California still has an anti-gay marriage law on the books. Voters uld remove next year - CBS Sacramento

Contents:

• GAY REPARATNS ARE PAST DUE
• HOME OFFICE EXPANDS SCHEME TO PARDON THOSE CRIMALISED FOR GAY ACTIVY
• CONSERVATIVE MISTER OBSTCTS PROGRSN OF GAY PARDON LAW
• NEW U.K. LAW THAT WOULD PARDON GAY MEN ONCE CONVICTED OF SEX CRIM FAILS PARLIAMENT
• BRA POSTHUMOLY PARDONS THOANDS OF GAY MEN ‘TURG LAW’
• COMPREHENSIVE GAY PARDON LAW FILIBTERED UK
• CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR

GAY REPARATNS ARE PAST DUE

It may seem surprisg to Amerin rears, but one of the most vibrant human rights movements around the world today is “gay reparatns, ” or polici tend to make amends for the legacy of systemic discrimatn on the basis of sexual orientatn and genr inty. In the last alone, Canada, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Spa, and the Uned Kgdom have embraced gay reparatns.

Gay pri flag at half-staff. A gay pri flag hangs at half-staff durg a memorial service for the victims of Florida’s Pulse nightclub shootg San Diego, California, on June 12, 2016. The Case for Gay Reparatns book ver.

HOME OFFICE EXPANDS SCHEME TO PARDON THOSE CRIMALISED FOR GAY ACTIVY

This article is adapted om The Case for Gay Reparatns, Omar G.

The polici hardly prise a homogeno experience, and they do not entail givg people money simply for beg gay, as some spect. In most untri, gay reparatns are limed to a ernment apology to the LGBTQ muny for past wrongs and a promise to do better the future.

In others, they have entailed memorializg the victims of state-sponsored reprsn of homosexual cizens. In 2008, the German ernment opened a monument to gay victims of the Holot, an unknown number whom perished Nazi ncentratn mps, many of them victims of gome medil experiments tend to eradite their homosexualy.

CONSERVATIVE MISTER OBSTCTS PROGRSN OF GAY PARDON LAW

In still other untri, gay reparatns have centered on a pardon to anyone nvicted unr laws that crimalized same-sex attractn, as the Uned Kgdom, which 2017 issued a posthumo pardon to those nvicted of “gross cency, ” cludg Alan Turg, the mathematician creded wh shorteng the end of World War II; or even fancial pensatn for wag or pensns lost due to havg spent time prison or a mental stutn bee of a homosexual offense, as Spa sce 2009 and Germany sce 2016. The clost the untry has e to embracg gay reparatns was 2019, when, on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rts, the New York Police Department issued a belated apology for the raid that triggered the rebelln.

Surely, the absence of gay reparatns—or even a discsn of them— the Uned Stat is not out of a rosy history ee of systemic discrimatn toward the LGBTQ muny, although a valid argument n be ma that this history is not particularly well known, save, perhaps, for “don’t ask, don’t tell. ” That famo 1993 policy allowed gays, lbians, and bisexuals to serve the ary as long as they kept their sexual orientatn a secret.

NEW U.K. LAW THAT WOULD PARDON GAY MEN ONCE CONVICTED OF SEX CRIM FAILS PARLIAMENT

Des before “don’t ask, don’t tell, ” om the 1920s through at least the 1960s, there was the policy of “entrapment, ” which volved unrver police officers sendg flirtat signals to other men they prumed to be homosexual the hop of ensnarlg them to illic activy. Acrdg to the historian Eric Cervi’s book The Deviant’s War, War, which is about gay rights pneer Frank Kameny, the 15 years after World War II, “homosexual arrts—cludg those for sodomy, dancg, kissg, or holdg hands—occurred at the rate of one every ten mut, ” for a grand total of 1 ln arrts.

Entrapment was followed by the Lavenr Sre, the midcentury persecutn of feral workers spected of beg homosexual. Perhaps as many as 10, 000 people were fired or expelled om their feral jobs durg the 1950s and 1960s bee they were homosexual or spected of beg homosexual based on evince as flimsy as how they drsed, talked, or looked. C., where they were forced to unrgo such humanizg treatments as lobotomi, sul-duced as, and gay nversn therapy, wh the aim of changg their sexual orientatn.

BRA POSTHUMOLY PARDONS THOANDS OF GAY MEN ‘TURG LAW’

Gay activists have pared the treatments offered at St. -based anizatn champng gay reparatns—pecially a formal apology om Congrs.

Members of San Francis’s gay muny prott the Supreme Court’s cisn upholdg a sodomy law Geia on July 17, 1986. Addg to such mistreatment have been a host of urt cisns that for s stigmatized homosexual people. Two lgs particular reveal the anim that Amerin jurispnce has the past shown toward gays, lbians, and bisexuals.

COMPREHENSIVE GAY PARDON LAW FILIBTERED UK

Supreme Court lg that upheld the state of Geia’s sodomy laws, the urt termed that the Constutn did not protect the rights of gays, lbians, and bisexuals to engage private, nsensual sexual relatns, bee, the jtic nclud, homosexual sex has no nnectn to fay, marriage, abortn, or procreatn. Burger quoted the 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone’s characterizatn of homosexual sex as an “famo crime agast nature, ” worse than rape, and “a crime not f to be named.

” Homosexualy remaed crimalized the Uned Stat until the Supreme Court overturned the Hardwick lg 2003.

Acts of state-sponsored anti-gay discrimatn sent an unambiguo msage to ordary Amerins that was acceptable to mean and monize LGBTQ people, and even to engage acts of vlence agast them. The famo and bloody history of societal attacks on the Amerin LGBTQ muny clus sger and spokperson Ana Bryant’s 1977 Save Our Children csa, which picted gay men as pedophil; Evangelist Jerry Falwell’s “claratn of war” on homosexualy, a rhetoril tactic employed durg the 1980s to raise funds for Falwell’s Moral Majory anizatn; and the 2016 attack on Pulse, a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida.

CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR

Prr to Pulse, there was the now largely fotten 1973 arson fire at Upstairs, a gay bar New Orleans’ French Quarter, which left 32 people ad.