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October 14, 1979– The National March On Washington For Lesbian And Gay Rights
Harvey Milk dreamed of a gay march on the Nation’s Capital and he spoke of it many times before he was murdered in 1978. He believed that gay visibility would lead to the end of discrimination. Inspired by Milk, the first large march was held on this day in 1979.
The man who would become my husband and I had just started our romance in October 1979 and we were cautious of being “too out” to the world. A Democrat in the White House, demands for sweeping civil rights protections, religious opponents working to undo a string of state based victories; this was the backdrop in 1979 when Gay Rights activists staged that first national march in Washington DC.
The National March On Washington For Lesbian And Gay Rights was the name given to the first such march on the nation’s capital. It drew close to 200,000 gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people, queers and straight allies to demand equal rights and to urge the passage of protective civil rights legislation.
The march served to nationalize the Gay Rights Movement, which before, had been focused on local struggles with a few victories. This spirit is invoked in the closing paragraph of the program for the march:
“Today in the capital of America, we are all here, the almost liberated and the slightly repressed; the butch and femme and everything in-between; the androgynous; the monogamous and the promiscuous; the masturbators and the fellators and the tribadists; men in dresses and women in neckties; those who bite and those who cuddle, celibates, diesel dykes and nelly queens; amazons and size queens, Yellow, Black, Brown, White, and Red; the short-haired and the long, the fat and the thin; the nude and the prude, the beauties and the beasts, the studs and the duds, the communes, the couples, and the singles; pubescent and the octogenarians. Yes, we are all here! We are everywhere! Welcome to The March On Washington For Lesbian And Gay Rights!”
The march began at the National Mall, turned left onto Pennsylvania Avenue and proceeded northwest towards The White House. It ended in a rally between The Washington Monument and Reflecting Pool. It was led by the Salsa Soul Sisters, who carried the official march banner. Speakers at the main rally included: San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt, writer Allen Ginsberg and his boyfriend Peter Orlovsky, Civil Rights activist Florynce Kennedy, gay Peace activist Morris Kight, out Us Air Force Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, Feminist Kate Millett, Reverend Troy Perry, NOW president Eleanor Smeal, and Congressman Ted Weiss. DC Mayor Marion Barry gave a welcome to the marchers on behalf of the city.
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In addition to the march itself, the organizers offered three days of workshops, artistic events, strategy sessions, focus groups on specific issues for women and minorities within the LGBT community, consciousness raising, local organization, religion and other issues. The Monday after the march was organized as a Constituent Lobbying Day where over 500 participants attempted to contact every member of Congress to express support for Gay Rights legislation. The participants successfully met with 50 senators and 150 house members.
37 years later, with work still to be done, the country does has full Marriage Equality, plenty of talented out and proud celebrities, fully realized gay characters on telelvision series and World Of Wonder’s always entertaining RuPaul’s Drag Race.
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Also, on this day, October 14, in 1977, pretty Anti-Gay activist Anita Bryant, standing with her husband Bob Green at press conference in Des Moines, Iowa, was famously had a pie thrown in her face while on camera by Gay Rights activist Tom Higgins. Quick with the quip, Bryant said: “At least it’s a fruit pie!” making a pun on the derogatory term “fruit” for a gay man, a regular Oscar Wilde, she is. While covered in pie, she began to pray to God to forgive Higgins “for his deviant lifestyle” before bursting into tears with the cameras kept rolling. Bryant’s husband said he wouldn’t retaliate, but he followed the protesters outside and threw a pie at them.
Bryant, you probably remember, was the former beauty queen and orange juice shilling Christian who mobilized a bastion of haters to fight the godless sodomites. She sowed the first seeds for the modern Conservative Religious Right, giving life to homophobic hate on school boards, city councils, and local and state ballot measures. She charmingly led the pronouncements that HIV/AIDS was a judgment from God when the plague struck.
You can really connect the Anita Bryant Save Our Children campaign line to today’s Tea Party, Family Research Council, The American Family Association, and the flurry of State Religious Liberty Laws, along with The Short-Fingered Vulgarian’s scapegoating of the menace from “the other”, like Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans and the Conspiracy of Jewish Global Bankers.
Let’s raise a glass of OJ to Anita Bryant and her pie, but especially to the brave souls who marched on our Capital on this day in 1979.
The post #OnThisGayDay: First National March On Washington For Gay Rights appeared first on The WOW Report.
