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Participating and
Contributing Member of
United Vision For Idaho
Participating and
Contributing Member of
The Idaho Women's Network
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Participating and
Contributing Member
of INTERPRIDE
Your Family,
Friends & Neighbors
P.O.Box 768
Boise Idaho 83702
(208) 344-4295
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Know Your Queer History!
by
Alan Virta, Nicole LeFavour, and Keith Gaines
- 1864
- The Idaho Territorial Legislature makes sodomy illegal, punishable by no less than five years in prison.
- 1890s
- The medical profession introduces the word "homosexual" to the English language.
- 1985
- The Idaho Statesman reports the details of Oscar Wilde's sodomy trial in London on the front page.
- Early 1900s
- Professional female impersonators appear on Boise's vaudeville stage.
- 1912
- A sex scandal rocks Portland's YMCA and is sensationalized by a crusading newspaper. A forerunner of the
Boys of Boise episode four decades later.
- 1920
- Two men are arrested for having sex in the Interurban trolley station in downtown Boise. The court transcripts
reveals secrets of gay cruising in early Boise.
- 1935
- Dr. Alan Hart comes to Boise to lead Idaho's public health campaign against tuberculosis. Legally married to a
woman but born a female, he is a transgendered pioneer.
- 1955
- The Boys of Boise. In Boise, three men are arrested on "moral charges" because they are
suspected of having sex with teenage male prostitutes. In the months to follow as many as 1,500 suspected
gay men and community members are questioned and the city is sent into a panic as 13 more are arrested.
The men, many of them guilty of no more than being gay and having sex with another consenting adult, are
charged with "lewd and lascivious conduct" or "infamous crimes against nature." Ten are
jailed, some without trial. Many men, including Capitol Building elevator operator Morris Foote leave
Boise out of fear for their lives.
- Late 1960's
- Gays begin mixing with the straight clientele at the go-go bar in the basement of the Idanha Hotel.
- 1969
- On the night of June 27, a riot erupts as a bartender, a bouncer, and three drag queens are being
arrested during a routine police raid of the Stonewall Inn gay bar in New York City. The Stonewall Riots become
a rally point around which gays begin to speak openly of their existence and their refusal to accept
society's denial, harassment, and deprivations; the riots inspire the modern gay liberation movement in the United States.
- 1969-1973
- Connecticut, Colorado, Oregon, Delaware, Hawaii, and North Dakota repeal their sodomy laws and decriminalize same-sex
sexual acts.
- 1971
- The weekly newspaper The Intermountain Observer publishes the first major article on Boise's gay community since
the Boys of Boise scandal.
- 1972
- East Lansing, Michigan becomes the first location in the country to adopt an anti-discrimination policy that includes
sexual orientation.
- 1973
- The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
- 1975
- Boise's first gay bar, Shuckey's opens in the old Mitchell Hotel, at 10th and Front street. Later
renamed The Stoplite, it closes in 1988.
- 1976
- Gays organize a Boise congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church and hold their first
public worship service in 1977.
- 1977
- Anita Bryant (Miss America runner-up, pop singer, and orange juice promoter) and her
anti-gay Save Our Children organization successfully campaign to repeal a Dade County,
Florida gay rights ordinance. Harvey Milk, the best known open gay public official, is
elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors.
- The Boise Seven: Seven female police officers are fired after the police department taps a phone
the officers were told was for personal calls. Accused of being lesbians, the women sue the police
department for $16 million. The district judge calls the police department's actions "an abysmal
operation." He orders the department to pay the seven women the full $16 million, saying "I
cannot imagine a city of Boise's size lowering itself to such shenanigans in the 1970's"
- 1978
- Harvey Milk helps to defeat a California initiative that would ban gays from teaching in public schools.
Even Ronald Reagan, the former governor, publicly states, "Whatever else it is, homosexuality is
not a contagious disease like measles." On November 27, San Francisco Supervisor Dan White
assassinates Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.
- 1979
- On May 21, Dan White is found guilty of two counts of voluntary manslaughter (the lightest possible conviction).
One of White's defenses (later known as the Twinkie Defense) in court is that his consumption of junk food
(specifically Twinkies, potato chips, and Coca-Cola) intensified his manic-depression which caused him to
murder Milk and Moscone.
- 1980
- The Democratic Party adds gay rights to its political platform.
- Early 1980's
- Several Boise gay and lesbian organizations are born. The Community Center has a house in Hyde Park. The Imperial
Sovereign Gem Court ruled the city from Shuckey's and the Stoplight. The Idaho AIDS Foundation raises money and
awareness with elaborate drag shows and other events.
- 1984
- The Community Center is founded and begins publishing a monthly newspaper known as "The Paper" then "Out."
It is later renamed to "Diversity"
- 1985
- The first case of AIDS is reported in Idaho
- Newsweek writes that support for legal protection for gays is "politically hazardous in the AIDS-altered
climate" of the period.
- 1986
- The United States Supreme Court rules to uphold Georgia's sodomy law, which prosecutes a case of sex between two men.
- 1987
- Jerry Sweat works to educate Boiseans about AIDS. The community is shocked and saddened, feeling helpless as
Jerry becomes the first Idaho man to die from the effects of the virus.
- 1989
- Boise celebrates Pride with a cautious picnic in the park. Ann Dunklin and Brian Bergquist decide it is time to make
the festivities a bit more visible. Together with other brave souls they form Your Family, Friends, and Neighbors, inc.
to organize Gay Pride and other events.
- 1990
- The First Boise Gay Pride Parade occurs in June. Many people make masks to wear on the streets, Some say they fear the marchers
will be shot.
- 1992
- Several Meridian High School teachers are suspended after they invite three women to speak
to their classes about lesbian parenting. After a flurry of media attention, the teachers are
reinstated. In the following years, the Meridian school board institutes new policies of intolerance
toward "diversity" district-wide.
- Colorado amends it state constitution to ban local ordinances that protect gays from housing and
employment discrimination. Oregon defeats a measure that would also ban protection of gays from housing
and employment discrimination.
- 1993
- The Hawaii Supreme Court rules that the state's ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional because it
violates the equal protection clause of the Hawaii Constitution. The Hawaii Supreme Court also requires
Hawaii to show a compelling reason to warrant the sex discrimination in its marriage law.
- Boise human rights activists Jen Ray and Mary Rohlfing are beaten during the night by a man in
a Halloween mask and slippers in a cabin in Stanley, Idaho. The local sheriff loses key pieces
of evidence and no one is ever caught with what local law enforcement admits was a hate crime.
- 1994
- Anti-gay Proposition One is defeated by only a few thousand votes in a statewide election. In spite of
overwhelming Republican victories across the state, the community comes together and more than 1,000
volunteers and donors, work with educators, librarians, and human rights supporters to successfully
persuade Idahoans to vote NO on the Idaho Citizens Alliance's initiative. The law would have censored
school teachers and libraries and made it illegal to protect gays and lesbians from employment and housing
discrimination. Today our community is still not protected by state or federal anti-discrimination laws.
- 1996
- The United States Supreme Court overturns the 1992 Colorado referendum while referring to the
"rights of persons" protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. In the anticipation that
Hawaii will legalize gay marriage, Congress passes the Defense of Marriage Act to ban federal
recognition of same-sex couples, and to allow states to ignore same-sex marriages performed in other
states. A Circuit Court judge decides that Hawaii cannot show a compelling reason to ban same-sex
marriages. However, no marriage licenses are distributed to gay couples because the decision is appealed.
The Idaho Citizen's Alliance, Idaho Family Forum, and Christian Coalition fail to gather enough signatures to
qualify a second anti-gay initiative for the Idaho ballot. Their anti-abortion and school voucher initiatives fail as well.
- 1997
- Ellen DeGeneres comes out on her self-titled sitcom. Several Idaho TV stations refuse to air the episode.
Still, thousands of us watch, laugh, and rejoice at the thought that parts of our lives are slowly becoming real
in the American mind.
- Dallas Chase, a prominent Boise activist and "Lesbian Legend", becomes the first Boise lesbian to appear
in a national magazine wearing nothing but bubbles.
- James DuToit becomes the first openly gay man to run for Boise City Council. He is defeated by opponent Jerome Mapp.
- A resolution to include sexual orientation in Boise State University's anti-discrimination statement passes the
student Senate and is signed by President Ruch in July.
- 1998
- Hawaii amends it state constitution to extend the power of legislators to restrict marriages to
opposite-sex couples.
- Professor Peter Boag is awarded a settlement by the Idaho State Board of Education. The Board
apparently denied Boag a research grant because he was doing research on turn-of-the-century Idaho
gay and lesbian history.
- Eagle High School refuses to print an advertisement for Your Family, Friends and Neighbor's Teen group in its student paper.
Seniors Travis Riggs and Curtis Langley ask the American Civil Liberties Union for assistance on getting the paper to recognize
the students' right to free speech.
- 1999
- The Idaho legislature State Affairs Committee votes against a bill that would include sexual orientation in Idaho's
malicious harassment law. Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia include sexual orientation in their
malicious harassment laws. Eighteen states, including Idaho, still have sodomy laws that outlaw same-sex sexual acts.
- It is still legal for Idaho businesses, most universities, state, and federal agencies to fire employees simply
because they may be gay.
[return to HISTORY main page]
[return to YFFN home page]
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