At the Crossroads
In November of 1974, a red headed Bostonian, who looked like she was straight out of Southie, was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. With fifty-nine percent of the vote, Elaine Noble’s victory signified a remarkable emergence, for she was the first openly gay politician to win election to a statewide office (Perry 37-65). Noble’s election was the catalyst for a dramatic series of events, not only for the residents of the Fenway district in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but for the entire country as well. Since that historic afternoon, Massachusetts has typically had ten openly gay politicians on its ballot. On a national level, there are more than one hundred and sixty openly gay politicians, with an average of one hundred additional gays seeking office.
It is necessary to establish that Elaine Noble and her many followers all come from a viewpoint that recognizes the inherent discrimination and oppression of gays. From this position, a pursuance of change through reform of the status quo is a top priority. Another standpoint, called liberationist, seeks to restructure an inherently oppressing system. Both systems are political means for achieving change- politicians themselves are usually reformers, while political organizations and individuals can function under either realm. The liberationist movement is often critical of the reformers like Noble, accusing them of wanting to be just like the (straight) white male. Reformers see themselves more as multiculturalists- that a number of distinct groups exist, and their differences should be celebrated. Liberationists contradict that assumption with the reasoning that gays are an oppressed minority, and as an oppressed minority, cannot function within the structures created by the larger majority. These assumptions are part of the minority thesis, which in a sense forms the systemic differences of each group.
Using the unique geographical space of Washington, DC, I plan to challenge the stereotypical assumption that gay identity is prerequisite to the election of an openly gay politician. When I say "gay identity", I am specifically referring to the sense of community, pride, and progress. The distinct minority theses will be used to convey the implications of identity in the political structure, and in turn the formation of a gay identity in the District of Columbia.
Though Elaine Noble was the first successful gay candidate to win elected office, she was by no means the first openly gay politician. Frank Kameny, an activist who had previously lost his federal job because of his sexual orientation, was the first openly gay person to seek national office.
...protest movements throughout America and the world.” Among the gay community Stonewall has become the word for freedom, for fighting, for equality. It became a turning point in Gay history, so much so that most books on the subject refer to “pre-Stonewall” and “post-Stonewall” as the lines of demarcation. Of course the journey is still long and fight has not been won. At the turn of the century there were still 20 states that made homosexual sex illegal , any only a few states would recognize the love and companionship of gays through marriage or civil unions. The military policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is still active and prejudices continue to exist. But, as exemplified by any other civil rights movement, it is through the constant grind of activists and lay-people constantly protesting and educating, that change occurs, even if only one person at a time.
In Vicki L. Eaklor’s Queer America, the experiences of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in the years since the 1970s gay liberation movement are described as a time of transformation and growth. The antigay movement, threatened, now more than ever, created numerous challenges and obstacles that are still prevalent today. Many of the important changes made associated with the movement were introduced through queer and queer allied individuals and groups involved in politics. Small victories such as the revision of the anti discrimination statement to include “sexual orientation”, new propositions regarding the Equal Rights Amendment and legalized abortion, were met in turn with growing animosity and resistance from individuals and groups opposed to liberal and
Historian David Carter, provides an intriguing in-depth look into the historical impact of the Stonewall Riots in Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. This engaging book adds to the genre of sexual orientation discrimination. Carter extensively analyzes the various factors that played a role in igniting the Stonewall riots and the historical impact that the riots had on the Gay Revolution and movement for gay equality. Through the use of interviews, newspapers, and maps, Carter argues that the riots were a product of many geographical, social, political, and cultural factors. Carter further argues that the riots ultimately led to the forming of the Gay Revolution and caused sexual orientation to be a protected category in the growing movement for civil rights. Carter’s book provides a well-structured argument, supported mainly by primary evidence, into the different factors that contributed to the riots as well as a detailed account of the events that transpired during the riots and the political attitudes towards homosexuality in America during this time.
In his work about gay life in New York City, George Chauncey seeks to dispel the various myths about the gay lifestyle before the Civil Rights era of the 60’s. He distills the misconceptions into three major myths: “…isolation, invisibility, and internalization” (Chauncey 1994, 2). He believes a certain image has taken in the public mind where gays did not openly exist until the 60’s, and that professional historians have largely ignored this era of sexual history. He posits such ideas are simply counterfactual. Using the city of New York, a metropolitan landscape where many types of people confluence together, he details a thriving gay community. Certainly it is a community by Chauncey’s reckoning; he shows gay men had a large network of bar, clubs, and various other cultural venues where not only gay men intermingled the larger public did as well. This dispels the first two principle myths that gay men were isolated internally from other gay men or invisible to the populace. As to the internalization of gay men, they were not by any degree self-loathing. In fact, Chauncey shows examples of gay pride such a drag queen arrested and detained in police car in a photo with a big smile (Chauncey 1994, 330). Using a series of personal interviews, primary archival material from city repositories, articles, police reports, and private watchdog groups, Chauncey details with a preponderance of evidence the existence of a gay culture in New York City, while at the same time using secondary scholarship to give context to larger events like the Depression and thereby tie changes to the gay community to larger changes in the society.
Finally, throughout this novel, a negative mood tends to plague the storyline. Once, something positive tries to make its way through the darkness, it is almost immediately shot down by a negative turning point. Right from the start of this novel, a negative perspective is induced when it seems as if Reuben won’t live as a result of his puny defective lungs. Furthermore, the continuous tormenting of the land family through the actions of Israel Finch and Tommy Basca resulted in even more palpable negativity. Lastly, economic depression also tortured the Land family as they continued to strive to make ends meet throughout their daily lives. As a result of the lack of positivity in Peace like a River, it is safe to say that the novel possesses an extremely negative mood; yet, this fact might soon change within the storyline.
homosexual liberation. Some have demonstrated their anger and concerns about prejudice against homosexuals in both riots and artistic forms. Therefore, these people seek to prove to the heterosexual world that homosexual ‘deviancy’ was a myth.
The difficulty of determining what gay and lesbian text is poses a challenge in finding material applicable to queer theory. However, being subtitled as a Gay Fantasia on National Themes by its openly homosexual author, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is most appropriately viewed through this lens, as the play’s content directly illustrates the purpose of queer theory. Entangling the personal with the political, Kushner seeks to deconstruct the heteronormative agenda by illustrating the relationship between Reagan, AIDS, religion, and homosexuality through their impact on his characters. All struggling with some aspect of homosexuality, each perspective told in the play expresses the depth at which societal norms damage the freedom of American citizens. With sexual identity at the f...
Mattachine, an activist group in New York, called for a meeting July 16 to organize around gay liberation. Dick Leitsch, an old time leader, tried to lead the meeting. “ Acceptance of gays and lesbians would take time,” he explained, but one young man shouted, “we don't want acceptance, we have got to radi...
At this point in a college freshmen’s life, they have been in school for 14 years. Throughout those 14 years, freshmen have learned the Bill of Rights like they’ve learned how to walk and the first amendment the way they’ve learned to talk. The first amendment has been engrained in a child from the first history class in 5th grade, to the fifth history class in 9th grade and the eighth class in their senior year. In those eight years, a student has the first amendment in their head to bring to college and express themselves how they see fit and how they have been socialized to do so. According to Dinesh D’Souza, Stuart Taylor and Tim Robbins freedom of speech has been inhibited and taken out by politics and political correctness and fueled heavily by the societies need for preferential treatment.
. Gianoulis, Tina. "Gay Liberation Movement." In St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture., edited by Thomas Riggs, 438-43. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Detroit: St. James, 2013. Gale Virtual Reference Library (GALE|CX2735801056).
In this essay, Gay deconstructs the stereotypical view of a feminist, by showing that you can be a feminist, even if you’re not in the small box the rest of the world thinks you should be in, in order to qualify as a ‘feminist’. Throughout the essay, Gay uses several quotes and stories from other women who are either afraid to say that they’re feminists, or don’t quite understand you don’t have to be in the limiting ‘box’, even though in their moral beliefs and actions, these sourced women are, in fact, feminists. According to Gay, if we didn’t have this stereotype, then maybe more women with diverse lives and views would be able to ‘come out’ as
The story begins with both girls being dropped off when they were both eight years old in the orphanage, St. Bonny’s. Having the similarity of not being real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky the girls instead were dumped because their mothers didn’t want them. Twyla’s mother was not fully capable to take care of Twyla or as she states in the story her mother “danced all night.” As for Roberta’s mom, she was always sick. In the orphanage the girls become roommates and grow a bond because no one else wanted to play with them, the girls did not lack of having adventures together. For example, Twyla and Roberta enjoyed spying on the “big girls”, on the 2nd floor who pushed them around, who wore lipstick and penciled their eyebrows and liked to smoke and danced. Besides the girls spying on the “big girls”, they would also get a good laugh at laughing at Maggie, a deaf woman who would clean and cook in the orphanage, who couldn’t defend herself. While in St. Bonny’s, Twyla and Roberta witness Maggie get tripped and kicked by the older girls on the 2ND floor. Although ...
In class this week we saw cases where our memory fails when recalling information in the past and even seeing changes in real time in front of our eyes. Misinformation is when someone gives information that is incorrect without the intent of giving the incorrect information. This is more likely to happen in situations where the new information would fit someone’s schema of the situation. In a crime example, we can say that a robber has a knife in his hand and pointed it at someone, someone in the situation may have seen a gun instead of the knife and give that as a description. It is the same when someone misreads a word or letter as another in a license plate. It is not on purpose but it is because our brains use shortcuts to link events together to save time. In class we discussed why the new false memory might take hold as if it was the true memory. We said that since the new misinformation was more recent, it would be more easily remembered and projected into the memory. This blocking theory can be used to explain why when someone says they saw a gun at a crime scene to the other witnesses, the other witnesses may be more likely to say that there was a gun and not a knife
Use replacement windows with an energy efficient rating for your home. They will fit properly and seal tightly. This ensures you do not have drafts through the house during the cold winter months. It will help reduce your energy bills. The new panes
The ruling of Baehr vs. Lewin was a victory for gay rights activists, hope for other states searching for the same freedom, and disappointment for opponents of same-sex marriage. Yet this victory was short lived (until complete legalization in November 13, 2013) since the state appealed the lower court’s decis...