Gay Rights - Movement, Marriage & Flag | HISTORY

Contents:

• HOW 2013 BEME THE GREATT YEAR IN GAY RIGHTS HISTORY
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• THE TOP TEN GAY-RIGHTS HERO OF 2013
• GAY RIGHTS
• SUPREME COURT RUL FAVOR OF GAY RIGHTS

HOW 2013 BEME THE GREATT YEAR IN GAY RIGHTS HISTORY

Gays and lbians had once plaed about feelg visible, but as lns of dividuals have e out, they not only have ma their polil sir more tangible but also have won sympathetic alli among many straights.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Durg his first term, Obama sometim me across as a reluctant warrr on gay issu, takg his time to "evolve" his posn on marriage, his timg perhaps prodd by remarks om Vice Print Joe Bin.

Obama has been the "gays' LBJ, " says Jonathan Rch, a rint scholar at the Brookgs Instutn, parg the current print to Lyndon Johnson, who signed to law the Civil Rights and Votg Rights Acts of the 1960s. This year's Supreme Court cisns on gay marriage might well have turned out differently if the ernment still had an active tert argug for discrimatn, says Aaron Belk, director of the Palm Center at San Francis State Universy, which studi transgenr ary service.

THE TOP TEN GAY-RIGHTS HERO OF 2013

"Our journey is not plete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else unr the law, " he said, "for if we are tly created equal, then surely the love we m to one another mt be equal as well. Marriage helped gays "change the subject om beg primarily about rights and nondiscrimatn to beg about love, fay and muny, " says Rch, who has wrten books about same-sex marriage and growg up gay.

GAY RIGHTS

E., for lbians, gays [homosexual mal], bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons); seeks to elimate sodomy laws; and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life.

) Gay rights prr to the 20th century Relig admonns agast sexual relatns between dividuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavur, but most legal s Europe were silent on the subject of homosexualy and bisexualy. Dpe Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to w s repeal, homosexual and bisexual men and women experienced a certa amount of eedom Germany, particularly durg the Weimar perd, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power. In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons.

In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women.

SUPREME COURT RUL FAVOR OF GAY RIGHTS

In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act. In the 1970s and ’80s, gay polil anizatns proliferated, particularly the Uned Stat and Europe, and spread to other parts of the globe, though their relative size, strength, and succs—and toleratn by thori—varied signifintly.

Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons.