GAY IMAGES STILL DISTORT REALITY
by Leo E. Laurence, Member: National Committee on Diversity
Stories and photos of gay civil-rights events are in the news more than ever, particularly with the California Supreme Court legalizing gay marriages. Summertime, also, is when Gay-Pride events are held worldwide, celebrating the Stonewall Riots in New York City in June of '69.
To illustrate its coverage of the massive Gay-Pride parade in San Francisco recently, the San Diego Union Tribune - which is usually sensitive to diversity issues - ran a Reuters photos of two lesbians in campy, leather drag.
That photo reinforced the stereotype that Gays are a fringe element in society, and not a part of the mainstream. They could have run a photo of the large law-enforcement contingent in the parade, showing that cops and sheriffs are Gay, too.
Some photo editors need more diversity education!
Editors, also, need to learn more about gay history if they are going to run stories about it.
Historically, it is a myth that the Stonewall Riots launched the worldwide gay, civil-rights movement. Those riots in '69 were little more than a big street fight between Latin drag queens from inside the Stonewall, a hustler bar in Greenwich Village, and the cops.
There was no fundimental, planned, organized, civil-rights issue(s) or purpose behind the Stonewall riots.
However, several months before Stonewall, there were non-violent, "militant" civil-rights demonstrations, pickets and events in the San Francisco area.
They were led by the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF), which was orgaized to fight for employment rights for Gays. The CHF was fighting to get the job of its co-founder, 19-year-old Gale Whittington, restored after he had been fired by the States Steamship Lines in San Francisco's financial district for being Gay.
Eventually, the CHF expanded it's civil-rights operations to hit major businesses such as the downtown Macy's Department Store in San Francisco for homophobic practices.
Because some religous, fanatical homophobes threatened the CHF members, and because the notoriously homophobic police were not expected to protect the CHF members, the CHF received help from the Black Panther Party which cupported gay civil rights.
But, that history is usually ignored by editors - and many gay "history" books - who take the easy way out and perpetuate the myth that the Stonewall Riots launched the Gay Lib movement.
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For comment, write Leo E. Laurence at leopowerhere@msn.com