Different fight, 'same goal': How the Black eedom movement spired early gay activists

Contents:

• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• THE STGGLE FOR GAY RIGHTS IS OVER
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT SUMMARY
• DIFFERENT FIGHT, 'SAME GOAL': HOW THE BLACK EEDOM MOVEMENT SPIRED EARLY GAY ACTIVISTS
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• GAY RIGHTS

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

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. 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.

THE STGGLE FOR GAY RIGHTS IS OVER

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. 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. The Stggle for Gay Rights Is OverFor those born to a form of adversy, sometim the harst thg to do is admtg that they’ve Tsironis / RtersEdor’s Note: This article is part of a seri about the gay-rights movement and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprisg. For this childhood fan, was a marvel: A sport wh heavily oiled men nng around spanx tights that was neverthels notor for crassly homophobic stereotyp now celebrat gay day seems to brg wele exampl of how Amerins are beg more relaxed about sexual orientatn.

Aga, ” clared the headle of a characteristilly psimistic Tim op-ed by the legendary gay activist and playwright Larry this glooms li the 2016 electn, which many gay activists believe threatened to halt, if not reverse, all of the progrs they have ma. It was an obv joke about Pence’s religsy and social nservatism, an example not of Tmp’s purported homophobia but the lack of rpect he has for even his most loyal followers, up to and cludg his own vice print, whom he is apparently willg to mock before a group of Whe Hoe visors. Days later, the Natnal Coaln of Anti-Vlence Programs (NCAVP), a group mted to batg antigay hate crim, published a report claimg a shockg 86 percent crease “hate vlence related homicis of LGBTQ people” om 2016 to fdgs would be alarmg, if te.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT SUMMARY

Likewise, the portn of heterosexual rponnts who said they would feel unfortable “learng a fay member is LGBTQ” was 27 percent 2016, and rose to 30 percent the followg for the report on LGBTQ homicis, is unclear how many of the murrs clud the report were actually motivated by antigay anim. But is the nflatn of transgenr issu wh the gay-rights movement, a recent velopment and not one unrtaken whout some ntroversy among gays and lbians themselv, which acunts for much if not most of the evince ced as reprentg regrsn on gay to marriage equaly and other protectns for gays advanced by the Supreme Court, Jtice Anthony Kennedy’s “opns seem secure bee his jurispnce largely mirrors chang society, ” Saikrishna Prakash of the Universy of Virgia Law School told Poli, referrg to the former Supreme Court jtice’s majory opns the 2003 se strikg down sodomy laws and the 2015 se legalizg same-sex marriage.

The ia that gay Amerins might have achieved somethg approachg equaly go agast a central assumptn of the zegeist, which, this age of Tmp, Brex, and a risg global ti of natnalism and illiberalism, postulat that Enlightenment valu are on the cle.

DIFFERENT FIGHT, 'SAME GOAL': HOW THE BLACK EEDOM MOVEMENT SPIRED EARLY GAY ACTIVISTS

When I asked the Human Rights Campaign, the untry’s leadg gay-rights group, for statistics on the number of LGBTQ people annually nied employment, hog, or service at a hotel or rtrant due to their sexualy or genr inty, the group was unable to provi me wh any. In a 7–2 cisn, all the more damng for havg been wrten by the judicial hero of the morn gay-rights movement, Anthony Kennedy, the Court cisively led agast a gay uple’s attempt to force a Christian baker Colorado to make a ke for their weddg ceremony. The urt assailed Colorado burecrats for nng roughshod over the First Amendment rights of the baker, whose relig nvictns forba him not om servg gay people—he offered to make the uple all the baked goods they uld ever wish to nsume—but om exprsg approval for somethg he nsirs gay people are expected to be grievoly offend by the behavr of Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakhop.

Ameri is a land of some 330 ln people, and I do not require every small-bs owner across the untry to reject 2, 000 years of relig teachg orr to pursue my by a moral absolutism remblg the relig zeal of those they oppose, some gay activists and their progrsive alli have taken a zero-sum approach to the issue of antidiscrimatn, seekg to punish and stigmatize people who hold the exact same view of marriage that Barack Obama exprsed up until May 2012.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Meanwhile, the state of New York is threateng to close an evangelil adoptn agency that ref to place children wh gay upl, spe the fact that the agency do not even accept ernment fundg and that no gay uple had ever even plaed about beg nied you had told gay activists 10 or even five years ago that their energi would center upon mpaigns related to var foods—forcg p pastry chefs to make k and boyttg Chick-Fil-A, or “hate chicken, ” bee s Christian owner has donated money to efforts opposg same-sex marriage—most would have nsired their missns plete. To unrstand why so many the movement refe to accept victory, helps to unrstand the tensns that have long existed at s the emergence of “homophile” activists the 1950s, the tenor and aims of the Amerin gay-rights e have alternated between two tennci: tegratnist and separatist.

If tegratnists believe that gay people are pretty much the same as straight people and th want the same thgs out of life, separatists ntend there is somethg herently distct about “queerns” obligatg s adherents to pursue polil paths and romantic and social arrangements divergent om the Amerin mastream.

Galvanized four years later by the Stonewall rts, when the patrons of a Greenwich Village bar fought back agast police harassment, the gay movement veloped a more radil and antagonistic attu toward straight society as s lears me unr the sway of the untercultural New Left.

GAY RIGHTS

”One of the first groups to emerge the aftermath of Stonewall, the Gay Liberatn Front, adopted s name as an homage to the munist Natnal Liberatn Front of North Vietnam, rid marriage as “one of the most sid and basic staers of the system, ” nounced the “dirty, vile, fucked-up palist nspiracy, ” and donated funds to the Black Panthers, an anizatn not exactly known for holdg progrsive views on homosexualy. But by the time the worst years of the epimic were over, gays unrstood how much they had to ga om mastream social acceptance the form of hospal-visatn rights and relatnship regnn—and had monstrated that they had more mon wh the straight majory than perhaps eher si had regnized. The language of gay activists durg this perd, wh s emphasis on rights and rponsibili, was all about fdg a place at the table, not overturng leadg gay wrers and tellectuals at this time of unprecented polil progrs and social advancement weren’t the vote of queer theory and tersectnaly who domate llege mp and fe the voice of gay activism and journalism today, but nservativ and classil liberals like Bawer, Sullivan, David Bdnoy, Jonathan Rch, Norah Vcent, Cale Paglia and other wrers affiliated wh the Inpennt Gay Fom.