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.

GAY FREEDOM PARA (SAN FRANCIS, 1978)

—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. 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 HISTORY OF GAY FREEDOM DAY, DYKE MARCH, AND TRANS MARCH

“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.

GAY PRI CALENDAR

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.

MOSW COURT UPHOLDS 100-YEAR BAN ON GAY PRI EVENTS

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.