Box Turtle Bulletin

Wisconsin Gets Domestic Partnerships

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed the state budget into law today. That budget includes provisions for a Domestic Partnership registry to provide protections for same-sex couples as well as insurance rights for State employees. Protections include hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights, joint tenancy rights, and the ability to take Family Medical Leave (FMLA) to care for a sick/injured partner or non-biological/non-adopted child.

The President Gave A Very Good Speech

The speech, the transcript of which is included below, was very good but also of little note. There’s not much there that President Barack Obama hasn’t said before when he met with some 250 to 300 LGBT guests in the East Room of the White House today. That gathering was billed as a commemoration for the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion.

The President acknowledged Frank Kameny, who was fired in 1957 from the Army map service because he was gay. Later in the speech, he acknowledged the estimated 272 servicemembers who have been fired by the Pentagon since the start of his administration when he renewed his promise to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:

Someday, I’m confident, we’ll look back at this transition and ask why it generated such angst, but as Commander-in-Chief, in a time of war, I do have a responsibility to see that this change is administered in a practical way and a way that takes over the long term.  That’s why I’ve asked the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a plan for how to thoroughly implement a repeal.

I know that every day that passes without a resolution is a deep disappointment to those men and women who continue to be discharged under this policy — patriots who often possess critical language skills and years of training and who’ve served this country well.  But what I hope is that these cases underscore the urgency of reversing this policy not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it is essential for our national security.

The President also acknowledged the impatience of the LGBT community:

And I know that many in this room don’t believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that.  It’s not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago.

But I say this:  We have made progress and we will make more.  And I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I’ve made, but by the promises that my administration keeps.  …  We’ve been in office six months now.  I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.

He also addressed the Defense of Marriage Act, saying:

I’ve called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination — (applause) — to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country.  Now, I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides.  And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law.  I’ve made that clear.

He says he wants to “uphold existing law” in a way “that does not exacerbate old divides.” He apparently failed to understand that it was that very DOMA brief that exacerbated old divides. Maybe there’s only one side of the divide he wants to avoid exacerbating, but not the other.

That said, I thought it was an excellent speech overall. But speeches are relatively unimportant. It’s actions that matter.

But there were, I hope, some speeches in that room that will be more important than the President’s. Those guests were given the opportunity to meet with and exchange a few words with the President afterward. If any speech will matter in the long run, it will be their stories, pleas and promises, not the President’s. Let’s hope they took advantage of that opportunity.

Click here to see the transcript of the President’s remarks.

“He Fell and Hit His Head”

CBS Channel 11 is reporting the most bizarre story yet about how Chad Gibson came to be in intensive care with bleeding on the brain:

Police Chief Jeff Halstead said Gibson had grabbed at the agent’s groin and was so drunk he was vomiting and fell and hit his head. Gibson was one of those arrested but was taken to the hospital instead of jail.

They also provide this first-hand account:

George Armstrong, 41, said he had been at the Rainbow Lounge about 30 minutes and had ordered one drink when officers stormed inside. He said as on officer passed him, he smiled and flashed the peace sign, but then he was suddenly grabbed and tackled to the floor with his arm twisted behind his back.

“He was yelling at me to stop resisting arrest, but I wasn’t doing anything. It was horrible. I really thought he had broken my shoulder,” Armstrong told The Associated Press on Monday. “I’ve never been so embarrassed and humiliated. I didn’t do anything to him.”

Armstrong was arrested, but he said no officers advised him of his Miranda rights or administered any tests to determine his blood-alcohol level.

He said he noticed that other people who were arrested were injured or said they had been tackled by police.

When Armstrong was released from jail the next day, he went to the hospital, where his arm was put in a sling after X-rays determined his shoulder and back were severely bruised and strained, he said.

Armstrong said he never saw anyone inside the Rainbow Lounge make lewd gestures at or grab the officers. He said the raid happened very quickly at the club that had just reopened.

“To me it seemed like they were trying to make a point,” Armstrong said.

Southern Baptists: You MUST Be Anti-Gay

The interim pastor of Broadway Baptist Church has provided additional detail to the reason that the Southern Baptist Convention has ousted them from communion. It wan’t because they were too pro-gay; it was because they weren’t adequately anti-gay.

More conservative voices on the Executive Committee wanted Broadway to do something clearly not required by the SBC Constitution: take formal congregational action to condemn homosexual behavior. This extraordinary measure has not been required of any other SBC church. It would be unprecedented and unauthorized.
…
The breakdown came when those advocating the more rigorous constitutional test won the day. It became clear several weeks ago from the Executive Committee that Broadway would have to implement measures to identify, isolate, and distinguish our gay and lesbian members from the rest of the congregation in order to be found in friendly cooperation. Of course, conscience, congregational autonomy, and common decency prohibit us from doing so.

Now, it appears that the constitutional language as presently stated in Article III is not sufficient. It is not enough for cooperating Southern Baptist churches simply to take no action to affirm homosexual behavior. They must now take formal action explicitly to disapprove such behavior.

Undoubtedly some well intentioned Southern Baptist will soon stop by to tell us that they “love the sinner” and only hate “the sin.” They will tell us that they believe that God loves everyone, that all sinners are equal in God’s sight, that everyone is welcome at an SBC church, that they really and truly are not haters; honestly.

It’s only fair to let them know in advance that as time goes on I find it harder and harder to believe them.

Thank You, Raymond Castro

Raymond Castro 1969

Forty years and a day ago, Raymond Castro was arrested for his part in the Stonewall Riots. (msnbc)

“When the police raided the place, I was outside,” Castro remembered. “Then I remembered a friend inside who did not have a false ID and he was going to get in trouble, so I went inside to give him one.” (Many of the police raids, he said, resulted in arrests for underage drinking). “Once I got inside, the police wouldn\’t let us out. It got really hot. I remember throwing punches and resisting arrest. The police handcuffed me and threw me in the paddy wagon. But I sprung back up, like a leap frog, and when I did that I knocked the police down.”

Castro then got out of town and spent the next forty years as a baker – 30 of them with Frankie Sturniolo – building a life around caring for friends and family .

Raymond Castro in 2009

In fact, it was not until David Carter, a historian and author of “Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution,” called Castro that he started publicly reflecting on the events of 40 years ago.

But for every day of those forty years our community has owned him a debt of gratitude. Thank you, Raymond, for the part you played in our ongoing fight for freedom and equality.

Five Eyewitness Accounts Of The Rainbow Lounge Raid

The Dallas Voice’s Tammye Nash has been doing a great job reporting on last weekend’s raid on the Rainbow Lounge by Ft. Worth police. Her latest report includes eyewitness reports from five different people who didn’t know each other. She found their descriptions remarkably similar. Todd Camp went to the Rainbow Lounge to celebrate his birthday with friends:

Camp said an officer “shoved me out of the way to grab the guy in front of me” in line at the bar. The officer “told the man, ‘You’re drunk,'” and took him out of the bar, Camp said. …Camp said straight friends who were there with him were frightened to the point of tears by what they saw.

Justin McCarty was working security at the Rainbow Lounge when an officer asked him how much he had to drink.

“I told him I was working and hadn’t had anything to drink, and that’s when he told me, ‘Then you need to make yourself scarce.’ So I did. I went to the back out of the way. I took that as a threat that if I didn’t, I would be arrested, too,” McCarty said.

McCarty said that he saw officers throw Chad Gibson to the floor, adding that, “There were people standing there watching it happen and crying. They were scared. It was just brutal.”

At last report, Chad Gibson is in intensive care for treatment of a brain injury.

One thing that many longtime gay bar patrons have noticed is that gay bars are very popular with young straight couples that’s often where they’ll find the best DJ’s and dance floor in town. That’s what drew Brandon Addicks and his girlfriend and some of her friends to the Rainbow Lounge. But they saw more than just a fabulous dance floor:

“I saw a cop walk up behind a guy who was sitting at a table. The cop told him to stand up, and when the guy asked what for, the cop said, ‘You\’re intoxicated,\’ Addicks said. “Then there was that guy getting the crap beat out of him there in the back. I have been in bars before when police have come in, and I have never seen anything like this,”

Another patron, Alison Egert, told an officer that she had had several drinks, but she had a designated driver. The officer let her go despite her admission of “public intoxication.” When police threw Chad Gibson against a wall, that’s when she noticed that police were only arrested men and “they seemed to be targeting the smaller men.”

General manager Randy Norman had a strange conversation with one of the officers. The officer denied that the bar was singled out because it was a gay bar, but added, “I don\’t partake in being gay, but I don\’t care if you do.” That sounded like a very odd statement to Randy. Sounds strangely defensive to me.

If you’re in the Dallas area, Todd Camp and another eyewitness, Chuck Potter, will speak at BuzzBrews on Lemmon Avenue tomorrow at 8 p.m. But if you’re in Dallas, you should already know this because you’re keeping track on the Dallas Voice’s indispensable Instant Tea blog, right?

Hagee and Soulforce Meeting Goes Well

The San Antonio Express-News had a write-up on the visit that Soulforce and Atticus Circle made to The Cornerstone and their meeting with John Hagee.

Hagee addressed them at a reception after the 11 a.m. service and later spoke privately with LGBT leaders.

If any of them expected fireworks from the gatherings, none erupted. Everyone seemed surprised there were no surprises.

The visit, initiated by two Austin-based groups, Soulforce and Atticus Circle, were portrayed as groundbreaking. It was the first in a series of meetings called Sundays of Solidarity, in which the LGBT community will meet with faith communities. Its goals are to have tough conversations, but Sunday\’s was to connect with people on a personal level.

Cornerstone members reacted positively.

“We really enjoyed the people we met,” said Buzz Park. “It was a pleasant experience.”

Kelli Busey, who traveled from Dallas, said Hagee\’s welcome “couldn\’t have been nicer, more heartfelt and productive. He opened the conversation in a very positive way.”

As expected, this visit did not coincide with Rev. Hagee’s miraculous reunderstanding of the scriptures that have been used to alienate, denigrate, and demonize his gay neighbors. But perhaps the next time he finds the hand of God in a natural disaster he may at least have faces to go with the denunciations he is making.

Small steps, but necessary steps.

Straight Ft. Worth Writer Finds Police Claims Doubtful

Writing in a Fort Worth Weekly blog, Jeff Prince finds the story from the men in blue to be, well, unlike his own experiences in a gay bar:

As I sat there, I kept figuring one of these guys would hit on me. I was going to politely explain to them that I wasn\’t that way. Except nobody paid any attention to me. For 10 or 15 minutes not a single person spoke to me or approached me. I was relieved and offended at the same time. What am I chopped liver?

And Prince’s experiences were similar to other straight guys he knew.

Perplexed at why “the patrons allegedly became fraught with horn and damn near raped our boys in blue”, he concludes that “it must have been the uniforms”.

Well, that or the police story is not exactly credible.

Nor does their story match that of the patrons. Compare this statement from the police:

…another officer requested assistance from inside the club as he had an intoxicated individual that was resisting arrest. This person was placed on the ground in an effort to control and apprehend.

to the report from one of the dancers at the bar:

I was still standing near the entrance to the VIP lounge with a friend when an officer approached a man standing there. The man had water in his hand. The officer asked him how much he had had to drink and the man said that he didn\’t have to answer that. The officer then said that he was going to arrest him for public intoxication. The man said,”You can\’t do that I am just standing here right now drinking water.” At the time the officer shoved the man over towards the wall near the dressing room and then back to the rear wall near the men\’s restroom, then down onto the floor. Several other officers, made their way back there to hold that ONE MAN down on the ground as they placed restraints on him. At the time I noticed that all of them did not have FWPD uniforms on. Some of them were actually State Police.

About Those “Sexually Explicit Movements”

Can anyone find a press release from the Ft. Worth Police Department complaining about intoxicated women in straight clubs making “sexually explicit movements”? Say, strippers in topless bars, for example? Or any drunken college co-eds? Were they thrown to the ground and given a head injury because of it?

Hmmmm, I didn’t think so.

The Ft. Worth Police Department Has A Gay Panic Problem

Ft. Worth police have issued a press release (Word Doc: 34KB/2 pages) blaming club patrons for police officers’ excessive show of force during Sunday morning’s raid on the Rainbow Lounge on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. The cops are raising their own version of the “gay panic” defense, claiming that two patrons made “sexually explicit movements” and another “grabbed the [Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission] agent’s groin.”

People on the scene find those charges incredible. Todd Camp, a former Ft. Worth Star-Telegram reporter who was at the bar, said, “No one was acting aggressive to officers.” Another eyewitness, Chuch Potter, told a local CBS affiliate, “I can guarantee there wasn’t a man in this bar that would’ve touched one of those officers, knowing they were arresting people.”

Even straight people at the Fort Worth Weekly find the police department’s shrieking sex-crazed-zombie-homos excuse unbelievable. Straight guy Jeff Prince was working on a story that took him to another gay bar a few years ago, and steeled himself against the guaranteed out of control lecherous onslaught that awaited him:

As I sat there, I kept figuring one of these guys would hit on me. I was going to politely explain to them that I wasn\’t that way. Except nobody paid any attention to me. For 10 or 15 minutes not a single person spoke to me or approached me. I was relieved and offended at the same time. What am I chopped liver?

Another straight dude Weeklyteer Dan McGraw did a cover story called “Waking Up the Rainbow” in 2005 about gay politics in Fort Worth and spent several nights incognito at a gay bar called Best Friends. He had a similar experience of being ignored. “It was like hanging out at any other bar,” he said. “Most of the guys had been married before and had kids.”

For some reason, however, Fort Worth police and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission officers went into a gay bar on Saturday night and the patrons allegedly became fraught with horn and damn near raped our boys in blue.

City councilwoman Kathleen Hicks says she’s disturbed by the raid. She joins openly gay councilman Joel Burns in calling for an investigation into the raid that resulted in seven arrests and sent one man to the hospital with a critical brain injury.

Condition of Man Injured In Rainbow Lounge Raid Worsens

Chad Gibson

The Dallas Voice’s blog now reports that Chad Gibson’s condition has worsened. Gibson suffered a head injury when he was thrown to the ground by police during Saturday night’s raid on the Rainbow Lounge in Ft. Worth, Texas. Chad is in the Intensive Care Unit at a Ft. Worth hospital undergoing treatment for intracerebral hemorrhaging, or a bleeding in the brain. Doctors will decide soon whether Chad will need to undergo brain surgery to relieve a blog cot that has formed in his brain.

Who Are The Texas “State Police”?

"State Police" (Dallas Voice)

This is very odd. Look at the photo taken during Saturday night’s raid on the Rainbow Lounge in Ft. Worth on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion. See the armed men in uniform with the words “State Police” emblazoned on the back?

According to news reports, the raid was conducted by the Ft. Worth Police Department with agents from the  Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC). Texas doesn’t have a “state police.” The highway patrol, run by the Department of Public Safety, is known coloquially as the DPS (i.e. “DPS officers were on the scene…”). The state’s investigative arm is the Texas Rangers, but they generally don’t get involved with cases like this.

So without trying to feed any conspiracy theories, I still have to ask: who are the “State Police” in the photo? Are they TABC agents? If so, why wouldn’t their uniforms identify them as such? Any Texas readers have an answer?

Demonstrators Protest Ft. Worth Bar Raid

People gathered on the steps of the Tarrant County Courthouse Sunday, June 28 — the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion — to protest a police raid on a Fort Worth gay bar. (Tammye Nash/Dallas Voice)

The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram repoted that about a hundred people protested yesterday in front of the Tarrant County Courthouse to protest the raid Saturday night on the newly-opened Rainbow Lounge. The Dallas Voice puts the crowd’s size at 150 to 200. In either case, turnout was likely dampened due to the fact that a much larger rally with thousands of people was already taking place in neighboring Dallas to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion. Joel Burns, Fort Worth\’s first and only openly gay City Council member, raced back to Ft. Worth from Houston to attend the protest at the court house:

“We want all citizens of Texas and Fort Worth to know and be assured that the laws of ordinances of our great state and city will be applied fairly, equally and without malice or selective enforcement,” Burns said at the rally, reading from a prepared statement.

“We consider this to be part of ‘The Fort Worth Way\’ here. As elected representatives of the city of Fort Worth, we are calling for an immediate and thorough investigation of the actions of the city of Fort Worth police and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission in relation to the incident at the Rainbow Lounge earlier this morning,” Burns said.

…Noting that the rainbow Lounge raid came on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, Burns said at the rally, “Unlike 40 years ago, though, the people of this community have elective representation that will make sure our government is accountable and that the rights of all its citizens are protected.”

Stonewall In 2009? Police Raid Texas Gay Bar, Arrest Patrons for “Public Intoxication”

Update: One serious injury was reported. See below.

Police making an arrest from inside the Rainbow Lounge in Ft. Worth, Texas (Dallas Voice)

No kidding? The Dallas Voice’s blog is reporting that a gay bar in Ft. Worth, Texas, was raided sometime last night:

According to [Ft. Worth Star-Telegram former critic Todd] Camp, the newly-opened Rainbow Lounge is “the only cool gay bar in town,” but the police raided it, arresting numerous patrons for no reason.

I got another perspective in my in-box this morning:

The not awesome thing was the paddy wagon of homophobic police that showed up … looking for trouble. My group and I were sitting on the back patio at a picnic table. Nobody was being wild out there. [The police] came through with flashlights, being loud asking what was going on out here, then asked why everyone was all the sudden being quiet. When one group started up their conversations again, they took one guy away. I left shortly after and as I walked through the front bar there were numerous cops with plastic handcuffs all ready to go. I [left] the bar and they [had] a big van in the parking lot and numerous cars on the street. And just so you know, it wasn\’t fire hazard crowded or seedy wild in there. … The worst part is [friends later told me] that [the police] had numerous people face down on the ground outside. I just moved to Fort Worth from Dallas, so this is such a shock to me. I know Dallas would not put up with this.  … I am still so shocked it is 2009 and this just happened.

Anyone else there last night? Write to me (jones@dallasvoice.com) or my editor (nash@dallasvoice.com).

Other reporters at the Dallas Voice are receiving more first-hand accounts which confirm the above statement. Eyewitnesses say that some ten to twenty people have been arrested. One patron was this visitor from Santa Cruz, California:

We and a few of our friends went to the new Rainbow Lounge last night to dance and have some fun. I was in the VIP section when police officers started coming up there. The first arrest (that we saw) was right in front of me in that section.

They asked the guy if he had been drinking, and he said some, and they snidely replied, “Well, we\’ll see how much!” and plastic handcuffed him as they read him his rights The guy was doing NOTHIG [sic] wrong. It was utterly repugnant.

Once I saw this happen, I decided to try and speak with one of the police officers themselves, to go straight to the source and get their side. My sister Kelly and I simply started asking what they were doing here, stating how suspicious it seemed on this date and in this specific club, etc. This was a “State Policeman,” whose name I forgot, who tried to explain their actions by referring to “anonymous tips” and “disgruntled ex-bartenders.” We pointed out the place was open a week, so the disgruntled ex-bartender source seemed a bit unlikely! He wouldn\’t really answer my questions. although he did try to grab my hand and flirt with me (which was completely uninvited).

Patrons and officers outside the bar. Notice that the man on the left in the white shirt is handcuffed. (Dallas Voice)

They have also received several photos taken by patrons using their cell phones. Numerous patrons report rough treatment by police. Several fled to a nearby home, fearing arrest if they tried to leave the house to get into their cars. There is one report that one man was slammed to the floor and is now hospitalized with a head injury. Another eyewitness said that police gave her the same excuse about responding to complaints from  “former bartender” at the week-old business. She also observed that police appeared to be specifically targeting effeminate men.

Local activists are calling for protests tonight. One was scheduled for the Rainbow lounge at 5 p.m. CST today, with another one set for the Tarrant County Courthouse in downtown Fort Worth at 7 p.m.

Update: The Dallas Voice has an update on Chad Gibson, the young man who was hospitalized for a head injury. The initial CAT scan showed little or no damage, but a second CAT scan performed this afternoon indicates that “the bleeding in his brain had increased.” Chad has no memory of the incident in the bar, and his memory of events today (visitors and conversations with doctors) “have been spotty.” Chad is being treated at John Peter Smith Hospital in Ft. Worth.

The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram has more details. Seven people were reportedly arrested at the Rainbow Lounge. Ft. Worth Police are offering a sort of a “gay panic defense, claiming that patrons made “sexually explicit moves” toward the police. The bar’s general manager and other patrons dispute that:

The general manager of the Rainbow Lounge and several patrons disputed the police account, saying officers used excessive force to make arrests.

“He was just walking to the bathroom when an officer grabbed him and shoved him against a wall and pulled his head back,” said Chris Hightower of Fort Worth, a friend of the injured patron. “He (the injured man) was then thrown to the ground and three other officers were on him.”

Several patrons claimed that the officers were never assaulted.

“I have friends who are cops and I know what to do when officers are working,” Camp said. “No one was acting aggressive to officers.”

Camp said that he has been attending bars for years in Fort Worth when TABC conducts raids.

“Usually, they’re very orderly and respectful – they work with the bar staff and check IDs, it’s quick and painful and then it’s over and then they’re out,” Camp said. “This was not that. This was harassment, plain and simple.”

General manager Randy Norman said the bar had just been open a week and they had complied with all ordinances.

“Officers just don’t come in armed with zip ties and a paddy wagon for a routine check of a bar,” Norman said.

KTVT, the Dallas CBS affiliate has this:

Raymond Gill was at the bar early Sunday morning.  He says one of the TABC officers targeted him.  “I asked him why I was pulled outside. He stated it was because the way I was walking. He said I looked like I was drunk. But as I stated, I got to the bar 30 minutes before they got there. I sat down had not got up before police got there. No one saw me walk.”

…Fort Worth police arrested seven people for reported public intoxication, and for reportedly inappropriately groping an officer. It’s an allegation witness Chuck Potter disputes.

“I can guarantee there wasn’t a man in this bar that would’ve touched one of those officers, knowing they were arresting people.”

Chad Gibson

WFAA, the Dallas ABC affiliate confirms that Chad Gibson is in the Intensive Care Unit at John Peter Smith Hospital in Ft. Worth with bleeding on the brain. Chad was ticketed but not arrested:

Danny Crockett said he saw four officers detain Gibson.

“They choked his head back, pulled him back and then slammed him against the wall,” he said.

Today In History: “Homo Nest Raided”

The Stonewall Inn raid. (Joseph Ambrosini, NY Daily News)

Forty years ago today, in the very early morning hours of June 28, 1969, New York police attempted a raid on a Greenwich Village gay nightclub known as the Stonewall Inn. This wasn’t the first time New York police raided a gay bar, but this was the first time that patrons — for whatever reason; nobody knows exactly why — decided to fight back. The situation escalated into a full-blown riot that night, with more rioting breaking out again the next night and over the next several days.

To get just a small sense of the daily insults those patrons experienced back then, all you have to do is read the news reports about the rebellion. The New York Times buried its first day’s coverage to a very small article on page 33. If coverage was more prominent elsewhere, it was also more contemptuous. Kevin Neff at The Washington Blade posted this mocking report by the New York Daily News:

Homo Nest Raided
Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad

By JERRY LISKER, New York Daily News, July 6, 1969

She sat there with her legs crossed, the lashes of her mascara-coated eyes beating like the wings of a hummingbird. She was angry. She was so upset she hadn’t bothered to shave.

A day old stubble was beginning to push through the pancake makeup. She was a he. A queen of Christopher Street.

Last weekend the queens had turned commandos and stood bra strap to bra strap against an invasion of the helmeted Tactical Patrol Force. The elite police squad had shut down one of their private gay clubs, the Stonewall Inn at 57 Christopher St., in the heart of a three-block homosexual community in Greenwich Village. Queen Power reared its bleached blonde head in revolt.

New York City experienced its first homosexual riot.

Last Thursday, the New York Daily News ran a very different story about the Stonewall riots. This time, coverage was considerably more respectful:

Veterans of those 1969 riots outside of Stonewall – a then Mafia-run, Christopher St. bar that allowed gays to dance and drink – are still focusing on the fights ahead of them, namely legalizing same-sex marriage.

“The parallel is gay people are still fighting to be seen as full human beings and want someone to have and to hold. And the first place we were able to have and to hold is when we danced at Stonewall,” said Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt, 61.

Lanigan-Schmidt, who was 18 when he left his parents’ New Jersey home with less than a dollar in his pocket, saw the Stonewall as a place where he could finally be free, a spot where he could slow-dance and socialize openly.

“You felt protected there,” he said. “It became a place that I was able to be myself.”

When a phalanx of police raided the place and broke down its double doors on June 28, launching days of protests outside, patrons had reached their breaking point.

“That night was a joyous night for a lot of us,” said Jerry Hoose, 64, who described the atmosphere as like Carnival, but with energy and purpose.

The great saga of the Stonewall Inn Rebellion has been told and retold like a great legend around the communal fire. It’s a story that would fill a book, and for some that book would be a very sacred one. Instead of trying to retell the whole story, I’ll simply refer you to the Wikipedia page, which is a decent primer on those pivotal events. Better still, look at the original police reports and first-hand accounts at historian Jonathan Ned Katz’s amazing OutHistory.

White House protest, April 1965

But like all creation myths told around the campfire, this one often presumes that Stonewall was where everything began, that before Stonewall there was nothing. Of course, we know that’s not true. Two and a half years before Stonewall, there was the Black Cat riot in Los Angeles, when patrons at the Black Cat bar fought back against police who tried to arrest them for exchanging New Year’s kisses.  (Police charged one couple for kissing each other “on the mouth for three to five seconds.”) A year before the Black Cat riot, there were sit-ins that led to a riot in San Francisco when Compton’s Cafeteria, refusing to serve its gay customers, called the police. A year before the Compton Cafeteria riot, there were sit-ins at two restaurants in Philadelphia which led to their backing down from similar discriminatory practices. That same year and as a separate set of events, pickets first appeared in front of the White House and Independence Hall. And eleven years before Stonewall, a gay magazine managed to get the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in its favor as it fought indecency charges.

Tensions between LGBT crowd and police continued for several nights after the raid (Larry Morris, New York Times)

So if there was a birth of the modern gay-rights movement, it must be marked sometime before Stonewall. To refuse to do so would be to dismiss the remarkable achievements of those who resisted before. The Stonewall rebellion wasn’t much different from previous acts of gay disobedience, but it became different because it happened at a very crucial time.

The Stonewall rebellion caught the American zeitgeist in a way that the Black Cat riot missed, probably because the Black Cat riot, happening when it did in the first few minutes of 1967, was just ever so slightly ahead of its time. America went on to change dramatically between 1967 and 1969. The Summer of Love arrived just a few months following the Black Cat raid in 1967, two beloved leaders were assassinated in 1968, and by 1969 there was widespread campus unrest over the Vietnam War and demands for racial equality. So when Stonewall came around, it wasn’t just a rebellion against a repressive local police force; it became something much bigger because it happened within the context of a much larger set of movements challenging the status quo.

Gays and lesbians in front of the Stonewall Inn, June 1969.

So like all creation myths, it almost doesn’t matter whether Stonewall was the first but only that it happened. It’s Stonewall that has become our touchstone, to stretch a metaphoric pun. And as a touchstone, Stonewall is global. The very word no longer needs translation. Simply utter “Stonewall,” untranslated, to anyone speaking any language today (In Russian for example, just say “Стоунволла,” pronounced “Stounvolla”), and people will know instantly what you’re talking about. I said Stonewall is our creation myth, but since many see it as the birth of the modern gay rights movement (rightly or wrongly), maybe it’s better to say that it’s our Nativity Story. We’ve divided our history between pre-Stonewall and post-Stonewall just like Christianity divided the calendar based on another historic Nativity. And as with that Nativity, Stonewall marked the arrival of a new era and nothing would be the same ever again.

But that metaphor — Stonewall as a Nativity story — is unsatisfactory as well. We’re not an ancient people seeking to understand where we came from, nor are we a people awaiting a long-promised messiah who will come to save us. We are American citizens claiming our birthright. While Stonewall is now a universal touchstone the world over, the story of Stonewall is, for us Americans at least, a solidly American story more than anything else. Because they fought back, the Stonewall Inn became our Lexington and the defiant leaflets which littered the streets in the immediate aftermath were our Declaration of Independence. Stonewall reminds us that this imperfect Union still has not delivered on its promises to all its citizens, and Stonewall spurs us on to make this Union more perfect. Stonewall is yet another milestone in our country’s ongoing journey to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. That noble task is not yet finished.