2003 – Lawrence v. Texas (Supreme Court Decision)
Ruled by a vote of 6-3 that a Kansas law criminalizing gay or lesbian sex was unconstitutional declaring the importance of constitutional liberty and privacy consistent with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Also overturned the court decision in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) stating that the court had made the wrong decision.
2008 (November) – Proposition 8 passes with a 52% yes vote in California declaring that marriage is between a man and a woman.
2010 – The U.S. Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” so that gay and lesbian people could serve openly in the military. One person present at the signing ceremony in the White House was Frank Kameny who had been released from military service in 1958 because of discriminatory policies against gay and lesbian people.
2013 – U.S. v. Windsor / Repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act – DOMA (Supreme Court Decision)
By a vote of 5-4 ruled that defining marriage as just between a man and a woman is unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1996 and stated that marriage or legal unions are between one man and one woman. This decision ruled the congressional law as unconstitutional and that states have the authority to define marital relationships.
2015 – Obergefell v. Hodges (Supreme Court Decision)
The Court voted 5-4 that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This decision mandated that states must allow same-sex couples to legally marry.
2015 – Dr. Rachel Levine was appointed by Gov. Tom Wolf to be Pennsylvania’s Physician General and in 2017 as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health, the first transgender person to hold a cabinet position in Pennsylvania.
2016 – Pulse Nightclub shooting at this gay bar in Orlando, FL by a single gunman resulted in 50 deaths and 58 injured making it the largest mass-casualty attack against the LGBTQ+ community in U.S. history.
2021 – Pete Buttigieg was appointed Secretary of Transportation and Dr. Rachel Levine as assistant secretary of Health by President Joe Biden making them the two highest ranking openly gay and transgender officials respectively ever to serve in the U.S. government.
2021 – Richie Torres became the first openly gay Afro-Latino elected to Congress, serving New York’s 15th Congressional district.