40 years after Stonewall

[dsc]

and in just under half of states, with the exception of removal of sodomy laws, gays are legally no better off than they were 40 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LGBT_employment_discrimination_law_in_the_United_States.svg

If you take out public employees, it rises to over half the states with over half the population. Just think of all the changes culturally we have seen in terms of gays over those 40 years. If you asked 100 people to name a famous living gay person in 1969 you might get Quentin Crisp or Liberace (who famously won a libel suit against a newspaper which said he was gay) and that is it. Ask them if they knew a gay person and you might get a yes from about 5 or 6. Ask them if they were gay and you would be unlikely to get one yes. Now, it is a whole new world. We have Ellen, Rosie, Elton, Rupert, Barney, Joe Solomonese, Tammy, and a host of other famous gays. In just about every occupation, save professional male team athlete, there are openly gay people. Yet in a majority of states, representing a majority of people, gays who aren't public employees are legally no better off than their ancestors in 1969. While many of these states are in the south or border states, there are also such blue states as Pennsylvania and Michigan.

If you wonder why gays are so unwilling to be patient this is why. The fact is if we don't pass at least one gay friendly law in 2009 I don't think we will pass any at all during the Obama Presidency. We have the most hospitable Congress imaginable to pass gay friendly legislation. Not only do we have 60 Senators we are close to uniquely undependent upon Southerners for this majority. Only 7 of the 60 Senators are from the South and several of those have already come out in favor of at least some gay friendly legislation. If we can't pass legislation with close to 70% public support, an 80 seat majority in the House and 60 votes in the Senate, then one wonders when we can.

40 years and nothing for a majority of states. We should have to say this next year.

[valerief]

1. Hey, hey, hey! Paul Lynde wasn't chopped liver in 1969. nt

[dsc]

2. oops you are right forgot about Paul (I loved Hollywood Squares as a kid)

[valerief]

3. I loved him in Bye Bye Birdie. nt

[HillbillyBob]

4. As a full TAXPAYING f---ng citizen I AM sick as hell of taking the

godam back seat. I have watched any number of couples go through the whole rigmarole of wills, living wills, having both names on car titles and home deeds and business paper work and when one dies the survivor gets his ass thrown on the street no matter that he or she may have paid half or more, some family member shows up has a new will made signed (forged) and a judge to probate it, when said family member has not spoke to the deceased in years or decades. Then the survivor has nothing that he and his partner worked for for years. This happens in straight families I know, but not with the regularity it happens to us.

The really bad part is that said living relative is usually included in the will and makes out like a bandit. One couple I knew the deceased had left his mother and sister almost 4 million$, the remaining estate was a house they had bought as a near ruin and did all the work themselves and a car and a little money in a joint account, the bitches even had a judge probate a new will they had written on a scrap of paper and took the deceased hand (he was in a coma) and 'signed' it leaving everything to them, they even took the survivors clothes and personal awards from his professional life.

Another couple one died(heart attack) the other had a couple or three months to live(terminal cancer) some nephew neither had ever met or even heard of actually as sister was an evilgelical shows up and gets a judge to overturn the will, there was not much the house, they had also taken a wrecked duplex and fixed it up.
When the sheriff nailed the eviction notice to the front door. In desperation he took the gas from the mower shed poured it all over the house and set it and himself on fire rather than be thrown out to die in the street like a sick dog.

If the damned dems do not come up with some rights for us, they can f ing forget another damned vote from me and I know a bunch of other gays who are saying the same thing. I have said it before that I am very much tempted to go reregister from D to I or Green. I have not done so yet because I hate to deal with anything that smells like law (the police station is in the county court house just down the hall and I had bypass surgery almost 2 months ago.

I don't know if I should apologize for the rant or not to my fellow DUers. I think ya'll understand my irate prattle. I was put out of the Navy (pre DADT), I have been fired from so many jobs, mostly on suspicion that I was a fag, I have had murder attempts while at work, I was a construction electrician.

[Starry Messenger]

10. No need to apologize.

More people need to hear these stories. It's heartbreaking but necessary. I'm straight and I didn't give the subject much thought until I started coming here and reading stories like this. Thank you (and all the gay members of DU) who constantly speak out. :hug:

[HillbillyBob]

17. Thanks Starry Messenger.

I get so damned tired of our rights as taxpaying, voting, citizens being put off another year or election cycle because it is so touchy. Do we have to riot? burn buildings rape cops (ewww for the most part but then again NC has some wuffy state troopers) We are accused of molesting kids, animals, what have you. When the folks I have known make the best foster parents or like my partner and I have been through some pretty rough shit, from discrimination to physical and emotional abuse.
We feel that with my health and the hours my partner has to put in that we would not have what it takes to be good parents, but we rescue abused and neglected dogs.
Giving them a Forever Home so they won't be passed around and have a permanent place to live and be themselves.

I have had some run ins with Kreestians, Anita Bryant when she was trying to stir up a mob in Selma years ago to attach some really feminine guys. I stepped in and shouted her down and told the mob that for Christians they sure as hell had a good way of showing it.

A group claiming to be Christians trying to set a cross on fire on my lawn in Alabama..I guess they thought the 12g was for show..well I showed different, do realize what cowards they are? I did at that moment as the were running down the street with rock salt loads in their ass.

Dr D James Kennedy pastor ( forget Reverend) of First Presbyterian Church of Fort Lauderdale and his televised rants against gay folks, I told him he could kiss my ass, when he wanted me off their new cathedral site when I was working on the wiring for their new carrillion bells when he started to rant about how fags were such evil creatures.

I was home in WV to see my grandmother in her final illness (she was what I would call a good Christian.
Her last words were for my partner 'Tell Bill Im sorry he could not come and that I love him too".
My stepmother watching Ted Haggard on tv that Sunday morning, he tripped my gaydar. I said there is something not right with him, I did not say he was gay or taking meth, that would have just started a row with my Southern Baptist stepmom, I just said within a few weeks something is gonna come out about him. I left later that day to come back to NC, 5 days later the male prostitute/meth story hit the air waves..I suspected having seen enough addicts in my time.

Then again how is it we are held in such low esteem, when our male soldiers are raping female service people, and also Iraqi men, women and children?
I read on Alternet blog where our guys are holding men in their own dirt for weeks at a time and smearing menstrual blood on them. These guys are people snatched off the street and are no more terrorists than you or me. I can't even go on with that line I read that article last night after supper and threw up and I grew up on a farm and have seen slaughter, that was beyond, I cannot even stomach going any further with that.

[Starry Messenger]

18. Powerful stuff HillbillyBob.

You are a great writer. Damn. I'm crying. This crap that you and your partner and other citizens who are gay have to go through is unAmerican. I wish I could do more. I've already made a personal decision that no politician is getting money from me unless they support marriage equality and the repeal of DADT. Sadly, I'm pretty broke too so I don't know if this will have much of an impact. :(

[mitchtv]

23. Great rant , Bob, I understand

Most of the Gays I know have a horror story or two concerning the " family" moving in in the final hours and behaving like the greedy pigs they are. Also you can count counties moving in on surviving partners and reassessing homes on the surviving partner forcing Gay seniors to lose their homes. Most straits don't know the county does that, cause it doesn't happen to them. Like starry , I have pledged to support only candidates who support full equality.

[ruggerson]

5. I'm glad the mods can see who's unreccing this

I'm sure I could name most of them.

[dsc]

6. I have guesses as well

[EFerrari]

7. Mods can't, admins can, though. n/t

[ruggerson]

9. right

even better

[ThomCat]

20. Are you under the impression that they would care?

:shrug:

[gleaner]

8. This is an excellent post....

You are absolutely right. I don't know who is unreccing it, but if it helps in some small way, I just recced it.

:toast:

[redqueen]

11. It only took 72 for women to be able to vote.

Keep fighting.

[ruggerson]

12. Society for Human Rights was founded in 1924

Which, if my math is correct, was 85 years ago.

The Mattachine Society was founded in 1950.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_for_Human_Rights

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattachine_Society

Are you under the impression that this is a new movement?

[redqueen]

13. I was just going by the timespan in the OP...

half the states have made some progress, and there are groups working for more in the remaining states.

Just trying to focus on the positive.

[ruggerson]

14. which is always a good thing

:)

unfortunately it seems like LGBT Americans are one of the few groups in the history of the country that have fought for and won certain civil rights only to have them taken away by ballot initiatives. This is now happening again in Maine. Why, in 2009, there are still laws allowing citizens to vote on other citizen's civil rights is amazing to me.

Perhaps Boise and Olsen's case will lead to a landmark decision which will end much of this in one fell swoop. It's long past due.

[redqueen]

15. Precedent...

I don't know when was the first instance of civil rights for a minority being voted on... but it is beyond galling that it's allowed to continue.

It's so long past due. Just one more example of the many ways this country lags behind other western countries. Shameful.

[csziggy]

16. K&R

[Flying Dream Blues]

19. K&R...great post and thread.

[mitchtv]

21. K&R

good work

[Toasterlad]

22. Any Minute Now, Someone Will Be Along to Scold You for Your Selfishness

With so many REAL issues to worry about, how dare you attempt to distract the democrats with frivolous things like human rights?

Sad to say, it's unlikely we'll get ANYTHING from this administration. So far, all Obama has offered is a toothless, deeply flawed package of scraps from the straight rights banquet to less than 1% of the gay population, and a crass photo-op "honoring" of Harvey Milk, whom Obama considered a second class citizen...like the rest of us. Meanwhile, he pressures Congress NOT to work on DADT while lying to the American people and saying that his hands are tied, and it's up to Congress, and his Justice Dept defends DOMA with the strongest, most insulting arguments available, contrary to Obama's pledge to have it repealed.

The man is not only not working FOR us, he's actively working AGAINST us.

[mitchtv]

24. Sadly, that is how it appears

the great triangulator title has now been taken fro Clinton

[Echo In Light]

25. Rec 24