After Stonewall (1999) - full transcript

Speech!

Stan, what do you want
to tell the world

about this stunning
almost-victory?

Uh, it's really cool
that we beat the spread

against the Cowboys.

Yeah!

And it's okay to be gay.

What?

Being gay is just part
of being nature

and a beautiful thing.

What the hell is
he talking about?



♪♪

(man)
Uh, the night of the
Stonewall riots came along.

Just everything came
together, that one moment.

If you were there, you
just knew, this is it.

This is what we've
been waiting for.

(all)
Say it proud,
say it loud!

♪♪

(Melissa)
Everything changed
after Stonewall.

It led us to a time when
millions of homosexuals

around the world would no
longer hide their identity.

It also marked the beginning
of a seismic shift

in society at large.

How did this happen?

How did a new openness among
gay people transform virtually



every area of life?

And it's okay to be gay.

This is the subject
of After Stonewall.

(man)
When Stonewall happened,
I was in New Jersey.

(woman)
No, I was the only
lesbian in New York

who was not involved
in the Stonewall riots.

(woman)
Native Americans
took over Alcatraz

and that to me was the thing
I remembered most

about that year.

(woman)
I'm not even sure that
I knew it had occurred.

Probably not.

I was in Cleveland.

(man)
When I was younger,
I would always dream

of being
a police officer.

When I decided to
go through with it,

I knew no one could
know my secret.

And um, that's just
the way it was.

(man)
Some friends said, "You know,
you could probably get like,

a state legislator,"
and I said, "Okay."

But I do remember this
decision that I made

which is okay, this
really means staying

in the closet
because in 1972,

it was inconceivable to me that
you could win office and be out.

(man)
When I first came out in
Melbourne, Australia, in 1969,

age 17, homosexuality was still
totally illegal and it could be

punished with several
years' imprisonment

and even enforced
psychiatric treatment.

(woman)
I led what I called
my double life.

During the week, I was working
for the police department

as a social worker and
then I would literally

disappear on Fridays and
head over to New York

and do the bars.

(woman)
All I had was the Baptist
church, the vision of what

happened to
queers in this society

and I figured it
would kill me.

And I'd been working it, looking
for ways to die without actively

suiciding... passive
suicide, the solution

of the working class, liquor
and fast cars and brutal women.

(woman)
Most people when I talk to them
about events in the early

history of our movement
are amazed that conditions

were like that.

Say it proud!

(man)
I can't hear you!

Say it loud!

(woman)
In the wake of the Stonewall
riots and the sudden invasion

of people into our movement,
a good invasion,

a number of organizations
starting in New York

and spreading to
other cities called

Gay Liberation Front
were established.

(man)
When Stonewall happened, it just
seemed a logical progression

from leftist radial politics
and then I joined Gay Liberation

Front right away after
Stonewall.

We were a front like the
Vietnamese Liberation Front

from whom we
got our name.

(woman)
Why are you here today?

Darling, I want my
gay rights now!

(Karla)
There were drag queens,
there were

lesbian feminists
like myself.

There were truck boys who had
sex in the back of trucks.

It was tremendous excitement
because we're all moving

together and thinking
in terms of "we",

not in terms of "I."

(man)
Hey, gay is good
and gay is great!

Our first big action, we had an
eating place in West Hollywood

which has been there
for 20 or 30 years

called Barney's Beanery.

It's an article about
a restaurant in Los Angeles

with a sign that says
"Faggots Keep Out."

They spelled faggots
wrong, F-A-G-O-T,

"Faggots stay out."

The gentleman who put this
sign up in this restaurant

said he thinks that
homosexuals should be shot.

Two, four, six, eight...

I imagine we got between
8 and 10,000 people out.

Because our very existence
is political right now.

(Karla)
But the drawback
was these meetings

were very unstructured
and terribly chaotic.

People were screaming
at each other,

people didn't listen
to each other.

It was a little too
much like my family.

(man)
By '71, people had split off
to form, down in New York,

Gay Activists Alliance.

We worked by Robert's
Rules of Order.

Our predecessor, Gay Liberation
Front had worked by consensus.

That's how GAA
started by the way.

People just couldn't abide
with the procedure.

♪♪

(man)
You will meet people who will
rhapsodize about how the dances

at the Firehouse
changed their lives.

♪♪

(man)
On Saturday nights, we would
have a couple thousand people

in there sweating and dancing
and having a blast.

All of us were tripping
and stoned having a ball.

(Melissa)
At the same time, these early
gay militants took aim at

a number of mainstream
institutions.

This is what we're going
to be doing, babies.

This is what we're
going to be doing, babies.

(man)
It was very very clear
that a primary obstacle

to our getting anywhere was the
allegation that homosexuality

was an illness,
a disturbance.

(Barbara Gittings)
They had a panel
called Psychiatry,

Friend or Foe
to Homosexuals?

Well, it was not easy to find
someone who was both openly gay

and a psychiatrist in 1972 and
we finally landed someone who

said, "Yes, I'll do it, provided
I can wear a wig and a mask over

my face because I'm in
fear of losing my job."

(Frank)
The APA, like most organizations
that have their conventions,

has a banquet
at some point.

There was a dance floor and
there was going to be dancing

and I knew that.

(man)
Then we got up
and started dancing.

We made
a beautiful couple.

Frank is a very good leader
and I can follow very well.

(Frank)
We dance around with the
psychiatrists and their wives

dancing around us.

(Phil)
One of the psychiatrists came
over and said he would introduce

a motion the following year
to make homosexuality no longer

considered a sickness and
in December of 1974, gay men

and women went to bed sick
and we woke up the next morning

and we were
instantly cured.

Give me a K!

K!

Give me an I!

I!

(Arnie)
In the very first days
of GAA, we created

a street theater
committee.

We invaded the city clerk's
office because a couple of guys

tried to register to get
married and of course,

it was against the law,
so he wouldn't allow it.

Gay power!

Gay power!

(man)
They brought a wedding cake
with two grooms and two brides,

separately and took over
the office for the day.

♪ I ain't gonna stay
in the closet no more ♪

♪ I ain't gonna stay in
the closet no more ♪♪

(Arnie)
I don't know how much we changed
them, but we started changing at

least ourselves and our
demands and our expectations.

♪ The dykes are here ♪

♪ What the hell do
we care? ♪

♪ What the hell
do we care? ♪♪

(Karla)
The women started to split off
for a number of reasons.

Some men were very feminist and
they were very good, but a lot

of the guys were insensitive;
they called us girls,

they told us that our job
was to bake cookies.

Betty, do we have
a big knife here?

(Karla)
I mean, they couldn't have been
more revolting if they tried.

I came to consciousness about my
own lesbian sexuality primarily

through my involvement in
the women's movement and in

the feminist movement
in the early '70s.

(chanting)
Double, double,
sisters in trouble.

When you mess with women
you're asking for trouble.

(Dorothy)
The women's movement was the
place where everything changed.

I was not a monster.

I was not alone.

And I had the possibility of
preventing what had happened

to me from happening
to other people.

For little tiny lesbians of
my age, people coming of age

in my era, what
made us soar

was just this amazing women's
movement that was emerging.

No matter what any
woman ever says today,

it was chock full
of lesbians.

(woman)
And lesbians were closeted
because they felt like

the women's movement could not
survive having out lesbians

in the leadership or in major
roles and that's just fact.

(woman)
Betty Friedan, may
she live in peace,

had called us the
Lavender Menace.

She said the lesbians were going
to ruin the women's movement.

And there were a lot
of lesbians in NOW,

including Rita Mae Brown
who was ejected from NOW.

I was just a kid when
I got thrown out of NOW,

which of course then,
I immediately began

calling NOW WHAT,

for which they've probably
never forgiven me.

God forbid you should
have a sense of humor

about these things.

You were supposed
to just weep and wail

and just immediately
become a victim.

The more victimized you were,
of course, the more of a woman

you were and I'm like,
"What are you talking about?

The women I came from weren't
victims; they kicked butt.

So I'm going to kick some
too, little Yankee girls.

Let me show you
how this works."

(Melissa)
Despite their differences, gay
men and lesbians come together

a year after Stonewall
to commemorate the riot

with a march.

(woman)
If people hadn't decided to
commemorate Stonewall with

a political march, no one
would remember Stonewall.

(chanting)
Two, four, six, eight, gay
is just as good as straight.

(man)
It was incredible,
it was so empowering.

(man)
We were chanting, there
were great signs like

"Better Blatant Than Latent,"
"Hi Mom."

(man)
You know, people chanting,
"Two, four, six, eight,

gay is just as good
as straight,"

"Out of the closets
and into the streets."

(chanting)
Out of the closets
and into the streets!

Out of the closets and into
the streets!

(man)
There were drag queens and you
know, just this mad rag-tag

bunch of hippies and freaks
and weirdos and you know,

we were just all
out in force.

(man)
We got to this little knoll at
the Sheep Meadow and we turned

around to see what had happened
behind us and all of a sudden,

we all started to cry
together because behind us,

there were
15,000 people.

This was the moment when the
closet door was actually opening

and the gay community was
coming out into the light.

♪♪

(man)
People came to San Francisco
because they could be free.

This was a unique place where
they could be that person

they hoped they could be as
a lesbian or as a gay person.

(man)
When I arrived in San Francisco
in 1971, there was still

a great deal of the old
hippie thing going on.

The culture hadn't really
calcified into that hyper-male

thing that happened
in the later '70s.

(Michael)
What it was was a lot of gay men
who had been told all their

lives they were not real men
suddenly being told they could

be whatever they wanted
to be and some of us

wanted to be real men.

It didn't mean real men living
in the suburbs; it meant real

men like dressing up like Marlon
Brando in "The Wild One."

(Jim)
You had in the '70s with
the sort of drug culture

also changing; you had a
different kind of tribal energy.

It wasn't about
changing the world,

it was about
getting laid.

(Mel)
Sex was easy, if you got horny,
you just went out

and found someone--
it was that easy.

The Mineshaft, I would often
go on Uncircumcised Night,

because I'm uncircumcised
and you could get in for free

and I didn't have a lot
of money in those days.

I literally died when I went
downstairs and saw this bathtub

sitting in a basement and says,
"What the hell do they have

a bathtub for,"
you know?

Pretty soon, there was
a guy inside the bathtub.

Okay, this is
an art installation,

I can deal with this,
you know.

(man)
All the early disco
music was code.

It was very much like the '50s
and '40s code music, which was

cocktail music, which
straight people heard one way

and gay people
heard another way.

Disco music was
the same thing.

♪ Oh do you wanna funk? ♪♪

(man)
Do you wanna funk with me
read very differently

in a gay disco than it did
in a straight disco.

♪ Let me show you how ♪♪

♪ Do you wanna
funk with me? ♪♪

Here it is you could be yourself
and express yourself and listen

to music that sort
of spoke to your heart.

♪ Oh, you make me feel ♪

♪ On the real ♪♪

Sylvester was
a big woman.

You know, big...

♪♪

(Craig Lucas)
I met lovers at the baths--
people used to say,

"You don't go to the
baths to meet a lover,"

well, I had like, three
lovers for like, 10 years

that I met
at the baths.

People I married.

So... I miss
all of that.

When I felt how it was to lie
in someone else's arms,

to meet a stranger in
the dark and find gentleness

and kindness there, from someone
that I didn't even know.

There really was something truly
regenerating about it and it

helped me create myself in a way
that was quite a different self

than the one I'd left
behind in North Carolina.

I began to re-examine all
of my prejudices, my racism,

my tenseness
as a conservative,

all of that fell by
the wayside once

I realized how good it was to
be myself and to enjoy others

who were doing
the same thing.

(man)
The great thing about
the continental baths

was they were clean.

It was very social.

There were so many guys there
wandering around that you know,

you could just
go sit and talk.

♪♪

(Larry)
And then one night,
this woman came out

and you just couldn't believe
it, it was fabulous.

♪ Friends, friends,
friends oh friends ♪♪

♪ You got to
have friends oh... ♪♪

(Robin)
Who wanted to go into
the bars and bathhouses?

Not me, but everybody said,
"Oh, they won't let us in

the bathhouses,
isn't that terrible?"

Yes, that's
just disgusting.

(woman)
But at least we recognized we
were two different cultures.

That's a nice way of
putting it, you know?

(chanting)
Three, four, seven, nine,
lesbians are mighty fine!

Three, five, seven, nine,
lesbians are mighty fine!

(Dorothy)
It was a period in history in
which each and every one of us

felt as if we held
history in our hands,

as if everything we did
had the possibility

of changing the world.

There was just a tremendous
onslaught of little magazines,

little presses.

The small presses
were so fabulous.

First, there were all the
underground newspapers.

(Dorothy)
Little coffee shops, little
poetry readings, all small.

And writ small so it was
accessible, you could do it.

Christ, the first
magazine I worked with,

we did on mimeograph.

Do you know what
a mimeograph machine is?

Their hot, bare bodies
pressed together as before...

And poetry... oh, God,
thank God for bad poetry.

The main method of communication
for me in the early '70s

was poetry.

Other women's bad poems,
my bad poems.

And some of
them weren't bad.

There was some great poetry
being written.

But it didn't matter.

What we were creating
was a voice

that had not
been heard before.

(Rita Mae)
And so, I sat down and
wrote my first novel.

And you know, you're
supposed to suffer.

I loved it.

I didn't suffer
for one minute.

I thought, this is the most
fun thing I have ever done

in my life.

Couldn't get anyone
to publish it.

So this little tiny press
picked it up and published it.

They gave me $1,000.

And that was how Rubyfruit
Jungle started.

The issue of racism, you know,
I can get on a soapbox,

but the issue of racism
in the women's movement

is such is that many white women
everywhere all over this country

don't believe that black and
white women can work together.

I mean, they literally
don't believe it.

To be a southern working-class
woman suddenly joining a group

of editorial activists, most of
whom were black and they were

Yankees, forget that, they were
black Yankees with attitude.

I met my best
friend Jewelle.

I remember looking at her and
being tremendously afraid,

looking in her eyes and seeing
that she was looking at me

and thinking, "Cracker."

And I'm looking at her
and thinking, "Boston."

There was a distinct separation
between lesbians of color

and white lesbians.

♪♪

(Jewelle)
But what grew out of that
separation was kind

of a cultural fountain
of activities.

I would go to Brooklyn and
see 50 lesbians of color

that I never
saw anywhere else.

(woman)
The Combahee River Collective
was probably the most important

ongoing political
involvement of my life.

I mean, here was the
manifestation of my greatest

fear and my deepest desire all
on one little packet called

other black lrsbians,
lots of them!

(woman)
In the community of lesbians of
color, different kinds of social

organizations grew up which
were specifically social

like Salsa
Soul Sisters.

(Barbara Smith)
I remember this one meeting
where we decided to talk about

the images of black
women in the media.

This is 1975.

And there was a discussion about
whether or not straight hair

versus afros at the
time, versus locks.

Afro, straight hair,
whatever.

Whatever we were looking at,
there was no articulation that

black women had any right
to be on the planet.

That's what we were
dealing with.

Everything we do has got to
contribute to the struggle

because everything they do
is grinding us into dust

and we will
not be ground.

♪ Hello hooray ♪

♪ Let the show begin ♪♪

Women started performing at
night in the early '70s,

everything from church
basements to women's centers.

There were the bookstores.

♪ Again and again ♪

♪ And again ♪♪

(Judy)
And then the artists were
starting to interact with

each other and suddenly
there were audiences

going from 50 to 300
to 1,000 to 2,000.

We saw it all change from
being little coffeehouses

to being large theaters.

♪ So long, so long ♪♪

I run into people all the time
my age, their mid-40s or 50s

or late 30s who can
still remember their

first women's
music concert.

I can remember piling six dykes,
or actually, let me say this,

six women, sort of
half-straight, half-gay,

bisexual, who the hell knew,
into my little baby blue

Volkswagen bug and driving down
from Burlington, Vermont

where there was no gay
subculture to see my first

Cris Williamson concert.

♪♪

One quit her job as a nurse
and formed Coven Carpentry

so she could do
lesbian carpentry.

One of them left
her husband.

We're talking this
concert literally

changed people's lives.

The empowerment had
an ongoing impact.

It was an
extraordinary force.

(Jewelle)
Oh, God, I would think for me,
the women's music festival

in Michigan was like
Babes in Toyland.

(woman)
It's from me to you
with much love.

(Robin)
I was the MC.

Now they're all
in Birkenstocks and...

well, the ones that were
dressed were in blue jeans.

Most of them
were in nothing.

(Jewelle)
I went with a big stack of books
and a Thermos of martinis.

I arrived and it was like the
new moon and there was a group

of Salsa Soul Sisters, they were
trying to get the tent up at the

right angle so that the moon
would be where it was supposed

to be for the
nighttime ritual.

And then there was this
moment where I said,

"Would anybody
like a martini?"

And they all looked at me
like I had lost my mind.

But, we did kill off that
Thermos of martinis.

(Robin)
I walked onstage and I declared
my area a crystal-free zone

and I thought they were
going to kill me.

Anything ludicrous,
I immediately started

making fun of.

So all of a sudden, the gods
of lesbians, excuse me,

the goddesses, the goddesses
were tofu, vegetarianism.

We can make fun of that as much
as we like and I like to have

a sense of humor about it,
but the idea that we can be

sensitive to other people,
that's an accomplishment.

I mean, I would be there
watching them unroll the snow

fence so that wheelchairs could
get up and down the terrain.

I would see women
stop to help women

who were on crutches
or who were blind.

That's... that changes
your life, you know,

in ways that you
don't forget.

♪♪

(Melissa)
Beyond creating secular
institutions,

some gays and lesbians began
to build religious ones.

(man)
I came from, you know,
a Pentecostal background,

a Southern
Baptist background.

And they taught us how
to start churches.

12 people showed up in the
living room of my home.

When I served communion,
only three people came forward,

but there wasn't
a dry eye in the place.

The next Sunday, we had
16 attendants, 18.

I said, "Whoo, hallelujah
to the lamb."

Jesus came and died for
my sins, not my sexuality.

(Gil)
This person really spoke
a word of affirmation,

which was something I never
really experienced before

and which from a very spiritual
place, I was being affirmed.

...Say in those churches.

Ain't no hypocrite
gonna out-shout me, Amen.

(Melissa)
If claiming a place in
the church was a challenge,

cracking the political closet
would also be an uphill battle.

In 1974, Elaine
Noble ran for a seat

in the Massachusetts
State Legislature.

I wasn't prepared,
I don't think,

for all of the vitriolic
part of a campaign.

People had shot through my
windows, scratched "Lesbian"

on the back of my car which
totally flipped me out

and my friends came out
and I'm beating on the back

of the car screaming, "The
illiterates misspelled it!

They misspelled it!"

I kept repeating it.

It was like
the worst insult.

Elaine Nobel's victory for many
will probably hold significance

because she is the
first admitted gay person

to be state
representative.

(Elaine)
It was staggering.

I had a larger constituency of
gay folks throughout the country

and the world who would call me
and say, "You have to come here,

you have to help
us with this."

And when I'd say, "Look, I have
to be in the House to vote,

I can't be
really be there."

Remember the guy who wrote, he
used to live in this state

and he's gay, and he moved to
California and he wanted me

to help him with his
welfare check in California.

That was the difficult of being
the only well known of anything.

It is well known that I am
a gay person and in this state,

there is a law that says gay
people cannot be married,

but there is no law that
says two human beings

cannot love
one another.

(Melissa)
And in San Francisco, after
four unsuccessful tries,

an openly gay man was
elected city supervisor.

Harvey Milk made
national headlines.

I remember it really grabbed
me when I read that in the

newspaper because I'd never seen
anything like that before.

And I was living in Fargo,
North Dakota at the time.

(Melissa)
In 1975, Time magazine
puts its first gay man,

Sergeant Leonard Matlovich
on the cover.

And in 1977, Miami, Florida
becomes the first Southern city

to pass a gay
rights ordinance.

However that victory
would backfire.

♪ Glory, glory
hallelujah ♪

♪ His truth... ♪♪

(Anita)
I believe that more
than ever before

that there are evil
forces round about us,

even perhaps disguised
as something good.

Anita was the precursor
of a whole movement

that has turned gay bashing
into an art form.

The war goes on to save our
children because the seed

of sexual sickness that
germinated in Dade County

has already been transplanted
by misguided liberals

in the US Congress.

She took it into her head
to form an organization

called Save Our Children.

Save them from homosexuality
is what she had in mind.

Who knew anything about the
religious right or that people

would become
professionally anti-gay

as we were
professionally gay.

(chanting)
We are your children,
we are your children.

(woman)
Suddenly, our gay hotlines, our
gay switchboards were flooded

with calls and inquires
from people who said,

"What can I do to
make a difference?"

(Rev. White)
And what she was doing was
simply, I think, setting up

a trial balloon in terms of
their demographics to say,

"Does this play,"
and it played.

(man)
When they take to the streets,
it's a parade of homosexuals.

Men hugging other men.

Cavorting with
little boys.

Even my father was completely
confused by the rhetoric

of Anita Bryant
and the right.

One day after hearing her on TV,
he called me up and said,

"Do you sleep with
little boys?"

I said, "Oh, Dad, I don't
even sleep with big boys."

You talk about that kind of
stuff, people get afraid

and that fear causes
them, motivates them,

to join the crusade
and to send in money.

♪♪

(man)
We lost in Miami and we lost
in St. Paul, Minnesota.

We lost in Wichita and
suddenly we lost in Eugene.

And they escalated
the stakes in California

with a gentleman named State
Senator John Briggs.

(man)
The Briggs initiative would give
boards throughout the state

the power to fire any
openly gay teacher...

Thank God
for you, sir.

(man)
...or anyone who encourages
or promotes public

or private
homosexuality.

Somebody's gotta draw the moral
line in this country and say

enough is enough and
that's what Anita Bryant did

and that's what
I'm attempting to do.

The first thing I did was wrote
a letter to all of my straight

friends in politics, in the same
letter announcing that I was gay

and asking them for
a contribution to fight

Proposition 6,
the Briggs imitative.

One of those letters was
to Mr. and Mrs. Clinton,

President Clinton.

He was Governor at the time in
Arkansas and actually I got an

extraordinary response to the
letter, I got a contribution.

So that brought
me out of the closet.

To this day, I'm grateful to
Anita Bryant for liberating me.

(chanting)
No more Briggs!

No more Briggs!

(Melissa)
On November 7, 1978,
California voters

defeated the
Briggs initiative.

Say it loud,
gay and proud!

Say it loud!

Supervisor Harvey Milk led
a celebration through

the streets of
San Francisco.

20 days later, he would
be assassinated.

I'm typing a letter to
Harvey and I turn the TV on

and the news was broadcasting
live from City Hall.

Both Mayor Moscone and
Supervisor Harvey Milk

have been
shot and killed.

(man)
Oh, Jesus Christ!

And I was sitting here with this
letter to this man who was dead.

And... mmm.

It was like my life had
imploded, not exploded.

I didn't know what
to do about all this.

In fact, I'm one the people,
I did not go to City Hall

in that outrage.

I just wanted to get out
of San Francisco.

(Melissa)
For many local gay leaders,
the Briggs threat coupled with

Milk's assassination
emphasized the need

for a national
political presence.

(Rev. Perry)
Near the end of the '70s,
we knew that we needed

a national
lobbying group.

We set up a group called the
Gay and Lesbian National Lobby

and a young man emerged
who we wanted to lead that.

His name was
Steve Endean.

(woman)
All of a sudden, we were
building this presence on

Capitol Hill and we were not
only going to ask them

for their votes,
but we were watching

when they voted
against us.

(Melissa)
The new Gay and Lesbian
National Lobby

would become the
Human Rights Campaign Fund.

The National Gay Task Force
and Lamda Legal Defense Fund

also came into being.

This developing national
presence was very much on

display at the first march
in the nation's capital

in October 1979.

(woman)
There was nothing like
the 1979 march.

They say you always
remember your first.

I remember standing on the
sidelines and I just started

crying, because it was New York
and then it was Nevada and then

it was what comes after
N, Omaha, and it didn't end.

♪♪

(man)
And then came AIDS.

And it changed
everything.

I remember that day,
I actually was here.

Within an hour, every single
person I knew had either

called or I called them.

I mean, it was
a shockwave.

Rare cancer seen
in 41 homosexuals.

Outbreak occurs
among men in New York,

...and California.

Eight died
inside two years.

Second paragraph.

The cause of the outbreak
is unknown and there is yet...

...no evidence
of contagion.

It was scary.

I mean, it doesn't take a brain
surgeon to look at that article

and see that it's
an infectious agent.

Just look at it, it's like,
two plus two equals.

And then we thought,
poppers or amoebas.

I'd done all
those things.

(man)
We knew something was
going on much earlier.

Friends were dying at
Fire Island very mysteriously,

one or two or
three a year.

People were getting sick.

We had like, a mad orgy
of maybe five or six guys.

Within two months of that,
both he and I had meningitis.

You know, you change
the line in the sand.

I think I went, "Oh, well see,
these people have had eight sex

partners a night,
I've only had four.

Uh, so it
won't be me."

(man)
And I was afraid
that it was

gonna ruin the community because
we'd done such a magnificent job

of creating our own lives,
our own place.

And we were going
to lose it all.

It scared the shit out of me
when he told me that yes,

I had it.

I mean, that's
what it was.

It was "it."

It was gonna kill you,
we knew that.

And so I spent the next six
months of my life being numb.

Absolutely numb.

(Chuck)
I didn't want to go back
to being closeted.

I didn't want to go back to
a wasteland with nobody in it.

And that's what I feared
probably more than anything.

(President Reagan)
As I've interpreted
the gay rights movement,

it is not asking so
much for civil rights

as it is asking
for recognition

and acceptance of them as
having an alternative lifestyle

and I'm sorry, but
I can't agree with that.

Thank God for a President who
agrees in totality with what

we morally
stand for here.

(man)
And we love drunkards
and we love thieves

and we love homosexuals.

When I grew up in
the Christian church,

the idea of being
political was sin.

We hate homosexuality.

Falwell said, "No, no, we'll
save the souls of the nation,

but if they don't go along with
us, we'll change the laws

accordingly."

That was a major
paradigm shift.

(Larry)
There was something about Ronald
Reagan that we were afraid of.

He was a Teflon god.

It was very hard to get
anybody to protest anyplace

that he was at.

It wasn't the same kind of
activist, street action culture

that there had been in the '60s
or the beginning of the '70s

or there was
eventually in '87.

♪ Do you really
want to hurt me? ♪

♪ Do you really want
to make me cry? ♪

♪ Do you really... ♪♪

(Melissa)
Despite the growing anxiety
of about AIDS and persistent

assaults from the
religious right,

the gay culture
continues to develop.

Vito Russo publishes
"The Celluloid Closet,"

his history of homosexual
images in film.

It is part of a surge of books
and scholarship on gay history.

Harry Hay, who founded
America's first gay association,

the Mattachine Society
back in the 1950s,

becomes the spiritual leader
of the Radical Faeries.

♪♪

This back to the land
gay male drumming

faction opens communal farms and
sanctuaries across the country.

We're losing the quality and
certainly losing the shine

and the joy of being gay and we
wanted to find a way by which

we could find a spirit way
of coming back to that.

We didn't call
it spiritual;

we called ourselves
the Radical Faeries.

And you suddenly realize that
in this circle of strangers,

you know each other better
and longer and been closer

to each other than anybody
that has ever known you

before
in your life.

I went home and all of a sudden,
the brotherhood was born.

♪♪

(Melissa)
Also in the '80s, various groups
begin to assert their presence

within their
own communities.

♪ Follow your
heart's desire ♪

♪ Light up the
sky on fire ♪♪

(woman)
I was very active in
the spiritual movement

of the Lakota people.

This are some of the
beads we got in exchange

for Manhattan Island.

The original...

My fear was if I came
out and said I'm lesbian

that I'd be banned from
those ceremonies.

When I came out in 1985,
some of my fears came true.

A couple of old women came and
said, "You should go somewhere

else and have a ceremony
for your own kind."

But I prayed about
it for a good year

and I did go on to begin
a ceremony for native lesbians.

Ladies and gentlemen,
brothers and sisters...

(Melissa)
In 1983, the National Coalition
of Black Lesbians and Gays

was determined to participate
in the 20th anniversary

commemoration of
Martin Luther King's

"I Have a Dream" speech
in Washington.

(Barbara Smith)
Gil Gerald who was based in
Washington, he was working with

others to try to get one black
lesbian or gay speaker.

There was a great deal of
resistance within the march

organization by some
of the march leaders,

including Walter Fauntroy,
the delegate in the congress

for the
District of Columbia.

He said in one infamous
statement that to talk about

gay and lesbian
rights, he said,

"That's like talking
about penguin rights."

(Gil)
It finally ended up
in a confrontation.

We had people sitting in
in the Congressman's office

on the hill.

(Barbara Smith)
They sat in and they
were arrested.

(Gil)
We negotiated and were able to
succeed in getting Audry Lorde

to be part of the program
and we also succeeded in getting

Coretta Scott King to come out
in a press conference and call

for amending the
'64 Civil Rights Act

so that it would include sexual
orientation as a protection.

(Melissa)
Even America's second
religion, sports,

would not be ignored.

In 1982, the first gay games
were held in San Francisco.

(Phil)
Oh, well, if you're a gay man,
you can't throw a ball.

That is the purpose
of the gay games.

We couldn't be open--
Tom Liddell wanted a place

where gay athletes
could be in the open.

So we started
our own gay games.

(woman)
It was phenomenal,
it was amazing.

I mean, we reached women that
would never come to the bar.

We reached women who would
never see themselves

as part of the lesbian
and gay community.

But that's what it was.

Sports, bingo.

And I'll never forget opening
day as long as I live.

It was like,
tears for days.

It was just, oh.

Proud moment.

Yeah.

♪♪

When rodeo really became
anchored initially,

leather people had their
element and drag queens

also had a world
that they lived in.

And only the cowboys
seemed to be left out.

♪♪

(Melissa)
While gays and lesbians are
striving to maintain a sense

of pride, thousands of gay men
begin entering hospitals.

The gay community is hit
by the first tidal wave

of death from AIDS.

(Karla)
People began to get
sick in droves.

And suddenly a lot of people
I knew were sick or were dying.

(man)
Nobody was doing anything and
the reason they weren't treating

this as a normal health
epidemic was because

it was affecting
gay men, period.

I've never heard once
in this chamber

anybody say
to the homosexuals,

"Stop what
you're doing."

(man)
It was awful.

But you know,
we made up our minds

we're going to fight
through this.

It kind of was a natural
progression to go from this

incredible activism around gay
civil rights and to sort of take

the lessons learned there
and apply it to AIDS activism.

(Chuck)
The decision was made
to close the bathhouses.

I went to a public meeting
there where I feared

for my physical
wellbeing.

The emotion was so high, the
people were so concerned that

the bathhouses
would be closed.

(Melissa)
In New York City, playwright
Larry Kramer invites friends

to a meeting in his apartment
to hear Dr. Alvin Friedman-Kien

explain that AIDS is
spread by sexual contact.

Just to watch, all the faces
around the room, panning around.

Every kind of
reaction imaginable

from horror to
being asleep.

That handful of people
started meeting regularly.

We didn't have
any money.

We had to go out
and beg for it.

The city wouldn't
give us dipshit.

So when there were no health
care organizations that would

treat us, suddenly gay doctors
formed AIDS practices.

We created organizations
to deliver food.

We created organizations
to get money for their rent.

The most extraordinary sense
of renaissance and renewal

in the midst
of Holocaust.

You're in
a support group?

That's great.

(woman)
I think that actually the gay
and lesbian community was able

to learn a lot from
the women's health movement

about how to
deal with this.

Women had been dealing for many
years since the publication

of Our Bodies, Ourselves,
very consciously,

of taking our health care
into our own hands.

(woman)
So the gay men, being
politicized and radicalized

and understanding the linkage
with an oppressive health care

system and understanding
significant family issues,

their agenda became
a lesbian agenda.

That's the way
I look at it.

(Robin)
You see these tough-as-bull
dykes talking about how

they'll never talk to
a man again in the '70s

and there they were
pushing the wheelchair,

making the hospital
visits, changing guys

and so history brought
us back together,

this historic
happening of AIDS.

In the minority
community,

a lot of information did not
get in until very late.

It took the black churches
a very long time

to even
acknowledge AIDS.

(Renae)
When my brother was alive,
when he had to get services,

he didn't get services
where he lived.

He went to Timbuktu,
because services

weren't available
where he lived.

(Jewelle)
You know, when my
cousin died, you know,

I could see his lovers there,
all involved in church.

They were there in the choirs,
and the preaching and the,

you know, they
were all there.

But why didn't they
have that information?

(Melissa)
At the same time that
information about sexuality

and safe sex amongst
men were proliferating,

lesbians were shaking up
conventional attitudes

about sexuality and
pornography within

a larger
women's movement.

(Dorothy)
What we were talking about was
an open-ended approach to sex.

Okay, so women use
sex toys, my God.

So some women dress
up for each other.

So some women act out
different roles.

So some women like to take their
girlfriends on the streets

in short skirts and
walk behind them.

This is not like a huge secret
or massive revelation.

(Jewelle)
A number of my friends were
targeted and pointed out

as their work being
pornographic.

Joan Nestle because she
talked about butch/femme.

Gail Rubin because
she talked about S/M.

And you know, the Meese
commission had been going around

the country holding these kind
of hearings about the damages

of pornography.

The very limited...

(Hilary)
I mean, there were many
of us who really

thought we were about to
embark on some other set

of kind of McCarthy-like
hearings and scare tactics.

(Jewelle)
The hysteria around it ended
up clouding the issues

because of course, there
are issues around pornography

in this society and
violence against women,

but the hysteria
of the right wing ended

up closing down the discussion
ultimately and putting

the discussion back in
the hands of the government.

But it was all of a sudden as if
we had come out of this little

tiny safe corner we'd been
hiding our sexuality in

and it was enormous
and dangerous.

(Melissa)
The sense of danger grips
even Capitol Hill

as hysteria about sex becomes
a topic in the US Congress.

(man)
Congressman Jerry Studs is on
the left of your screen.

Studs was censured by the House
for his sexual relationship

with a 17-year-old male
congressional page.

Studs announced publicly
he is a homosexual.

(Melissa)
Closeted gay congressmen
were being forced to change

with the times.

I had a lot of gay
and lesbian friends,

but I still wasn't
even out to them.

It was bizarre, but I guess
I was so terrified

of coming out and what finally
decided me was the death

of Stewart McKinney.

The fact that the hideous
disease has now claimed

a sitting member of Congress
is expected to go a long way

towards galvanizing...

His dying wish was to reveal
that the cause of his death

was AIDS.

I'd known Stewart and
I'd known of his bisexuality.

I just was so
depressed we got into

this kind of tug of war,
about was he or wasn't he gay.

And I said, "You know, I could
get hit by a bus tomorrow,

I'm not going to let
this happen to me."

So I just decided
I had to do it.

His coming out was very
important, I think not so much

for the country, although
for the country too,

but so much in Congress
happens in those cloakrooms.

You really can't discount the
importance of having openly gay

people in
those meetings.

(Sheila)
When I was first running,
I was sitting in a restaurant

in Santa Monica, which
is in my district,

and this guy
came barreling up

to the table and I thought,
oh my God, I'm in for it now.

What's he going to do?

And he came right up
to me and he said,

"Sheila, I hate
all politicians.

They all lie to you, they
dissemble, they distort

the truth, you can't
trust them at all.

I hate them all
except for you."

And I said,
"Me, why me?"

And he said, "Well,
you already told us

the worst thing
about yourself.

Why would you lie
about anything else?"

I think we should do away
with gays if possible.

♪ Glory, glory
hallelujah ♪♪

(man)
The wages of
sin is death.

You want to see the end
result of this lifestyle?

Then come with me into
the hospital and see...

(Melissa)
In the midst of this growing
backlash to homosexuality,

the Supreme Court upholds
state anti-sodomy laws

in its Bowers v. Hardwick
decision.

Michael Hardwick had been
arrested for sodomy in Georgia

and appealed his case
to the Supreme Court.

When he lost, gay people again
took to the streets.

(man)
We planned a major demonstration
at the Supreme Court.

(Susan)
You know, sodomy,
abortion, medical care,

these were all
the same issue.

Keep your laws
off my body.

This is like, nuts.

How could this possibly
be happening?

(man speaking French)

(Melissa)
Five years and
5,000 deaths

into the AIDS epidemic,
movie star Rock Hudson dies.

And AIDS finally
makes the front page.

It spurred a lot of
people to come into

the gay and lesbian
community.

It spurred a lot of straights
to support us more and more.

But the greatest coming
out process was testing

HIV-positive.

Sometimes I'm introduced as
I am today, and I'm proud of it,

to be HIV-positive.

(David)
And they had no choice
but to come out.

And the question is, do you come
out and be defeated in life

and a victim or do you come out
as a warrior and fight back?

That was one of the things
that motivated me to come to

San Francisco was
I thought I might only

have six months to live.

In San Francisco,
you could do something.

It wasn't just about coming
and dying or getting sick

or waiting to die,
it was really about coming

and doing something.

♪♪

(man)
So that's one of the reasons
that Act Up was formed.

It is appalling...

(Vivian)
Larry Kramer called that
meeting at the center.

The very first demonstration
was on Wall Street

at Burroughs Wellcome.

That was my idea to
close down Wall Street.

I mean, we couldn't lose
down Burroughs Wellcome,

but we could close
down Broadway.

How many people did
you kill today?

(Vivian)
A lot of people were willing
to get arrested for Act Up.

That's what brought
me to Act Up,

the level of
homophobic hysteria.

...To promote
a perverted lifestyle,

a lifestyle that
brings forth death.

People, you know, for the first
time, a friend of mine was

walking across the street for
years and somebody yelled out,

you know, "Faggot."

That hadn't
happened in a while.

United in anger and
committed in direct action

to end the AIDS crisis.

(Maxine)
It was very open,
anybody could say anything.

You could stand up and
if you had a good idea,

people would do it.

(Larry)
Again, a lot of it, as I said,
was motivated by fear.

This is the probably the last
time I'm going to be here.

There wasn't a meeting where
somebody didn't come up to me

and say, "do you know of
anything that's coming along?

I just know, I just feel
I don't have much time left."

At about the same time that
Larry Kramer was talking about

setting up an organization,
I was in London getting together

a group of gay men to set
up a similar organization.

By now, Act Up chapters were
opening around the country

and people literally from around
the country, maybe as far away

as Canada, came
and descended on

the Food and Drug
Administration.

I was part of a group called
Wave Three and we were all

wearing white lab coats with
bloody hands on the backs.

(Charles)
The use of blood, the use of
the Silence = Death slogan,

those are truly
important visual tools

that we were able
to take advantage of.

You know, some are too
shocking for other people,

but at that time in our lives,
the shock value was important.

They were just not paying
attention to us.

(Mike)
Some of the aspects and some
of the things that they did,

I didn't understand
why they did it.

But I know in my heart
that because they did it,

things have
changed today.

(speaking Spanish)

Health care is a right!

(Vivian)
The beauty of Act Up,
it put fear

in the hearts
of individuals.

It became a protagonist,
it became the bad guy.

But it became the
very smart bad guy.

It knew all the
stuff about drugs.

It was a powerhouse of
information and research.

What Act Up and people like
myself were trying to do

was challenge
that orthodoxy.

Unless there are parallel drug
trials that address the way

drugs function inside women's
bodies, we will never...

And say, hang on, it's the
patient that has the right above

everybody else to know
the facts and to make

their own
informed decision.

Health care is a right!

Health care
is a right!

I didn't mind calling up
somebody's doctor I didn't have

to have a relationship
with and saying,

"Well, you seem to have
washed your hands of this guy.

'Cause there's shit all over
the walls and he's having

convulsions and your office
isn't taking his calls.

So what are you
going to do?"

♪♪

(Charles)
I have mixed feelings about what
Act Up did inside the church.

I don't like Cardinal O'Connor,
I do not believe in his

politics, but I will respect
the church for what it is.

People were
afraid of us.

That's what made us.

Drug companies did
what we wanted them to do

because we had gone
into St. Patrick's.

We were no longer the
limp-wristed effeminate person;

we were men in jeans and boots
who would infiltrate a mass.

Stop killing us!

We're not gonna
take it anymore!

You're killing us!

Stop it!

Stop it!

(Jewelle)
And to see these men using up
their last bits of energy

to create something that would
last beyond them and...

Sorry.

I don't think you see
that that often.

♪ Oooh... ♪♪

(woman)
And the second march was
called the Great March.

♪ Oooh... ♪♪

And maybe it was because we got
up and we talked about AIDS.

♪ Oooh... ♪♪

A million people showed up,
it was really a million,

close to a million.

America is not all
red or white or blue.

America is a quilt.

(Phil Reed)
There was this larger than life
figure on our stage and he was

the only prominent
politician in the country

who would come
to the rally.

(Jesse)
Everybody must have equal
protection under the law

in the real America.

At the 1987 march, people
would bring their ideas

and they'd want to get it
sponsored by the march.

It was about a quilt,
some kind of a quilt.

He wanted to
bring a quilt.

They thought it
was a sewing bee.

They didn't
understand a quilt.

And none of us
really understood it.

I didn't know what to
make of it at first.

It had this funny name,
the Names Project.

I didn't understand what it was
until I actually walked on to

the field, and saw and started
to walk around and see also

the reaction of other people
who were looking at the panels.

This was the first time
that anyone had ever done

this kind of memorial.

I think the quilt, our AIDS
quilt, is one of the most

inspired ideas
of the 20th century.

(man)
I have found it therapeutic
to make a panel.

There was one leader of the gay
community and his favorite song

was "There'll be bluebirds
over the white cliffs of Dover."

So when I made his panel,
I put bluebirds on it, you know.

And underneath it,
I wrote "Memory Maker."

And this was him.

One particular quilt,
I'll never forget it.

The two arms were sewn together
and then two white gloves

and two officers
holding hands.

Obviously, they
had been partners.

They both had
passed from AIDS.

(Phil)
So I walk up and down these rows
and every once in a while you'll

find a box of Kleenex
that you can stop,

collect yourself
for a few minutes.

(man)
There is a religious war
going on in this country.

It is a cultural war as critical
to the kind of nation we shall

be as the
cold war itself,

for this war is for
the soul of America.

(man)
And the artists, don't you know,
they are so upset that ol' Jess

might stay there and cut off
their little pipeline to

your pocketbook called the
National Endowment for the Arts.

Well, I got
news for them...

(man)
The whole NEA thing was just
a way of attacking homosexuality

by certain politicians.

Jesse Helms
is very right.

He does not want people to
see queers living real lives

where they actually take
care of their children.

(woman)
I was walking down the
street here in North Hampton

and a woman stopped me
and she said that she

and her female lover had
just started a family

and they had no
books to read to

their daughter that showed
their kind of family

and somebody
should write one.

So I said, "Well,
I'm somebody."

So I wrote the book.

I never expected it to be
taken up by the radical right,

to be taken up by
the Lesbian Avengers.

Joseph Fernandez commissioned
a committee to come up

with a multi-cultural
curriculum.

They came up with a 443-page
bibliography of suggested texts

to use in the classroom
about all kinds of families,

including gay
and lesbian families.

Somehow, that got twisted into,
"Look, lesbians want to steal

your children and recruit
them into their lifestyle,"

which is ridiculous.

I mean, when I grew up,
I read thousands of books

about straight people.

Not one of them
changed my sexuality.

I don't know any religion
that accepts homosexuality.

When you take my child, you are
teaching her something that

is against a parent's religion
and that is a violation

of that parent's and
that child's religion

under the
First Amendment.

(Leslea)
The Lesbian Avengers showed up
at a school in her district on

the first day of school
with lavender balloons

that said Teach Us
About Lesbians.

(Maxine)
And we had big balloons that
said Ask About Lesbian Lives

and we had a marching band
that played things like

"We Are Family."

(Leslea)
So that's what I mean about
everyone using the book

for their own agenda.

You know, things escalated,
things got really ugly.

Joseph Fernandez
lost his job.

Heather was kicked off
the Rainbow curriculum.

It was a real mess.

Hey, hey, ho, ho...

(indistinct chanting)

(Melissa)
For a short period in the early
'90s, the activist style

pioneered by Act Up was expanded
upon by a younger generation

calling itself
Queer Nation.

I think Queer Nation
was sort of,

that was very
much generational.

It was sort of
a cultural expression.

♪ When the queers,
when the queers ♪

♪ Go marching in,
go marching in ♪♪

(Melissa)
Meanwhile, non-gay organizations
began to appreciate

the political energy of these
new charged-up activists.

♪ When the queers
go marching... ♪♪

I'm Susan Moir with the United
Steelworkers of America,

Local 8751, the Boston
School Bus Drivers Union.

One of the very first
regional events I went to

was a conference
in New York,

District Council 37, which
is a huge union in New York.

And the executive director
of the union was

an African-American
man, straight man,

came to this
conference.

It was the first time anything
like this had ever happened.

The place was full of all
these queers of many colors

and many of who had never been
in their own union hall before.

And Stanley Hill who was
the director at that time,

he stood up and he said,
"Make no mistake about it,

we know that we need you
even more than you need us."

(Charles)
You know, living in New York,
we always think that we've seen

everything or have
done everything.

♪♪

(Melissa)
Gay life was now being seen
in small town America.

Since coming to New England,
when I first moved here,

I could walk down the street
and people just like,

kind of knew and some people
would chuckle or whatever.

I know of a town, small town
here, had kind of a guy,

he had AIDS, was dying
of AIDS, went to school

and told them what caused AIDS
and what should they not do

and everything and they really
fell in love with the guy.

They made sure they had an
overstuffed chair there where

he could come and visit
and he visited right up

to the week he died.

(Melissa)
Along with this greater openness
came a new wave of right wing

organizing that would
target rural states

with small
gay communities.

We're here today to announce
the formation of the Oregon

Christian Coalition.

We don't think that homosexuals,
heterosexuals, sadists,

masochists, polygamists or any
other person based on their

private sexual conduct
should receive

preferential status
under the law.

(Melissa)
In Oregon, the Citizens
Alliance, supported by

the Christian Coalition,
gathered signatures

for a statewide anti-gay
bill called Measure 9.

It was defeated.

But Colorado's
referendum, Amendment 2,

was passed by its voters.

It felt like we'd been
kicked in the stomach.

It was just overwhelming.

There was one body of people who
got very scared and sort of felt

like they needed to retreat
back into the closet.

There was a whole other
group of people who said,

"We're not going to
take it anymore.

We're coming out and
we're going to be active

and we're going
to be involved."

(Leslie)
There was a large community
gathering down on the courthouse

lawn and I spoke to
people and basically said,

"We will fight it.

We'll take it all the way to the
US Supreme Court if we need to."

♪ Oh Jesus ♪♪

(Melissa)
In many states, the religious
right made special appeals to

the African-American community
to support initiatives

against gay
civil rights.

Ypsilanti passed a pro-human
rights ordinance that listed

every possible thing,
skin color, religion,

origin, sexual
orientation.

A local white right organization
got together and got enough

signatures to challenge the
language of just orientation,

sexual orientation.

And in the closing days of
the campaign, they brought in

Reggie White, black football
player for the Green Bay Packers

who's been very anti-gay
in his sentiments.

(woman)
Tell me what you came
here for tonight.

I came here to
preach the gospel.

That's what it
boils down to.

When I mention, the Bible says
that homosexuality was a sin,

I am personally
attack anyone.

(Mandy)
But some of the black folks in
Ypsilanti said, "Wait a minute.

If they're bringing in black
folks to try to organize in

the black community
to come after gay folk,

we better be
doing something.

So we're going to have
a non-violent vigil

outside of the venue."

The day comes,
they're there.

They might have had 400
in that venue, 99% white,

which meant what--
the black community said,

"We get it, we're not
interested," didn't show up.

That was a win.

(Melissa)
On the national level, Bill
Clinton in his presidential

campaign quoted
the gay community.

Them, the gays.

We've gotten to where we've
nearly "themmed" ourselves

to death.

Them and them
and them.

This is America.

There is no them.

There is only us.

(man)
So celebrate tonight.

This is your victory.

You earned it.

You worked for it.

You paid for it.

And you damn
well deserve it.

(Melissa)
After his election, Clinton
issued a memorandum that

if followed through,
would have lifted the ban

against gays
in the military.

Meeting come to order.

(Melissa)
It caused immediate
furor in Congress.

Clinton called his friend and
political advisor David Mixner

and asked for six months'
breathing space.

(David)
And I said, "What I need to
know is at the end of that six

months, that you will definitely
say there will be an executive

order that we will not back
down from that now that

we're in the
middle of a battle."

And he said,
"I promise you."

(Melissa)
Clinton broke his promise and
instituted the policy known

as Don't Ask,
Don't Tell.

I got arrested outside
the White House

the week after he
issued the policy.

As I was being handcuffed
and led to the paddy wagon,

I turned and looked
at the White House

and I literally
saw friends of mine

who I'd worked with on the
campaign who now held jobs in

the administration with their
faces pressed against the window

watching me be arrested
and led off to jail.

♪ So long ♪♪

(Melissa)
Accordingly, the third national
march on Washington is a mix

of both optimism
and concern for the future

of the gay
rights movement.

♪ I wonder what's
gone wrong ♪♪

For the first time,
because of that third march,

we were broadcast
all over the world.

C-SPAN covered us live and then
CNN put it all over the world.

♪ You better work
Cover Girl ♪

♪ Work it Girl
give a twirl ♪♪

Well, that was also the
era of gays in the military

and that was
like, what?

And I got the London
Philharmonic doing

"Anchors Away" and doing the Air
Force song and the Marine song.

And I know there may be
people who'd disagree with me,

but I think that was kind
of the beginning of the end

of what I think of as
a movement for justice.

I have to say that people didn't
go and become empowered,

but the kind of media
production focus

that the march had
kind of took away

from some of the personal
success, in my own opinion.

(Robin)
So we had all these people
that had been thrown out

of the military, like Grethe
Cammermeyer and then they had

Allen Schindler's mother
come up and give a speech

about Allen and what
had happened to him.

You know, he was a sailor that
was murdered because he was gay.

I don't want any mother to
ever have to go through

what I'm going through.

Faith, hope, love.

Abide these three and the
greatest of these is love.

(Melissa)
In Denmark, Axel and Eigil Axgil
become the first legally married

gay couple.

In the United States, gays and
lesbians began the legal fight

for the right to marry.

I mean, six people wanting to
get married caused more horrific

panic in Washington than
the Lesbian Avengers or Act Up

ever did.

Flames of hedonism, the flames
of narcissism, the flames of

self-centered morality are
licking at the very foundations

of our society.

(David)
The Clinton
administration panicked.

Bill Clinton, again, without
consulting anyone, and this

I find one of the most shameful
episodes, announced

that he would sign DOMA,
the Defense of Marriage Act,

which would make it against
the law for gays and lesbians

to be married.

I testified before Congress on
the Defense of Marriage Act

and Hilary had given me
a ring to wear that day.

And sitting at that table,
being shredded by these horrific

members of Congress that were
throwing me like red meat

to the right wing, it made
me want to get married.

(man)
When Jeff presented my ring to
me, it was in crowded restaurant

on Main Street in King,
New Hampshire.

At the table next to us,
there were probably...

It was a big family.

At that point, I think
everyone dropped their fork

and kind
of looked at us.

To love and
to cherish?

To love and to cherish.

(Jeff)
We knew that people wouldn't
necessarily recognize us

as a family and that was one
of the reasons we opted for

the marriage and
changing our names.

(Mark)
I was Mark Herman
and he was Jeff May,

now we are
the Herman-Mays.

(Melissa)
In 1996, the Supreme Court ruled
that Colorado's Amendment 2

was unconstitutional.

I have a question: How does
it feel to know that the Bill

of Rights is healthy and
alive in our country today?

(Sue)
It was very exciting.

It was really an incredibly
exciting moment to have that

decision and know sort of, that
this was a really important

precedent-setting
decision.

We are redefining the immutable
ideals that have guided us

from the beginning.

(Melissa)
The '90s also see
a string of gay celebrities

in the national media.

(woman)
Ladies and gentlemen,
Ellen Degeneres.

(Melissa)
Ellen comes out
on national TV.

Gays become a favorite subject
of Hollywood movies.

Yes I'm
a middle-aged fag.

But I know
who I am, Val.

It took me 20 years to
get here and I'm not going

to let some idiot
Senator destroy that.

(Melissa)
K.D. Lang poses with supermodel
Cindy Crawford on the cover

of Vanity Fair.

The media indulges in
a frenzy of lesbian chic.

I'm lesbian chic.

I feel like, you know,
me, K.D., Cindy Crawford.

Is Cindy Crawford
a lesbian?

I came up in the flannel
shirt generation.

So anything that goes
beyond the flannel shirt,

I think we can
benefit from.

K.D. Lang is wicked cute.

I mean, who's gonna
bitch against that?

(all)
Sheila, Sheila,
Sheila, Sheila.

(Sheila)
Well, actually, it felt really
good becoming a famous lesbian.

People take a lot of courage
from other people that they see.

And for better or for worse,
a lot of them are people they

don't actually know, people
they see on television,

people they
read about.

Some young person could say,
"Gosh, another one and look how

they've accomplished

and look how they didn't
kill themselves."

♪ Shine, shine, shine,
shine, shine, shine ♪

♪ Look into
the bright side ♪

♪ Shine ♪♪

I'm sitting there and like,
sitting on this little bench on

the bus, looking
on the bus, doo doo doo,

and I looked up and
there was the poster.

It said, "What can you do if
your best friend just told you

that they're gay?"

And I was like,
"Oh, my God."

It just seemed like, you know,
light shone down from heaven.

After I called the phone
number, the Gay and Lesbian

Action Council directed
me to District 202,

which is a non-profit gay
and lesbian youth center.

And the concept of letting
a youth, particularly someone

that might even
be a minor,

living in a gay establishment
was anathema.

But these founders recognized
the need and that if we didn't

help these youths whose
families had abandoned them

and kicked them out,
who would?

(Hope)
The first person I met,
he had this grand vision.

He wanted a gay
and lesbian youth prom.

♪♪

And I was like, "Okay."

It was amazing.

We put it together and we
like sent out press releases

and all this stuff.

People rented limos,
rented tuxes.

Everybody was
in evening wear.

There was like, guys and guys
and girls and girls.

It was pretty cool.

(Melissa)
Yet this great visibility
which has brought acceptance

for so many...

...this is my boyfriend.

...can still bring
out hostility, hatred

and fear in others.

...getting married?

Yeah, in October,
I think.

Or something like that.

(man)
Because Matt's last few minutes
of consciousness on Earth

may have been hell,
his family and friends

want more than ever to

say their farewells
to him in a peaceful,

dignified and
loving manner.

(woman)
Does that make you
a better person?

Does that make
you a better person?

(Barney)
This savage murder does call us
to the need to improve what

we as a society do to protect
other young Mr. Sheppards.

I thought I had an opportunity
to use the prominence that

I had, people knew who I was and
what I was, to drive home

the reality of this
prejudice and say, yeah,

a young man
was murdered.

This was not
an abstraction.

This could have been me.

Stop the violence,
stop the hate!

Stop the violence!

(Melissa)
Three decades after Stonewall,
journalist Andrew Kopkind wrote,

"The gay moment
is unavoidable.

What started tumbling out of the
closets at the time of Stonewall

is profoundly altering
the way we all live."

The gay moment had evolved
into a global movement.

(Singing in
foreign language)

(Neil)
South Africa is
a fascinating case.

It's the only country in
the world where gay rights

are enshrined in
their constitution.

The same passion with which
I have fought against racism,

I will fight against
homophobia.

I give the gratitude to Simon
Nkoli, because I fully believe

without Simon Nkoli,
black people

would still
be in closets.

Some people still believe
there are no African gays

in South Africa,
but here we are.

(Singing in
foreign language)

Our group has been invited
to the 25th anniversary

of Stonewall in
New York City in 1994.

It was like, amazing,
to see all those faces.

Like, incredible,
it was, I don't know.

It was the time
of my life.

We came back to
Thailand with more energy

and we worked hard
for the year.

Coming up was the Conference
on women in Beijing.

We're everywhere!

Lesbians!

We're everywhere!

Lesbians!

We're everywhere!

Lesbians!

(Anjana)
There were several women
who came around to watch

the lesbians.

♪ Lesbianas soy lesbianas ♪

♪ Porque... ♪♪

(Anjana)
We don't mind. I think
a lot of us there were used

to performing and
enjoying ourselves.

I don't think I would be here
without the Western world.

And therefore,
it is a two-way thing.

As much as they want some help
from us, we want help from them.

And I guess we live in a global
world now and what happens in

Australia, people hear about in
America or in the Philippines.

The Mardi Gras now has a webpage
and people come and so

the numbers get bigger and
bigger and bigger and bigger.

(Melissa)
In 1978, the Sydney, Australia
police had shut down a political

demonstration of 2,000
gay and lesbian marchers.

20 years later, the Sydney Mardi
Gras became one of the world's

largest gay celebrations,
drawing 1 million people.

(Lorri)
You can be so amazed and blown
away by all the neat things that

you see there, but then it
doesn't take you very long to

look around to find the
evidence of all the death

and the memorials to the
people that we lost

and lost way too young and
their lives and the lives

of our community.

And it gives you pause.

I was thinking while I was
looking at the room tonight

how many times we could fill
it to overflowing with people

I remember who aren't
here anymore.

♪♪

(Craig)
Nightwatch came out of an
emotionally very devastating

personal experience.

A dear friend of mine lived
for years with HIV and AIDS.

His partner called and said,
"If you'd like to see Michael,

you better come now."

And I drove over there
and I was so scared

about what I was
going to see.

You know, if I could have
done anything other than walk

in that room, I would
have done it.

And uh, I walked in and his
bed had been moved out into

the middle of the room
and there was a circle

of family and friends
who had just completely

encircled the bed.

And there was this all-night
vigil that was happening.

And I was reminded of
this little kid's song,

it was one the first songs
I remember singing as a kid,

"All Through the Night"

and this whole notion
of guardian angels

and all of a sudden, I could
see what they were.

And I came home back home
after the funeral,

sat down and put together
this idea called "Nightwatch."

♪ Guardian angels ♪

♪ God will send thee
all through the night ♪

♪ Soft the drowsy
hours are creeping... ♪♪

(Mel)
I think of my friends who have
died, I think of them through

positive ways, wonderful
times we had together.

I still look at videos
I have of friends.

To keep them alive
inside of you is great.

(Renae)
I can't count the number
of funerals I went to.

I can't count the number
of people's hands

I held while they died.

My brother's whole circle
of friends are gone.

The whole circle of friends
when I first came to Chicago

are gone.

(woman)
My best friend
Beau wanted kids,

but he had AIDS and
there was just no way.

He said, "I got one for
you, I'll give you Dan."

His lover, Dan.

So Dan became the
father of our son.

When you're dying and you look
into the world, a small child

is an enormous, it's
a reaching into the future.

When Beau died, Dan's
wound was so deep.

I would watch Wolf
go out, climb on Dan.

And I would watch the
way Dan would hold him

and touch him
and look at him.

And on that impulse, we had
made an extremely wise choice.

HIV to me...

(Phil Reed)
And we decided
to run out there,

the slogan on our piece of
literature said, "My parents

taught me to
fight for justice."

And that was what we
decided to run on.

And I won the election by the
largest plurality of anybody

in the city
of New York.

So the whole gay piece, the
black piece, the HIV piece

in my life has been
completely brought together.

And uh, here I am, sitting
here in the city council.

(Rev. Perry)
The most important thing
I believe the gays and lesbians

have done to change the world
is come out of the closet.

♪ Oh... ♪♪

That revolutionary
act for me

is the most important thing
that we've done in 30 years.

It is unimaginable for us in
1969 to think that in 1999,

there would be all these
possibilities career-wise.

(Mike)
Back towards graduation and the
entire recruit class, all men,

left their wives and girlfriends
and dragged me out on the dance

floor and danced
with me at graduation.

♪ You make me
feel like... ♪♪

(woman)
We've come from invisibility
to visibility.

We've challenged family,
the definition of family.

We challenged diversity.

We've challenged gender.

♪ ...kiss me there and it
feels real good ♪♪

♪ And I'll know
you'll love me... ♪♪

(Chuck)
The rest of the world now knows
that we give very good parties.

♪ Ohh, you make me
feel mighty real ♪♪

(Barbara Gittings)
My partner Kay and I have
talked about the need for gay

retirement homes
for older gay people.

We know a time
is coming.

I guess I would call it the
Lavender Light Years Retirement

Home and I will be
able to rock and say,

"Do you remember
when we picketed

the White House
in 1965?"

♪♪