The first I ever heard about the Stonewall riots was
in college when a fellow student, a gay man, mentioned it in a letter to the
editor of our campus newspaper. Never heard of it before.
Today, twenty years later, college history
professors and the media are giving Stonewall much closer attention. Pres. Obama mentioned it in his second inaugural address. Current
events have brought the struggle for homosexual rights to increased relevance.
The 2010 PBS American Experience
documentary, Stonewall Uprising, is timely.
For anyone wishing to gain understanding of how LGBT rights arrived at its current
place in American debate, the film is a must see. http://video.pbs.org/video/1889649613/
In June of 1969, police raided a gay bar, the
Stonewall Inn, in New York’s Greenwich Village. Gays and lesbians were used to
this kind of encroachment, but this time they’d had enough. A riot ensued. Bar
patrons, who outnumbered law
enforcement, resisted police efforts to shut them down.
Stonewall Uprising features telling interviews with
participants in the uprising as well as a retired New York police officer who
led the raid.
Around half the documentary is back-story. It shows
that antipathy and unsympathetic views toward consenting adults’ sexual
practices were much more pervasive 50 years ago, if not as talked about as
today. Black and white public service announcements and television news programs
of the time depicted homosexuals as
perverts, social pariahs. In one chilling scene, a detective charged with
maintaining “public morals” speaks harshly in a paranoia inducing diatribe
against homosexuals before a large room of sober-faced, scary-eyed teenagers.
“If we catch you with an avowed homosexual, your
parents will be the first to know,” the man says.
The historical background is the most interesting
aspect of the documentary. It gives context, showing how Stonewall was inevitable
– the reaction of people who were tired of being pushed around.
Watching this documentary, it becomes clear why so
many LGBT people today are vocal in fighting for its rights. Traditionally,
they had no rights. A McCarthy-like atmosphere hung over the lives of
gays. An individual could lose a job,
get arrested and be outed in the newspaper. A person’s life could be ruined
over his or her sexual orientation.
Hatemongering against homosexuals exists today among
a vocal and virulent religious right. However, majority public opinion has
evolved today into a view favorable toward equal rights for LGBT people (e.g.)
gay marriage and freedom from discrimination. But with each decade we look back
to, we find more intolerance until we’re back in the 1960s. Today we associate
vituperation and homophobia with the lunatic fringe. Back then, hatred was
standard.
I have heard that friendships among LGBT people tend
to be tighter than those in the
heterosexual population. After seeing this documentary, I see why. Along with
police harassment, violent assault was commonplace. People wound up in
wheelchairs; they were beaten so savagely. LGBT people come from a culture and
history in which it’s imperative that they watch each other’s backs.
But life was never the same after Stonewall. There
were no more comparable police crackdowns. Gays and lesbians, who had been
pushed into the underground, came out and embraced their own identities.
“There was no going back,” one of the Stonewall
participants said. In the most poignant moment from the film, a small gay pride
parade turns into a march of roughly 2,800 people.
“We became a people,” one man said. “All of a sudden
I had brothers and sisters, which I didn’t have before.”
More than 40
years later, homophobia, like racism, is still around. The Religious Right may
be a minority, but it’s a loud, pugnacious one that still holds a degree of
power. Certain politicians still get a bang out of exploiting hatred and
paranoia.
But they’re losing more elections. They are losing
their grip on the public consciousness. The time is ripe for LGBT people to
enjoy the same legal protection, the same rights as other Americans. Stonewall is just a small window into
what they have endured to reach this point.
Best
line:
“It eats you up inside, not being comfortable with yourself.”
This is a line from Raymond Castro, one of the
participants in Stonewall. He died in 2010 after helping with this documentary,
as did Seymour Pine, the retired NYPD officer who led the raid on Stonewall. In
his final years, Pine was regretful and publicly apologized for his role in the
police crackdown.
Gateway
films
Out
of the Past: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Rights in America
– This is a documentary about Keli Peterson, a Utah teenager who formed a Gay-Straight Alliance at her high school in 1996 and encountered statewide backlash.
Through her story, the film goes into the history of gays, lesbians and their
battle for equality in America.
Anyone
and Everyone – This documentary, made for PBS in
2007, explores the reaction of parents when their children come out. The film
looks at families from a multitude of ethnic and religious backgrounds.
The
Laramie Project –
Originally a stage production, this play was adapted to the screen and
aired on HBO in 2002. Shot to resemble a documentary, this film features the
reactions of townspeople from across the spectrum about the 1998 beating death
of a young gay man, Matthew Shepherd, in Laramie, Wy.
Gateway
literature
Stonewall:
The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution by David
Carter. This journalistic and historical treatment of the riots may be the
definitive account of Stonewall. It covers the same ground as Stonewall
Uprising, but at 352 pages, it contains much more detail.
