How Far We've Come

The White House after the Obergefell ruling, June 26, 2015.
Click to enlarge.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of American independence - founded explicitly upon the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - it is quite poignant for me to reflect upon the evolution of gay rights in my lifetime.  Here are some thought-provoking videos for old and young alike.

Here's Steve Hartman on CBS Sunday Morning in 2015, just after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage throughout the United States:

But CBS wasn't always so gay-friendly. Author and lecturer Steven Capsuto reviews two CBS News specials from 1967 and 1980:

In case you've never seen it, here is the full 1967 report, The Homosexuals, hosted by Mike Wallace (who later regretted the homophobic remarks he made at the time):

I was in high school then and never saw that report, which is just as well. I had fooled around with some boys my own age, but for many years to come, I still envisioned growing up and getting married to a woman one day - with the cozy cottage, the picket fence, the 2.5 kids - that happily-ever-after presented in books and movies and TV shows, not to mention the Bible.  Why wouldn't you want that?  That's just what grown-ups did, like your parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, and everyone else in your church and your neighborhood.  A desirable, and indeed necessary outcome for most of the human race.

But some of us are not called to that conclusion.  I didn't know I was gay in 1967 - "gay" meaning homosexual was not part of everyday speech until the Gay Liberation marches and protests in 1970 and thereafter made national news. And I certainly didn't think of myself as a homo or a queer - those awful monsters who lurked in dark alleys that everyone hated - but no one ever saw in the light of day. Mainly they were just schoolard taunts. 

But the awful, unwelcome truth dawned on me before I finished high school, and I spent most of the next decade trying to pray it away.  By 1980, though, I had come out at college, and after Woodstock, Vietnam, and Watergate - not to mention Deep Throat, Playgirl and Barbara Eden's navel - the big-city world had changed a great deal. News coverage of Gay Lib - later Gay Pride - made people aware of things they never knew existed before, and gay people far from the east and west coasts began to come out and find one another - but changes in traditional attitudes in the Deep South were still small and slow. Here's the other report, Gay Power, Gay Politics:

Still to come were the AIDS crisis, ACT UP, and the Quilt; and beyond that, the long struggles in the courts and legislatures to gain the right to hold a job, join the military, and get married.  I'll be posting more historical videos and links this month that may touch on those subjects and others.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

--George Santayana

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