The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights movement was historically fundamentally a fight for the right to free association. The right to hook up, the right to start families and have marriages legally recognized, the right to serve in the military—these pushes all originate from the concept that gay and transgender folks should be able to operate from the same rules of association as everybody else without the intervention of government authority or the sanctioning of punishment for those who make different relationship choices from the heterosexual majority.
It’s an important reminder as some loud voices want to now use government authority and sanctioned punishment against those—like cake bakers or photographers—who want to exert the same right of association to say no to gay people.
It’s worth bringing up now not just because of the current extremely punitive direction the culture war is taking, but because President Barack Obama’s administration is looking to make a national monument out of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York. The location was ground zero for the Stonewall riots in 1969, where gay and transgender citizens fought back against raids from police.
It was a fight against the government. It was a fight against a majority who wanted to punish them with jail sentences, fines, and public humiliation for demanding the right to live their lives the way they chose.
Then it was blue-haired Legion of Decency types. Now it’s bluer-haired Social Justice Warrior types.