Category Archives: LGBTQ history

My first Anchorage Pride, 1983 — and (some of) Identity’s early history

Crossposted at Bent Alaska My first Pride in Anchorage, just short of a year after I first arrived in Alaska, was in June 1983. This was my second Pride march overall — my first had been in Boston in 1981, … Continue reading

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Bar Fragments (poem)

This is the series of couplets that includes the lines about Michael Jackson included in my last post. Though written in 1995, the experiences date from 1983-84, when I was in my 20s & often went out dancing (& drinking … Continue reading

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Same-sex marriage: A personal history

Good news from Maine Wednesday: its legislature passed, & its governor signed, a law making it legal for same-sex couples to marry.  This makes Maine the 5th state in the U.S., after Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, & Iowa, to grant the … Continue reading

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WAR's antigay letter to the Alaska Bar Association, 1993

You’ve heard about it, now here it is: the famous letter written by Wayne Anthony Ross to the Alaska Bar Association and published in the Alaska Bar Rag in the early 1990s (turns out it was 1993) which referred to … Continue reading

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Publicity, publicity, publicity

Which Anchorage churches did the Phelpists picket during PrideFest 2003, & which not, & why?

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Those Phelpists aren't too clever, are they?

Why did Westboro Baptist Church, famous for their website “godhatesfags.com,” picket Anchorage Baptist Temple — famous in Anchorage as the very center of antigay attitudes in Alaska?

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Anchorage Pride 2003: Look how far we’ve come

A brief history of the annual Pride parade in Anchorage from 1983, in which there were 19 marchers, to 2001, in which there were two to three thousand. Can the followers of Fred Phelps wreck that? Don’t think so.

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Fred Phelps coming to Anchorage

The “godhatesfags.com” followers of Westboro Baptist Church pastor Fred Phelps announce plans to picket in Anchorage during PrideFest 2003.

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