The Gays
Cards (7)
- Homosexuality was criminalized with long-term imprisonment or even death sentences.
- In the 60s, being gay was classified as a mental illness and it is criminal. We passed a law that said you can’t be gay and work for the government.The Lavender Scare- whether or not you’re actually gay, if you’re accused of it you could lose your jobs and your life even. Like the Red Scare, inspires other states and districts to make laws banning gay people and criminalizing them.
- New York- much higher crime rates than today. In an attempt to clean the streets, they passed new laws targeting drugs, mobs, gay people, etc.Passed a law that said you can’t serve alcohol to gay people.Mattachine Society- did “sip-ins”, kind of like sit-ins, went to bars refusing service to gay people, some bars broke the law and served them and some didn’t.
- Bars own and operated by the mob were one of the only bars that openly serviced gay people because they were already illegal.Stonewall Inn- a mob bar that allowed gay people AND dancing.June 1969-
- the mob didn’t get a call about a police raid coming to their bar,
- police show up at Stonewall,
- start arresting people violently
- Marsha P. Johnson- when the arrests started, she threw a glass (or brick?) and a riot started.A lot of people in Grenitch Village are gay and witnessed what happened in the Stonewall Inn.Spectators started attacking law enforcement and lasted all night.Some drag queens started doing the can-can in front of the police.
- This news made headlines throughout the country, giving other small movements the attention they need to go national.Pride month is in June bc Stonewall Riot is in June.
- Gay Liberation Front (GLF) - a group of gay activists who sought to challenge the violent homophobic attitudes of the 1970s.We see the first states decriminalize gay people, legalize same sex marriage, but arresting gay people wasn’t stopped until 2002.Lawrence v. Texas (2002)Mid 70s- being gay is taken off the “mental illness” list.