50 Years Ago, A Kansas Cy Meetg Laid The Groundwork For The Gay Rights Movement | KCUR - Kansas Cy news and NPR

Contents:

• GAY RIGHTS
• GAY RIGHTS TIMELE: A LOOK BACK AT THE PAST 50 YEARS
• THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND THE MOB
• 50 YEARS AGO, CROMPTON BROUGHT GAY STUDI TO NEBRASKA
• 50 YEARS AGO, A KANSAS CY MEETG LAID THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• THE STGGLE FOR GAY RIGHTS IS OVER

GAY RIGHTS

Army service World War I, Gerber was spired to create his anizatn by the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee, a “homosexual emancipatn” group ’s small group published a few issu of s newsletter “Friendship and Freedom, ” the untry’s first gay-tert newsletter.

Ernment signated Gerber’s Chigo hoe a Natnal Historic Pk TriangleCorbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, gay rights movement stagnated for the next few s, though LGBT dividuals around the world did e to the spotlight a few example, English poet and thor Radclyffe Hall stirred up ntroversy 1928 when she published her lbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonels. Addnally, 1948, his book Sexual Behavr the Human Male, Aled Ksey proposed that male sexual orientatn li on a ntuum between exclively homosexual to exclively Homophile Years In 1950, Harry Hay found the Mattache Foundatn, one of the natn’s first gay rights group. ”Though started off small, the foundatn, which sought to improve the liv of gay men through discsn groups and related activi, expand after foundg member Dale Jenngs was arrted 1952 for solicatn and then later set ee due to a adlocked the end of the year, Jenngs formed another anizatn lled One, Inc., which weled women and published ONE, the untry’s first pro-gay magaze.

Post Office, which 1954 clared the magaze “obscene” and refed to liver Mattache Society Mattache Foundatn members rtctured the anizatn to form the Mattache Society, which had lol chapters other parts of the untry and 1955 began publishg the untry’s send gay publitn, The Mattache Review. That same year, four lbian upl San Francis found an anizatn lled the Dghters of Bilis, which soon began publishg a newsletter lled The Ladr, the first lbian publitn of any early years of the movement also faced some notable setbacks: the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed homosexualy as a form of mental disorr followg year, Print Dwight D. ”In fear of beg shut down by thori, bartenrs would ny drks to patrons spected of beg gay or kick them out altogether; others would serve them drks but force them to s facg away om other ctomers to prevent them om 1966, members of the Mattache Society New York Cy staged a “sip-”—a twist on the “s-” protts of the 1960s— which they vised taverns, clared themselv gay, and waed to be turned away so they uld sue.

GAY RIGHTS TIMELE: A LOOK BACK AT THE PAST 50 YEARS

They were nied service at the Greenwich Village tavern Juli, rultg much publicy and the quick reversal of the anti-gay liquor Stonewall Inn A few years later, 1969, a now-famo event talyzed the gay rights movement: The Stonewall clanste gay club Stonewall Inn was an stutn Greenwich Village bee was large, cheap, allowed dancg and weled drag queens and homels the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn. 1 / 12: NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagChristopher Street Liberatn Day Shortly after the Stonewall uprisg, members of the Mattache Society spl off to form the Gay Liberatn Front, a radil group that lnched public monstratns, protts and nontatns wh polil officials. Addnally, several openly LGBTQ dividuals secured public office posns: Kathy Kozachenko won a seat to the Ann Harbor, Michigan, Cy Council 1974, beg the first out Amerin to be elected to public Milk, who mpaigned on a pro-gay rights platform, beme the San Francis cy supervisor 1978, beg the first openly gay man elected to a polil office asked Gilbert Baker, an artist and gay rights activist, to create an emblem that reprents the movement and would be seen as a symbol of pri.

In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn published a report about five prevly healthy homosexual men beg fected wh a rare type of 1984, rearchers had intified the e of AIDS—the human immunoficiency vis, or HIV—and the Food and Dg Admistratn licensed the first mercial blood tt for HIV 1985. But after failg to garner enough support for such an open policy, Print Clton 1993 passed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which allowed gay men and women to serve the ary as long as they kept their sexualy a rights advot cried the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, as did ltle to stop people om beg discharged on the grounds of their 2011, Print Obama fulfilled a mpaign promise to repeal DADT; by that time, more than 12, 000 officers had been discharged om the ary unr DADT for refg to hi their sexualy.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was officially repealed on September 20, Marriage and Beyond In 1992, the District of Columbia passed a law that allowed gay and lbian upl to register as domtic partners, grantg them some of the rights of marriage (the cy of San Francis passed a siar ordance three years prr and California would later extend those rights to the entire state 1999) 1993, the hight urt  Hawaii led that a ban on gay marriage may go agast the state’s nstutn. In 1994, a new anti-hate-crime law allowed judg to impose harsher sentenc if a crime was motivated by a victim’s sexual Matthew Shepard ActCourty of the Matthew Shepard FoundatnMatthew Shepard, who was btally killed a hate crime 2003, gay rights proponents had another b of happy news: the U. Gay rights proponents mt also ntent wh an creasg number of “relig liberty” state laws, which allow bs to ny service to LGBTQ dividuals due to relig beliefs, as well as “bathroom laws” that prevent transgenr dividuals om g public bathrooms that don’t rrpond to their sex at birth.

THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND THE MOB

I wore my disobedience and ristance to heterosexualy like a badge of between beg sacked om jobs, thrown out of pubs, beaten up, sexually asslted, and labelled a “eak” and “kiddy fiddler”, I was rmed by some gay men and heterosexuals that lbians were not opprsed bee we were “not illegal”. I wnsed women havg their children removed and placed the ctody of vlent ex-partners; beg raped by police officers as “punishment” when our clubs were raid on a pretext; and beg celly rejected by fai and childhood thor Mreen Duffy, now 83, was the first lbian the UK to e out pre-1967 and speak agast anti-gay discrimatn.

Straight iends are shocked to learn that the UK there are still signifint rtrictns on gay men givg blood, or that there are still 29 US stat where is legal to fire somebody for beg gay (never md the untri where rri a ath penalty)’s not to ny how much posive change has occurred - there’s never been a better time to be gay the UK. On this day 50 years ago, LGBTQ activists and alli New York Cy marched om Greenwich Village to Central Park to memorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall event beme known as the first gay-pri march or the first gay-pri march 1970 to the US Supreme Court's lg protectg LGBTQ people agast workplace discrimatn earlier this month, here are 25 monumental moments the fight for equal rights for people of all genrs and sexual Bs Insir's homepage for more stori.

That year's Natnal March on Washgton for Lbian and Gay Rights beme known as "The Great March" for s large turnout, which activists timated to be more than 500, 000 goal was to get more feral fundg to addrs the AIDS epimic, which at s height the mid-1980s killed 150, 000 per year, most of them LGBTQ people. The policy directed that ary personnel "don't ask" if someone is gay, but also that members of the armed forc "don't tell" that they're gay theoretilly lifted a ban on gays servg the ary that had been stuted durg World War II, though realy, forced members of the armed forc to stay closeted. The now-famo Stonewall Rts 1969 -- when gay people fought back agast a police raid on a popular gay bar Greenwich Village, New York -- is wily viewed as a major turng pot Uned Stat gay history, a moment that fed and tablished the gay and lbian rights movement as we know the real foundatnal moment may have been a quiet meetg here Kansas Cy.

50 YEARS AGO, CROMPTON BROUGHT GAY STUDI TO NEBRASKA

It flew unr most people's radar at the time, and remas a relatively unknown historil event even years before Stonewall -- 1966 -- the first meetg of the North Amerin Conference of Homophile Organizatns, or NACHO (don't pronounce like the chip dish smothered chee; 's pronounced NAY-KOE) took place at the State Hotel on 12th and Wyandotte. "It was the first ever gatherg of gay and lbian civil rights lears om different anizatns across the untry, " says Stuart Hds, assistant an of Special Collectns at UMKC's Miller Nichols Library and curator of GLAMA, the Gay and Lbian Archiv of 40 people attendance would eventually bee the pillars of the early gay and lbian rights ia was to agree on a hive agenda. Although this may seem like a victory for the more nservative mp at the meetg, the next few years would prove pivotal; the then-radil view that the humany of gay and lbian Amerins should be part of the movement gaed momentum as the 1960s progrsed.

The Stggle for Gay Rights Is OverFor those born to a form of adversy, sometim the harst thg to do is admtg that they’ve Tsironis / RtersEdor’s Note: This article is part of a seri about the gay-rights movement and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprisg. For this childhood fan, was a marvel: A sport wh heavily oiled men nng around spanx tights that was neverthels notor for crassly homophobic stereotyp now celebrat gay day seems to brg wele exampl of how Amerins are beg more relaxed about sexual orientatn. Aga, ” clared the headle of a characteristilly psimistic Tim op-ed by the legendary gay activist and playwright Larry this glooms li the 2016 electn, which many gay activists believe threatened to halt, if not reverse, all of the progrs they have ma.

It was an obv joke about Pence’s religsy and social nservatism, an example not of Tmp’s purported homophobia but the lack of rpect he has for even his most loyal followers, up to and cludg his own vice print, whom he is apparently willg to mock before a group of Whe Hoe visors. Likewise, the portn of heterosexual rponnts who said they would feel unfortable “learng a fay member is LGBTQ” was 27 percent 2016, and rose to 30 percent the followg for the report on LGBTQ homicis, is unclear how many of the murrs clud the report were actually motivated by antigay anim.

50 YEARS AGO, A KANSAS CY MEETG LAID THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

But is the nflatn of transgenr issu wh the gay-rights movement, a recent velopment and not one unrtaken whout some ntroversy among gays and lbians themselv, which acunts for much if not most of the evince ced as reprentg regrsn on gay to marriage equaly and other protectns for gays advanced by the Supreme Court, Jtice Anthony Kennedy’s “opns seem secure bee his jurispnce largely mirrors chang society, ” Saikrishna Prakash of the Universy of Virgia Law School told Poli, referrg to the former Supreme Court jtice’s majory opns the 2003 se strikg down sodomy laws and the 2015 se legalizg same-sex marriage.

The ia that gay Amerins might have achieved somethg approachg equaly go agast a central assumptn of the zegeist, which, this age of Tmp, Brex, and a risg global ti of natnalism and illiberalism, postulat that Enlightenment valu are on the cle.

THE STGGLE FOR GAY RIGHTS IS OVER

When I asked the Human Rights Campaign, the untry’s leadg gay-rights group, for statistics on the number of LGBTQ people annually nied employment, hog, or service at a hotel or rtrant due to their sexualy or genr inty, the group was unable to provi me wh any. In a 7–2 cisn, all the more damng for havg been wrten by the judicial hero of the morn gay-rights movement, Anthony Kennedy, the Court cisively led agast a gay uple’s attempt to force a Christian baker Colorado to make a ke for their weddg ceremony. The urt assailed Colorado burecrats for nng roughshod over the First Amendment rights of the baker, whose relig nvictns forba him not om servg gay people—he offered to make the uple all the baked goods they uld ever wish to nsume—but om exprsg approval for somethg he nsirs gay people are expected to be grievoly offend by the behavr of Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakhop.

Ameri is a land of some 330 ln people, and I do not require every small-bs owner across the untry to reject 2, 000 years of relig teachg orr to pursue my by a moral absolutism remblg the relig zeal of those they oppose, some gay activists and their progrsive alli have taken a zero-sum approach to the issue of antidiscrimatn, seekg to punish and stigmatize people who hold the exact same view of marriage that Barack Obama exprsed up until May 2012. Meanwhile, the state of New York is threateng to close an evangelil adoptn agency that ref to place children wh gay upl, spe the fact that the agency do not even accept ernment fundg and that no gay uple had ever even plaed about beg nied you had told gay activists 10 or even five years ago that their energi would center upon mpaigns related to var foods—forcg p pastry chefs to make k and boyttg Chick-Fil-A, or “hate chicken, ” bee s Christian owner has donated money to efforts opposg same-sex marriage—most would have nsired their missns plete.

To unrstand why so many the movement refe to accept victory, helps to unrstand the tensns that have long existed at s the emergence of “homophile” activists the 1950s, the tenor and aims of the Amerin gay-rights e have alternated between two tennci: tegratnist and separatist. If tegratnists believe that gay people are pretty much the same as straight people and th want the same thgs out of life, separatists ntend there is somethg herently distct about “queerns” obligatg s adherents to pursue polil paths and romantic and social arrangements divergent om the Amerin mastream.