Stonewall, Harvey Milk, and the Gay Rights Movement

The Stonewall Riot was the beginning of the Gay Rights movement.  Before Stonewall, LGBT activists had been quietly working to gain acceptance in straight society but the Stonewall Riot focused the queer community and brought their anger at the unfair treatment they had received, to a head.




Gay Rights

A number of groups in the US formed to work for

• the repeal of laws prohibiting consensual homosexual conduct; 
• legislation barring discrimination against gays in housing and employment;
• greater acceptance of homosexuals among the rest of the population. 

By 1999 the antisodomy laws of 32 states had been repealed or declared unconstitutional; in all but five of the remaining states, the antisodomy laws applied to both heterosexuals and homosexuals. The Supreme Court overturned all state antisodomy laws in 2003.

Some laws protecting homosexuals from discrimination also have been enacted but not nationally. Opposition to such laws, particularly from conservative religious groups, has often been strong, and opponents of gay-rights measures have frequently gained their repeal. In 1992, Colorado became the first state to remove existing civil-rights protection for homosexuals by amending its constitution. In 1998, Maine repealed its gay-rights statute.

In 1993 the Defense Dept. changed the ban on homosexuals in the military to a ban on homosexual activity. The much discussed policy, known as “don't ask, don't tell,” was presented as a way to allow gays in the military to serve without fear of discharge or other penalty as long as they did not reveal their sexual orientation. By the end of the 1990s, however, it appeared to have done little to change the precarious status of gay soldiers. Most other NATO nations permit openly homosexual men and women to serve in their armed forces.

Spousal benefits, such as health insurance and pension plans for long-term domestic partners, and the legal recognition of same-sex couples (“gay marriages”) also became important gay-rights issues in the 1990s. A number of American corporations now offer same-sex partners of employees medical benefits comparable to those offered to employees' spouses. However, beginning in the mid-1990s, many states began explicitly banning same-sex marriages; by 2005, 41 states had done so. The Vermont supreme court declared in 1999 that the state must grant homosexual couples the same rights and protections that married heterosexuals have, and in 2000 the state legislature backed “civil unions” for same-sex couples that offer many benefits similar to those of heterosexual marriage. In 2003, Massachusetts' highest court ruled that homosexual couples have the constitutional right to marry, and the state began issuing licenses for same-sex marriages in May, 2004. However, more than 20 states have restricted marriage to a man and a woman and in some cases also banning same-sex civil unions. California's supreme court similarly ended that state's ban on same-sex marriage. Connecticut now recognizes civil unions between same-sex couples, and after New Jersey's supreme court ruled in 2006 that the state must extend equal rights to same-sex couples the state enacted civil union legislation. Worldwide, laws relating to homosexuality vary widely; a few nations (Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, South Africa, and Uruguay) offer some form of official recognition to homosexual couples. Many non-Western countries consider consensual homosexual acts crimes (in some Islamic nations, capital crimes).

LGBT rights in Canada are the most advanced in the Americas. LGBT Canadians have most of the same legal rights as non-LGBT citizens, and are extended more legal rights than many other nations where homosexuality is legal. Since 2005, Canada has offered civil marriage rights nationwide to same-sex couples. Canada was the third nation in the world where same-sex marriages were legally performed, the fourth nation in the world to perform same-sex marriages nationwide, and it was the first nation in the Americas to perform such marriages nationwide.


One public figure that did much to bring LGBT rights into the spotlight was Harvey Milk.

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay politician to be elected to public office anywhere in the United States.