Gay Activists Alliance – NYC LGBT Historic S Project

Contents:

• GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE
• HOW THE GAY ACTIVIST ALLIANCE MASTREAMED LGBTQ RIGHTS IN THE YEARS AFTER THE STONEWALL UPRISG
• HOW GAY ACTIVISTS CHALLENGED THE POLICS OF CIVILY
• GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE ZAP AT THE NEW YORK CY MARRIAGE BURE
• FOUNDG OF THE GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE AT THE ARTHUR BELL RINCE
• GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE ACTNS AT CY HALL
• GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE V. BOARD OF REGENTS OF UNIVERSY OF OKLAHOMA
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE

The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was formed December 1969 by Jim Owl, Marty Robson, Arthur Evans, Arthur Bell, and others, who beme disaffected by the Gay Liberatn Front (GLF), the first LGBT group formed right after Stonewall. Foced exclively on “the liberatn of gay people, ” GAA beme the most fluential Amerin gay liberatn activist anizatn the early 1970s.

While the pickets and actns by earlier homophile groups the 1960s, like the Mattache Society’s Sip-In at Juli’, had been peaceful, the post-Stonewall groups, cludg GAA, GLF, and Radilbians, were more nontatnal. This was the “zap, ” a direct, surprise public nontatn wh polil figur and rporate and ernmental enti regardg gay rights and discrimatn, signed to ga gay and straight media attentn.

Morty Manford and Arthur Evans, “The Theory and Practice of Conontatn Tactics, Part 3: How to Zap, ” GAY, March 12, 1973, 17.

HOW THE GAY ACTIVIST ALLIANCE MASTREAMED LGBTQ RIGHTS IN THE YEARS AFTER THE STONEWALL UPRISG

GAA Communy Demonstratn to Prott Syndite Domatn and Police Harassment of Gays, at the former 6th Police Precct Statn, July 24, 1971. Who We AreFound 1971, GLAA is an all-volunteer, non-partisan, non-prof polil anizatn that has succsfully obtaed civil rights of lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr people the Natn's Capal.

Throughout our 50+ years, we have succsfully obtaed polil power for LGBTQ people, repealed anti-gay laws, curtailed police harassment and vlence, and moled strategy and legislative policy for jurisdictns across the untry. Sce he clearly n’t get enough of beg queer, he is also “gay for pay” at the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights where he is the director of racial and enomic jtice iativ. When he is not anizg, he lov askg people about their Myers Briggs Type (he is ENFP, for the rerd), dog gay crim (the basics like dgs and public sex), havg Spicy Vanilla™️ sex, dancg to hot beats on the dance floor, practicg vulnerabily, plottg revolutn agast palism and other forms of opprsn, watchg mic vios and YouTube vios about mental health and spirualy, beg on that polyamoro sh, fdg the bety others, and sharg the gospel of love.

HOW GAY ACTIVISTS CHALLENGED THE POLICS OF CIVILY

Notable advocy victori clu a petn nvcg performance venu across the untry to ncel performanc by sger Michelle Shocked after she livered a homophobic tira onstage; a succsful ternatnal media mpaign that rulted Apple droppg a "gay cure" iPhone app; and a stg operatn which he went unrver wh hidn meras at the clic -owned by Marc and Michele Bachmann and exposed them for offerg dulent "ex-gay" therapy. He has served as a spokman for Fair Wisns and on the boards of Vermont Freedom to Marry, Pri Vermont, and Vermont Gay Social Alternativ.

GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE ZAP AT THE NEW YORK CY MARRIAGE BURE

Gay Communy 10/18/97Addrs by Melv Boozer at Democratic Natnal Conventn 1980Kameny ttifi before Dowdy hearg (part 1) 08/08/63Kameny ttifi before Dowdy hearg (part 2) 08/08/63. Our MissnGLAA was found 1971 as the Gay and Lbian Activists Alliance, and updated 2017 to be more clive of the LGBTQ muny.

Every month the mid-1960s New York Cy, hundreds of nsentg adults would be arrted police entrapment stgs for a crime that thori had named “homosexual solicatn. The arrts, signed to huiate, margalize, and stroy the liv of some of the cy’s most vulnerable rints, stemmed om a 1920s law that named homosexual acts “generate disorrly nduct. Afterward, for those that rried the gay liberatn movement to the next  through relentls anizg, novative direct actn, and sometim lerally screamg for their liv, the fight would stop for nothg.

Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two LGBTQ and civil rights activists who fought om the 1960s until their aths, would be mounted Ruth Wtenberg Triangle, jt blocks om the gay bar turned natnal monument. It seems that Rivera and Johnson, who were, rpectively, a teenager and a 24-year-old as they beme trsic to the gay liberatn movement’s story, weren’t actually at the Stonewall Inn when the fierce phback agast that bog police raid of the mafia-owned bar was igned. A stnch activist who at that pot was a member of the Mattache Society, an early anizatn seekg rights for gay men, Robson may have ntributed to the makg of the Stonewall legends.

FOUNDG OF THE GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE AT THE ARTHUR BELL RINCE

But ’s really what he did the years after the uprisg that helped galvanize a mass movement by -foundg the Gay Activist Alliance six months later and then shockg the natn wh novel, attentn-seekg protts that ployed disptive tactics that beme known as “zaps. “Stonewall would mean nothg if had not led directly to the gay liberatn movement, for was that movement that broke the dam and set ee, ” historian David Carter, who wrote the book “Stonewall: The Rts that Sparked the Gay Revolutn, ” said 2004. “In my view, was [the Gay Activist Alliance] more than any other anizatn that ma the gay liberatn movement spread — and Marty Robson was the primary geni behd that anizatn.

GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE ACTNS AT CY HALL

It was lnched as an offshoot of the more left-leang Gay Liberatn Front, which was foced on other issu like the ongog war Vietnam. Their goal was to center a sgle issue wh a polilly ntral anizatn to "secure basic human rights, digny, and eedom for all gay people. Protts of bar raids began almost immediately, and wh a year the group was publishg the Gay Activist newspaper and aligng wh other groups to lnch the Christopher Street Liberatn Day Para, which grew to the massive Pri Para and events that New York now has annually on the last Sunday June.

Sce he refed to meet wh gay rights lears or even acknowledge the growg movement, activists heckled him relentlsly and bombard his events wh lerature. We want homosexuals to know who has been rponsible for actn regardg their civil rights, ” Robson told reporters after leavg the urthoe. Private vtigatn firm Filifacts was zapped a stumed prott, wh activists drsed as ducks outsi their after the pany that was acced of targetg LGBTQ New Yorkers; the pany print had said that while zerog on gay folks, “if looks like a duck, walks like a duck, associat only wh ducks and quacks like a duck, he is probably a duck.

The eye-tchg actns — cludg the notor 1977 pie served straight to anti-gay csar Ana Bryant’s face — were also effective recment.

GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE V. BOARD OF REGENTS OF UNIVERSY OF OKLAHOMA

In addn to his ditn to the GAA, the prolific Robson also found The Lavenr Hill Mob, an early AIDS activist anizatn; he was also a foundg member of The Natnal Gay Task Force and of The Gay and Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn. I am sad and shook by the untimely passg of David Thorstad, the ntroversial, radil, gay liberatnist and avid garner.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

David was the last Print of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), which formed as an off-shoot of the 1969 pneerg gay liberatn group, the Gay Liberatn Front. The Republin mayor had no ia he was about to be ambhed by members of the newly formed Gay Activist Alliance (GAA).

Gay rights activists would ntue to nont him public over the next two years, showg up to boo, stomp shout, and sh the stage at his weekly televisn show tapgs. From s ceptn the early 1970s through s rponse to the AIDS crisis the 1980s and 1990s, the Amerin gay liberatn movement pursued the polil strategy of persistent nontatn of public figur. They pneered this h-and-n tactic, known as the “zap actn, ” to urt necsary media attentn and force homophobic figur and stutns to acknowledge gay rights, a prott technique spired by other New Left groups like the Yippi and radil femist llectiv.

The first groups to orchtrate zaps clud the GAA and Gay Liberatn Front (GLF), which formed the wake of Stonewall and mted to nonvlent, but ant, ristance.