty at a location in Louisville, KY asks the "fags" to leave.

08/18/2006: Kentucky Equality Federation is accepted as a member of the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

07/21/2006: Boone County High School in Northern Kentucky ended months of stonewalling and avoided a federal lawsuit by finally approving the formation of its first Gay-Straight Alliance. After working with the school for months, Kentucky Equality Federation notified the Board of Education of its intention to sue to school Board if it failed to approve the club immediately. (more)

06/20/2006: Kentucky Equality Federation condemns the Pentagon's "Instruction Document" which lists homosexuality as a "mental defeat" along with mental retardation, impulse control disorders and personality disorders. The document is later changed because of enormous national pressure.

05/06/2006: Kentucky Equality Federation makes headlines across the commonwealth as its members assemble near the Governor's Mansion to protest funding to the University of the Cumberlands and other policies of the Fletcher Administration during the Governor's Annual Derby Breakfast Celebration.

03/18/2006: Members of Kentucky Equality Federation lobby (for the first time) at the Kentucky Capital to prevent a bill to remove protections provided by the cities of Covington, Lexington, and Louisville against discrimination based on sexual orientation becoming law; the legislation had been introduced to the House of Representatives in January.

12/06/2005: Members of Kentucky Equality Federation thank Wells Fargo Bank, and Ford Motor Co. for not caving to pressure from anti-gay groups for their gay-friendly policies.

2005: Timothy Blair, 19, was gunned down as he walked near 28th and Magazine in Louisville, KY. Timothy was a gay man who did drag; the night he was killed he was in women's clothing.

2005: Joshua Cottrell, 23, is found guilty of manslaughter after he admitted beating and strangling to death a gay man and then stuffing his body into a suitcase and dumping it in a lake. Throughout the trial Cottrell's defense painted the accused as being a victim who killed Richie Phillips, 36, in Cottrell's Elizabethtown motel room after Phillips made an unwanted sexual advance on him.

During the trial Cottrell's adoptive aunt, Wendy Cottrell McAnly testified that Cottrell confessed to her that he had planned Phillips' murder. The suitcase containing Phillips' was found floating on Rough River Lake last June by two fishermen.

The Commonwealth's Attorneys Office had sought a murder conviction which would carry the death penalty under Kentucky law. The jury gave Cottrell the lightest verdict it could however by using the "gay panic defense."

2004: Matthew Ashcraft, 19, was attacked for coming to the defense of a gay man who was being beaten outside a Newport bar. Ashcraft, who is not gay, was with two gay friends on their way to Woolly's, an LGBT friendly bar. As they approached the club they saw Leon Hughes being harassed outside. When Ashcraft intervened, the man who was assaulting Hughes left, then returned with a baseball bat and beat Ashcraft unconscious prosecutors said.

1999: Private First Class Barry Winchell is beaten to death with a baseball bat at Fort Campbell, KY as he slept for dating a transgender performer. Winchell died of massive internal injuries. One of his attackers was released from prison in August 2006 to a halfway house, and released from all custody on October 12, 2006. *This story was the subject of Showtime movie "Soldier's Girl."

Some of the following historical events have been copied from Jeff Jones. We encourage you to visit Jeff's site! Thank you Jeff, for all the hard work you did!

1994: Responding to a resolution by the University of Kentucky Student Government Association, the UK Board of Trustees make two actions: a) they vote to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in admissions and financial aid, and b) pass a resolution that UK should not discriminate in any of its policies based on sexual orientation.

09/24/1992: Kentucky Supreme Court overturns the commonwealth's same-sex only, consensual sodomy law in a 5-4 decision in a ruling on Wasson v. the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The justices in the majority subsequently receive death threats.

1990: The Letter, a Louisville-based gay newspaper, begins publication.

1990: The Kentucky HIV Care Coordinator Program is established.

1986: Jeffrey Wasson arrested on 4th degree (consensual) sodomy outside of The Bar Complex after being entrapped by an undercover policeman who engaged him in conversation. The arrest following this sting operation eventually leads to Wasson challenging the law in Wasson v. the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

1986: Meeting at The Cafe LMNOP, a gay bar and drag theater on Main St., Liz Turpin recruits lesbian female-to-male drag performer Karen Brown to be her girlfriend and to join Turpin in murdering her husband. The two hire a man who kills the husband. All three are arrested and found guilty after a sensational courtroom trial (read Rena Vicini's true murder novel "Fatal Seductions").

1986: GALUS, a gay student group, is active at UK as the first officially recognized gay student group. GALUS members successfully lobby UK to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in grading (only area covered).

1982: Having learned of the International Imperial Court System, an international charity organization founded by gay pioneer Jose Sarria that primarily relies on drag shows to raise funds for other charities, while living in Alaska, native Lexingtonians Greg Butler and Marlon Austin (aka Blanche Pinke) returned to Lexington and found the Royal Sovereign Imperial Court of the Bluegrass Empire (later R.S. Imperial Court of all Kentucky). The Kentucky court becomes the first east of the Mississippi River.

08/08/1978: The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) was founded during the conference of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in Coventry, England, at a meeting attended by 30 men representing 17 organizations from 14 countries.

ILGA was instrumental in getting the United Nations World Health Organization to drop homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

Today, the ILGA is an international organization bringing together more than 400 lesbian and gay groups from around the world. It continues to be active in campaigning for gay rights on the international human rights and civil rights scene and regularly petitions the United Nations and governments. ILGA is represented in around 90 countries across the world.

1971: Gay Liberation Front (GLF) formed at the University of Kentucky throught the Open University Program. Bruce Kraus is GLF's first president. GLF and subsequent groups (until the 1980s) are not recognized officially by the University of Kentucky as student groups. When GLF goes to court to seek official recognition as a student organization from UK, GLF loses the case.

1880: The U.S. Census Bureau includes listings for prison inmates and lists two individuals imprisoned in Kentucky for "crimes against nature." Blacks disproportionately are imprisoned for such offenses than whites in 1880 probably as a mechanism for punishing African-Americans who oppose racial inequalities or who lack the status to fend off homosexual accusations.

1863: The Louisville Daily Democrat reports the suicide of a Civil War soldier who was a woman passing as a man.