The Gay Rights Fight Started In California, Two Des Before Stonewall: SFist

Contents:

• GAY RIGHTS TIMELE: KEY DAT THE FIGHT FOR EQUALY
• CALIFORNIA VOTERS WILL BE ASKED TO REAFFIRM GAY MARRIAGE PROTECTNS ON 2024 BALLOT
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS COULD REMOVE IT NEXT YEAR
• THE GAY RIGHTS FIGHT STARTED IN CALIFORNIA, TWO DES BEFORE STONEWALL
• THE RIGHTS OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENR PEOPLE
• GAY RIGHTS

GAY RIGHTS TIMELE: KEY DAT THE FIGHT FOR EQUALY

Is home to the untry’s first PRIDE anizatn (Personal Rights through Defense and Edutn, 1966), first gay para (by the ad hoc Los Angel Commtee to Fight Excln of Homosexuals om the Armed Forc), the earlit known lbian publitn (Vice Versa, 1947), the first documented Supreme Court lg favor of gay rights (One Inc v. McDarrah / Getty ImagFrom s begng wh rts agast police opprsn of gays New York Cy more than 40 years ago, the fight for gay rights ntu today on new onts: over marriage, therapi to “cure” homosexuals and one of the untry's most popular stutns, the Boy Suts of week, the U. But while we've reached the tippg pot on marriage, there's still a ways to go for full LGBT equaly, like endg bullyg schools and workplace discrimatn, ” Kev Nix, a spokman for the LGBT advocy group, Human Rights Campaign, said a statement earlier this is a look at some of the key moments Amerin LGBT history:June 28, 1969: Start of the gay rights movementThe Stonewall Rts beg after police raid a popular unlicensed gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, New York Cy's Greenwich Village.

DeGener won an award for outstandg wrg for a edy seri forSan Sterner / AP fileApril 30, 1997: 'Yep, I'm gay' -- DeGener out Ellen DeGener out on her televisn show, "Ellen, " an episo that drew 42 ln viewers. 2003: Anti-sodomy law stck downThe Supreme Court strik down a Texas anti-sodomy law, reversg an earlier cisn ma another se 17 years earlier that Jtice Anthony Kennedy said “means the liv of homosexual persons. His announcement me one day after voters North Carola passed a nstutnal amendment banng same-sex marriage as well as civil unns for gay and lbian 4, 2012: In a first, gay marriage ws at the ballot boxVoters Mae approve same-sex marriage the first vote brought by supporters, while voters Maryland and Washgton uphold state legislatn allowg gays and lbians to wed.

The Boy Suts' ban on gay adult lears remas 20, 2013: 'Ex-gay' group shuts downExod Internatnal, a group that claimed uld cure same-sex attractn via prayer and therapy, announc will close s doors after more than three s. The anizatn's lear, who admted to his own "ongog same-sex attractns, " apologized to gays, sayg, “I am sorry that some of you spent years workg through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractns didn’t change. Although there is no current threat to the legaly of gay marriage, and Print Bin signed a bill safeguardg last year, the Democratic-domant state Legislature is seekg to remove language om California’s Constutn that still f marriage as between a man and outdated state fn has been emed unenforceable and unnstutnal thanks to feral law, but LGBTQ advocy groups are askg voters to repeal and amend the California Constutn to stead explicly state that marriage is “a fundamental right.

CALIFORNIA VOTERS WILL BE ASKED TO REAFFIRM GAY MARRIAGE PROTECTNS ON 2024 BALLOT

E., for lbians, gays [homosexual mal], bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons); seeks to elimate sodomy laws; and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life. ) Gay rights prr to the 20th century Relig admonns agast sexual relatns between dividuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavur, but most legal s Europe were silent on the subject of homosexualy and bisexualy. Dpe Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to w s repeal, homosexual and bisexual men and women experienced a certa amount of eedom Germany, particularly durg the Weimar perd, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power.

In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons. In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women. In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act.

In the 1970s and ’80s, gay polil anizatns proliferated, particularly the Uned Stat and Europe, and spread to other parts of the globe, though their relative size, strength, and succs—and toleratn by thori—varied signifintly.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons. This support, along wh mpaigns by gay activists urgg gay men and women to “e out of the closet” (ed, the late 1980s, Natnal Comg Out Day was tablished, and is now celebrated on October 11 most untri), enuraged gay men and women to enter the polil arena as ndidat. At the lol and natnal levels, the number of openly gay policians creased dramatilly durg the 1990s and 2000s, and 2009 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir beme prime mister of Iceland, which ma her the world’s first openly gay head of ernment.

In Ai, Asia, and Lat Ameri, openly gay policians have had only limed succs wng office; notable electns to natnal legislatur clud Patria Jiménez Flor Mexi (1997), Mike Waters South Ai (1999), and Clodovil Hernans Brazil (2006).

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

Other issu of primary importance for the gay rights movement sce the 1970s clud batg the HIV/AIDS epimic and promotg disease preventn and fundg for rearch; lobbyg ernment for nondiscrimatory polici employment, hog, and other aspects of civil society; endg the ban on ary service for gay and lbian dividuals; expandg hate crim legislatn to clu protectns for gays, cludg transgenr dividuals; and securg marriage rights for same-sex upl (see same-sex marriage).

Ary’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (1993–2011), which had permted gay and lbian dividuals to serve the ary if they did not disclose their sexual orientatn or engage homosexual activy; the repeal effectively end the ban on homosexuals the ary.

Next:Save Our Children Campaign (1977)7/10 CredAP Photo/Ed KolenovskyView as articleSave Our Children Campaign (1977)As the gay rights movement began to take root the wir public, so, too, did groups that formed opposn. Next:Harvey Milk Elected to the San Francis Board of Supervisors (1977)8/10View as articleHarvey Milk Elected to the San Francis Board of Supervisors (1977)Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office the state of California.

THE GAY RIGHTS FIGHT STARTED IN CALIFORNIA, TWO DES BEFORE STONEWALL

” Some of the lbian, gay or bisexual people of this movement clud wrers and poets such as Langston Hugh, Countee Cullen and Zora Neale Hurston; Profsor Ala Locke; mic cric and photographer Carl Van Vechten, and entertaers Ma Raey, Bsie Smh, Ethel Waters and Gladys Bentley. Gay and lbian people joed as well – men the ary livg same-sex dorms, and women as part of the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) and factori on the home ont found themselv same-sex surroundgs as well.

1945 – German Homosexual men, signated by a pk triangle on their clothg, were the last group to be released om the Nazi ncentratn mps after liberatn by the Allied forc bee Paragraph 175 of the German Crimal Co stated that homosexual relatns between mal to be illegal.

The APA found that “the latt and bt scientific evince shows that sexual orientatn and exprsns of genr inty occur naturally…and that short, there is no scientific evince that sexual orientatn, be heterosexual, homosexual or otherwise, is a eewill choice. 1997 – Ellen DeGener, a edian, TV actor and televisn host was one of the first popular entertaers who publicly me out as a lbian durg an terview on the Oprah Wey show and then beme the first openly gay character on the TV show, “Ellen.

THE RIGHTS OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENR PEOPLE

This was one of the most notor anti-gay hate crim Ameri and rulted a feral law passed 10 years later 2009 lled the “Hate Crim Preventn Act”, a feral law agast bias crim directed at lbian, gay, bisexual or transgenr people. Texas (Supreme Court Decisn)Ruled by a vote of 6-3 that a Kansas law crimalizg gay or lbian sex was unnstutnal clarg the importance of nstutnal liberty and privacy nsistent wh the due procs clse of the Fourteenth Amendment. But isn't really fair or accurate to cred the Stonewall Rts wh spearheadg the larger LGBT civil rights movement, given that events and dividuals Los Angel and San Francis played enormo rol buildg a grassroots movement startg 1950—a full 19 years before that group of fed-up gay men, lbians, and trans women cid to fight back agast a police raid, and ma natnal headl.

GAY RIGHTS

He was open about his sexualy to himself and others om an early age, and wh a nod to far-leftist and Communist dogma, and fluenced eply by The Ksey Report, he found the Mattache Society 1950 wh a group of other self-intified "homophil" L.

Pneerg San Francis lbians Del Mart and Phyllis Lyon, who were the first gay uple to be married by Mayor Gav Newsom 2004, found the Dghters of Bilis together wh four other lbian upl 1955, formg the first natnal lbian polil and social anizatn the untry. But long before that, as a cktail waer and performer at The Black Cat San Francis's North Beach, Sarria rallied lol gay men both to avoid arrt for drsg drag on Halloween and ultimately to fight back agast the legal system.

One of the most brilliant thgs he did was to mpaign to get more gay men to plead not guilty when they were arrted on ivolo charg for beg a gay bar, forcg a urt trial, and thereby overloadg cy urts and g prosecutors to have to seek more evince agast them. ) The event sparked a rt that spread to other nearby gay bars, and led to a large civil monstratn two days later anized by an anizatn lled PRIDE (Personal Rights Defense and Edutn), which helped to lnch The Advote newspaper.