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The end of shame


Prejudice still lingers, but 40 years ago Stonewall propelled gays out of the shadows


by Tim Smith
Sunday, June 28, 2009

Forty years ago this weekend, New York City police carried out another routine raid on a gay bar in Greenwich Village, even though the Mafia owners had dutifully paid the customary $2,000-a-week bribe to the local precinct.

But something went wrong that night at the Stonewall Inn. Around 1 a.m. June 28, as some patrons were ushered out to the paddy wagon, others who had been inside, or just passing by, began to taunt the police. Coins were flung at the cops, a rude reference to the payoffs everyone knew about. Other, larger objects followed.

The police retreated into the bar to await rescue from reinforcements as the protesters increased in number and anger. It wasn't all brutal. At one point, a group of gay guys started a taunting chorus line, singing, "We are the Stonewall girls, we wear our hair in curls... We wear our dungarees above our nelly knees." (Hey, never miss an opportunity to theatricalize, as the Maria Callas character advises in Terrence McNally's Master Class.)

That early morning in the Village, in front of that dingy bar, the struggle to achieve equal rights for gays and lesbians came out in the open as never and nowhere before in this country. "I remember thinking, when it was over," says one of the participants quoted in John Loughery's 1998 book The Other Side of Silence, "that I'd never have to be afraid again."

If only.

Prejudice, discrimination, humiliation and violence hardly disappeared after Stonewall. Despite advances in the cause of gay rights, fear continued to surface in many ways in the next decades, most horrifyingly with the arrival of AIDS. Still, nothing could ever be the same again after Stonewall, which inspired a gay pride movement that quickly went global.

The indelible British writer Quentin Crisp had an incisive take on that movement. "I don't think you can really be proud of being gay," he said, "because it isn't something you've done. You can only be proud of not being ashamed."

Maybe that's the real lesson of Stonewall. Fear might be too much to banish entirely, but shame is something gays can permanently eradicate themselves.

We've always been part of the human experience, as you can discover looking into nearly any culture that left a written or visual record of its existence, but it was easy for the straight world to pretend that gays were some tiny sect of horrid little creatures confined to dark, dank places like, well, the Stonewall Inn.

What a shock it must have been when reality set in, when gays and lesbians of all descriptions ran into the spotlights - from the drag queens who most boldly asserted their rights during that historic riot to all the men and women who looked, acted and lived like the supposedly normal people next door. They were the people next door, of course. Always had been, always will be. It took Stonewall, and many other protests and mobilizations, to drive that point across.

I wasn't aware of Stonewall when it happened - unlike today's insatiable media, newspapers barely covered it. But I learned soon enough about the concept and the welcome promise of gay rights, the value and necessity of not being ashamed.

My partner and I will mark our 25th anniversary this summer. We celebrate the day we met, the day that changed our lives, since we couldn't, of course, get married anywhere in 1984. I'm sure we'll head to a license bureau promptly if Maryland ever becomes enlightened enough to grant equality to people like us - people who go to work, pay taxes, take deep delight in family and friends, treat animals with affection, keep a neat yard, watch old movies.

Of course, I know how our long-lasting love is destroying traditional marriage and the sanctity of the family (poor Gov. Mark Sanford was obviously just the latest, saddest victim) - but that's a price we're willing to pay. Standing our ground is, after all, the lesson and legacy of those surprising riots four decades ago.

Here's to the Stonewall "girls." Thanks for the bravery and the wonderful shamelessness.