The Year in LGBT History: 2006

 

 

Jan 15, 2006 - Johnny Weir wins the U.S. Men's Figure Skating Championship for the third year in a row.

March 5, 2006 - Ang Lee wins the Oscar for Best Director for Brokeback Mountain but the movie fails to win Best Picture.  

March 5, 2006 - Philip Seymour Hoffman wins the Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Truman Capote in the film Capote.

April 23, 2006 - The British play History Boys opens on Broadway and wins the Tony for Best Play seven weeks later.

June 4, 2006 - The animated series Queer Duck (which aired after episodes of Queer as Folk) has its premiere as a feature-length movie.

 

 

June 8, 2006 - Alison Bechdel's comics-style memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, is published.  (Seven years later it is turned into a Broadway musical, which wins the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2015.)

June 14-15, 2006 - Rufus Wainwright performs at Carnegie Hall Judy Garland's acclaimed 1961 Carnegie Hall concert. 

July 19, 2006 - With not much of a career left to jeopardize, former N-Sync singer Lance Bass comes out in the pages of People.  His is perhaps the first case of an entertainer using coming out as a career move in order to keep his name in the press.

July 29, 2006 - One week after Gay Games 7 ended in Chicago the first World Gay Games opened in Montreal with nearly twice as many as participants.

Aug 8, 2006 - Washington D.C.'s Gay Men's Chorus is the first gay chorus to perform at a professional sporting event when they sing the National Anthem at the start of this evening's Washington Nationals baseball game.

 

 

Sept 19, 2006 - The temperature of the already homoerotic Nip/Tuck heats up a few more degrees in tonight's episode, which featured Mario Lopez showing off his beautiful butt cheeks during an exquisite shower scene.

 

 

Sept 29, 2006 - Closeted Republican congressman Mark Foley (from Florida) resigns after IMs of a sexual nature between him and a male Congressional page are revealed.

Oct 6, 2006 - After 18 years as weatherman at New York's WABC, Sam Champion moves to Good Morning America.

Oct 25, 2006 - On 30 Rock straight Liz (played by Tina Fey) is set up on a blind date with a lesbian.  And although Liz develops a platonic crush on her, the lesbian refuses to play the game of chasing after a straight girl.

 

 

Nov 3, 2006 - Actor Neil Patrick Harris reveals that he's gay.

Nov 3, 2006 - Ted Haggard, founder of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs steps down from his evangelical ministry after a male escort/masseur/personal trainer revealed a 3-year affair with him.

Nov 14, 2006 - The most memorable image of the year is that of actor Daniel Craig, starring as the new James Bond in Casino Royale, walking out of the surf in a mouth-watering sky blue square cut swim suit.  The movie opened this weekend.

 

 

 

Nov 14, 2006 - South Africa is the first country in Africa to legalize same-sex marriage.

 

 

Dec 20, 2006 - A nasty (and idiotic) feud between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump begina.

 

(To read about LGBT history from other years double click here.)