New Orleans search for remas of 4 victims of 1973 gay bar fire that killed 31 - CBS News

Contents:

• NEW ORLEANS SEARCH FOR REMAS OF 4 VICTIMS OF 1973 GAY BAR FIRE THAT KILLED 31
• FORTY FIVE YEARS AGO A FIRE NEW ORLEANS GAY BAR TOOK 32 LIV – AND WAS MET WH APATHY
• SHOTS FIRED AT MOSW GAY NIGHTCLUB
• THE GAY BATHHOE FIRE OF 1977
• THE UPSTAIRS LOUNGE FIRE: WHEN DOZENS OF GAY PEOPLE WERE KILLED 1973
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW
• RSIA'S LARGT GAY CLUB HAS SHUT DOWN

NEW ORLEANS SEARCH FOR REMAS OF 4 VICTIMS OF 1973 GAY BAR FIRE THAT KILLED 31

Sunday marks the 45th anniversary of the UpStairs Lounge arson, a flash fire that killed 32 people the New Orleans gay bar on June 24, 1973. ”But the UpStairs wasn’t jt a space for the New Orleans gay muny to e together and socialize.

FORTY FIVE YEARS AGO A FIRE NEW ORLEANS GAY BAR TOOK 32 LIV – AND WAS MET WH APATHY

Some of those who were intified went unclaimed by fai who were too ashamed to llect the remas of their gay sons and brothers. Bettmann via Getty ImagWhat happened the aftermath of the fire mak clear the pervadg homophobia at the time. “It took a good five or six years before I would fally walk to a gay bar, ” he said.

SHOTS FIRED AT MOSW GAY NIGHTCLUB

” Click below to see more pictur of the UpStairs Lounge before the earlier versn of this article was published June You GoGay Pri Around The World. Nearly a half-century after arson killed 32 people a New Orleans gay bar, the Cy Council has renewed the search for the remas of four victims, cludg three who were never intified.

Nearly a half-century after arson killed 32 people a New Orleans gay bar, the Cy Council has renewed the search Thursday, Aug, 4, 2022, for the remas of four victims, cludg three who were never intified. Rooted pervasive anti-gay sentiment" ma sufferg worse for victims' fai and iends, stat the motn wrten by Councilmember J. The blaze was the 20th century's largt mass killg of gays, the Cy Council's apology and Thursday's motn noted.

THE GAY BATHHOE FIRE OF 1977

LeBlanc was tranged om his fay California — not bee of his homosexualy but bee he hadn't paid money owed to his grandfather, Fieler wrote "Trbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberatn. The other replied, g a slur for homosexuals, "Let 'em burn. Colorado Sprgs, the state’s send-most populo cy wh jt unr 500, 000 rints, is home to a number of ary bas and is the headquarters for Foc on the Fay, the nservative Christian group that says homosexualy and same-sex marriage are ss.

He and his bs partner toured other succsful LGBTQ spac and noted a mon theme: “They were gay as hell, ” Grzecka told the outlet. We knew we had to be gay as hell (to survive). Jared Polis, a Democrat and the natn’s first openly gay ernor, issued a statement Sunday llg the attack “horrific, sickeng and vastatg” and offered state rourc to lol law enforcement.

THE UPSTAIRS LOUNGE FIRE: WHEN DOZENS OF GAY PEOPLE WERE KILLED 1973

Polis told CNN’s Jim Asta there are only two gay bars Colorado Sprgs, and Club Q was one of the ma venu. Sillen Glenn, who moved to New York om Florida 2015, said the fire had ma them thk of the mass shootg at Pulse, a gay nightclub Orlando, Fla., where a gunman wh an asslt rifle and a pistol killed 50 people and wound 53 more 2016.

An oasis for the cy’s sizeable but, for the most part, strictly closeted gay male populatn, a lack of visibily was many ways s most valuable 1973 when the club was set ablaze an act of arson that st a staggerg 32 liv, that lack of attentn endured, the news barely makg to the papers or, seemed, even to the nscns of the lol muny. “An ordary reactn New Orleans society would have been effive sympathi and a large outpourg, ” said Robert Fieler, whose new book Trbox: The Untold Story of the UpStairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberatn, chronicl the blaze and s aftermath. “Homosexualy was not supposed to be talked about openly, and when was thst to the open ma a lot of people panic, ” he told the Guardian an the time, New Orleans was a place of strange dualy for LGBT people.

“A gay man uld, 1973, live a very full life that he might not be able to enjoy other plac. Acrdg to Fieler, unrver police would regularly nduct stg operatns to tch gay men solicg for sex public spac, and if ught and arrted on a dread “crim agast nature” charge, the ramifitns the wir world were absolute.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

You’d lose your job, your home, everythg, ” Fieler the time, a rince occupied by two spected gay men (or two “spsters”) uld be clared a hoe of ill-repute and seized wh ltle to no due the relatively safe space of the UpStairs lounge, a quietly well-known place where gay men (Fieler not that durg this era, the lbian scene was polilly and socially isolated om the gay scene) uld openly be themselv. “It almost highlights even more the gree of opprsn that many homosexuals lived this time perd.

RSIA'S LARGT GAY CLUB HAS SHUT DOWN

” Fieler were reports 2016 that, like Nunez, the Pulse shooter was a sexually nflicted man who may have been engaged gay relatnships prr to his rampage.

Andrew Ahn’s father once told him that there were “no gay people Korea. In a culturally nservative muny, where gog to church and buildg a fay were heavily emphasized, Ahn felt his gay inty kept him “om beg able to participate Korean culture.

” Then, he started equentg GAMeBoi, a weekly Asian Amerin gay party at Wt Hollywood’s Rage Nightclub. He learned to embrace beg both Korean and gay, so much so that he directed “Fire Island, ” a groundbreakg queer Asian Amerin rom- released last year. Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor.