Uprising

Last evening I watched the PBS American Experience presentation, Stonewall Uprising. This documentary, directed by Kate Davis, is a montage of personal recollections and archive film footage about gay life in New York City before and during the Stonewall riots of June 28, 1969. Annual gay pride parades began in Manhattan in June, 1970 to commemorate the event. This was the beginning of the current Gay Rights Movement.

The title of the documentary is an indication of how far we have come in 42 years. Stonewall was indeed an uprising, not the drunken riot of drag queens presented in the mainstream media for decades after the fact. This film is an example of a people taking ownership of their own history. The wide-view exposition of police persecution and outright torture of gay men on the streets of Manhattan before Stonewall elevates its significance from street brawl to revolutionary uprising against politically and religiously motivated atrocities. It is a story representative of the worldwide persecution and uprisings of LGBT people, a minority which lives in all nations, races and cultures across the planet.

My gay pride is based in the dignity with which my minority has protested nonviolently for over 40 years against violent bigotry which still exists openly and vocally in nearly all the countries across the planet. I cannot help believing that my minority has continued to present a model of nonviolent protest for human rights which has inspired revolutionary protest ever since. If we, who any heterosexual bigot cannot disparage with impunity in the great majority of human society, are willing to march down the street with our heads held high, we are offering a symbol of hope and courage to anyone who feels down-trodden or disrespected. We have not stopped marching. I hope we never will.