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The LGBT rights movement in the United States seeks to achieve equality for all Americans, regardless of their sexual orientations (heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgendered).
In the United States, as early as the turn of the twentieth century several groups worked in hiding to avoid persecution to advance the rights of homosexuals, but little is known about them (Norton 2005).
A better documented group is Henry Gerber’s Society for Human Rights (formed in Chicago in 1924), which was quickly suppressed (Bullough 2005). Serving as an enlisted man in occupied Germany after World War I, Henry Gerber had learned of Hirschfeld’s pioneering work. Upon returning to the U.S. and settling in Chicago, Gerber organized the first documented public homosexual organization in America and published two issues of the first gay publication, entitled Friendship and Freedom.
In 1948, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was published by Alfred Kinsey, a work which was one of the first to look scientifically at the subject of sexuality. Kinsey's incredible assertion, backed by a great deal of research, that approximately 10% of the adult male population (and about half that number among females) were predominantly or exclusively homosexual for at least three years of their lives, was a dramatic departure from the prevailing beliefs of the time. Before its publication, homosexuality was not a topic of discussion, generally, but afterwards it began to appear even in mainstream publications such as Time magazine, Life magazine, and others.
Despite the entry of the subject into mainstream consciousness very little actual change in the laws or mores of society was seen until the mid-1960s, the time the sexual revolution began. This was a time of major social upheaval in many social areas, including views of sexuality.
Migrations to the cities following the Second World War allowed gay communities to form in urban centers. Gay bars became more common, and the sense of gay identity strengthened during the 1950s and 1960s. Some gay people began to develop a sense of themselves as an oppressed minority group.
The first era of the gay rights movement is generally considered to have begun in the fifties. The homophile movement, as it was called, emerged with the formation in Los Angeles and San Francisco of the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis and ONE, Inc. ONE Inc. was the first public homosexual organization in the U.S. (Percy & Glover 2005), and ONE Magazine the first widely circulated gay and lesbian magazine. The homophile movement had a liberal-reformist philosophy, similar to the civil rights movement for African Americans, and likewise was anti-Communist and organized its public lectures and protests in a respectable and orderly fashion (Matzner 2004).
These early gay rights organization did have a few successes; the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Mattachine Society magazine was protected by the First Amendment, In 1961 the State of Illinois legalized homosexual sexual conduct between consenting adults in private, and some gay people started to campaign for public office. Some heterosexual clergy and lawyers began to take up the cause of gay rights and a few books were published about homosexuality and the gay rights movement. In the mid-to-late 1960s dozens of homophile organizations existed, with their own publications, such as the NACHO and the Society for Individual Rights (Bullough 2002), yet the mainstream media generally ignored the gay rights movement. A 1965 gay march held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, according to some historians, marked the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Meanwhile in San Francisco in 1966, transgender street prostitutes in the poor neighborhood of Tenderloin rioted against police harassment at a popular all-night restaurant, Gene Compton's Cafeteria.
In the late 1960s, the more socialistic "liberation" philosophy that had started to create different factions within the civil rights, black power, anti-war, and feminist movements, also engulfed the homophile movement. A new generation of young gay and lesbian Americans saw their struggle within a broader movement to dismantle racism, sexism, western imperialism, and traditional mores regarding drugs and sexuality. This new perspective on gay liberation had a major turning point with the Stonewall riots in 1969.
On Friday, June 27, 1969 a police raid of a gay bar—a common practice and, like this particular raid, often conducted during city elections—had a new development as some of the patrons in the bar began actively resisting the police arrests. Some of what followed is in dispute, but what is not in dispute is that for the first time, a large group of LGBT Americans who had previously had little or no involvement with the organized gay rights movement, rioted for three days against police harassment and brutality. These new activists were not polite or respectable, but rather angry activists that confronted the police and distributed flyers attacking the Mafia control of the gay bars and the various anti-vice laws that allowed the police to harass gay men and gay drinking establishments. This second wave of the gay rights movement is often refereed to as the Gay Liberation movement to draw a distinction between the previous homophile movement.
New gay liberation organization were created such as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in New York City and the Gay Activists' Alliance (GAA). In keeping with the mass frustration of LGBT people, and the adoption of the socialistic philosophies that were being propagated in the late 1960s–1970s, these new organizations engaged in colorful and outrageous street theater (Gallagher & Bull 1996). The GLF published "A Gay Manifesto" that was influenced by Paul Goodman working titled “The Politics of Being Queer” (1969).
The gay liberation movement spread to countries throughout the world, and heavily influence many of the modern gay rights organizations. Today, GLBT people commemorate the Stonewall riots by annual marches that became known as Pride parades and marches. However, the split among gay rights organization between the liberal-reformist homophile versus the socialistic gay liberationist philosophy still exists. Today, organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign follow a more mainstream, middle class-oriented and reformist tradition, while other organizations such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) try to be grassroots-oriented and support local and state groups to create change from the ground up.
In the 1970s many gay people moved to San Francisco, where they rapidly acquired considerable political influence, including getting one of their number, Harvey Milk, elected to the city's Board of Supervisors, a legislative chamber often known as a City Council in other municipalities. Milk was assassinated in 1978 along with the city's mayor, George Moscone. The White Night Riot on May 21, 1979 was a reaction to the manslaughter conviction and sentence given to the assassin, Dan White, which were thought to be too lenient. The first national gay rights march in the United States took place on October 14, 1979 in Washington, DC, involving perhaps as many as 100,000 people.
Historian William A. Percy considers that a third epoch of the gay rights movement began in the early 1980s, when AIDS received the highest priority and decimated its leaders, and lasted until 1998, when HAART made AIDS a chronic illness in developed countries (Percy & Glover 2005). It was during this era that direct action groups such as ACT UP were formed.
The Federal government has been resistant to support LGBT civil rights legislation. As of 2007, sexual orientation and gender identity are not covered by the federal civil rights code. The Federal hate crimes code also does not include sexual orientation or gender identity.
Sexual orientation was grounds for excluding immigrants until 1991 and the United States Armed Forces actively discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, although it follows an official policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Thus much of the civil rights protection for LGBT Americans has often come at the state and local level.
Thirteen states had reformed their state civil rights code to include sexual orientation and gender identity, while another seven had amended their civil rights code to only include sexual orientation [9]. Aside from state law, about a hundred cities in thirty three states had enacted some type of civil rights legislation that includes sexual orientation.
Ten states have a hate crime statute that includes both sexual orientation and gender identity, while twenty-two states only include sexual orientation and the rest of the states either do not have a hate crime statute or have one that only covers such things as race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality [10].
In 1958, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed a lower court's ruling and thus, established a precedent that a homosexual publication was not intrinsically "obscene" and thus protected by the First Amendment.
On May 22nd, 1967, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which among other things banned homosexuals, as constitutional. This ban remained in effect until 1991 [11].
On June 30, 1986, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick, that homosexual citizens had no constitutional right to privacy.
On May 20, 1996, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Romer v. Evans against an amendment to the Colorado state constitution that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect homosexual citizens from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation.
On March 4, 1998, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also applied when both parties are the same sex. The lower courts, however, have reached differing conclusions about whether this ruling applies to harassment motivated by antigay animus.
On June 28, 2000, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Boy Scouts of America had a First Amendment right to exclude people from its organization on the basis of sexual orientation, irrespective of any applicable civil rights laws.
In 2003, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that sodomy or homosexuality can no longer be a civilian crime when it is limited non-fraternal, non-commercial acts between consenting adults in private, and the age of consent should be the same for all citizens; irrespective of sexual orientation, thus overturning Bowers v. Hardwick. However, sodomy is still a federal crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
In the 21st century, defending homosexuals against anti-gay bias and gay-bashing and other forms of discrimination is a major element of American gay rights, something gay rights groups see as part of a broader struggle for human rights. The two leading voices for the LGBT community are Human Rights Campaign and The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The ideological split is seen between these two organizations. The Task Force is usually seen as more progressive, whereas HRC is depicted as mainstream and oriented towards white middle class gay men. Progressive gay rights organizations include the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and Leadership Institute, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and various local gay community centers. Gay rights organizations include the Log Cabin Republicans, the Independent Gay Forum and even other organizations have arisen such as Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty and the Outright Libertarians. The United States Green Party has a LGBT Lavender Green caucus.
In 1972, the Supreme Court of Minnesota in Baker v. Nelson ruled that it did not violate the federal Constitution for a state to deny a civil marriage license to a same-sex couple. The controversy over same-sex marriage was revived in 1993, when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the state constitutional ban on sex discrimination meant that same-sex couples were entitled to a civil marriage license [12].
In 1996, Hawaii amended its constitution so as to allow the state legislative to define marriage between a man and a woman, but Domestic partnership in Hawaii have existed since 1997. Yet, initial court ruling, prompted the United States Congress to enact the Defense of Marriage Act, with several states also enacting similar versions.
In 1999, the Vermont State Supreme Court ruled in Baker v. Vermont that the state had to offer the legal benefits and responsibilities of civil marriage to same-sex couples, and thus the state legislature enacted a civil unions bill. The Massachusetts Supreme Court made a similar decision in case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (2004), except the court ruled that state had to either transform all civil marriages into civil unions or offer civil marriage to same-sex couples. Since 2004 marriage is open in Massachusetts.
These state court opinions prompted calls for a Federal Marriage Amendment, along with state amendments to ensure that courts would not change the civil definition of marriage. As of 2007, the legal options available to same-sex couples depends on what state they reside in.
State legislatures in Connecticut (2005), California (1999), Hawaii (1996), Maine (2004), New Jersey (2006), Washington (2007), New Hampshire (2007), Oregon (2007) Vermont (1999) and the District of Columbia (2001) have enacted either civil unions or more limited domestic partnership options for same-sex couples.
However, a backlash of these efforts was felt during the 2004 election cycle where fourteen states amended their constitution to ban legal recognition of same-sex marriages and oftentimes civil unions as well. Laws in Virginia, Michigan, and Ohio, the most far-reaching, forbids recognition of any benefits similar to those of marriage between people of the same sex.
A single gay person or a same-sex couple can adopt in some locations, although there are fewer locations where they may adopt children jointly with their partners.
In the cultural arena, similar changes have taken place. Positive and realistic gay characters appear in some television programs and movies, although stereotypes and negative depictions are still visible.
The main opponents of the advances of the gay rights movement in the US have, in general, been the Christian right and other social conservatives, often under the aegis of the Republican Party. The Roman Catholic Church, or at least its hierarchy, has also been prominent among the movement's adversaries as opponents of same-sex marriage and the acts. In the Roman Catholic Church, gay people themselves are not condemned, and are encouraged to live in celibacy, while the Church does condemn the practices performed by gays. Regionally, opposition to the gay rights movement has been strongest in the Southern states.
The United States has no federal law protecting against discrimination in employment by private sector employers based on sexual orientation. However, 18 states, the District of Columbia, and over 140 cities and counties have enacted such bans. As of May 2007, the states banning sexual orientation discrimination in private sector employment are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin (the first state to do so, in 1982).[13]. Many of these laws also ban discrimination in other contexts, such as housing or public accommodation. A proposed bill to ban anti-gay employment discrimination nationwide, known as the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), has been introduced in the U.S. Congress, but its prospects of passage were not believed to be good when there was a Republican-controlled Congress. However, the Democratic victory at the 2006 mid-term elections may present a new opportunity for the bill to pass.
Among the two major parties, The Democratic Party has endorsed some gay rights legislation in its national party platform since the 1980s. The Republican Party has close ties to the religious right and thus tends to oppose gay rights legislation, as does its national party platform. However, there are some variations among individual politicians, i.e., a Democrat in a more rural district is less likely to support gay rights, while a Republican in a more urban district may be more likely to support gay rights. For example, former senator Barry Goldwater, a Republican, had expressed his views on gay rights which are more concurrent with a left-wing approach; he said gays should be allowed in the military, etc. Similarly, Rudy Giuliani, also a noted Republican, does support civil unions and other forms of gay rights.
In the early 1970s, the Youth International Party and the Libertarian Party became the first two political parties to formally endorse the legalization of homosexual relations between consenting adults in private, as part of a larger critique of victimless crime laws.
Today, active minor political parties have wide-ranging views on gay rights. The Libertarian Party has endorsed a libertarian perspective on gay rights since it was created in 1972, and the Green Party also has endorsed gay rights since it was created in the 1980s. While many American Socialist and Communist political parties initially preferred to ignore the issue, most support gay rights causes. The Constitution Party strongly opposes gay rights and is tied to the Christian Reconstructionist movement.