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Gay militants are individuals and groups who campaign for political recognition of gay rights using vigorous, aggressive and sometimes violent tactics. Gay militancy is a modern phenomena, first appearing in organized form during the second half of the twentieth century, concurrent with the evolution of the less confrontational gay pride movement. Both gay militancy and gay pride are continuations of the earlier gay liberation movement, which in turn was a descendant of the homophile movement.

Gay militance took hold in the late 1960s and early 1970s following decades of societal abuse against sexual minorities, and surged in the 1980s and 1990s in response to perceived shortcomings in society's response to the then-nascent AIDS epidemic. Today, gay militance is often focused on the struggle for marriage equality.

Etymology

The term militant originated in the 15th century and comes from the Latin "militant," meaning "serving as a soldier". Dictionaries variously define the word as meaning "combative and aggressive in support of a political or social cause," "aggressively active," or "engaged in warfare."

Early history

Gay militance began to appear in the United States during the years following World War Two, as part of the homophile movement. The Mattachine Society was a homophile group founded in 1950 and organized following the model of Communist cell groups. In 1965, the New York chapter of Mattachine elected militant leaders and began to organize annual picketing, which "created the necessary mind-set for gays demonstrating in public," according to historic leader Frank Kameny. Kameny, who had been fired from a government job for homosexuality, engaged in "a Herculean struggle with the American establishment" seeking to "spearhead a new period of militancy in the homosexual rights movement". Kameny encouraged the homophile movement to adopt the tactics of the civil rights movement.

On the west coast circa 1969-1970, Society for Individual Rights (SIR) leader Leo Laurence encouraged gay groups to form partnerships with radical organizations such as the Black Panthers, an opinion that was shared by Huey Newton. Laurence, who was openly gay and who had clashed with fellow activists he described as "timid ... middle-aged uptight conservatives" in a Vector magazine piece, would eventually be expelled from SIR and go on to found the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF) along with his partner, Gale Whittington. When CHF took on Whittington's employer in a dispute over anti-gay employment discrimination, Laurence said, "militant homosexuals will show that company what Gay Power really means."

A watershed moment in gay militance was the historic Stonewall riots, a violent clash in June, 1969 between gays and police in Greenwich Village that culminated years of police harassment against gays gathering in bars and other public places. One result of Stonewall was the formation of the Marxist Gay Liberation Front (GLF), just days later. A GLF splinter group, the Gay Activists Alliance, was made up of GLF members who were less radical, though still militant, and who disapproved of GLF's structureless nature. Also around this same time, leftist lesbian group The Furies Collective was forming in Washington, D.C. The Furies modeled itself on the radical Weathermen, and saw itself as "revolutionary" and "outlaw".

1970s

File:Newsweek coverage of militant gays in 1971.png

Newsweek Magazine coverage of the Gay Liberation movement from 1971.

In the early 1970s, the proliferation of highly vocal activist groups began to attract national media attention. A story in Newsweek magazine said, "Today's militant homosexuals are demanding not merely acceptance, with the full legal, social and economic equality that goes with it; they want approval as well." Life magazine published a photo essay consisting largely of photos from a GAA protest in New York City that was termed "a direct assault on laws and customs."

Singer Anita Bryant's highly public 1977 campaign against gay rights legislation in Dade County, Florida, and elsewhere across the country, brought even wider media attention, reaching some Americans for the first time. Bryant, an evangelical Christian, was joined by Southern Baptist televangelist Jerry Falwell, who would go on to found the Moral Majority. Although the gay response to Bryant's Save Our Children campaign did not carry the day in Dade County (the anti-discrimination ordinance Bryant campaigned against was overwhelmingly defeated), Bryant paid for the victory with her career. A boycott organized by gay activists cost Bryant her spokesperson arrangement with the Florida Citrus Commission, and across the country Bryant's public appearances were greeted by protests.

1980s

The onset of the AIDS epidemic radicalized LGBT movements against government inaction. Direct action group ACT-UP was formed in 1987 to function as "the shock troops of AIDS activism." "Quickly becoming the movement's radical cutting edge," ACT-UP staged numerous protests and employed theatrics, militance and persistence, and sometimes used tactics such as blocking traffic, disrupting church services or defacing churches to capture public attention. ACT-UP was a deliberately unstructured organization, in part because "we didn’t want anything to do with the government," according on one closely involved member. ACT-UP splintered in 1991 over disagreements about the scope and mission of the group, and a successor organization continues today as the Treatment Action Group.

1990s

Another spin-off of ACT-UP, Queer Nation was formed in 1990 and drew attention to itself with the highly controversial tactic of outing gays in positions of power or prominence who preferred to keep their sexual identity private. Queer Nation was seen as divisive by some gays, both because of its involuntary outings and also because of it's embrace of terms generally seen as pejorative, such as "queer" and "faggot". Members of Queer Nation also sought to increase awareness of gays by coordinating public displays of affection en masse in places where gays did not usually predominate.

Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM) was a radical militant lesbian group formed in 1989, largely to advocate for abortion rights. WHAM made headlines with direct action protests such as placing a banner over the face of the Statue of Liberty, staging office takeovers against pharmaceutical companies, and for acting in concert with ACT-UP to disrupt Catholic church services.

21st century

In 2008, the campaign against California Proposition 8 led to boycotts, death threats and property damage against those in support of the measure. Death threats were reported by the Mayor of Fresno, California and the pastor of a local church. Groups opposed to Proposition 8 used lists of political donations to organize boycotts against supporters. After the measure passed, numerous LDS churches, in California and elsewhere, were vandalized in retaliation for the church's support. The criminal activity drew condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights advocacy NGO.

See also

• Civil disobedience
• Demonstration (people)
• Homosexual agenda
• Identity politics
• LGBT movements in the United States
• Propaganda of the deed
• Protest

Further reading

• Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 031234269.
• Duberman, Martin (1993). Stonewall Dutton, New York. ISBN 0-452-27206-8.
• Loughery, John (1998). The Other Side of Silence – Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History. New York, Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-3896-5.
• Marotta, Toby (1981). The Politics of Homosexuality. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-31338-4.
• Teal, Donn (1971). The Gay Militants. New York, Stein and Day. ISBN 0-8128-1373-1.