At the 1980 Democratic National Convention, openly gay delegate Mel Boozer takes the podium as a nominee for vice president in order to get the party's attention to Gay issues. The Democratic platform, unlike those in later years, backs Gay rights. Sergeant Perry Watkins files suit against the U.S. Army challenging the revocation of his security clearance and seeking an injunction barring his discharge for being gay. By the end of the decade, his case is still being appealed in the 9th Circuit. Tony Randall plays a middle-aged Gay man who takes in an unwed mother in the telivison series Love, Sidney.
Religious groups complain, and the character is eventually neutered.
The Centers for Disease Control reports by the end of July, a total of 26 cases of a rare form of cancer called Kaposi's Sarcoma, usually found in elderly men, having been reported in young Gay men. At the end of 1989, another repeal effort is stuck in the D.C.'s Judiciary Committee. Gays say President Ronald Reagans choice of C. Everett Koop for Surgeon General spells doom. Two Marines are convicted of tear gassing a D.C. Gay bar called Equus. One gets nine months in jail, the other gets probation.