LGBT citizens in America have lived hidden and persecuted lives from the very beginning of our country’s founding. This paper will document the history of their struggle for equal rights for with emphasis on the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
From the very earliest days of North America’s colonization, homosexuals have had to live hidden lives to avoid persecution. Many of the first English settlers were Puritans who maintained extremely repressive lifestyles in many ways, including sexualilty. The primarily Catholic Spanish and French settlers also took a similarly dim view of any “sexual deviancy”. Later, while continental Europe enjoyed the new found freedoms of the Enlightenment Period, in the United States homosexuality remained taboo. …show more content…
It took many years for homosexual activity to be decriminalized and declassified as a mental illness. In 1948, the still controversial psychologist, Alfred Kinsey published his research entitled “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” asserting that sexuality is much more complicated and more fluid than had previously been believed, and that homosexual behavior is surprisingly widespread. Building upon his and others’ research, the American Psychological Association (APA) declared in 1956 that no correlation between homosexuality and mental illness could be found. But still, it wasn’t until 1973 that the APA would officially remove Homosexuality from its official list of mental illnesses. …show more content…
States began to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Most LGBT citizens felt that to be truly equal they needed to have their relationships recognized as legally equal to heterosexual relationships. Efforts began to grant gay relationships legal standing as “civil partnerships”. While some in the gay rights movement felt that this was good progress and a reasonable compromise, others felt that this was an unacceptable capitulation and that nothing short of gay marriage was acceptable. (1) Unfortunately the public did not agree at this time, and every time gay marriage was put up for popular vote it lost at the polls. Even in a state as intensely liberal as California, despite massive public relation campaigns and hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising, voters approved Proposition 8 which legally defined marriage being exclusively between one man and one woman. Organizers quickly realized in the wake of that stinging defeat that without public support the only way to achieve their goals was through the courts. Soon cases began to make their way through the court system, striking down laws which barred gays from marrying each other as unconstitutional. Finally, in 2015, the Supreme Court struck down all remaining state laws barring same-sex marriage in Obergefell vs Hodges.
From the very earliest days of North America’s colonization, homosexuals have had to live hidden lives to avoid persecution. Many of the first English settlers were Puritans who maintained extremely repressive lifestyles in many ways, including sexualilty. The primarily Catholic Spanish and French settlers also took a similarly dim view of any “sexual deviancy”. Later, while continental Europe enjoyed the new found freedoms of the Enlightenment Period, in the United States homosexuality remained taboo. …show more content…
It took many years for homosexual activity to be decriminalized and declassified as a mental illness. In 1948, the still controversial psychologist, Alfred Kinsey published his research entitled “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” asserting that sexuality is much more complicated and more fluid than had previously been believed, and that homosexual behavior is surprisingly widespread. Building upon his and others’ research, the American Psychological Association (APA) declared in 1956 that no correlation between homosexuality and mental illness could be found. But still, it wasn’t until 1973 that the APA would officially remove Homosexuality from its official list of mental illnesses. …show more content…
States began to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Most LGBT citizens felt that to be truly equal they needed to have their relationships recognized as legally equal to heterosexual relationships. Efforts began to grant gay relationships legal standing as “civil partnerships”. While some in the gay rights movement felt that this was good progress and a reasonable compromise, others felt that this was an unacceptable capitulation and that nothing short of gay marriage was acceptable. (1) Unfortunately the public did not agree at this time, and every time gay marriage was put up for popular vote it lost at the polls. Even in a state as intensely liberal as California, despite massive public relation campaigns and hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising, voters approved Proposition 8 which legally defined marriage being exclusively between one man and one woman. Organizers quickly realized in the wake of that stinging defeat that without public support the only way to achieve their goals was through the courts. Soon cases began to make their way through the court system, striking down laws which barred gays from marrying each other as unconstitutional. Finally, in 2015, the Supreme Court struck down all remaining state laws barring same-sex marriage in Obergefell vs Hodges.