re: #153 Dr Lizardo

I just noticed the irony……on June 28th, 1969, the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, the event that essentially kicked off the gay-rights movement.

Well, they’d been raiding the Stonewall (and the other underground gay bars) for years, as just a fun thing to do on slow nights, but 6/28/69 was the first time the clientele rebelled. By some accounts I’ve heard, it was a helluva fight: drag queens forming impromptu chorus lines to taunt the cops, battle lines moving up and down the street for days as each side picked up reinforcements, the whole nine yards (of chiffon and taffeta, worsted, silk, and leather, one presumes).

On June 28th, 2013 - 44 years later - same-sex couples were legally being married in the state of California.

That is almost within my lifetime, the Stonewall raid occurring a little over one month before I was born.

I had just turned 1 at the time. Amazing, innit, how fast the world can change when it wants to?

I’m pretty sure the date of the Stonewall Riots is the reason June is Pride Month — it really was “the shot heard ‘round the world” for gay rights in America.