Gay Freedom Para (San Francis, 1978) - Bay Area Televisn Archive

Contents:

• GAY PRI
• GAY FREEDOM PARA (SAN FRANCIS, 1978)
• A HISTORY OF GAY FREEDOM DAY, DYKE MARCH, AND TRANS MARCH
• GAY PRI CALENDAR
• MOSW COURT UPHOLDS 100-YEAR BAN ON GAY PRI EVENTS

GAY PRI

Para officials believed the turnout was a rult of the attentn that Ana Bryant was gettg for her anti-gay csa Florida and the murr of a gay cy garner by four youths the prr week. Willie Brown urged everyone to register to vote, so they uld oppose a statewi iative sponsored by Fullerton Republin Assemblyman John Briggs that would perm public school districts to fire homosexuals. A lot of progrs has been ma toward this goal the last 50 years, cludg a Supreme Court lg jt two weeks ago that gay employe were protected om job discrimatn unr the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the fight is far om over.

Part of the crowd at the Civic Center celebratn at the end of the 1977 San Francis Gay Freedom Day Para; photograph by Crawford Barton, Crawford Barton Papers (1993-11), GLBT Historil Society. —Leo Lrence scribg the arrival of equtrian officers om the San Francis Police Department at the June 28 Gay-In that attracted some 200 people to Speedway Meadows Goln Gate Park. Inially referred to as the Gay Liberatn March, then as Christopher Street Wt, then as Gay Freedom Day, the celebratn ployed both ivoly and prott hop of iatg a cultural shift how society viewed LGBTQ people.

GAY FREEDOM PARA (SAN FRANCIS, 1978)

No formal statement was issued that first year, but one activist ma clear the purpose of the “betiful and peaceful” event: In the face of opprsn, “homophil gathered pri their inty. “A Statement by the Para Commtee: Brothers and Sisters, ” published the program booklet distributed at the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Para; Ephemera Collectn, GLBT Historil Society.

Organizers distributed photopi of the typed, llaged and hand-drawn documents seen here to gui marchers and sponsors of a 1975 lumn the Bay Area Reporter, muny lear and mera-store owner Harvey Milk (1930–1978) poted to two challeng for Gay Freedom Day anizers: promotg the para through the media and obtag municipal fundg.

By the time Milk beme California’s first openly gay elected official as a member of the San Francis Board of Supervisors 1978, mastream media were creasgly providg advance verage of the event—and that same year, the Para Commtee obtaed s first grant om the cy. One of the origal eight-lor flags flyg at Uned Natns Plaza San Francis durg Gay Freedom Day, 1978; photograph by Crawford Barton, Crawford Barton Papers (1993-11), GLBT Historil Society. Now an ternatnal symbol of LGBTQ muny, the flag buted wh two exampl flown on the monumental flagpol at Uned Natns Plaza on Gay Freedom Day, June 25, Para 1978; footage by Crawford Barton, Crawford Barton Papers, GLBT Historil Society.

A HISTORY OF GAY FREEDOM DAY, DYKE MARCH, AND TRANS MARCH

Behd the ftivi, another aspect of the Gay Freedom Day Para returned year after year throughout the 1970s: arguments about goals, disagreements on tactics and fights over cln and reprentatn. The headle that starts on the right page ntu on subsequent pag to give a full 1928 quote by early German homosexual-emancipatn lear Kurt Hiller: "The liberatn of homosexuals n only be the work of homosexuals themselv.

Gee Mennhall, the edor of Vector, the magaze of the Society of Individual Rights, published an edorial 1972 stg doubt on the value and anizatnal tegry of what he lled the “Gay Para. ” 1972 Emms Hoe, a “gay swchboard” and service anizatn, sued the Christopher Street Wt Para Commtee for $200 small claims urt, claimg that the proceeds om the year’s event had not been distributed to the cy’s gay social-service anizatns as promised by the mtee. Sprg 1973 Gay Freedom Week chair Steve Gsburg quashed mors about an irreparable rift the Gay Freedom Day anizg mtee, whose members asserted that the San Francis para would be “the largt and only one the Wt.

1976 A aln of anizatns cludg the Gay Lato Alliance, Gay Amerin Indians, Bay Black Cc and Lbian Actn Organizatn voted a rolutn clarg that the Gay Freedom Day Para had lost sight of the te meang of the 1969 Stonewall rts. The rolutn characterized Stonewall as a moment durg which “Third World Gays, Lbians, transsexuals, and transvt rose up as one and shouted ‘I’m here’ to the fascist forc of opprsn.

GAY PRI CALENDAR

The Commtee was workg agast the Briggs Iniative, a state ballot measure put to the voters November that would have banned gays and lbians and their supporters om workg California public schools. The satiril flyer on the right oppos the fictnal “Larry Rice” of “Gays Opposg Discrimatn” (GOD) who urg para-goers to wear gray bs sus so that gay people will “appear as socially acceptable members of the bourgeoisie. September 1980Disgntled members of the LGBTQ muny mpaigned agast the move of the Pri “rporate board” to elimate general membership and muny volvement direct cisn-makg about the Gay Freedom Day and Para.

A month later, the newly rporated Lbian/Gay Para Commtee, phg for equal reprentatn, replaced the Gay Freedom Day Commtee and drafted bylaws to prerve “grassroots ntrol” of the para.

What remas remarkable is how, even as endured perennial dangers of ternal divisn and external attack, Gay Freedom Day ntued to grow to the huge event that we know as San Francis Pri today. 1976 Gay Freedom Day proclamatn; Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart Papers (1993-13), GLBT Historil 1976, Mayor Gee Mosne issued a proclamatn for Gay Freedom Day for the first time, signalg the growg importance of the celebratn as a civic event.

MOSW COURT UPHOLDS 100-YEAR BAN ON GAY PRI EVENTS

Dpe the challeng, Gay Freedom Day sought to gather everyone to llective inty, visibily, pri and polil empowerment, assertg that—as the 1976 celebratn’s theme would attt—“Our Diversy Is Our Strength.

At the 1978 para, many marched to support tors agast the Briggs Iniative, a ballot measure that sought to ban lbian, gay and bisexual people om workg California public schools. Gay Pri, also lled LGBT Pri or LGBTQ Pri, byname Pri, annual celebratn, ually June the Uned Stat and sometim at other tim other untri, of lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer (LGBTQ) inty. Gay Pri typilly volv a seri of events and is often pped by a para volvg marchers and lourful floats om the LGBTQ muny and s the Stonewall rts, LGBTQ dividuals had generally not broadst their sexual orientatn or inty, but the event galvanized the gay muny and sparked greater polil activism (see gay rights movement).

In 1970, on the first anniversary of the rts, several hundred monstrators marched along Greenwich Village’s Christopher Street, which ns past the Stonewall, what many nsir the first Gay Pri march (though other memoratns were also held that year). Early Gay Pri events (often lled Freedom Day or Gay Liberatn Day) were often sparsely attend and enuntered protts, particularly bee of the outlandish stum that some marchers wore.