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It’s that season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and what a summer it’s been! The pride marches, the big parades. The flags have been folded up and put into storage for another nine or ten months, when out they will come again as lesbians and gay men the world over once again assert their pride in being who they are. Our man in New York, Warren Allen Smith, has chosen one particular pride event to look back on – among other things.

Candis Cayne, the transsexual actress in Dirty Sexy Money, led New York City’s 39th annual Heritage of Pride Parade (formerly known as the Gay Pride Parade).

Gays on parade in the Big Apple

Around 300 organizations, many floats, numerous marching bands and an estimated 500,000 marchers followed the lavender line painted from Fifth Avenue several miles past St Patrick’s Cathedral (“Shame, shame!”) to the end of the parade downtown on Greenwich Street. The several-hour spectacle was watched by more than 1 million despite being threatened by a thunderstorm at one point, marchers and viewers alike getting wet.

For the first time ever, the Governor of New York, Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, and the openly gay New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn walked together at the front of the march. Governor David Paterson, soon after taking office, has actively supported gay rights, ensuring that all state agencies recognize gay marriages certified outside the state – currently, same-sex marriages cannot legally be performed in New York State.

Heroically boldly going

Star Trek’s and Heroes’ George Takei (Mr Sulu and Kaito Nakamura, respectively) rode in a convertible with his then husband-to-be (now husband) Brad Altman. They’ve been together for 21 years and tied the knot on 14 September in Los Angeles. Best man was Walter Koenig (Chekhov) and matron-of-honor was Nichelle Nichols (Uhura). Times Square scuttlebutt has it that Leonard Nimoy was invited but William Shatner was not.

Meanwhile, two dozen gay parades occurred in different cities, all memorializing the 28 June 1969 raid New York City police on the Stonewall Inn that resulted in several days of riots that galvanized gay activists and, as many say, the LGBT rights movement was born.

But was it at the Stonewall Inn (below) that the LGBT rights movement was born?

No.

Meanwhile, hundreds claim they were rioters at the bar in June of 1969. However, it was far too small to have held them all, even on successive nights.

The photo below, taken on the day of the parade, shows the present bar at 53 Christopher Street. The original bar, however, was a dingy place. In 1969 it was illegal for men to dance with men, although women could dance with women. To gay teenagers, the Stonewall Inn was a favorite place of refuge, a site where they could dance with whomever they wanted and could choose whatever music they wished. At the same time, however, the Mafia-owned, Mafia-operated bars in the city were places where possible violence was always present. Gay bars were seedy and the drinks were watered. But, at least, they were there, and they were places of refuge.

Two rioters who have been documented by historian David Carter (Stonewall, 2005) and the New York Times as having been there, are shown below, recently reminiscing about the 1969 riots.

Danny Garvin, the former hippie on the left (above), and yours truly discussed Stonewall memories at the Village Den on 12th Street, under a humanistic painting of The Last Supper (Leo and Friends, a 1999 acrylic on canvas painting by Greg Constantine – da Vinci in the center, along with Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein, Edward Hopper, Robert Moses, Truman Capote, Groucho Marx, Fiorello LaGuardia, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Joe DiMaggio, Duke Ellington, and Judy Garland). (See Greg Constantine’s website.)

David Garvin (left) and Warren Allen Smith enjoying supper at the Village Den, New York

Garvin’s and Smith’s recollections about Stonewall are found in a key document here. Garvin’s memories, for example, include the following, which he wrote in 1998:

Back in 1969 I was a hippie on my way to the Stonewall to go dancing with my friend Keith Murdock (who was home from college for summer break). Keith and I were talking about the revolution that would be coming along some day. We thought that the Young Lords, or the Black Panthers, would start it. We had no idea of gay rights. We were both 20 and the world was changing so fast. There was now a women’s movement, and Vietnam was still going on. Early that year in March there was the first “be-in” at Grand Central Station, with about 400 to 500 young people smoking pot and singing folk songs and anti-war songs. The police raided the be-in and hit many a young person with their clubs, pulling us by our long hair into the paddy wagons. Many of the people there were gay. Because of the times and the anti-war movement, most young gay people had experiences with demonstrations. The only gay movement that I knew of at the time was the Mattachine Society, and those people were over 30 . . . and most of us didn’t trust anyone over 30!

His reference to the Mattachine Society is about Harry Hay and a group of gay activists who, tired of unequal treatment because of their sexual orientation, launched the society that unified isolated gays and also encouraged them to fight for their rights.

Long before Stonewall, on 21 April 1966, Mattachine members staged a “sip-in” to challenge a New York State Liquor Authority rule that made it illegal for homosexuals to be served liquor because they were considered “disorderly”.

Their activism inspired the first student gay-rights organization, in 1967 at Columbia University. There, Stephen Donaldson, a bisexual student claiming he was discriminated against for being honest about his sexual orientation, formed a Mattachine-like group called the Student Homophile League (SHL), which advocated for gay rights. Eventually, but with difficulty receiving administrative approval, he helped inspire SHL chapters elsewhere. In 1968 the second chapter formed, this time by Jerald Moldenhaurer at Cornell University.

The bottom line? Many think the gay-rights movement began the day after the Stonewall Riots. Prior to the riots, however, students like Donaldson and Moldenhaurer were laying the foundation. What the Stonewall Riots represent is the point at which gay activists were galvanized into fighting for their basic human rights.

John Waters

On my way to the theater on 21 June, I thought I saw a familiar face at the 14th Street station.

“John?” I inquired, gingerly approaching the man with the razor-thin moustache who is sometimes dubbed the Pope of Smut.

He smiled yes.

“I wrote Cruising the Deuce, the book you used as a prop in one of your works last year.”

“Oh, I loved that book!” he said, clapping and extending his hand.

Fortunately, my computer techie, Peter Ross, was there with his cell-phone camera. I introduced John Waters to Peter, and we were introduced to his friend. The next night at the Tony Awards, Waters was one of the first presenters. Cry Baby, a play based on his movie set in the 1950s, won four Tony nominations but closed after 68 performances.

Uh, couldn’t it have lasted just one more?