; Whereas, in 1975, the Civil Service Commission eliminated the ban on the employment of gay people in most Federal jobs; Whereas, on January 8, 1978, Harvey Milk made national news when he was sworn in as an openly gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; Whereas, in October of 1979, 75,000 people participated in the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights to demand equal civil rights; Whereas, in 1980, Democrats took a stance in support of gay rights at the Democratic National Convention; Whereas, in 1982, Wisconsin became the first State to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation; Whereas, in 1983, after initial refusal from lead organizers to allow an openly LGBTQ person to speak, Audre Lorde was selected by Black LGBTQ groups to speak at the 20th anniversary commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington; Whereas, in October of 1987, thousands of activists took part in the National March on Washington to demand that President Reagan address the AIDS crisis; Whereas, in 1987, Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts became the first Representative to voluntarily come out as an openly gay Member of Congress; Whereas, in 1988, Urvashi Vaid cofounded the Creating Change Conference, the largest annual LGBTQ convening in the United States organized by the National LGBTQ Task Force; Whereas, on May 20, 1996, the Supreme Court of the United States decided, in Romer v. Evans, that a Colorado constitutional amendment preventing the enactment of nondiscrimination protections for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in that State was unconstitutional; Whereas, on October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay American student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten, tortured, and left to die; Whereas at the turn of the century in 2000, Vermont became the first State in the country to legally recognize civil unions between same-sex couples