On Christmas morning I found myself wrapped in my brand new robe and glued to a documentary on the gay rights movement.
Seriously—my life is just that gay.
Stonewall Uprising was one of the Christmas gifts I gave to my partner, who had requested it a month or two earlier. After all of the gifts were opened, we popped in the DVD and watched the beginning of the modern LGBT civil rights movement unfold on our television screen.
The documentary was powerful. It showed patrons of New York’s Stonewall Inn refusing to be led to paddy wagons as they launched a three-day riot demanding equal treatment.
What was also powerful—if not disturbing—were the historic news clips and recorded speeches against LGBT people that were featured in the 2010 film. Homosexuals (not yet called gays, mind you) were a social pariah and were ready to recruit children into a dark lifestyle as fast as heterosexuals could produce them.
One man, shown in an old news reel, tried to explain to the reporter why rights for gay people were so important. But he was quick to add that gay people weren’t looking for the right to marry each other or adopt children, adding there was “nothing ridiculous as that” in his motives.
It renewed my appreciation for how far we’ve come in less than 50 years. It also boosted my already soaring respect for the brave men and women who finally told authorities, “enough is enough.”
Several of those who rioted featured prominently in the film, as did a former member of the New York Police Department. His job at the time was to round up gay people—simply because we were seen as different.
Each person’s recollection of the weekend of riots was emotional. But it was this former police officer’s tale that left the biggest impression on me. His 1960s perspective seemed to mirror those still fighting against equality today.
He is a less powerful Pam Bondi of 1960s New York. Florida’s Attorney General repeated throughout 2014 that she was “just doing her job” as she fought marriage equality from becoming a reality here. This retired police officer said he was doing the same thing. He says in the film that he didn’t question the reasons or motivations behind the bullying of gay people because that was simply the way things were done at that time in history.
One big difference between him and Bondi is that he showed remorse.
As I’m writing this, we’re two days away from a brand new year. The year that was 2014 was all about marriage equality thanks to the rush of states that legalized same-sex marriages. Before that, 2013’s Supreme Court decision invalidating the Defense of Marriage Act was the act that paved the way for bans to fall like dominoes. The year that will be 2015 will surely be all about same-sex weddings across the country.
We’ve finally reached a point in history where those who see LGBT people as less than or unequal are a fringe minority, even though some of those people still find ways into elected offices or onto news programs. It is those same people who inspire our community to continue fighting for equality and to ensure that the next generation of LGBTs won’t have to start at a disadvantage, like so many of those before us.
I’d like to imagine that as we soar through this exciting time in history, news clips and personal cell phone videos of equality marches and Pride parades will make their way into another documentary to air publicly on some futuristic screen some 40-plus years in the future. I hope I and many of those who have pushed so hard for equality in the first part of this century are still around to offer perspective on a fight that will seem outdated and inconceivable in the 2060s.
And I hope that by then, those who oppose equality today will finally show the same remorse—and maybe a little embarrassment—for their role as a villain in the course of human history that the police officer depicted in Stonewall Uprising did when I watched it on Christmas morning 2014.
Happy New Year!
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