thePULSEThe Right to Marry
Proof of our cultural evolution.
January 2004 – When I was born in the summer of 1969, homosexuality was identified as a mental illness by the American Medical Association. And some homosexuals were actually glad this happened, believing it was an acknowledgement that we just be born “that way”, and were therefore not guilty of making a ghastly error in judgment. We were to be pitied and helped, not scorned.At the time, “dressing against gender” and serving alcohol to “known gays” was illegal. Even though the club was private, The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, had to pay for protection from police raids with bribes. Despite this, on June 27, 1969, the NYPD held a routine gay bar raid at the Stonewall Inn. Finally fed up with being tormented, the patrons revolted and began a violent uprising against the police that lasted over two hours.
With over 1,500 people involved, four injuries and thirteen arrests, the riot was small by most standards, but this reaction from a group formerly cowed into subjugation was vast indeed. Despite the political enormity of the uprising, the public-at-large was mostly amused by the coup as indicated in July 6, 1969’s New York Daily News, which reported on the event with the headline “Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad”. How cute, the queers are having a hissy fit.
Since then, the Gay Civil Rights Movement, whose beginnings are attributed to this very riot, has not only never wavered, it has only grown in strength and influence. Every June, in cities across the globe, Gay Pride is celebrated in honor of those people who finally said I am not satisfied.
I fantasize what it must have been like to be one of those unwitting pioneers. If they had been asked then where they thought gays would be in 35 years, what would they have answered? What obstacles would they have thought realistic enough to overcome?
Would early gay rights activists have even come close to believing that we might someday have the same rights our forefathers instituted for all Americans? We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal… Had gay rights activists in 1969 been asked, could they have dreamt of parades of people openly celebrating their homosexuality, walking down the street to cheering throngs? Would they have even bothered to dream that some day they might actually be given the right to marry each other?
On Tuesday, November 18, 2003 the oldest appellate court in the United States ruled that it would not condone the creation of a class of second-class citizens. A commonwealth renowned for its puritanical and conservative roots reminded us that we still aren’t doing it right. All people deserve to legally join themselves to the person of their choice regardless of gender.
But for the forethought of the creators of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we might not have had the armor to protect us from ourselves. And I, who, if asked, would have said that I knew I was just like everyone else even though I was gay, wept involuntarily and at length when told by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that I was, in fact, equal.
The society around me had so infected my own view of myself that it wasn’t until the rope was cut that I realized I was not only restrained, I was helping to hold the rope.
Americans have a long history of awakening to civil rights. The constitution merely gave us permission to believe that we were equal. It did not give us the actual right to equality. We have had to claim that right for ourselves, as did other Americans who were tormented by discrimination. Women fought back with the power and influence of their homes and children, blacks retaliated with the strength of their culture and gays turned the bright lights of Hollywood on their case.
Each group before us and those that follow in our footsteps will have their own weapons, and only time will show how best to use them. But it is easy to see that We The People are growing. We are evolving.
And just in case it sometimes seems like too slow a road we travel, we must put things in perspective. The difference between being called mentally ill and being a legally equal member of society was only 12,197 days. We have far to go, but not nearly so far as we have already come. k
Wil Darcangelo is a local artist, performer, photographer and writer. He can be reached at WilDarcangelo@hotmail.com
