The Honorarium, first celebrated in 1994, is an annual awards ceremony where the LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada recognizes significant members of the Las Vegas queer community, as well as community supporters and allies. For more information on the 2004 Honorarium, see "Gay, Lesbian Center to Host Honorarium" [Las Vegas Sun, August 11, 2004, 9B] and "The Center to Honor Community Leaders [QVegas, August 2004, 20]. Of particular interest at the 2004 Honorarium is recognition of the cast of the Las Vegas Academy's production of The Laramie Project which drew a raucous protest from members of the virulently homophobic Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kansas, led by Fred Phelps and members of his family. See "Las Vegas Academy Theater Cast to Receive Youth Activist Award [Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 14, 2004, 14B]; "Group Plans to Picket Play at School: Anti-Gay Protesters Target High School [Las Vegas Sun, May 6, 2004, 1B, 8B]; "Anti-Gay Group Targets LV School: Protest Set on Content of Student Play" [Las Vegas Review-Journal, May 7, 2004, 1B, 13B]; "Counterprotest Planned by Community Groups" [Las Vegas Sun, May 7, 2004, 7B]; "Anti-Gay Group Outnumbered" [Las Vegas Sun, May 12, 2004, 1B, 4B]; and "Anti-Gay Protesters Picket School: Hundreds Turn Out to Support School Targeted by Church" [Las Vegas Review-Journal, May 13, 2004, 1B, 4B]. [00:00:00 - 01:26:47]

The Equal Right to Marry Project in Las Vegas was established in 1996 through the LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada to fight for marriage equality. One of the organization's first events was a panel discussion at the Clark County Library featuring Evan Wolfson, an attorney with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. This videotape of the panel discussion is Part 2 of 2. For a short history of the Equal Right to Marry Project in Las Vegas, see Out of the Neon Closet: Queer Community in the Silver State, by Dennis McBride [North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016], pp. 274-275. Still photographs of this event may be found in photograph collection 00263 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' Special Collections Department, photo nos. 2728-2737. Oral history interviews with panel members Dan Hinkley, Lori Lipman Brown, Lee Plotkin, and Mike Mas are also deposited in the Special Collections Department. [00:00:00: - 00:38:33]

This video records the commitment ceremony between African American lesbians Caroline [dressed in a gown] and Elsa [dressed in a suit]--their surnames are not given--in the courtyard of the LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada in celebration of National Freedom to Marry Day. Among those attending the ceremony are Lori Lipman Brown and Gary Peck of the ACLU. [00:00:00 - 00:07:30]

Question 2 was an anti-same-sex marriage constitutional amendment passed by popular referendum in Nevada in 2000 and 2002. This video records a debate between Richard Ziser, director of the referendum's sponsoring organization, the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage in Nevada [CPM], and Liz Moore, director of Equal Rights Nevada [ERN], an organization established by the Nevada queer community to fight Question 2. The program which hosted this debate was POV Vegas, a half-hour public affairs program which debuted on July 12, 1999, sponsored by the Las Vegas Sun newspaper and broadcast on Las Vegas ONE, a 24-hour local news network which was a collaboration among the Las Vegas Sun, KLAS-TV Channel 8, and Prime Cable [Prime was purchased in 1998 by Cox Cable/Cox Communications], on channels 1 and 39. The general manager of Las Vegas ONE was Robert "Bob" Stoldal. The network operated from April 6, 1998 through January 9, 2010. For the story of Question 2, see Out of the Neon Closet: Queer Community in the Silver State, by Dennis McBride [North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016], pp. 103, 257, 273, 277-302, 309-312. For the history of POV Vegas, see "Sun to Launch Daily Television News Talk Show" [Las Vegas Sun, June 27, 1999]. [00:00:00 - 00:19:40]