Gay rights in the 70s
Gallup First Polled on Lgbtq+ Issues in ' What Has Changed?
Story Highlights
- Gallup's earliest LGBT questions reveal significant changes in attitudes
- 14% believed gay people should be allowed to adopt in
- Americans were once split on whether gay relations should be legal
This article is the first in a monthlong series on Americans' views about LGBT issues. Gallup will discharge new findings every Thursday in June. Gallup's trends, including some extending support four decades, can be found here.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup first polled Americans about gays and lesbians in -- when the U.S. gay rights movement was still in its infancy, and openly same-sex attracted politician Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Gay rights activists at the time enjoyed momentum from the riots at Stonewall Inn in Fresh York City -- an uprising against police raids on gay bars, the 50th anniversary of which the LGBT community celebrates this month -- and had not yet endured the AIDS crisis that would later kill many LGBT people.
But while the movement was young and hopef
The Lavender Menace Forms
Educator Elaine Noble was encouraged to dash for the Massachusetts House of Representatives in by former Congress member Barney Frank’s sister, Ann Wexler. The two women had formed the Women’s Political Caucus, and Wexler thought Noble would represent her Irish Catholic Boston district well, even though she was LGBTQ+.
It was the height of desegregation, so Noble rode buses with children of color and had campaign workers monitor school bus stops to demonstrate her deep belief in equality. A homosexual newspaper reporter told her, “You should stick to your own kind, or we’re going to get someone else to represent us.” Noble responded, “Well, I believe, David, I am sticking with my possess kind,” according to an interview Noble gave Ron Schlittler for his “Out and Elected in the USA: –” project for “You can’t say that you want progress or change for one group and not for another. It doesn’t arise that way.”
Noble experienced such harassment—from bomb threats to entity spat upon by an eighty-five-year-old man—that at one indicate she campaigned protected by state troope
LGBTQ+ Living History: The Transformative ’60s and ’70s
In a six-part series, we highlight a few of the moments, movements, and people that made their mark on Cal&#;s LGBTQ+ history. We move through the decades, beginning in an era of secrecy and continuing through today.
The transformative &#;60s and &#;70s
The homosexual rights movement saw some forward motion in the s. Dr. John Oliver coined the legal title &#;transgender&#; in his book Sexual Hygiene and Pathology. Activism percolated. It exploded, in a instinct, in June with the Stonewall Riots in New York City—a response to a police raid that took place at the Greenwich Village bar The Stonewall Inn.
In , two groups formed on the UC Berkeley campus: Students for Gay Power and Gay Liberation Front. According to William Benemann ’71, M.L.S. ’75 (former Berkeley Law archivist, creator, and founder of the Male lover Bears Collection in the University Archives), the Gay Liberation Front was very radical for its time. &#;They were too &#;out&#; for me and most of us at that time,&#; he says. &#;Being in the closet is about controlling you
The Context for Pride
The proceed of penetrative sex between men, or sodomy, had been illegal in Britain since and sodomy between men was punishable by death until Although prosecutions were difficult due to the need for sufficient evidence, over 50 men were hung between and In , as part of the Criminal Regulation Amendment Bill brought in to outlaw sex between men and underage girls, the Member of Parliament Henry Labouchère introduced an amendment making any lgbtq+ act ‘an act of gross indecency’. This amendment required no evidence to prosecute and did not define ‘gross indecency’. There were no laws prohibiting sexual acts between women, though attempts were made to add an amendment to this effect in the s.
This amendment was still in place until Britain had some of the strictest laws regulating same-sex acts between men in the world. In The ‘Wolfenden Report’ was commissioned by the government. This was a record on prostitution and gay acts from a parliamentary committee, which was chaired by Lord Wolfenden. The Report recommen