The Militant Homosexual

A prominent American writer confesses in The New York Times Sunday Magazine that his life of almost 25 years Meg “closet homosexual” has been an agonizing lie. An outspoken defender of the rights of homosexuals runs for the District of Columbia’s Congressional seat and collects more votes than the black- power candidate. At the University of Minnesota, a 29-year-old graduate stu- dent whose campaign poster brazenly features him in high-heeled shoes _ is elected president of the school’s student association by a 2-to-1 margin. And in major cities across the country, thousands of young homosexuals, their arms locked affectionately around one another and their fists defiantly clenched in the air, parade proudly through the streets chanting: “Two, four, six, eight—Gay is just as good as straight.”

All of these events took place within the past seven months—events that would have been barely imaginable a few years ago. What they signal, in an America grown increasingly permissive in matters sexual and super sensitive to any charge of discrimination, is the ad- vent of yet another aggrieved minority group—this one rallying under the exotic banner of the “Gay Liberation Move- ment.” Homosexuality, once the most shameful and carefully guarded of pri- vate secrets, is now a matter of personal pride to increasing numbers of what used to be known as “sexual deviants.” And today’s militant homosexuals are de- manding not merely acceptance, with the full legal, social and economic equal- ity that goes with it; they want approval as well.

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In truth, perhaps the most startling thing about the gay liberation is the suddenness with which it has surfaced as a full-fledged social-protest movement. Until two years ago, recalls Craig Rodwell, a New York gay-lib leader, homosexuals were "scared, scared of everything." The flash point occurred one balmy June evening in 1969, when New York City police staged a routine raid on the Stonewall Inn, a bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village frequented by homosexuals. Instead of letting themselves be herded into the paddy wagons, however, as had happened dozens of times in the past, the group in the bar resisted arrest, threw bottles and bricks at the police and required the officers to call for reinforcements.

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