Essential Information & explanations, latest texts & monographs on
Gay_rights_movement.
Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin by Bayard Rustin
Making Gay History: The Half Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights by Eric Marcus
Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy, and Civil Rights by John D'Emilio
Are Gay Rights, Right? by Roger Magnuson
From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States (Queer Politics, Queer Theories) by Craig Rimmerman
Selling Out : The Gay and Lesbian Movement Goes to Market by Alexandra Chasin
The Early Homosexual Rights Movement: (1864-1935) by John Lauritsen
Rainbow Rights: The Role of Lawyers and Courts in the Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Movement by Patricia A. Cain
Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States : A Documentary History by Walter L. Williams
The Gay Rights Movement (American Social Movements) by Jennifer Smith
Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context by Vern L. Bullough
Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990: An Oral History by Eric Marcus
Mapping Gay L.A.: The Intersection of Place and Politics (American Subjects) by Moira Rachel Kenney
The Global Emergence of Gay and Lesbian Politics: National Imprints of a Worldwide Movement by Jan Willem Duyvendak
Out for Good : The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America by Dudley Clendinen
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The gay rights movement seeks acceptance for non-heterosexuality (homosexuality, bisexuality), non-heterosexual persons, and also transgendered people, even though they are not always gay. The movement seeks various changes in public perception as well as in law to provide the same rights to homosexuals as are provided to heterosexuals; some of these changes are controversial.
Gay rights activists dismiss as irrelevant, misguided or malicious views that portray homosexuality as a sin or a perversion. They generally do not believe that sexual orientation is a choice, referring to homosexuality and heterosexuality equally as unchangeable sexual orientation. Thus they generally are adamant in opposing reparative therapy as well as religious ministries that claim to help volunteers "transition" from homosexuality to heterosexuality.
Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide")
1 History and accomplishments
1.1 United States
1.2 Republic of Ireland
2 See also
3 External links
History and accomplishments
The gay rights movement arose in response to what many activists called discrimination and prejudice against homosexuals.
One of the first gay rights activism movements was centered around Magnus Hirschfeld in pre-World War II Berlin, Germany. The gay rights movement in Germany was almost completely obliterated by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement (See Homosexuals in Nazi Germany and Night of the Long Knives.)
United States
In the United States, there were some initial steps toward a gay rights movement with the formation of the Mattachine Society and the publications of Phil Andros in the years immediately following World War II. Also during this time frame Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was published by Alfred Kinsey, a work which was one of the first to look scientifically at the subject of sexuality. Kinsey's incredible assertion, backed by a great deal of research, that approximately 10% of the population was homosexual, was in direct opposition to the prevailing beliefs of the time. Before its publication, homosexuality was not a topic of discussion, generally, but afterwards it began to appear even in mainstream publications such as Time Magazine, Life Magazine, and others.
Despite the entry of the subject into mainstream consciousness very little actual change in the laws or mores of society was seen until the 1960s, the time of the "Sexual Revolution". This was a time of major social upheaval in many social areas, including views of sexuality.
These works, along with other changes in society such as huge migrations to the cities following the War, began to build gay communities in urban centers, and gay people began to have a sense of themselves as a minority group rather than just a few isolated "inverts". While gay bars existed even in the early 20th century, they were very few.
With the rise of the gay community, gay bars became more and more common, and the sense of gay identity strengthened during the 1950s and 1960s.
Gay people became less and less accepting of their status as social outcasts and criminals. However, they had little or no political and social power until the late 1960s.
However, the Stonewall riots of 1969 are considered to be the starting point for the modern gay rights movement, when all of these relatively underground changes reached a breaking point, and gay people began to organize on a large scale and demand legal and social recognition and equality.
The aftermath of the Stonewall riots saw the creation of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in New York City. The GLF's 'A Gay Manifesto' set out the aims for the fledgling gay liberation movement. Chapters of the GLF would then spread to other countries. These groups would be the seeds for the various modern gay rights groups that campaign for equality in countries around the globe.
The first gay rights march in the United States took place on October 14, 1979 in Washington, DC, involving perhaps as many 100,000 people.
In the 21st cenutry, defending homosexuals against homophobia and gay-bashing and other forms of discrimination is a major element of American gay rights, often portrayed as intrinsic to human rights. Indeed, one of the most influential gay rights groups in the U.S. is called the Human Rights Campaign. Other American gay rights organizations include the National Gay and Lesbian Task force (NGLTF), Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and various local gay community centers.
The movement has been successful in some areas. Sodomy laws were repealed or overturned in most states of the United States in the late twentieth century, and all were ruled unconstitutional in the June 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. Many companies and local governments have clauses in their nondiscrimination policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In some jurisdictions in the U.S., gay bashing is considered a hate crime and given a harsher penalty.
The U.S. state of Vermont, the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Nova Scotia, and some European countries provide the civil union as an alternative to marriage. The Netherlands and Belgium allow same-sex marriage, as do the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec. See Same-sex marriage. Gay people are now permitted to adopt in some locations, although there are fewer locations where they may adopt children jointly with their partners.
In the cultural arena, similar changes have taken place. Positive and realistic gay characters appear with increasing regularity in television programs and movies.
The main opponents of the advances of the gay rights movement in the US have, in general, been the Christian right and other social conservatives, often under the aegis of the Republican Party.
The United States has no federal law protecting against discrimination in employment by private sector employers based on sexual orientation. However, 14 states, the District of Columbia, and over 140 cities and counties have enacted such bans. As of July 2003, the states banning sexual orientation discrimination in private sector employment are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.[1]. Many of these laws also ban discrimination in other contexts, such as housing or public accommodation. A proposed bill to ban anti-gay employment discrimination nationwide, known as the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), has been introduced in the United States Congress, but its prospects of passage are not believed to be good in the current Republican-controlled Congress.
On March 4, 1998 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also applied when both parties are the same sex. The lower courts, however, have reached differing conclusions about whether this ruling applies to harassment motivated by antigay animus.
Republic of Ireland
Homosexuality was formally decriminalised in the Republic of Ireland in 1993 as a result of a campaign by Senator David Norris and the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform which led to a ruling, in 1988, that Irish laws prohibiting homosexual activities were in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights. At present there are no plans to legislate for gay marriage or civil partnerships.
The Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform was founded in the 1970s to fight for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, its founding members including Senator Norris and future President of Ireland Mary McAleese. Prior to 1993 homosexuality was not illegal in the Republic per se but certain laws dating from the nineteenth century rendered homosexual acts illegal. The relevant legislation was the 1861 Offences against the Person Act, and the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, both enacted while the whole of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, the state had a long-standing policy of only prosecuting people in cases where minors were involved or sexual acts were committed in public or without consent. In 1983 David Norris took a case to the Supreme Court seeking to challenge the constitutionality of these laws but was unsuccessful. In its judgement the court referred to the "Christian and democratic nature of the Irish State" and argued that criminalisation served public health and the institution of marriage. In 1988 Norris took a case to the European Court of Human Rights to argue that Irish law was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The court, in the case of Norris v. Ireland, ruled that the criminalisation of homosexuality in the Republic violated Article 8 of the Convention, which guarantees the right to privacy in personal affairs. The Irish parliament (Oireachtas) decriminalised homosexuality five years later.
See also
External links
The above article is adapted from from Wikipedia All Wikipedia article text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
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