1972 in LGBT rights

List of years in LGBT rights (Table)
… 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 …
Related time period or subjects
… 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 … … 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s … … 19th century 20th century 21st century …
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Science more

This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the year 1972.

Events

San Francisco prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation in the public sector. The city also prohibits companies that have contracts with the city from discriminating based on sexual orientation.

7 — East Lansing, Michigan, becomes the first United States city to ban discrimination against homosexuals in housing, public accommodation, and employment.^[1]

1 — U.S. state of Delaware decriminalizes consensual homosexual acts between adults.

12 — Delegates Jim Foster and Madeline Davis become the first openly LGBT people to address a major U.S. political party's convention at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.^[2]

10 — The United States Supreme Court issues its ruling in Baker v. Nelson, which sought to have Minnesota's restriction of marriage to mixed-sex couples declared unconstitutional. The Court dismisses the case "for want of a substantial federal question".^[3] Because the case came to the Court through mandatory appellate review (not certiorari), the summary dismissal constitutes a decision on the merits and establishes Baker v. Nelson as controlling precedent.^[4]

August 2 — Paul Goodman, U.S. poet, writer, and public intellectual. The freedom with which Goodman revealed, in print and in public, his homosexual life and loves proved to be one of the many important cultural springboards for the emerging gay liberation movement of the early 1970s.
December 31 — Henry Gerber, German-born American LGBT rights activist. Founded the Society for Human Rights, the first LGBT organization in the United States.^[5]

^ Faderman, p. 228
^ Bianco, p. 318
^ Baker v. Nelson, 409 US 810 (United States Supreme Court 2010-10-10).
^ Project, Developments in the Law: The Constitution and the Family, 93 Harv. L. Rev. 1156, 1274 (1980) (discussing Baker's posture as precedent); see, e.g. Pamela R. Winnick, Comment, The Precedential Weight of a Dismissal by the Supreme Court for Want of a Substantial Federal Question: Some Implications of Hicks v. Miranda, 76 Colum. L. Rev. 508, 511 (1976) ("a dismissal by the Supreme Court is an adjudication on the merits. . . a lower federal court must consider itself bound by the dismissal when a similar challenge comes before it").
^ "Henry Gerber". Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. http://www.glhalloffame.org/index.pl?item=18&todo=view_item. Retrieved 2009-08-26.

Bianco, David (1999). Gay Essentials: Facts For Your Queer Brain. Los Angeles, Alyson Publications. ISBN 1-55583-508-2.
Faderman, Lillian (2007). Great Events From History: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Events, 1848-2006. Salem Press. ISBN 1-58765-264-1.