To many, the New York Senate’s approval of the same-sex marriage legislation on Friday marked the culmination of the long struggle that many in the gay community had fought so valiantly for: equality before the law, a fundamental right in a civil society.
Coincidentally enough, Tuesday marks the 42-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City, a seminal event which many, but not all, consider the first shots fired in the Gay Rights Movement in the United States, which would transform American culture in the decades that followed.
It was in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, that police raided a prominent gay bar in Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn, at 53 Christopher Street, rounding up a throng of patrons, mostly dressed in drag, and shoving them in a paddy wagon. Angry crowds gathered around the police vehicles began to thicken; and in a blink of an eye- sheer chaos had broken out.
The Stonewall Bar had a reputation for selling drugs, particularly acid and uppers. Raids at this Greenwich Village bar weren’t uncommon; police would often alert the owners that a raid was coming, usually early in the evening, so as not to drive away too many customers. Police would often just stroll through the bar without making any arrests.
It was also widely known, if not in 1969, than certainly in the subsequent years that the New York Police, in this case the Sixth Precinct, were paid handsomely every week by the owners of this Mafia-owned establishment to keep the illicit activities of the Stonewall bar under tight wraps.
So why were the owners caught off guard on this muggy summer night, when eight detectives (with only one in uniform) burst through the doors after 1:00 a,m., questioned patrons while making a number of arrests?
There were many theories presented; but the most convincing was based on the argument that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) had learned that owners were selling liquor without federal stamps; meaning they were likely bootlegged or hijacked right out of the distillery. And according to authors Martin Duberman and Andrew Kopkind, writing in the Grand Street Journal (1993), BATF also were aware of the secret financial alliance between the Sixth Precinct and the Stonewall owners; and alerted the police to the raid only at the very last minute.
What actually happened at the Stonewall that night, which triggered such a violent reaction from the bystanders lined outside of the bar, is a matter of conjecture with conflicting accounts and uncorroborated testimony. But it seems reasonable to conclude (based on multiple newspaper accounts) is that many in the crowd that grew into a restless mob as the evening wore on, took issue with the violent treatment the police were inflicting on the gay patrons, drag queens and crossed-dressed lesbians- from reports of police slapping a patron with his night stick, to complaints that handcuffs were too right, resulting in some of the patrons swining back at the police as they continued to be smacked, shoved, and thrust into the paddy wagons like a herd of cattle.
Before long, bystanders began flinging coins, bottles, bricks, cans, whatever they could find, in the direction of the police, while chanting ``Gay Power.’’ The mob was soon too much for the police to handle. Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine ordered the police back into the bar where they tried to spray a hose at the wild mob; but remaining resolute-the crowd kept chanting, while turning Christopher Street into a wild carnival atmosphere with many hugging, kissing, while continuing their anti-police, vitriol with flames seen rising high above a string of trash cans.
Finally, the Tactical Patrol Force (TPF) a unit trained to crush riotous crowds came on the scene, armed with helmets, visors, weapons and tear gas and eventually after a long struggle were able to disperse the crowd and clear the streets by 3: 55 a.m.
In addition to all the blood that had been spilled with four police officers sustaining minor injuires- 13 people, seven of them Stonewall employees, were eventually booked at the Sixth Precinct on charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, among other charges.
A crowd of protestors gathered on the following night outside the bar, but police were able to control the crowd without incident; and the Stonewall Rebellion had finally come to an end.
So while many consider the Stonewall Riots a definite turning point within the gay movement in that it sparked national attention and led to the foundation of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activist Alliance, others argue the Gay Rights Movement was born well before Stonewall.
Marcia M. Gallo, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and author of "Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement" in which she chronicles the rise of lesbian rights of the post-World War II era, especially ``The Daughters of Bilitis’’, which was started in 1955 in San Francisco by four female couples, argues that ``without their work and the efforts of many other in the homophile movement which grew steadily in numbers and visibility in the 1960s, the gay rights and later gay liberation movements would not have been possible.’’
It was their pioneering efforts, Gallo argues, which increased visibility and eliminated the social stigma of same-sex preferences imposed by medical, religious, and legal authorities. In particular, their agenda included the decriminalizing of laws against same-sex acts, the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), while creating institutions to serve and support lesbians and gay men in all facets of their lives.
Whether there remains disagreement over which incident or which group of individuals first sparked the gay rights movement; what cannot be disputed is that equality under the law is finally beginning to be realized in areas thought unattainable a decade ago; first with the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ , which barred gays from serving openly in the U.S. military, and now with the passage of same-sex civil marriages in New York, joining Maryland and Rhode Island in recognizing same-sex marriages from other states.
As Professor Gallo tells it, ``while I celebrate the passage of New York's gay marriage bill this past Friday, I also see efforts to secure these basic rights as only one part of a much larger agenda to insure equality for all people regardless of sexuality, gender expression, race, age, and economic status. ‘’
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
June 28, 2011
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