The Nebraska Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights was founded in 1981 to support a proposed amendment to a Lincoln city ordinance. The amendment would have outlawed discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation and affectional orientation. Coalition spokesman Scott Stebelman said that about fifty people were working together in the new Coalition. Fierce opposition to the proposed amendment was led by UNL psychologist Paul Cameron. Coalition members refused to debate Cameron, saying "the coalition's feeling was we would debate any reasonable psychologist, but did not believe Paul Cameron fell into that class." At election time, the amendment was defeated by a 4-to-1 margin. The Coalition refocused on community advocacy instead of elections. The organization that Cameron founded to oppose the amendment would become the Family Research Institute, a nationally influential producer of pseudoscience against homosexuality. The Nebraska Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights argued against Cameron's publications conflating homosexuality with child abuse. Their arguments contributed to Cameron's eventual expulsion from the American Psychological Association. In 1983 the Coalition sponsored an event, the Great Plains Conference of Gay Men and Lesbians. Attendees from the plains states discussed recent failures to pass civil rights measures in the region.
The Coalition distributed brochures on safe sex practices in the mid 1980s. The brochures sought to dispel the then-common myth that AIDS is spread by casual contact. The Coalition partnered with the Nebraska AIDS Project in 1986 to mail a survey to medical providers throughout Nebraska asking if providers would accept gay and lesbian patients or patients at risk for HIV. The responses were used to create a referral list of safe providers.
The 1990s
In 1993 the Nebraska legislature considered a bill, LB 395, to ban employment discrimination against gays and lesbians. California-based Christian fundamentalist leader Lou Sheldon was brought to Lincoln by the Nebraska chapter of the Traditional Values Coalition to speak against LB 395. Sheldon claimed the bill was part of a nationwide anti-family "homosexual agenda". The Nebraska Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights coordinated a protest to counter Sheldon's statements. About fifty demonstrators appeared in front a local restaurant, the Green Gateau, chosen because of the belief that it had recently fired an employee for being gay. In the 1990s the Coalition sponsored poetry readings and dances that served as an alternative to socializing in gay bars.
The Coalition opposed a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage in Nebraska. After the amendment passed in 2000, the Coalition protested the victory party of the Nebraska Family Council, the organization that had spearheaded the amendment. The Coalition staged a protest for marriage equality in 2002, forming a human chain of supporters around the Nebraska State Capitol. It was the first time since World War II that a human chain was formed around the building. The organization also had social events in 2002 but faded from existence shortly afterward. Same-sex marriage remained unlawful in Nebraska until the 2015 Waters v. Ricketts and Obergefell v. Hodges court rulings.
