Party and prott: the radil history of gay liberatn, Stonewall and Pri | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• HARVEY MILK’S GAY FREEDOM DAY SPEECH: ANNOTATED
• UNVERG GAY HISTORY SAN FRANCIS
• PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI

HARVEY MILK’S GAY FREEDOM DAY SPEECH: ANNOTATED

The send son of William and Merva Milk, he me om a fay wh proment ti to the muny: His Lhuanian-born grandfather Morris owned Milk’s Dry Goods, which beme the largt partment store on Long Island, and had helped anize the area’s first realized he was gay at an early age, and reportedly was dulgg his sir wh illic trysts by his early teens. Partly spired by what he viewed as an unfair tax on small bs, he cid to n for a seat on the San Francis Board of Supervisors was spurned by much of the cy’s more fluential gay electorate, who felt the outspoken New Yorker should tone down his act and wa his turn. Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagSupervisor Harvey Milk Undnted by his electn loss, Milk found the San Francis Gay Democratic Club to garner more polil support, and succsfully phed for a reanizatn of the Board of Supervisors electn om a cywi, at-large format to a geographil district format.

Returng to the mpaign trail 1977, he sought to broan his appeal beyond the gay muny through promis to reform the tax to boost dtry, create low-e hog and tablish day re centers for workg mothers. That November, an historic electn that also saw the first Che Amerin and the first Ain Amerin woman elected to the cy’s Board of Supervisors, Milk beme one of the untry’s first openly gay elected Rights Legislatn Demonstratg his penchant for urtg publicy, Milk -sponsored a “pooper-soper” ordance that required dog owners to clean up after their pets.

As supervisor, he also dove to more personal matters by spearheadg a bill to ban discrimatn employment, hog and public acmodatns based on sexual orientatn, one of the natn’s strongt gay-rights measur to date. Followg California State Senator John Briggs’s troductn of the Proposn 6 ballot iative, which sought to ban gay teachers and anyone supportg gay rights om workg California schools, Milk spent much of the summer and fall of 1978 mpaigng agast the iative.

UNVERG GAY HISTORY SAN FRANCIS

” Addnally, more elected officials, cludg Massachetts Congrsman Gerry Studds and Barney Frank, me forth to acknowledge their homosexualy durg this subsequent years, Milk’s name was attached to a seri of schools, buildgs and public centers throughout California.

The two most visible figur behd the legislative manvers were John Briggs, a state Senator California, who sought to remove openly lbian and gay teachers wh Proposn 6 (the phrase “public homosexual” repeats throughout the proposn); and Ana Bryant, whose “Save Our Children” anizatn succsfully helped overturn equal rights ordanc Miami, Florida; Eugene, Oregon; Wicha, Kansas; and St. And here, so-lled liberal San Francis, we have a lumnist for the San Francis Examer, a lumnist named Kev Starr, who has prted a number of lumns ntag distortns and li about gays.

PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI

And fally, I want to tell the John Briggs and the Ana Bryants that they talk about the myths of gays, but today I’m talkg about the facts of heterosexual vlence and what the hell are you gog to do about that? If you do not speak out, if you rema silence, if you do not lift up your voice agast Briggs, then I ll upon lbians and gay men om all over the natn, your natn, to gather Washgton one year om now on that natnal day of eedom, the fourth of July…the fourth of July, 1979…to gather Washgton on that very same spot where over a ago Dr. I ll upon all mori and pecially the lns of lbians and gay men to wake up om their dreams…to gather Washgton and tell Jimmy Carter and their natn: “Wake up…wake up, Ameri…no more racism, no more sexism, no more ageism, no more hatred…no more!