The state of Georgia mostly improved in its treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents in the years after 1970, when LGBT residents began to openly establish events, organizations and outlets for fellow LGBT residents and increase in political empowerment.
Prior to the 20th century
The state of Georgia, upon independence from the United Kingdom, retained most laws imposed under British rule, but did not explicitly retain a sodomy law from the period until 1817, when the first sodomy law in the jurisdiction's 85 years was enforced. A further amendment of the law took place in 1833, when "carnal knowledge and connection against the order of nature by man with man, or in the same unnatural manner with woman" was outlawed on force of life imprisonment with labor.
The first sodomy case in the state occurred in 1894, when Hodges v. State reached the State Supreme Court; the case of an appeal against a lower court conviction of a boy "under 14 years of age" for sodomy upon another boy resulted in a two-sentence judgement: "Judgment reversed."
20th century
In 1949, the state amended its sodomy law, reducing the compulsory life sentence to 1–10 years. The breadth of the law, however, was gradually expanded by both judicial and legislative redefinitions over the decades. The law was formally challenged in 1986 by Bowers v. Hardwick, which was taken to as high as the US Supreme Court before the court ruled against Michael Hardwick, the defendant who was arrested while performing consensual fellatio upon another male.
Ultimately, however, as a larger number of states repealed their sodomy laws through judicial or legislative action, Georgia was one of the last to do so. In 1993, Senator Ronald Slotin (D-Atlanta) unsuccessfully introduced a bill to the Senate to repeal the sodomy law, The Georgia Supreme Court struck down the state's sodomy law in Powell v. Georgia (1998), a 6-1 decision.
20th century in Atlanta
In the meantime, LGBT life began to develop in various districts of Atlanta, including Midtown, Little Five Points, and Candler Park districts. In September 1953, 20 gay men were arrested in the Atlanta Public Library following a police stakeout, an event widely covered by the media known as the Atlanta Public Library perversion case. In 1969, the police raid a screening of the film Lonesome Cowboys, targeting "known homosexuals". In 1971, the first Atlanta Gay Pride parade was organized by the Georgia Gay Liberation Front, and was held between Peachtree Street to Piedmont Park. In 1972, the first Atlanta area Metropolitan Community Church congregation was established.
In 1974, local activist Bill Smith founded the Atlanta Barb, the state's first gay newspaper. In 1976, the Atlanta Gay Center was first opened. In 1978, the Southern Baptist Convention's hosting of a speaking engagement by anti-gay activist Anita Bryant at the Georgia World Congress center drew a rally of over 4,000.
In 1983, the Atlanta Campaign for Human Rights (now Georgia Equality) was established. In 1985, the first officially LGBT-welcoming synagogue, Congregation Bet Haverim (Reconstructionist), opened.
In 1988, Southern Voice was established. In 1992, Emory University opened its Gay and Lesbian Student Life office. The Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Visitors Center was opened in 1996, opening Atlanta's Olympics to LGBT tourists.
Government recognition and participation
The history of government recognition of LGBT people in Georgia began in 1972. That year, Atlanta mayor Sam Massell appointed Charlie St. John, an archivist and journalist from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (where he was fired for his activities by 1973), to his Community Relations Commission, becoming the first LGBT liaison in Atlanta city government. In 1982, an official proclamation for Pride was issued by the Atlanta city government, but it was not signed by Mayor Andrew Young; but in 1984, Young inaugurated the first "Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights Day". In 1988, Mayor Maynard Jackson became the first mayor of Atlanta to attend Pride. In 1993, Fulton County's government became the first county in the state to issue an official Pride proclamation, joining the city of Atlanta in doing so.
In 1997, Cathy Woolard became the first openly gay politician elected to the Atlanta city council.