The Stonewall Riot and “Gay” Militancy
“Two, four, six, eight — Smash the family, smash the state” (Popular slogan of 1970s “gay” activists –Oosterhuis and Steakley:2)
By 1969, the development of a growing homosexual subculture in America had spawned an open homosexual presence in major cities. So-called “gay bars” sprang up in Los Angeles and New York, hosting a bizarre mix of “street queens,” drug addicts and boy prostitutes (Marotta:71). In New York, homosexuals regularly engaged in public sex acts with anonymous partners “in the backs of trucks parked near the West Village piers” (ibid.:93) and in the public restrooms. Homosexual activity occurred so frequently in the bushes of one public park that the authorities were forced to cut down the trees to stop it (Adam:85). In response to police efforts to discourage this increasingly offensive behavior, homosexuals began to organize to demand the “right” to public deviancy. Emboldened by their numbers, they began picketing businesses such as Macy’s Department Store, which had cracked down on homosexual behavior in their restrooms (ibid.:85).
On the evening of June 27, 1969 the “gay rights” movement officially adopted terrorism as a means to achieve power when a surly mob of “drag queens, dykes, street people, and bar boys” physically attacked police officers conducting a “raid” on the Stonewall Bar on Christopher Street in New York. Stonewall was “one of the best known of the Mafia controlled bars” (Marotta:75), and was being closed for selling alcohol without a license. It was also a haven for sexual deviants. As police began to take some bar patrons in for questioning, a mob of homosexuals gathered across the street.
Homosexualist Toby Marotta’s The Politics of Homosexuality includes an eyewitness report by a writer for the Village Voice:
“[A]lmost by signal the crowd erupted into cobblestone and bottle heaving…The trashcan I was standing on was nearly yanked out from under me as a kid tried to grab it for use in the windowsmashing melee. From nowhere came an uprooted parking meter—used as a battering ram on the Stonewall door. I heard several cries of “Let’s get some gas,” but the blaze of flame which soon appeared in the window of the Stonewall [where the police officers were trapped] was still a shock” (ibid.:72).
By morning, the Stonewall bar was a burned-out wreck, and homosexual leaders had declared the violence a success. Interestingly, the anniversary of this event is known today as “Gay Pride Day” and features parades and other events most notable for their public sex and nudity (ibid.:158). It is ironic that the very activists who emerged from this new militant environment developed (in 1970) the strategy of claiming victim status through the use of the pink triangle and commemoration of the homosexuals who were persecuted by the Nazis (Adam:86).
See:http://www.scottlively.net/2014/04/07/pink-brick-award/
I thought it was the Stonewall riots.
Why did the reporter call it Stonehill?
Must be some kind of homophobe.