Free Republic

Maryland school officials are developing curriculum standards for history classes to include lessons about the fight for civil rights for the LGBT community and Americans with disabilities. If the changes are approved, Maryland would join at least four other states that have taken steps to require public schools to teach lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, which advocates say has long been absent from textbooks and classroom lessons. Last month, dozens of state lawmakers signed a letter calling on Maryland school officials to craft new curriculum standards addressing the rights of LGBT and disabled communities. The letter specifically mentioned the...

This weekend is the 50th anniversary of the “Stonewall Uprising.” The violent street demonstrations resulting from the NYC police crackdown on the gay-lesbian-transvestite underground Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village on June 27, 1969 for public behavior that was then illegal in 49 states is credited with kicking off the homosexual rights movement. The event is currently being celebrated in mainstream news accounts, nation- and world-wide commemorations, and corporate advertising that is treating Stonewall much like like Rosa Parks’s refusal to go to the back of the bus in Birmingham, Ala. In 1955.Seasoned journalist Celia Farber, however, is calling attention at...

Today the country celebrates Pride with its symbol, the rainbow. The rainbow generally follows the dark clouds: when colour and light once more break through; much like the history of Pride itself. This weekend also marks the 50th anniversary of a police raid on the Stonewall Inn. Its brutality sparked riots that energised the fight for gay equality in the US. The stand taken and the refusal to be beaten down is said to have been the catalyst for the modern gay-rights movement. If today people of the same sex can walk hand in hand without comment, it might too...

On June 28, 1969, a New York City police raid on a bar in Greenwich Village sparked riots that would go on to launch the modern gay rights movement. Fifty years later, the Stonewall uprising is still recognized throughout the month of June and this year the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities and their allies are hitting the streets again. Heritage of Pride, the non-profit organization that hosts New York City's official Pride Month events each June, is holding a rally Friday to "re-imagine" the experience of that day 50 years ago. The Stonewall riots began in the early...

Storme DeLarverie, a lesbian activist who took part in the New York Stonewall riots in 1969 that started the gay rights movement in the United States, has died. She was 93. DeLarverie died Saturday at a Brooklyn nursing home, said Lisa Cannistraci, a longtime friend and one of her legal guardians. …

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 21, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – In his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama hailed a riot in which homosexual rioters, some dressed in drag, pelted police officers with bottles and attempted to set them on fire for raiding a mafia-controlled gay bar. “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall,” the president said just after noon today. The Stonewall Riots took place on June 28, 1969,...

CNSNews.com) - At a White House reception held Friday evening in honor of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Pride month, President Barack Obama celebrated a 1969 anti-police riot that started in what the New York Times reports was an illegal Mafia-owned bar for transvestites. “Now, each June since I took office, we have gathered to pay tribute to the generations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans who devoted their lives to our most basic of ideals--equality not just for some, but for all,” Obama said. “Together we’ve marked major milestones like the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, when...

On the Friday night of June 27, 1969 the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, and a firestorm of protest erupted that continued over the next several nights. The Stonewall riots are considered the birth of the modern gay rights movement, and over the following decades often has been characterized as a protest against police harassment. However, in actuality, the Stonewall Inn was raided pursuant to an investigation against its reputed mob owners, and the ensuing rage on the streets by its gay patrons was directed as much against the wise guys...

New York's annual Gay Pride parade was a colorful celebration of 40 years of progress toward civil rights for gays, but once the dust settled, gay couples who wish to marry in New York state remain thwarted. A bill to legalize gay marriage in the state that saw the dawn of the gay rights movement is mired in political stalemate in the state capital Albany, where Democrats and Republicans are battling over control of the state Senate. "I had hoped today's march would have been a bit of a wedding march. It's not," Christine Quinn, the gay speaker of the...

Religious groups including Christians, Jews and Buddhists led the gay pride parade on Sunday, lending gravity to the often outrageous event that celebrates the night gay bar patrons resisted a police raid. "We stand for a progressive religious voice," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. "Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda I believe are blaspheming God's name." Kleinbaum, who heads the world's largest predominantly gay synagogue, and the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, were the parade's grand marshals, waving from his-and-hers convertibles. The march took place days...