American Patriotism, American Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties

2. The Struggle for Gay Rights

C h a p t e r 2 The Struggle for Gay Rights I think what Gays are asking today is the same that Negroes, Mexicans, Indians, women and other minorities have said. This country claims a national basis of equality. It’s about time we got it. —Otto H. Ulrich, Jr., treasurer, Washington Mattachine, 1971 Ours is a noble cause because we are engaged in a fight for the very promise of America. —Lorri L. Jean, executive director, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, 2000 On 30 April 2000, several hundred thousand protesters assembled on the Mall in Washington, D.C., for the Millennium March, the fourth national gay rights demonstration to be hosted in the nation’s capital. “For more than six hours, under a warm spring sun” the crowd heard speeches from activists, celebrities and politicians; both President Clinton and Vice President Gore delivered videotaped remarks. The New York Times described the “festive” tone of the proceedings and emphasized the diversity of the marchers: “a long, ebullient parade of cops and veterans, drag queens and college students, gay parents with toddlers on their backs and heterosexual parents marching in support of gay children.” One of the featured speakers was the father of Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming teenager who had been brutally murdered in October 1998. Dennis Shepard told the crowd to “Let people know that you are a part of America . . . and you deserve the same rights.”1 Another speaker was veteran activist Lorri L. The Struggle for Gay Rights 27 Jean, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, who explained that the “gay agenda” was the “very one upon which this nation was founded.”2 In Jean’s formulation the gay rights movement was a “fight for the very promise of America . . . a patriotic battle of the highest order, a battle to secure the principle that forms the bedrock of our society . . . life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”3 In invoking the Declaration of Independence and associating her movement with patriotic values, Jean stood in a long tradition of gay rights activism. From its emergence in the new, urban gay subculture fashioned by World War II4 through its mid-1960s experimentation with direct action, embrace of the revolutionary politics of the New Left, and evolution during the 1970s into a mass-based movement for equal rights, the deployment of patriotic protest was a cornerstone of the gay freedom struggle. Indeed, linking demands for gay rights with America’s founding commitment to freedom, liberty, and equality typified the movement ’s rhetorical approach throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Moreover, the emergence of the modern gay rights movement cannot be understood fully without recognizing the importance of the broader context of 1960s activism. During the 1970s the gay movement’s use of direct action (including street theater and mass marches), its commitment to local organizing and building alternative institutions (such as bookstores, newspapers, and churches), and its proud and forceful assertion that “coming out” was an empowering act with revolutionary potential (and thus that the personal was political) demonstrated the profound effect that the radical firmament of the 1960s had wrought. The emergence of the homophile movement in the 1950s marks the beginning of the modern movement for gay rights in the United States; within that story, the work of the Mattachine Society is central. Originally founded in Los Angeles in 1951 by English immigrant, actor, and communist activist Henry “Harry” Hay, Jr., the Mattachine Foundation (as it was first called) took its name from an all-male group of masked medieval satirists. Hosting discussion sessions, fostering a sense of community, and making early forays into public relations and legal challenges, the organization grew throughout southern California and the Bay Area— perhaps 5,000 Californians had been involved in Mattachine-sponsored activities by late 1952.5 In May 1953, amid fears about Communist control and unease over the leadership’s intention to undertake more high-profile actions, the membership ousted Hay and his cofounders and reorganized as the Mattachine Society.6 Under the leadership of journalist Hal Call, a “raucous , aggressive and authoritarian” character, and the “reserved” Donald Lucas, a “bespectacled, balding accountant,” the organization moved its 28 Chapter 2 headquarters to San Francisco and focused on public outreach and the provision of social services, as well as publishing a journal, the Mattachine Review. Local chapters, which began to...