Gay Civil Rights?

[Boston Guy]

In another thread, Woodlawn has suggested that progress towards gay rights has only been marginal since Stonewall. He cites a number of important rights that have not been secured or guaranteed.

 

I tend to think that we've made a hell of a lot of progress. I remember what it was like for gay people -- from the point of view of a then-"straight" boy -- back then and it feels to me like basic attitudes have changed tremendously in America. We generally do not have to worry about our safety now and young people are coming out much earlier and taking dates to the prom and bars aren't being raided just because they're gay. Many jurisdictions now have anti-discrimination legislation in place, as do many companies.

 

But perhaps I'm fooling myself?

 

What do you guys think? Have we made a lot of progress or are we just getting going? Are you optimistic about the future or not? For people outside the US, what's it like there and to what do you attribute any successes or failures that have occurred in your country?

 

And, for those who are older, can you help the rest of us understand what it was like in the 40s or 50s or early 60s? Any personal experiences or memories that could help illustrate what it was like would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

BG

[Guest Love Bubble Butt]

I'll keep this short and sweet. We've made great strides and definitely have come a long way. However, we still have a long way to go.

[BigD]

I came out in 1969 in a Texas city. The few gay bars

we had were constantly being raided by the police.

Bar entrances were usually located in the back of

the building, so as to avoid the public seeing who

went in and out. Since the bar patrons were both

lesbians and gay men, it became a standard practice

to swith partners when the police came in. Example:

Men dancing with men would start dancing with women.

Today, at our Gay Pride Parades, the police block

traffic on the streets for the event, and the mayor

proclaims Gay Pride Day.

[Guest Bitchboy]

I'm imagine this will deteriorate into the pettiness taking place in the other thread, but still want to say that of course we've made great strides in the last decades. My son has marched with me in a gay pride parade, and his schoolmates cheered him on. This kind of stuff could have never happened when I was a teen.

 

Still, with all that has been accomplished, there will always be a segment of society that will hold out on any kind of acceptance of gay people, no matter what gay people do. We can shove it their faces or not. The religious right, for want of a better term, will NEVER EVER consider gay people as first-class citizens, no matter how much they profess love for the sinner.

 

What I have decided is right for me is not considering their opinions as important. I don't surround myself with those kinds of people: I don't work for them, eat with them, send my kid to school with their kids. I really don't give a s**t, just as I don't care to surround myself with the few distasteful people who post on these forums. Stupid people don't matter to me, and you only have to read the opinions of some supposed gay people who post here to see that stupidity encompasses all spectrums of sexuality.

 

Will I stop demanding my rights? Never. Do I think I will ever please those whose minds have already been determined for them by outside sources, or gain acceptance from them? Never. I see these two views as totally compatible. I will continue to speak out and live my life as if I have the rights that most likely I will never have.

[+ Charlie]

I knew a gay male couple who went to prison in the early 60s just because a couple of kids accused them of cruising a john at a local college (there was no actual evidence, just the students' testimony that the couple had flirted with them--they were actually arrested elsewhere on the campus after the supposed act). That could never happen today. But a gay couple having sex in the privacy of their home can still be prosecuted in Texas and other venues, which shows how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

 

Nevertheless, despite the lack of many formal, specific legal protections for homosexuals, we are much more likely today to claim our rights under more general civil rights assumptions, and to succeed. That is partly a legacy of the civil rights movement for blacks and the feminist movement, which has made everyone more conscious of the hypocrisy of a society in which equal rights applied only among white heterosexual males. Even most heterosexuals who may not particularly like us now accept that our basic rights should be respected, and disapprove of fanatics like Fred Phelps, as is evidenced by how few politicians would dare to play the anti-gay card openly, as Sen. Joe McCarthy did in the 50s.

 

But it is also a result of the gay rights movement, which began in the late 1950s among a small group of politically active men and women who refused to accept second class status based solely on their sexual orientation. It was a very small movement of relatively conservative men and women--I know, because I was an officer in the Homosexual Law Reform Society from 1966 to 1972, and even national conventions of "homophile" groups, as they were known then, were pretty small, middle class affairs. It wasn't until the queens at the Stonewall made a big enough blast to interest the news media, because what sells news is sensationalism, that the movement really got rolling. It was the numbers of gays, of all styles, who were willing to be open about it, combined with their straight supporters, that made the real difference in legislation, court decisions, and cultural change.

 

In those days our main concern was to get rid of laws used to persecute us, such as sodomy statutes; now the focus is mostly on enacting laws to empower us, such as domestic partner legislation. To me, that is the most positive sign of progress since I participated in one of the first demonstrations for gay rights in 1965. (Note to woodlawn: I wore a suit and politely offered pamphlets to patrons at a restaurant that publicly announced it would not serve homosexuals. a position that was perfectly legal then.)

[Guest Bitchboy]

our main concern was to get rid of laws used to

>persecute us, such as sodomy statutes; now the focus is mostly

>on enacting laws to empower us, such as domestic partner

>legislation. To me, that is the most positive sign of progress

>since I participated in one of the first demonstrations for

>gay rights in 1965. (Note to woodlawn: I wore a suit and

>politely offered pamphlets to patrons at a restaurant that

>publicly announced it would not serve homosexuals. a position

>that was perfectly legal then.)

 

Great point. Whenever a cause can move from the defensive position into an active mode, a good deal of progress has been made. Thanks for your courageous work in 1965. It's too be admired.

[woodlawn]

Yes, you are fooling yourself. With regard to marriage (and all the laws of taxation, agency and inheritance connected to marriage), with regard to military service, with regard to federal protection against discrimination, with regard to protection against the criminalization of consensual sex, we are in exactly the same position today as in 1969. Nor can anyone point to any near-term prospect of change in any of those areas. I can't think of any other group of Americans who are denied the same basic civil rights as all other Americans, can you? Well, yes, I can think of one other group: convicted felons.

 

In my view this is what comes of relying on a strategy that emphasizes using the judicial system to force change on an unwilling majority rather than trying to persuade the majority. In the 60s the civil rights movement persuaded most Americans that racial equality should be the rule, and in the space of a few years Congress enacted the civil rights legislation that ended generations of de jure racial discrimination in America. When the movement ceased trying to persuade the majority and tried to push through unpopular measures like busing and racial preferences, it stalled. We now see that the voters are using majoritarian institutions to roll back these unpopular measures. Like it or not we live in a society in which the majority is going to work its will, one way or another, sooner or later. That is the system we must work with if real change is ever to come.

[trilingual]

I have to disagree with Woodlawn. One of the functions of the judicial branch in the American constitutional framework is to protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority. It's great if legislators can be persuaded to enact laws ending discrimination against gays and lesbians, but they're always worrying about what their constituents might think, because their first priority, above all others, is getting re-elected. Judges, at least federal judges, don't have to worry about elections, and even at the state level judicial elections are usually not as hot and heated as legislative ones. Incumbent judges almost always get re-confirmed to their positions on the bench.

 

Woodlawn's history really isn't accurate. The civil rights movement didn't start with persuading the majority to be nicer to African-Americans. It started with court cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia. Those cases, striking down school segregation and anti-misceganation laws, triggered many similar legal actions in other states. Of course, the success of those cases galvanized the incipient civil rights movement to press for further changes by their legislators. But that was a long, slow, and often unsuccessful tactic.

 

The same holds true for gay rights. By and large, the victories we've won have been through the courts. Eventually, the legislatures start to catch up. But most of the sodomy laws were invalidated by courts, I believe. That was the first step that opened the way for legislatures to pass anti-discrimination statutes. I hate to harp on a recent, obvious case, but someone just won $11 million from Leona Helmsley for gay-related employment discrimination. That couldn't have happened 20 years ago. For most of us, being able to be open about ourselves in the workplace wouldn't have been possible, either.

 

The courts have slowly begun recognizing our relationships in areas like property rights and child custody arrangements. In a country the size of the U.S., with its vast social inertia, change comes slowly and incrementally. Discrimination on the basis of race isn't yet a thing of the past, and discrimination against gays won't disappear overnight, either. But have things changed in the past twenty to thirty years? Dramatically. Will they continue to change? I'm sure they will. Momentum has shifted in our favor. There will undoubtedly be setbacks along the way, but I'm sure we'll eventually obtain full civil rights, and it will be sooner rather than later. I mean, we've already managed to overcome literally centuries of hatred and discrimination in just a few decades. I've lived to see changes in my lifetime I never would have predicted thirty years ago. I expect to see more before I kick the bucket, and I expect some of the majority will kick and scream as it happens. But them's the breaks in a system where the majority doesn't always get to tyrannize the minority.

[woodlawn]

>I have to disagree with Woodlawn. One of the functions of

>the judicial branch in the American constitutional framework

>is to protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of

>the majority.

 

Where exactly does the Constitution say that? I must have missed that part. If you would just point me to the article containing that language?

 

>Judges, at least federal judges, don't

>have to worry about elections,

 

Does the name "Miguel Estrada" ring a bell?

 

and even at the state level

>judicial elections are usually not as hot and heated as

>legislative ones.

 

They're not? When was the last time you were involved in a judicial campaign? When was the last time you checked out the list of campaign contributors to any elected state supreme court justice?

 

>Woodlawn's history really isn't accurate. The civil rights

>movement didn't start with persuading the majority to be nicer

>to African-Americans.

 

I don't think I said that nothing happened in the civil rights movement before the 60s. I said that that was when it had its first real successes. And that happens to be true.

 

> It started with court cases like Brown

>v. Board of Education

 

Brown was decided in 1954. What percentage of American schools were integrated five years later? Ten years later? Today?

 

>Of

>course, the success of those cases galvanized the incipient

>civil rights movement to press for further changes by their

>legislators. But that was a long, slow, and often

>unsuccessful tactic.

 

That's only if you consider the passage of all of the major federal civil rights legislation to be "unsuccessful." I don't.

 

>For most of us, being

>able to be open about ourselves in the workplace wouldn't have

>been possible, either.

 

And apparently it still isn't. Check out the thread on "locked in the closet."