Bill C-150 Analysis

Living in a world where you’re scrutinized for being yourself is difficult, but living in a world where it’s illegal to be yourself is overwhelming and dehumanizing. Intolerance towards homosexuality had been very common in our society up until a point in time where LGBT+ people began to realize they were being denied basic civil rights that they should have had. The Stonewall riots took place when queer people had taken enough of discrimination and violence and began to band together to start the Gay Liberation Movement, a vital step towards equality for the LGBT+ community in their journey for civil rights.

The history of LGBTQIA+ rights in the United States is long and complicated. The identities within the LGBTQIA+ community that are accepted have shifted over the years as the majority of the population comes to understand some identities to be commonplace and struggles to understand others. However, the gaining of rights and acceptance by the LGBTQIA+ community has nearly always been tied to legal recognition. Lawrence v. Texas questions whether or not a Texas statute that bans homosexual sodomy is constitutional. Although LGBTQIA+ rights issues are controversial, the statute that convicted John Lawrence and Tyson Garner for having private, consensual gay sex as well as the means of conviction are clearly unconstitutional on several grounds,

Fifty years ago, in the early sixties, being gay was illegal in every providence in Canada, and in every single state in the United States. In the 1950’s, many gay individuals saw the men who had devoted their lives to being out and they knew what a horrible life that made for those men. This caused many gay men to “pass,” or live their entire lives in the closet. They would marry women for the soul purpose of protecting their secret. Before the stonewall riots, many Americans did not even believe gay people existed. Due to the lack of education and bigotry amongst Americans, being gay was very dangerous. Sexual acts in the gay community were commonly done in unsafe places and in public because they simply had nowhere else to go. Homosexuality was not just criminalized it was medicalized (Bawer). If you were gay, you could be subject to go into hospitals and were viewed by society as having a disability and a disease. In April of 1965, the very first gay protest took place in Washington DC. This protest was revolutionary and it began to pave the way for the future of gay men and women and reshape gay culture. In 1969, not long after the first gay protests of 1965, Canada decriminalized homosexual sexual acts in the privacy of one’s own home (Guerre). This was groundbreaking and gave the gay community hope that change was coming. Also, taking place in 1969 were the historic stonewall

Before continuing onto an analysis of how the Stonewall Riots happened and what came of them, one must first take a closer look at the events and opinions that came before and brought upon the anger and frustration that many LGBT individuals felt on that fateful night. According to many historians, the years before Stonewall were considered a “dark age” for LGBT individuals, where their very existence was

Though there were many groups appearing to help shape the way for gay civil rights, there were also organizations trying to prevent gay people from gaining any ground.

The throng became raucous as the time passed; people began throwing bottles and bricks at the police and shouting “gay power!” The riots really started when a lesbian woman who has been described as “a typical New

Stonewall Riots: the Events that Sparked the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement When most think of the gay rights movement of today, most realize that it is all very progressive, and many people, regardless of gender or sexuality, fully support the movement. Although this is the case now, things for the LGBTQ+ community have not always this accepting. According to a popular news website, "[The LGBTQ+ community] were viewed as some kind of freak show," said Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt. "Something to be avoided." (cbsnews.com) Around the mid 20th century and before, anyone who did not identify, or was suspected of not identifying as straight was highly discriminated against, and, in most cases, persecuted.

This newspaper article from The New York Daily News was extremely biased and homophobic which allowed us to realize how the public viewed the LGBT+ community back in 1969. The article also included interviews with police and participants of the riots that described the violence that took

The Stonewall Riots in 1969 leading to the first Gay Pride Parade in 1970 started a public discourse on LGBT rights (The Stonewall Riots). In the years to follow, two opposing mass movements manifested: the LGBT movement and the Religious Right movement. The LGBT movement aimed to get equal rights for homosexuals. The Religious Right focused on stopping the perceived moral decay of America and protecting children from lesbians and gays. While these movements had polar opposite goals, they used surprisingly similar methods to get their messages across.

This persecution ended with Mexican independence. However, the rising American population meant the resurgence of sodomy laws. California's own was installed in 1850. An 1855 law expanded the crime of sodomy to include "assault with an intent to commit" sodomy, penalizing the crime with 14 years imprisonment. (LGBT History in California. Wikipedia) In the early hours of June 28, 1969, a group of gay customers at a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village called the Stonewall Inn, who had grown angry at the harassment by police, took a stand and a riot broke out. As word spread throughout the city about the demonstration, the customers of the inn were soon joined by other gay men and women who started throwing objects at the policemen, shouting "gay power." (Stonewall Riots: The Beginning of the LGBT Movement. The Leadership Conference). Eight years later, Harvey Milk was elected as the first openly gay man to be in a San Francisco public

The warm summer day of June twenty-eighth, 1969 was not a quiet one. Although the New York City police had a justification to raid the bar of the Stonewall Inn, which was a safe haven for members of the LGBT community, nothing could prepare them for the uproar their actions would cause on Christopher Street that early morning. Crowd., crown police began their arrests for the selling of liquor without a license, the intense crowd of gathering people did disperse as it was supposed to. In fact, a lesbian named Stormé DeLarverie had refused to move for an officer who was attempting to throw an arrestee into the police vehicle, which not only caused the officer to club her in the face,

“This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble”. (The Stonewall Uprising) Homosexuals were tired of being made fun of and discriminated for their way of life. “Something snapped. It's like, this is not right”. (The Stonewall Uprising) People were sick of the treatment, the weird looks, the removal of work, the feeling of someone refusing to be next to them, and the constant advice to change or they will end up ruining their lives. So, on June 28th, 1969, around 11:00 at night, in Greenwich Village, New York City, gay people decided to do something. The decided to say no, we aren’t doing this;

The Importance of the Stonewall Riots and Their Lasting Effects on the Gay Rights Movement

Acceptance is not a word the LGBT community has been able to use to describe societies mindset about them, especially in the 1960’s. Gay bars were a place they could be free to be themselves. They could socialize and for that evening, be with people who accept and understand them. Yet, outside those doors were police trying to shut down these places of sanctuary. Homosexually was considered illegal during this time, “police used other morals laws to harass and arrest gay men and lesbians.” (Henretta pg.840) On June 27th, 1969 the police raided a particular bar called the Stonewall that started an uprising of protests within the LGBT community.

Prior to the Stonewall riots, LGBT individuals were widely discriminated against and regularly denied access into the most common places. Places they could