New Jersey’s attorney general apologized for s-old state polici that shuttered bars for allowg gay patrons to ngregate.
Contents:
- GAY BARS AND GAY RIGHTS
- LIQUOR LAWS ONCE TARGETED GAY BARS. NOW, ONE STATE IS APOLOGIZG.
- A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
GAY BARS AND GAY RIGHTS
Gay bars, one of the few public plac of ngregatn for LGBTQ+ people before the Stonewall rebelln of 1969, were flash pots for the crimalizatn of same-sex sexual nduct, acrdg to legal scholar Patricia A. Ca’s history of ligatn for lbian and gay rights.
LIQUOR LAWS ONCE TARGETED GAY BARS. NOW, ONE STATE IS APOLOGIZG.
Addnally, a broad terpretatn of “homosexual acts” the twentieth century ma “lbians and gay men thk of themselv as crimals jt for beg who they were, ” wr Ca. In what Ca lls the first “succsful Amerin ‘gay rights’ se, ” 1951, the California Supreme Court led Stoumen v. The state liquor thory had “acted arbrarily termg that the mere prence of homosexuals a public bar was a threat to public welfare and morals.
” The urt nclud that the state uldn’t nflate homosexual stat and homosexual nduct. ” Dpe Stoumen, the laws would be ed to harass and close gay bars until the laws were clared unnstutnal, 1959. Department of Alhol Beverage Control required “somethg more” than the mere prence of homosexuals a California bar for thori to revoke a liquor license.
A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
” Such ambiguo wordg kept the door open to closg gay bars, even if g liquor licensg to do so beme ls and ls viable.