Very early in the morning on this day in 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village bar frequented by transvestites and others at the edge of the already highly marginalized homosexual community.
They fought back…
This is generally acknowledged as the marker for the beginning of the BGLT rights movement.
The next year the first Gay Pride marches were organized in New York and Los Angeles to commemorate this day. Since then Pride parades have been organized around the country, almost always near the end of June. Our own Providence Pride parade has just passed. It was the first time our First Unitarian Church joined with other UU congregations in the celebration. It won’t be the last…
The fight for full civil rights for lesbian and gay people, for bisexuals and the transgendered is hardly over. But it is also astonishing what advances have been made. It is worth noting however that the mechanics of homosexual sexuality has only been legal nationwide in the U.S. since 2003.
Some basic civil rights protections are normative in America. And the culture is shifting steadily in favor of full civil rights for BGLT people. Probably most notably forty years after the riots, five American states recognize marriage equality for same gender people.
There is much work yet to be done.
But it is worth pausing and seeing and reflecting…
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