by Duane Kuehn

Created on: August 05, 2007

To assess gay rights and what progress might be in the gay rights movements' future; one must first question the gay rights movement's past and the reason for the movement beginning in the first place.

HISTORY

The very term "homosexuality" is of modern times. Led, I believe, by Sigmund Freud in his psychiatric journey into the vast spectrum of "sexuality". Mr. Freud's considerably impressive attempt to understand and categorize human sexuality, also created an obsession with sexuality for humankind.

Contrary to popular belief, "homosexuals" (though not termed so) have apparently existed from the ancient ages. Though, in modern times, even the fact that Alexander the Great lived with his same gender lover in one tent while his wife lived in another is unaccepted by most "Christian" persons.

Addressed later in this writing, are religious considerations, which are undeniably of importance to a gay rights progression or stifling.

The most famous occurrence in light of U.S. gay rights began in a small Mafia owned bar called the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village area of New Your City. The same type movements of this human rights issue had surfaced many years earlier. In Russia the Bolshevik revolution's agenda included decriminalization of same gender persons.

"Gay bars" of the time were illegal operations as "being homosexual" had become against state and federal laws.

This prosecution, a product of the Eisenhower Presidential administration, Eisenhower, as General had wanted to remove "gays" from the military, until her found out that he would lose a possible estimated 97% of the women in the military, a vast amount of necessary office workers, drivers, and even commanders. Eisenhower dropped the idea at the time, but as President revived his anti-homosexual agenda.

"Gay Bars" of the time, often had a back door entrance accessed via an alleyway. The Stonewall sat on its own. Mafia controlled and operating in Greenwich Village, where subcultures were more acceptable than most elsewhere the Stonewall was much a "front door" operation (thought the State of California was the most homosexually lenient).

Plainclothes and uniformed officers conducted various strong arm' raids in a situation allowing for much graft as well as the arresting of "homosexual" patrons of the bar. Beatings, occurring which took especially harsh treatment toward the effeminate.

Unexpectedly, on July 26, 1969, during a raid, the patrons of the Stonewall in contested and fought

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>