Homophile Activism In The 1960's And 1970
Homophile Activism in the United States in the 1960’s & 70’s:
A Tenuous Time
Kari Twogood
EDAD 577: Managing Diversity
Spring 2014
Central Washington University
There is evidence of same sex relationships all the way back to earliest recorded history. Gay history, the history of same sex relationships, both male and female, can’t be taken out of context with the broader spectrum of history. The homophile movement didn’t happen in a vacuum. It is only one aspect of history that is happening on a global stage. It is important to consider the wider influence of activism and actions of all oppressed populations, civil rights movement, feminism, and youth movements. In order to keep this paper as refined …show more content…
as possible, it will cover only the decades of the Sixties and Seventies, in the United States. It is difficult to keep to these two decades as there is cross over from previous decades, and generations that laid the ground work for these two important decades of homophile activism. Post World War II saw a building of critical mass of consciousness that would eventually turn into an organized political movement. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 While there are identifiable events that took place during these decades, some of which are quite well known, it is in the series of other, just as important, but seemingly smaller events that took place that the homophile movement really develops. The late Sixties can be viewed as the birth of the modern Gay Liberation movement. This paper will cover only a portion of the smaller events that took place in order to show the real strength in the Homophile Movement, and subsequent Gay Liberation Movement, in bringing together many people from all walks of life to fight for the common good. It will also show that it wasn’t until the movement got radical that the pace of change began to quicken. It is important as we review the history of homophile activism to consider some of the terminology that will be used. In this paper the term gay will be used as a general reference to Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people. Homophile is a term coined and used by homosexuals in the Fifties as it referenced the group without engendering the sexual connotations that come along with the term homosexual. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Homophile will be used to reference some of the originating movements of the late Fifties and early Sixties. The Homophile Movement was much less radical and militarized than the Gay Liberation Movement that really began in the late Sixties as you will come to see as we cover a little of the history. One of the first notable actions that took place following World War II that impacted the movement was that many men and women, having found others who shared their sexual orientation, decided to settle in one of the subcultural enclaves in the large cities, such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The gathering together in these enclaves allowed for the proliferation of gay and lesbian bars CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 , which became the central locations for social interaction. These social interactions became the foundation for the formation of the first Homophile Movement organizations such as the Mattachine Society, formed in Los Angeles in 1950 CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 , and the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization, formed in 1955. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 It is important to note that both of the organizations worked on political activism; however, they were intentionally low profile and assimilationist. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 These enclaves provided both social and political refuge, and the networks that were needed for activism in an age prior to technology. The Sixties saw the height of the civil rights movement for African Americans and Feminists, and the antiwar movement.
The civil rights movement was in the national spot light with the first “sit in” in 1960. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The Freedom Riders were returning from the South in 1961. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Hirschman wrote, “the Sixties were an explosive coincidence of every imaginable social disruption: a revolution in beliefs, led by youth, and fueled by grievances of race, war, and sex.” CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The March on Washington, one of the critical events of the African American Civil Rights Movement, was organized by Baynard Rustin, a gay man who typically was kept behind the scenes. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 There was homophobia within the civil rights movement at the time that kept him out of the limelight. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The March on Washington set the example for other movements for years to come. It brought civil rights to the attention of mass media. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Even though Baynard Rustin was kept behind the scenes, he has been acknowledged as one the key players in the civil rights movement and was a pacifist who profoundly influenced Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 There were many key people involved in organizations that had great influence on these movements that were gay and even though it has taken time, their direct involvement could be said …show more content…
to have profound impacts on those that were involved beginning to bring people together to fight for the greater good.
One of the political actions that were started was to take on sodomy laws. Through decriminalizing of homosexual acts, there would be greater acceptance. Illinois became the first state to repeal its sodomy law in 1961. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 There was dissension between the lesbian organizations and the gay organizations regarding anti sodomy laws as these were focused on male homosexuality. This resulted in two different perspectives to the legal issues facing homosexuals. The first was to repeal sodomy laws, securing sexual freedom for all men and women and ending police harassment associated with such activity. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 They believed that the state had no business in citizens’ personal lives. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The second was to “seek equality under the law and end all forms of discrimination”, similar to the fight being fought by African Americans and other minority groups. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The leaders of the time, decided to take action in the form of public demonstrations. The Homophile Movement held, what is believed to be, the first public demonstration at Whitehall Induction Center in New York City in 1964. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 This was to protest the “outing” of gay military recruits when their draft status was released. That same year, in San Francisco, was a New Year’s Eve Ball, a fundraiser for the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, which was disrupted by a gauntlet of police photographers and disruptive “inspections” that resulted in arrests. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The ministers held a press conference denouncing the police actions at a peaceful event CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 , once again putting gay rights into the media spotlight. When the case went to court, the judge dismissed all charges against the defendants and admonished the police on their actions. Duberman considers this a turning point, one in which the ministers spoke up in defense of the humanity of homosexuals. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 On July 4, 1965 homophile activists picket Independence Hall to publicly call attention to the lack of rights for gay people. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The “Reminder” demonstrations were held for five consecutive years, to remind the public that there were Americans being denied their basic rights. Taking cues from previous civil rights movements, there were a number of pickets held in 1964, primarily in Washington, D. C. and a sit in at Dewey’s restaurant to protest the denial of service to gay people. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 All of these events brought visibility of the homophile movement to the nation. Some leaders in the homophile movement became more militant and used more aggressive tactics, following the lead of the Black Panthers, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and anti war groups. Riots were not infrequent across the country. Eaklor reports that between 1964 and 1969 there were approximately 75 race riots in urban centers. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 August of 1966 saw one of the first gay riots in San Francisco that was result of a police raid at Compton’s Cafeteria. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Frequent police raids in cities across the country were nothing new but were becoming less and less tolerated by the bar owners and patrons. By the time the Stonewall Inn riot began, riots had been happening more frequently. This was the result of unrest and more radicalism within the movement. Duberman provides the most detailed account of the incident at the Stonewall Inn, having interviewed some of the participants and observers, though still no one knows for sure the exact precipitating event that started the riot. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The days of rioting began to bring together many groups; it wasn’t just the gays out in the subsequent riots. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 A new movement had taken off that weekend. Within days of the initial riot, the first meeting of the Gay Liberation Front was being held at Alternative University. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The Gay Liberation Front was all about more militant and radical approaches to make the movement more visible. Many members of the Gay Liberation Front were also involved in other groups such as Students for a Democratic Society, Black Power, feminist and anti Vietnam War movements. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 This was the beginning of the broader movement that would bring gay rights to mainstream politics. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Other events also helped the gay rights movement with changes that had a broader impact on the movement, court cases. The Federal Drug Administration approval of the birth control pill brought about a resurgence of feminism and subsequently helped the homophile movement. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 While only some historians and feminists draw the link, this approval and the subsequent Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut provided a stronger legal foundation for the homophile movement. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Connecticut’s ban on the use of contraception within a union was unconstitutional. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The option for contraception, the court case, and the rise of feminism, lead to the separation of reproduction from sex. Bronski wrote that “the major, moral, scientific, and legal argument against homosexual activity had always been that is does not lead to reproduction and is thus unnatural” CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 thus the Supreme Court decision setting precedence that the government doesn’t belong in the bedroom, provided help to acquiring gay rights. Another case that set precedence was with regards to interracial marriage, United States v. Virginia. By comparing same sex relationships to interracial, the stage was set for making claims to relationship rights. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The gay rights movement began to experience a shift, one from being upstanding citizens, to assimilate and be viewed as everyone else (staying in the closet), to one of radicalism and coming out, being open about being gay and about showing that gays were people too, who deserved the same rights as everyone else.
The Gay Liberation Front expanded quickly across the country in the early Seventies. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Carl Wittman wrote what came to be the defining document of the Gay Liberation Movement, A Manifesto for Gay Liberation. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The manifesto called for all gays to come out, to talk to people, and to be themselves. It was a call to action that still resonates today. The National Gay Task Force, The Lambda Legal Defense and the Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, were all formed in 1973 taking on leading roles in the continued struggle for gay rights. The same year, the American Psychiatric Association board voted unanimously to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The change in removing homosexuality from the DSM II meant that homosexuals would no longer be viewed as having a psychiatric disorder by
doctors.
While the movement showed great gains in gay activism with regards to gay rights, this also brought a backlash. Harvey Milk, in a speech that was delivered at the first Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco, also called for action, for the Gay Liberation to fight for the human rights of all disenfranchised groups. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 He specifically called out Anita Bryant and her “Save Our Children” campaign and John Briggs and his Briggs Initiative. Anita Bryant successfully formed Save Our Children which united with many religious organizations and mounted a concerted anti homosexual platform that started in Dade County Florida. The Save Our Children Campaign repealed gay rights by referendum, by a significant margin, in 1977. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The Briggs Initiative, which was to prohibit homosexuals from teaching in public schools, was defeated in California by a significant margin. CITATION Ada87 \p 103 \m Bro11 \p 220 \l 1033 The difference between the two events, the loss in Dade County and the win in California was due to how the organizations approached their opponent. Briggs was defeated in California because the activists went to the streets, into the communities, and made a case across all boundaries that brought people together against the initiative.
The gay leadership involved in the Sixties and Seventies covered all aspects of activism from just trying to fit in and be seen as just another American (Mattachine), to becoming radical and militant to become visible (Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance), to bring the story out of the closet and onto the streets. There wasn’t a single event, or a single group, that brought about great change but rather a long series of events with a great number of people who were brave and willing to risk it all to make a difference. This paper only covered a very small series of events throughout the Sixties and Seventies to show that the success of the Gay Liberation Movement was in following the lead of other oppressed groups, embracing youth counterculture, getting radical and working together.
Bibliography
Adam, Barry D. The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987.
Agee, Christopher. "Gayola: Police Professionalization and the Politics of San Francisco 's Gay Bars, 1950-1968." Journal of the History of Sexuality 15, no. 3 (2006): 462-489.
Beemyn, Brett Genny. "The Americas: From Colonial Times to the 20th Century." In Gay Life and Culture: A World History, edited by Robert Aldrich, 145-166. New York: Universe Publishing, 2006.
Bell, Jonathan. "To Strive for Economic and Social Justice": Welfare, Sexuality, and Liberal Politics in San Franciscoin the 1960s." The Journal of Policy History 22, no. 2 (2010): 193-225.
Bronski, Michael. A Queer History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2011.
Corber, Robert J. "Early Homophile Organizations Pioneer Gay Rights." In Gay Rights, edited by Kate Burns, 68-72. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2006.
D 'Emilio, John. "Can the Left Ignore Gay Liberation." New Politics, 2008: 28-31.
D 'Emilio, John. "Gay politics and community in San Francisco since world war II." In Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian Past, edited by Martin B. Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey Jr., 456-473. New York: New American Library, 1989.
D 'Emilio, John. "The Stonewall Riots Accelerate the Gay Rights Movement." In Gay Rights, edited by Kate Burns, 85-96. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2006.
Duberman, Martin. Stonewall. New York: Penguin Group, 1993.
Eaklor, Vicki L. Queer America: A People 's GLBT History of the United States. New York: The New Press, 2008.
Hall, Simon. "The American Gay Rights Movement and Patriotic Protest." Journal of the History of Sexuality 19, no. 3 (2010): 536-562.
Hirshman, Linda. Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012.
Konnoth, Craig J. "Created in Its Image: The Race Analogy, Gay Identity,." The Yale Law Journal, 2009: 316-372.
Milk, Harvey. "Gays Must Come Out and Fight for Their Rights." In Gay Rights, edited by Kate Burns, 110-116. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2006.
Rizzo, Domenico. "Public Spheres and Gay Politics since the Second World War." In Gay Life and Culture: A World History, edited by Robert Aldrich, 197-222. New York: Universe Publishing, 2006.
Wittman, Carl. "A Manifesto for Gay Liberation." In Gay Rights, edited by Kate Burns, 97-109. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2006.
A Tenuous Time
Kari Twogood
EDAD 577: Managing Diversity
Spring 2014
Central Washington University
There is evidence of same sex relationships all the way back to earliest recorded history. Gay history, the history of same sex relationships, both male and female, can’t be taken out of context with the broader spectrum of history. The homophile movement didn’t happen in a vacuum. It is only one aspect of history that is happening on a global stage. It is important to consider the wider influence of activism and actions of all oppressed populations, civil rights movement, feminism, and youth movements. In order to keep this paper as refined …show more content…
as possible, it will cover only the decades of the Sixties and Seventies, in the United States. It is difficult to keep to these two decades as there is cross over from previous decades, and generations that laid the ground work for these two important decades of homophile activism. Post World War II saw a building of critical mass of consciousness that would eventually turn into an organized political movement. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 While there are identifiable events that took place during these decades, some of which are quite well known, it is in the series of other, just as important, but seemingly smaller events that took place that the homophile movement really develops. The late Sixties can be viewed as the birth of the modern Gay Liberation movement. This paper will cover only a portion of the smaller events that took place in order to show the real strength in the Homophile Movement, and subsequent Gay Liberation Movement, in bringing together many people from all walks of life to fight for the common good. It will also show that it wasn’t until the movement got radical that the pace of change began to quicken. It is important as we review the history of homophile activism to consider some of the terminology that will be used. In this paper the term gay will be used as a general reference to Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people. Homophile is a term coined and used by homosexuals in the Fifties as it referenced the group without engendering the sexual connotations that come along with the term homosexual. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Homophile will be used to reference some of the originating movements of the late Fifties and early Sixties. The Homophile Movement was much less radical and militarized than the Gay Liberation Movement that really began in the late Sixties as you will come to see as we cover a little of the history. One of the first notable actions that took place following World War II that impacted the movement was that many men and women, having found others who shared their sexual orientation, decided to settle in one of the subcultural enclaves in the large cities, such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The gathering together in these enclaves allowed for the proliferation of gay and lesbian bars CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 , which became the central locations for social interaction. These social interactions became the foundation for the formation of the first Homophile Movement organizations such as the Mattachine Society, formed in Los Angeles in 1950 CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 , and the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization, formed in 1955. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 It is important to note that both of the organizations worked on political activism; however, they were intentionally low profile and assimilationist. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 These enclaves provided both social and political refuge, and the networks that were needed for activism in an age prior to technology. The Sixties saw the height of the civil rights movement for African Americans and Feminists, and the antiwar movement.
The civil rights movement was in the national spot light with the first “sit in” in 1960. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The Freedom Riders were returning from the South in 1961. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Hirschman wrote, “the Sixties were an explosive coincidence of every imaginable social disruption: a revolution in beliefs, led by youth, and fueled by grievances of race, war, and sex.” CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The March on Washington, one of the critical events of the African American Civil Rights Movement, was organized by Baynard Rustin, a gay man who typically was kept behind the scenes. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 There was homophobia within the civil rights movement at the time that kept him out of the limelight. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The March on Washington set the example for other movements for years to come. It brought civil rights to the attention of mass media. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Even though Baynard Rustin was kept behind the scenes, he has been acknowledged as one the key players in the civil rights movement and was a pacifist who profoundly influenced Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 There were many key people involved in organizations that had great influence on these movements that were gay and even though it has taken time, their direct involvement could be said …show more content…
to have profound impacts on those that were involved beginning to bring people together to fight for the greater good.
One of the political actions that were started was to take on sodomy laws. Through decriminalizing of homosexual acts, there would be greater acceptance. Illinois became the first state to repeal its sodomy law in 1961. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 There was dissension between the lesbian organizations and the gay organizations regarding anti sodomy laws as these were focused on male homosexuality. This resulted in two different perspectives to the legal issues facing homosexuals. The first was to repeal sodomy laws, securing sexual freedom for all men and women and ending police harassment associated with such activity. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 They believed that the state had no business in citizens’ personal lives. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The second was to “seek equality under the law and end all forms of discrimination”, similar to the fight being fought by African Americans and other minority groups. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The leaders of the time, decided to take action in the form of public demonstrations. The Homophile Movement held, what is believed to be, the first public demonstration at Whitehall Induction Center in New York City in 1964. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 This was to protest the “outing” of gay military recruits when their draft status was released. That same year, in San Francisco, was a New Year’s Eve Ball, a fundraiser for the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, which was disrupted by a gauntlet of police photographers and disruptive “inspections” that resulted in arrests. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The ministers held a press conference denouncing the police actions at a peaceful event CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 , once again putting gay rights into the media spotlight. When the case went to court, the judge dismissed all charges against the defendants and admonished the police on their actions. Duberman considers this a turning point, one in which the ministers spoke up in defense of the humanity of homosexuals. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 On July 4, 1965 homophile activists picket Independence Hall to publicly call attention to the lack of rights for gay people. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The “Reminder” demonstrations were held for five consecutive years, to remind the public that there were Americans being denied their basic rights. Taking cues from previous civil rights movements, there were a number of pickets held in 1964, primarily in Washington, D. C. and a sit in at Dewey’s restaurant to protest the denial of service to gay people. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 All of these events brought visibility of the homophile movement to the nation. Some leaders in the homophile movement became more militant and used more aggressive tactics, following the lead of the Black Panthers, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and anti war groups. Riots were not infrequent across the country. Eaklor reports that between 1964 and 1969 there were approximately 75 race riots in urban centers. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 August of 1966 saw one of the first gay riots in San Francisco that was result of a police raid at Compton’s Cafeteria. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Frequent police raids in cities across the country were nothing new but were becoming less and less tolerated by the bar owners and patrons. By the time the Stonewall Inn riot began, riots had been happening more frequently. This was the result of unrest and more radicalism within the movement. Duberman provides the most detailed account of the incident at the Stonewall Inn, having interviewed some of the participants and observers, though still no one knows for sure the exact precipitating event that started the riot. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The days of rioting began to bring together many groups; it wasn’t just the gays out in the subsequent riots. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 A new movement had taken off that weekend. Within days of the initial riot, the first meeting of the Gay Liberation Front was being held at Alternative University. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The Gay Liberation Front was all about more militant and radical approaches to make the movement more visible. Many members of the Gay Liberation Front were also involved in other groups such as Students for a Democratic Society, Black Power, feminist and anti Vietnam War movements. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 This was the beginning of the broader movement that would bring gay rights to mainstream politics. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Other events also helped the gay rights movement with changes that had a broader impact on the movement, court cases. The Federal Drug Administration approval of the birth control pill brought about a resurgence of feminism and subsequently helped the homophile movement. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 While only some historians and feminists draw the link, this approval and the subsequent Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut provided a stronger legal foundation for the homophile movement. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Connecticut’s ban on the use of contraception within a union was unconstitutional. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The option for contraception, the court case, and the rise of feminism, lead to the separation of reproduction from sex. Bronski wrote that “the major, moral, scientific, and legal argument against homosexual activity had always been that is does not lead to reproduction and is thus unnatural” CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 thus the Supreme Court decision setting precedence that the government doesn’t belong in the bedroom, provided help to acquiring gay rights. Another case that set precedence was with regards to interracial marriage, United States v. Virginia. By comparing same sex relationships to interracial, the stage was set for making claims to relationship rights. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The gay rights movement began to experience a shift, one from being upstanding citizens, to assimilate and be viewed as everyone else (staying in the closet), to one of radicalism and coming out, being open about being gay and about showing that gays were people too, who deserved the same rights as everyone else.
The Gay Liberation Front expanded quickly across the country in the early Seventies. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 Carl Wittman wrote what came to be the defining document of the Gay Liberation Movement, A Manifesto for Gay Liberation. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The manifesto called for all gays to come out, to talk to people, and to be themselves. It was a call to action that still resonates today. The National Gay Task Force, The Lambda Legal Defense and the Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, were all formed in 1973 taking on leading roles in the continued struggle for gay rights. The same year, the American Psychiatric Association board voted unanimously to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The change in removing homosexuality from the DSM II meant that homosexuals would no longer be viewed as having a psychiatric disorder by
doctors.
While the movement showed great gains in gay activism with regards to gay rights, this also brought a backlash. Harvey Milk, in a speech that was delivered at the first Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco, also called for action, for the Gay Liberation to fight for the human rights of all disenfranchised groups. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 He specifically called out Anita Bryant and her “Save Our Children” campaign and John Briggs and his Briggs Initiative. Anita Bryant successfully formed Save Our Children which united with many religious organizations and mounted a concerted anti homosexual platform that started in Dade County Florida. The Save Our Children Campaign repealed gay rights by referendum, by a significant margin, in 1977. CITATION Mil06 \p 110 \l 1033 The Briggs Initiative, which was to prohibit homosexuals from teaching in public schools, was defeated in California by a significant margin. CITATION Ada87 \p 103 \m Bro11 \p 220 \l 1033 The difference between the two events, the loss in Dade County and the win in California was due to how the organizations approached their opponent. Briggs was defeated in California because the activists went to the streets, into the communities, and made a case across all boundaries that brought people together against the initiative.
The gay leadership involved in the Sixties and Seventies covered all aspects of activism from just trying to fit in and be seen as just another American (Mattachine), to becoming radical and militant to become visible (Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance), to bring the story out of the closet and onto the streets. There wasn’t a single event, or a single group, that brought about great change but rather a long series of events with a great number of people who were brave and willing to risk it all to make a difference. This paper only covered a very small series of events throughout the Sixties and Seventies to show that the success of the Gay Liberation Movement was in following the lead of other oppressed groups, embracing youth counterculture, getting radical and working together.
Bibliography
Adam, Barry D. The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987.
Agee, Christopher. "Gayola: Police Professionalization and the Politics of San Francisco 's Gay Bars, 1950-1968." Journal of the History of Sexuality 15, no. 3 (2006): 462-489.
Beemyn, Brett Genny. "The Americas: From Colonial Times to the 20th Century." In Gay Life and Culture: A World History, edited by Robert Aldrich, 145-166. New York: Universe Publishing, 2006.
Bell, Jonathan. "To Strive for Economic and Social Justice": Welfare, Sexuality, and Liberal Politics in San Franciscoin the 1960s." The Journal of Policy History 22, no. 2 (2010): 193-225.
Bronski, Michael. A Queer History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2011.
Corber, Robert J. "Early Homophile Organizations Pioneer Gay Rights." In Gay Rights, edited by Kate Burns, 68-72. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2006.
D 'Emilio, John. "Can the Left Ignore Gay Liberation." New Politics, 2008: 28-31.
D 'Emilio, John. "Gay politics and community in San Francisco since world war II." In Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian Past, edited by Martin B. Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey Jr., 456-473. New York: New American Library, 1989.
D 'Emilio, John. "The Stonewall Riots Accelerate the Gay Rights Movement." In Gay Rights, edited by Kate Burns, 85-96. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2006.
Duberman, Martin. Stonewall. New York: Penguin Group, 1993.
Eaklor, Vicki L. Queer America: A People 's GLBT History of the United States. New York: The New Press, 2008.
Hall, Simon. "The American Gay Rights Movement and Patriotic Protest." Journal of the History of Sexuality 19, no. 3 (2010): 536-562.
Hirshman, Linda. Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012.
Konnoth, Craig J. "Created in Its Image: The Race Analogy, Gay Identity,." The Yale Law Journal, 2009: 316-372.
Milk, Harvey. "Gays Must Come Out and Fight for Their Rights." In Gay Rights, edited by Kate Burns, 110-116. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2006.
Rizzo, Domenico. "Public Spheres and Gay Politics since the Second World War." In Gay Life and Culture: A World History, edited by Robert Aldrich, 197-222. New York: Universe Publishing, 2006.
Wittman, Carl. "A Manifesto for Gay Liberation." In Gay Rights, edited by Kate Burns, 97-109. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2006.