Gay Rights Movement
The 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City are popularly remembered as the birth of the modern US gay liberation movement (gay lib) for gay rights, a term that broadly includes lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender and transsexual people (LBGT).

In the late 1960's the NYPD routinely conducted gay raids that usually met with little resistance. However, on June 27, 1969, the patrons of The Stonewall Inn fought back when a police tactical force raided the popular Greenwich Village gay bar. The struggle erupted into violent protests in the streets. The backlash and aftermath of several nights of resistance in the streets came to be known as the Stonewall riots.  In was a watershed in the gay rights movement.

The gay lib movement is rooted in the post World War Two homophile movement, as well as the in other social movements of the 1950's and 60's, such as the civil rights and women’s liberation movements. During the 1950's, local homophile organizations began working for gay rights through organized protests, lawsuits and local politics. Considered "politically conservative" by today’s standards, the homophiles managed to move beyond the fringe of the dominant cultural values of the day to call for social acceptance of same-sex love and transsexuality.

Four years before Stonewall, the homophile organization, the Mattachine Society, advocated direct action, which resulted in the first public homosexual demonstrations and picket lines in the 1960's.   Decades after Stonewall, the homophile movement passed the torch of direct action to such activist organizations as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and Queer Nation.

The overarching protections of the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment frame many of the court battles to secure gay rights. Liberty , privacy, due process, equal protection and free exercise are among the fundamental legal issues involved in court actions.

A very good example of a gay rights Constitutional issue is the 2003 US Supreme Court landmark decision in Lawrence v. Texas, involving two gay men engaged in consensual anal sex (sodomy). The court struck down sodomy laws based on the liberty and privacy protections under the due process of the  Fourteenth Amendment.  In other words, before Lawrence it was against the law in many states for LBGT people to have sex with same-sex partners. Now all consenting adults have a constitutional right to engage in private consensual sexual activity.

Additionally, the Supreme Court in Lawrence overruled a previous sodomy decision, Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), which upheld sodomy laws.   In its Bowers ruling, the court held that sodomy laws were okay against gays because there was no specific mention of sexual orientation protections in the Constitution - no mention, no protection.

With Bowers overturned by the court's Lawrence decision, the Constitution is conceived as a living, expansive document whose protections grow as society changes. The Constitutional right to privacy prohibits the government from imposing a single moral viewpoint on all Americans.  Lawrence is the legacy of a long history of efforts to fix the US Constitution’s fatal flaw, slavery.

Following the Civil War, Congress passed and the states ratified the anti slavery 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Most notably for Lawrence , the 14th Amendment includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. It requires the states to provide equal protection under the law to all persons (not only to citizens) within their jurisdictions.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, there still is no federal employment protection based on sexual orientation. The Congress has to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act  (ENDA), which would provide basic protections against workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

However, 14 states -- California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin as well as the District of Columbia - have passed laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Most of these laws are broader in scope than ENDA.  They cover discrimination not only in employment, but also in housing and public accommodations.

In 1994, the late Coretta Scott King, wife of slain civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., joined Congressional sponsors of ENDA at a press conference to introduce the legislation. Mrs. King said that ENDA was "a step forward for freedom and human rights in our country and a logical extension of the Bill of Rights and the civil rights reforms of the 1950’s and ‘60’s. The great promise of American democracy is that no group of people will be forced to suffer discrimination and injustice. I believe that this legislation will provide protection to a large group of working people, who have suffered persecution and discrimination for many years. To this endeavor, I pledge my wholehearted support."

Today, equality marriage for same-sex couples is a big issue. Only in Massachusetts is there equality marriage. Civil unions, domestic partnerships, and other legal recognitions of same-sex couples which offer varying amounts of benefits attached to marriage exist in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, and Washington, D.C..

The issues of importance to LBGT people are: protecting LBGT families, marriage, workplace discrimination, immigration, privacy issues, health and HIV/AIDS, hate crimes, safe schools, transgender issues (the new frontier), and the military. The hallmarks of today’s movement are coming out, acceptance and pride.