... in an interview I did some time ago, several people in the transgender community made it a point to let me know and made the point repeatedly to be sure I understood what it meant (being a not-with-it straight guy) that for all its historically important achievement, the Stonewall boys refused to allow the drag queens to march with the the rest...

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/232014/june-25-2009/the-word---stonewalling

Thanks for the video.

Dear DNC,

I truly "support" Democrats being elected in 2010 and 2012. I am a "fierce advocate" of the Democratic Party after all. I know that I have promised you my support over the past few decades and have done my best to follow through.

Even now I am "working towards" a financial donation to the Party. I do have to ask for your "patience" though, because as a gay man, my family and I are still second class citizens and are having to funnel our resources towards causes that protect and honor our basic civil rights. "We have a lot on our plate."

We are "proceeding" towards lifting the denial of funds to the DNC and are "developing a strategy" that will get us there by the end of Obama's time at the White House. As a matter of fact, my family has planned several "meetings" to discuss these very important donations and will be sending out a press release shortly to announce our "cocktail party" celebrating Democracy.

Thanks for understanding. And hang in there!

Sincerely,

Liam

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/fierce-democratic-donor-writes.html?dsq=11857003#comment-11857003

Of course I meant the denial of access to gay cross dressers for the march that followed the rioting -- not the riots themselves -- there were no dress requirements at the time when the fists were waving and the nightsticks were swinging -- the march that signaled a certain amount of recognition of rights ...

Ironically, the homophobic passage of Prop 8 may, in the long run, prove to do MORE for gay rights than defeat -- all over the country -- Iowa, New England, etc -- people looked at the passage of this 21st century equivalent of Jim Crow laws and said "That's just wrong."

And this, I'm told, from people who were either negative or diffident or claiming neutrality about full GLBT citizenship (including marriage, health care, legal rights, or being allowed to join the ranks of the uniformed) whatever is allowed for any other American citizen (or non-citizen resident)

I guess a lot of people didn't like the reflection they saw in the homophobe mirror.

LIKE all students caught up in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, I was riveted by the violent confrontations between the police and protestors in Selma, 1965, and Chicago, 1968. But I never heard about the several days of riots that rocked Greenwich Village after the police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in the wee hours of June 28, 1969 — 40 years ago today.

Then again, I didn’t know a single person, student or teacher, male or female, in my entire Ivy League university who was openly identified as gay. And though my friends and I were obsessed with every iteration of the era’s political tumult, we somehow missed the Stonewall story. Not hard to do, really. The Times — which would not even permit the use of the word gay until 1987 — covered the riots in tiny, bowdlerized articles, one of them but three paragraphs long, buried successively on pages 33, 22 and 19....

Wow not so many comments,I quess it doesn't matter if you are gay and being denied your rights. I think it was the reverse on racial discrimination. where are the people that benifited from gay supporters on racial equality? Oh that's right they aren't needed until 2010.