Fifty-Seven Years Ago Today

Originally posted June 27, 2009

It was fifty-five years ago, a lifetime to some of us, a minute to others, but it marked a turning point for what would become the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn’t the first time our community fought back—there was the Cooper Do-nuts Riot in 1959,  the Dewey's Restaurant protest in 1965,  the Compton's Cafeteria riot in 1966, the Black Cat Tavern and New Faces, The Patch in 1968, among other—but Stonewall marked one of the loudest times that gay men and trans women stood up en masse and said, ‘No. We will not be treated like this any longer!’

The weekend of June 27-29,1969 began what is the modern-day gay movement. To be sure, there were gay and lesbian activists before that weekend, but the confrontation between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City lit a fire in the hearts of the LGBT community like it had never been done before.

And like any good story, there is controversy surrounding the Stonewall Riots; there are arguments and differences over what happened, how it started and how it ended. But the fact that we all need to remember is that it did happen, and it should continue to be a rallying cry for the LGBTQ+ community today, as we continue the march toward equality in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of America.

Friday, June 27, 1969: the world was mourning the death of Judy Garland. Could it be that the death of one of the most famous gay icons was what sparked the fire of the modern-day Gay Rights Movement? Many people have speculated that Garland's death did indeed push the gay community into the streets of New York that night, but it was also hot in New York that night, and some say it was the heat that fueled the crowd into action, into reaction. I think maybe it was both, Garland's death and the hot summer night; or maybe it was just that the gay community had finally had enough of being told what to do, what not to do, and how we should live our lives. Whatever the reason, it was enough. Finally, enough.

In the early morning hours of June 28, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a small bar located on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, as they had done on other occasions. Although mafia-run, the Stonewall, like other predominantly gay bars in the city, got raided by the police periodically.

Typically, the more "deviant" patrons—the queens and butch lesbians, especially if they were black—were arrested and taken away, while white, male customers looked on or quietly disappeared. The bar owners would be levied an insubstantial fine—a sign of police corruption and collusion between bar owners and police—allowing them to reopen for business the following day.

On this night, the charge at the Stonewall was the illegal sale of alcohol. The raid began as they always did: plainclothes and uniformed police officers entered the bar, arrested the employees, and began ejecting the customers one by one onto the street. For some reason, however, the crowd that had gathered outside Stonewall, a somewhat campy and festive crowd, began to cheer as the patrons were pushed out of the bar. But soon the mood changed; it was Judy Garland's death, or the summer heat, or the fact that the summer of 1969 was a particularly busy one for police raids on gay bars. Or maybe it was watching drag queens and lesbians being pushed and shoved and kicked into paddy wagons. Whatever it was, the on-lookers lost their patience. No one really knows who threw the first punch; some say it was a drag queen, some say it was a rather butch-looking lesbian. But someone defied the police that night; someone had finally had enough.

The crowd, now numbering several hundred, exploded. People began hurling coins at police officers, then they moved on to rocks and bottles, whatever they could grab. The police, at first stunned that the normally docile and shamed homosexuals would react in such a fashion, soon began beating the crowds with nightsticks. This group, however, was too angry, and was not going to be pushed around, or down, any longer; the police officers were forced to take refuge inside the Stonewall.

As news spread throughout Greenwich Village the crowd grew ever larger; many residents, some gay, some not, ran down to the Stonewall Inn to join the fight. Lighter fluid was squirted inside the bar and someone tried to light it; others grabbed a downed parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the front of the Stonewall. Someone began chanting "Gay Power!"

The riot-control police unit arrived to rescue the trapped officers and break up the demonstration, though it took over an hour before the crowd dispersed. To taunt their attackers a group of drag queens began to sing at the top of their lungs:

We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

That first Stonewall Riot ended the morning of Saturday, June 28, but the fight was far from over. That night a second riot broke out and the crowd now numbered in the thousands, filling the streets in the name of Gay Pride. They marched to the Stonewall Inn and waited for the police to arrive; and they did, in the early morning of Sunday, June 29.

For over a week, though in smaller numbers, protests and demonstrations continued in Greenwich Village. There was finally a sense of what could be accomplished by banding together, by being out, by being seen, by being heard. By being angry. It was a new day.

A month after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front [GLF] was formed. Radical and leftist, the GLF was one of many politically focused lesbian and gay organizations formed in the days following the riots. The number of lesbian and gay publications skyrocketed as well, which led to an even greater sense of community. The LGBT community was no longer strictly marginalized in United States society. Now, out and proud lesbians and gay men were developing their own communities in cities across the country.

Since 1970, marches have taken place in New York City—and all over the world—every year on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In June 1994, hundreds of thousands of people converged on New York to celebrate Stonewall's 25th anniversary. In 1999 the United States government proclaimed the Stonewall Inn a national historic site. The following year, the status of the Stonewall was improved to "historic landmark," a designation held by only a small percentage of historical sites.

Stonewall, while not the first protest, is our Plymouth Rock. It's where the gay community landed and came together and began the march toward equality. Stonewall was our first glimpse of a new world where we weren't alone, we weren't all that different, where we belonged.

It makes no difference how it started. The death of an icon; the summer heat; a sense of frustration. It makes no difference who started it; drag queens or lesbians; coin tossers or rock throwers. The difference is that it happened.

As I said, no one really knows who started the riot, or how it all started, but we do know that a great deal of the credit goes to Marsha P. Johnson, a drag queen who frequented the Stonewall Inn, and fought back and fought for our community before some of us were even born.

Fifty-five years ago today.

As we have seen this past year, in states around the nation, and in the Supreme Court, no rights, no laws, are safe with this radical rightwing GOP. And while the Supreme Court justices say they won’t come for LGBTQ+ rights, or marriage equality, we know them to be deceitful as they have come for our trans brothers and sisters. What we once thought was settled law could be lost to us unless we stand up, speak up, shout out, show up and CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE.

The march goes on …

The Funny Papers

Nick Anderson, Max Espinoza, Ann Telnaes, Gary Huck, Tim Campbell, Dave Whamond, Trevor Irvin, Rick McKee, Pedro X Molina, Bill Bramhall

Bobservations: Fifty-Five Years Ago Today

Originally posted June 27, 2009

It was fifty-five years ago, a lifetime to some of us, a minute to others, but it marked a turning point for what would become the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn’t the first time our community fought back—there was the Cooper Do-nuts Riot in 1959,  the Dewey's Restaurant protest in 1965,  the Compton's Cafeteria riot in 1966, the Black Cat Tavern and New Faces, The Patch in 1968, among other—but Stonewall marked one of the loudest times that gay men and trans women stood up en masse and said, ‘No. We will not be treated like this any longer!’

The weekend of June 27-29,1969 began what is the modern-day gay movement. To be sure, there were gay and lesbian activists before that weekend, but the confrontation between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City lit a fire in the hearts of the LGBT community like it had never been done before.

And like any good story, there is controversy surrounding the Stonewall Riots; there are arguments and differences over what happened, how it started and how it ended. But the fact that we all need to remember is that it did happen, and it should continue to be a rallying cry for the LGBTQ+ community today, as we continue the march toward equality in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of America.

Friday, June 27, 1969: the world was mourning the death of Judy Garland. Could it be that the death of one of the most famous gay icons was what sparked the fire of the modern-day Gay Rights Movement? Many people have speculated that Garland's death did indeed push the gay community into the streets of New York that night, but it was also hot in New York that night, and some say it was the heat that fueled the crowd into action, into reaction. I think maybe it was both, Garland's death and the hot summer night; or maybe it was just that the gay community had finally had enough of being told what to do, what not to do, and how we should live our lives. Whatever the reason, it was enough. Finally, enough.

In the early morning hours of June 28, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a small bar located on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, as they had done on other occasions. Although mafia-run, the Stonewall, like other predominantly gay bars in the city, got raided by the police periodically.

Typically, the more "deviant" patrons—the queens and butch lesbians, especially if they were black—were arrested and taken away, while white, male customers looked on or quietly disappeared. The bar owners would be levied an insubstantial fine—a sign of police corruption and collusion between bar owners and police—allowing them to reopen for business the following day.

On this night, the charge at the Stonewall was the illegal sale of alcohol. The raid began as they always did: plainclothes and uniformed police officers entered the bar, arrested the employees, and began ejecting the customers one by one onto the street. For some reason, however, the crowd that had gathered outside Stonewall, a somewhat campy and festive crowd, began to cheer as the patrons were pushed out of the bar. But soon the mood changed; it was Judy Garland's death, or the summer heat, or the fact that the summer of 1969 was a particularly busy one for police raids on gay bars. Or maybe it was watching drag queens and lesbians being pushed and shoved and kicked into paddy wagons. Whatever it was, the on-lookers lost their patience. No one really knows who threw the first punch; some say it was a drag queen, some say it was a rather butch-looking lesbian. But someone defied the police that night; someone had finally had enough.

The crowd, now numbering several hundred, exploded. People began hurling coins at police officers, then they moved on to rocks and bottles, whatever they could grab. The police, at first stunned that the normally docile and shamed homosexuals would react in such a fashion, soon began beating the crowds with nightsticks. This group, however, was too angry, and was not going to be pushed around, or down, any longer; the police officers were forced to take refuge inside the Stonewall.

As news spread throughout Greenwich Village the crowd grew ever larger; many residents, some gay, some not, ran down to the Stonewall Inn to join the fight. Lighter fluid was squirted inside the bar and someone tried to light it; others grabbed a downed parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the front of the Stonewall. Someone began chanting "Gay Power!"

The riot-control police unit arrived to rescue the trapped officers and break up the demonstration, though it took over an hour before the crowd dispersed. To taunt their attackers a group of drag queens began to sing at the top of their lungs:

We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

That first Stonewall Riot ended the morning of Saturday, June 28, but the fight was far from over. That night a second riot broke out and the crowd now numbered in the thousands, filling the streets in the name of Gay Pride. They marched to the Stonewall Inn and waited for the police to arrive; and they did, in the early morning of Sunday, June 29.

For over a week, though in smaller numbers, protests and demonstrations continued in Greenwich Village. There was finally a sense of what could be accomplished by banding together, by being out, by being seen, by being heard. By being angry. It was a new day.

A month after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front [GLF] was formed. Radical and leftist, the GLF was one of many politically focused lesbian and gay organizations formed in the days following the riots. The number of lesbian and gay publications skyrocketed as well, which led to an even greater sense of community. The LGBT community was no longer strictly marginalized in United States society. Now, out and proud lesbians and gay men were developing their own communities in cities across the country.

Since 1970, marches have taken place in New York City—and all over the world—every year on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In June 1994, hundreds of thousands of people converged on New York to celebrate Stonewall's 25th anniversary. In 1999 the United States government proclaimed the Stonewall Inn a national historic site. The following year, the status of the Stonewall was improved to "historic landmark," a designation held by only a small percentage of historical sites.

Stonewall, while not the first protest, is our Plymouth Rock. It's where the gay community landed and came together and began the march toward equality. Stonewall was our first glimpse of a new world where we weren't alone, we weren't all that different, where we belonged.

It makes no difference how it started. The death of an icon; the summer heat; a sense of frustration. It makes no difference who started it; drag queens or lesbians; coin tossers or rock throwers. The difference is that it happened.

As I said, no one really knows who started the riot, or how it all started, but we do know that a great deal of the credit goes to Marsha P. Johnson, a drag queen who frequented the Stonewall Inn, and fought back and fought for our community before some of us were even born.

Fifty-five years ago today.

As we have seen this past year, in states around the nation, and in the Supreme Court, no rights, no laws, are safe with this radical rightwing GOP. And while the Supreme Court justices say they won’t come for LGBTQ+ rights, or marriage equality, we know them to be deceitful. What we once thought was settled law could be lost to us unless we stand up, speak up, shout out, show up and CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE.

The march goes on …

Stories of Pride: Like Stonewall, Pulse Could Become An Historical Landmark

There is talk, as we just commemorated the third anniversary of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting, of turning the spot into an historic landmark.

As Floridians and queer people around the world continue to mourn and memorialize the third anniversary of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub massacre, a group of Florida lawmakers have introduced a new bill in Congress to have the site declared a historic landmark.

United States Congressional Representatives from Florida, Darren Soto and Stephanie Murphy, recently announced their intentions to create a memorial to those whose lives were taken June 12, 2016; Soto said:

“This is an important step to preserve an LGBT historic landmark at a time when many of these sites are being destroyed. The memorial will serve as a reminder of the remarkable way our community came together to heal and overcome hate.”

At present, funds raised by the non-for-profit group onePULSE have helped establish the site as a temporary landmark, but if this bill passes—and remember, it’s Florida so it might be an uphill climb … the governor of the state recently marked the anniversary of the Pulse shooting without mentioning the LGBTQ community at all—Pulse would have access to national funds to help maintain the memorial as a permanent site.

Barbara Poma, owner of Pulse, says the site has thus far raised $14 million of a $45 million goal.

“In these times when acts of hate and violence are on the rise, we must remember our past and work to do better now and in the future”.

If this bill passes, Pulse would become only the second LGBTQ site in the nation after the Stonewall Inn to become a national monument. And if it passes, I suggest we move to create a memorial to remember the UpStairs Lounge massacre as well; and maybe include the 1966 LGBTQ riot at the Compton Cafeteria in San Francisco.

We can celebrate Pride and dance and sing and have fun, but we need to remember the sadness and the tragedies of what has happened before; if we forget, then nothing will change.

Queerty

National Coming Out Day

It’s National Coming Out Day—♫ ♪ Come out Come Out Wherever You Are ♪ ♫—and even though we have a lying hypocritical bigoted homophobe in the White House who is working to push us back into the closet, not only are we not going, but today, today, a permanent Rainbow flag will fly on federal land when it is hoisted above the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan.

The flag—which will be maintained by the National Park Service—will be raised at noon today, which just happens to also be the 30th anniversary of the 1987 March on Washington for LGBT. On that day hundreds of thousands of LGBT Americans and our allies called for an end to discrimination and more federal funding for AIDS research and treatment. That was also the first time the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was unfurled and displayed on the National Mall with 1,920 panels covering a space larger than a football field to commemorate those who had died.

Gilbert Baker, who created the original rainbow flag in 1978, passed away this year at the age of 65 so this is a fitting tribute to him as well:

“The rainbow is a part of nature, and you have to be in the right place to see it. It’s beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can’t see. That really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors… we are all the genders, races and ages.”

So, while we watch as those in charge seek to deny us equality, and make us feel less than, let’s take a moment and realize that we have come this far, and we may still have a ways to go, but not even this Bigot-In-Chief will stop us.

The march goes on ... so, if you haven't already done so, come on out already!

President Obama Declares Stonewall A National Monument

A week ago, President Obama declared that his Obama administration would designate the Stonewall Inn. In his weekly address, President Obama explained why he made that decision:

"The story of America is a story of progress.  It’s written by ordinary people who put their shoulders to the wheel of history to make sure that the promise of our founding applies not just to some of us – but to all of us. 

"Farmers and blacksmiths who chose revolution over tyranny.  Immigrants who crossed oceans and the Rio Grande.  Women who reached for the ballot, and scientists who shot for the moon.  The preachers, and porters, and seamstresses who guided us toward the mountaintop of freedom.

"Sometimes, we can mark that progress in special places — hallowed ground where history was written — places like Independence Hall.  Gettysburg.  Seneca Falls.  Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral.  The Edmund Pettus Bridge.  

"One of these special places is the Stonewall Inn.  Back in 1969, as a turbulent decade was winding down, the Stonewall Inn was a popular gathering place for New York City’s LGBT community.  At the time, being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender was considered obscene, illegal — even a mental illness. 

"One night, police raided the bar, and started arresting folks.  Raids like these were nothing new — but this time, the patrons had had enough. So they stood up, and spoke out, and over the course of the next several days, they refused to be silenced.  The riots became protests; the protests became a movement; the movement ultimately became an integral part of America.

"Over the past seven years, we’ve seen achievements that would have been unimaginable to the folks who, knowingly or not, started the modern LGBT movement at Stonewall.

Today, all Americans are protected by a hate crimes law that includes sexual orientation and gender identity.  'Don’t ask, don’t tell' is history.  Insurance companies can no longer turn you away because of who you are.  Transgender Americans are more visible than ever, helping to make our nation more inclusive and welcoming for all.  And one year ago this weekend, we lit the White House in every color — because in every state in America, you’re now free to marry the person you love.

"There’s still work to do.  As we saw two weeks ago in Orlando, the LGBT community still faces real discrimination, real violence, real hate.  So we can’t rest.  We’ve got to keep pushing for equality and acceptance and tolerance. 

"But the arc of our history is clear — it’s an arc of progress.  And a lot of that progress can be traced back to Stonewall.  So this week, I’m designating the Stonewall National Monument as the newest addition to America’s national parks system. Stonewall will be our first national monument to tell the story of the struggle for LGBT rights.  I believe our national parks should reflect the full story of our country — the richness and diversity and uniquely American spirit that has always defined us.  That we are stronger together.  That out of many, we are one.  That’s what makes us the greatest nation on earth.  And it’s what we celebrate at Stonewall — for our generation and for all those who come after us."

As I have said many, many times over the last seven years, “Thanks Obama.”

Random Musings

Co-worker: “We had dinner with [a fellow coworker] the other night and I was schooled on how to say “tiramisu.”

[He pronounced it tier-ah-me-sue, emphasis on the ‘me’ … which I learned through Google is correct]

Me: “I say tiramisu.”

[I pronounced it tier-ah-me-sue, emphasis on the ‘sue’ … which I learned through Google is also correct]

Co-worker: “She says that’s the way you say it, but why does she have to school me like?”

Me: “I would’a said, ‘Um, quick question [fellow co-worker], is it pronounced Fuck you or Fook you?”

In all fairness I loathe Will Ferrell. I have never, and before you ask, I mean I gave never found him funny in anything anywhere anytime ever.

And then I’d heard that Ferrell was going to produce and star in ‘Reagan,’ which has been described as a “dementia comedy” about Reagan’s second term which goes something like this:

At the beginning of President Reagan’s second term he “falls into dementia” and is convinced that he’s actually an actor playing the president in a movie.

Yeah, because dementia is funny. Again, I loathe Will Ferrell and the good news is that when the idea of the film was revealed people went nuts because, again, dementia isn’t funny, and Ferrell has, for now, pulled the plug.

Cuz he’s not funny.

I did chuckle last week when former Weeper of the House, John Boehner, failed presidential contender Ted Cruz ‘Lucifer in the flesh’, but not everyone was pleased by that characterization; Satanists are pissed, saying there is no comparison between the incarnation of evil and a red guy with a tail.

So here’s what the Satanic Temple had to say:

“Cruz’s failures of reason, compassion, decency, and humanity are products of his Christian pandering, if not an actual Christian faith. It grows tedious when pedophile priests and loathsome politicians are conveniently dismissed as Satanic, even as they spew biblical verse and prostrate themselves before the cross, recruiting the Christian faithful. Satanists will have nothing to do with any of them.”

Now, to be fair, the Satanic Church is mostly a group of non-theistic activists who eschew all religions and adhere to a set of humanistic tenets that promote compassion and reason.

Still, when even the Devil is pissed that Ted Cruz is compared to him, you gotta pay attention.

Not because of his first name … but my choice to win this season of RuPaul’s Drag Race is … Bob the Drag Queen.

She’s fierce and funny and serves the LGBT community with tea and shade and love.

From the Too Stupid To Be Allowed Out In Public With Regular Folk File:

Stacy Pincus, an Illinois woman, has filed a $5 million lawsuit against Starbucks for putting too much ice in her ice coffee.

Now, her lawsuit is open. Meaning other loons who cannot say, “I’d like an ice coffee, ice on the side,” or “I’ll have an ice coffee, but not so much ice,” can join in the stupidity.

In addition to the millions of dollars, Stacy Pincus wants Starbucks to list their Iced Drinks by how many fluid ounces of liquid are in the drink and not by the size of the cup.

For me, I’d like to get on down to WalMart, find a cheap coffee machine and a bag of ice and send them to Stacy Pincus and tell her to stay the eff home.

In response, Starbucks says when customers order cold drinks they expect them to be … cold.

So, while at my Dad’s house we watched an episode of Masterpiece Theater, a series called Grantchester, about an English crime-solving priest. It was lighthearted and fun and hot, because the priest is played James Norton, right. Ooh.La.La.

There is also a show on our DVR called Game of Silence. We haven’t begun watching it but I did notice that it stars David Lyons, left, who has been on many shows before and he just oozes sex appeal … in my opinion.

Thanks Obama!

President Obama is poised to declare the first-ever national monument recognizing the struggle for LGBT rights by singling out a sliver of green space and part of the surrounding Greenwich Village neighborhood as the birthplace of America’s modern gay liberation movement.

This would be the first national monument that included a bar — Stonewall — and a neighborhood of narrow streets rather than a rural setting, a mountainous piece of land, a desert or some other natural landscape.

Barring a last-minute complication — city officials are still investigating the history of the land title — President Obama is prepared to designate the area as part of the National Park Service as soon as next month … the beginning of pride Celebrations around the country.

Again, thanks Obama.

Before he dropped out of the race that god told him to enter — begging the question: is there a God? — I watched a video where Ted Cruz tried to reason with a [t]Rump supporter … which is a near impossible feat.

I almost felt sorry for the Teabagging Senator as the guy went all [t]Rump and refused to listen and kept saying, “Lyin’ Ted! Lyin’ Ted.”

Then I remembered that this was Ted Cruz and I was all, “F**k him.”

Carlos plays trumpet in a local community band.

While in Oregon he bought a sticker with a treble clef on it.

This morning he comes into the office with the sticker and a Human Rights Campaign sticker, and …

Carlos: I think I’ll put both of these on my trumpet case!

Bob: Aren’t you worried the football team will beat you up in the cafeteria at lunch?

Carlos: What?

Bob: Nothing.

Lastly, John Kasich followed in Ted Cruz’s footsteps this week and also dropped out of the presidential race. He said he would sit and pray for advice about what God had in store for him now.

Um, Johnny? God never planned for you to be president. She has a lot of things on her plate, around the mother**king universe for Her sake, and has little time for the aspirations of a Republican.

Get a life.

New York City To Consider Landmark Status For The Stonewall Inn

In a sign that things are changing — however slowly it might seem at times — for the LGBT community, comes the news that the Stonewall Inn just might become New York City's first landmark designation based on significance to the our community. 

The move is thanks to an 18-month long campaign by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, as announced by Andrew Berman:

“I am deeply gratified that the City of New York will finally consider the Stonewall Inn for landmark designation. This is a long-overdue move to recognize the incredibly important role this site and the riots connected to it have in the struggle for LGBT rights in this country and worldwide. It is critical that the history of sites like Stonewall and the immeasurably important role they played in making our country a more just, open, and accepting place, is recognized and preserved.  

I am glad that the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has followed in the footsteps of our state and federal government, which in 1999 recognized the unique importance of the Stonewall Inn to our history. But because only New York City landmark designation can protect this site from alteration or demolition, this action is especially important.

This is the first time the New York City has recognized a site with potential landmark designation based solely upon its LGBT history, but it is important that it not be the last."

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has asked the  Landmarks Preservation Commission to consider other critical LGBT history sites such as the iconic Greenwich Village gay bar Julius, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, and the former Gay Activists Alliance Firehouse.

Next up, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission can schedule a public hearing and vote on whether it will be officially designated.

As it should ….

image via The Stonewall Inn NYC

Forty-Two Years Ago Today

Originally posted June 27, 2009:

It was forty-one years ago, a lifetime to some of us, a minute to others, but it marked a turning point for the LGBT community. It marked one of the first, and definitely the loudest, times that gay men and women stood up en masse and said, No. We will not be treated like this any longer!

The weekend of June 27-29,1969 began what is the modern day gay movement. To be sure, there were gay and lesbian activists before that weekend, but the confrontation between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York lit a fire in the hearts of the LGBT community like it had never been done before.

And like any good story, there is controversy surrounding the Stonewall Riots; there are arguments and differences over what happened, how it started and how it ended. But the fact we all need to remember is that it did happen, and it should continue to be a rallying cry for the LGBT community to be, finally, considered equal in the eyes of America.

It was Friday, June 27, 1969, and the world was mourning the death of Judy Garland. Could it be that the death of one of the most famous gay icons was what sparked the fire of the modern day Gay Rights Movement? Many people have speculated that Garland's death did indeed push the gay community into the streets of New York that night. But it was also hot, that night, and many say it was the heat that fueled the crowd into action, into reaction. Maybe it was both Garland's death and the hot summer night; or maybe it was just that the gay community had finally had enough of being told what to do, what not to do, and how we should live our lives. Whatever the reason, it was enough. Finally, enough.

In the early morning hours of June 28, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a small bar located on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. Although mafia-run, the Stonewall, like other predominantly gay bars in the city, got raided by the police periodically.

Typically, the more "deviant" patrons--drag queens and butch lesbians, especially if they were black--were arrested and taken away, while white, male customers looked on or quietly disappeared. The bar owners would be levied an insubstantial fine--a sign of corruption and collusion between bar owners and police--allowing them to open for business the following day.

On this night, the charge at the Stonewall was the illegal sale of alcohol. The raid began as they always did: plainclothes and uniformed police officers entered the bar, arrested the employees, and began ejecting the customers one by one onto the street. For some reason, however, the crowd that had gathered outside the Stonewall, a somewhat campy and festive crowd, began to cheer as the patrons were pushed out of the Stonewall Inn. But soon the mood changed; it was Judy Garland's death, or the summer heat, or the fact that the summer of 1969 was a particularly busy one for police raids on gay bars. Or maybe it was watching drag queens and lesbians being pushed and shoved and kicked into paddy wagons.

Whatever it was, the on-lookers lost their patience. No one really knows who threw the first punch; some say it was a drag queen, some say it was a rather butch-looking lesbian. But someone defied the police that night; someone had finally had enough.

The crowd, now numbering several hundred, exploded. People began hurling coins at police officers, then they moved on to rocks and bottles, whatever they could grab. The police, at first stunned that the normally docile and shamed homosexuals would react in such a fashion, soon began beating the crowds with nightsticks. This group, however,was too angry, and could not be pushed down; the police officers were forced to take refuge inside the Stonewall.

As news spread throughout Greenwich Village the crowd grew ever larger; many residents, some gay, some not, ran down to the Stonewall Inn to join the fight. Lighter fluid was squirted inside the bar and someone tried to light it; others grabbed a downed parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the front of the Stonewall. Someone began chanting "Gay Power!"

The riot-control police unit arrived to rescue the trapped officers and break up the demonstration, though it took over an hour before the crowd dispersed. To taunt their attackers a group of drag queens began to sing at the top of their lungs:

We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

That first Stonewall Riot ended the morning of Saturday, June 28, but the fight was far from over. That night a second riot broke out and the crowd now numbered in the thousands, filling the streets in the name of Gay Pride. They marched to the Stonewall Inn and waited for the police to arrive; and they did, in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 29.

For over a week, though in smaller numbers, protests and demonstrations continued in Greenwich Village. There was finally a sense of what could be accomplished by banding together, by being out, by being seen, by being heard. By being angry. It was a new day.

A month after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was formed. Radical and leftist, the GLF was one of many politically focused lesbian and gay organizations formed in the days and weeks following the riots. The number of lesbian and gay publications skyrocketed as well, which led to an even greater sense of community. The LGBT community was no longer strictly marginalized in United States society. Now, out and proud lesbians and gay men were developing their own communities in cities across the country.

Since 1970, marches have taken place in New York City--and all over the world--every year on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In June 1994, hundreds of thousands of people converged on New York to celebrate Stonewall's 25th anniversary. In 1999 the United States government proclaimed the Stonewall Inn a national historic site. The following year, the status of the Stonewall was improved to "historic landmark," a designation held by only a small percentage of historical sites.

It is our Plymouth Rock. It's where the gay community landed and came together and began the march toward equality. Stonewall was our first glimpse of a new world where we weren't alone, we weren't all that different, where we belonged.

It makes no difference how it started. The death of an icon; the summer heat; a sense of frustration. It makes no difference who started it; drag queens or lesbians; coin tossers or rock throwers. The difference is that it happened.

Forty-two years ago today.