Pride
Our Nation’s Fine Heritage Of Protest Politics
Editor’s note: I am honored to share with you William B. Turner’s latest contribution to The New Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Turner is an author and editor known for his work on “Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policyâ€, among other books, and a regular contributor to the Daily Kos. He writes occasionally here as well.
LGBT Pride events celebrate the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which occurred in June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City. In the Stonewall Riots, a group of queers, including a lot of transgender persons and street persons, fought back against an otherwise routine police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a queer bar.
Note two things: “routine police raid†and “fought back.â€Â Until Stonewall, and in many places for sometime afterward, police would routinely raid bars just to keep the queers in line. If a person got arrested during one of these raids, the fact of the arrest would likely appear in the local newspaper, potentially ruining the man’s (people whom this happened to were usually men) career and family life. Some states had statutes prohibiting serving alcohol to known “homosexuals.â€Â But statute or no, the police would conduct raids and arrest the patrons of the bar on whatever charges they could trump up. A friend here in Oklahoma City reports that he arrived one evening at his favorite bar and kissed every man at the bar on the back of the neck as he walked by. The police arrested him for public lewdness, but he demanded a trial. The judge threw the case out, asserting that the conduct in question was not illegal.
Which brings us to the second point: “fought back.â€Â When I say queers fought back in the Stonewall Riots, I mean literally fought with the police, even pulling a parking meter out of the pavement and using it to blockade the police inside the bar. Not bad for a bunch of nelly queens.
It is important to appreciate that this was a serious riot. In rioting against injustice, the queers at Stonewall participated in the finest tradition of American protest politics. They are the queer equivalent of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The United States was founded as a nation on a riot – the Boston Tea Party — that grew into a war against the most powerful military in the world at the time. We should be proud of the queer contribution to the fine history of protest politics in the United States, which includes various forms of protest against slavery, on behalf of voting rights for women, against the oppressive power of larger corporations, and against segregation and the Vietnam War.
We should also be prepared to engage in such protest again if the need arises. Thanks to the political movement that emerged after the Stonewall Riots, no jurisdiction in the United States still allows, or requires, its police to conduct routine raids on gay bars. We have made our own lives safer, better, and more nearly equal with our protests. Our protests these days are more likely to take the form of law suits than street protests, but we should not take for granted the resources and respectability that allow us to use the courts rather than the streets to win our point.
The last great queer riot in the United States occurred on May 21, 1979. The “White Night Riot†occurred as a response to the conviction of former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White, who had assassinated openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone the previous November. The jury chose not to find him guilty of first-degree murder despite the fact that White had climbed in a window at City Hall to avoid the metal detectors and was carrying extra ammunition despite no longer being a police officer. His attorney claimed he suffered from diminished capacity as indicated by the usually very health-conscious White’s increased consumption of junk food, which detractors came to call the “twinkie defense.†Rioters started a fire at City Hall after breaking through the glass in the front doors, and set police cars on fire, eventually causing over one million dollars in damages. Later that night police officers randomly attacked patrons at a gay bar. In all, 61 police officers and 100 queers required medical attention as a result of the White Night Riot.
Queers are often more creative protestors, having created two of the greatest protest organizations in the nation’s history: AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) and Queer Nation. ACT-UP pulled off one of the greatest protests in the history of the United States when they shut down the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, D.C., thus forcing the FDA to make experimental drugs available to persons with AIDS before final approval. ACT-UP also originated a totally new form of protest, the die-in, in which protestors would fall to the ground as if dying and, while still on the ground, shout statistics about AIDS deaths. ACT-UP members also produced some highly effective and highly artful protest posters.
Queer Nation picked up on ACT-UP’s penchant for direct-action protests, expanding them to include all LGBT issues, not just AIDS. Queer Nationals conducted subtle visibility actions, going shopping in malls with clothing and buttons that indicated their LGBT identity. They adapted the die-in as the kiss-in, in which large numbers of same-sex couples would kiss each other in public places. Queer Nation also produced some highly effective and memorable protest art.
In sum, “Pride†is the best term for the attitude all queers in the United States should take toward our collective participation in our Nation’s fine heritage of protest politics.
William B. Turner is a student of the history of the LGBT Civil Rights Movement. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Vanderbilt University and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He has written on the statutory exclusion of lesbian/gay aliens from the United States from 1917 to 1990, Wisconsin’s pioneering legislation prohibiting sexual-orientation discrimination, and on lesbian/gay rights issues in the Carter and Reagan presidential administrations in Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy, which he co-edited with John D’Emilio and Urvashi Vaid. He edited the section on the LGBT movement for The Encyclopedia of American Social Movements and wrote the entries on the Defense of Marriage Act, sexuality, and sexual orientation for The Dictionary of American History. He posts regularly on the Daily Kos web site. He has also published A Genealogy of Queer Theory, as well as various other articles in law reviews on LGBT civil rights and African American civil rights.
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New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan heard arguments in court Tuesday morning without the jury present after prosecutors in District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office accused Donald Trump of violating his gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social account.
Judge Merchan did not rule from the bench, but is expected to announce his ruling possibly as early as later Tuesday. Prosecutors asked for Trump to be held in contempt, and outlined four possible responses. Merchan refused one response but agreed three were possible.
Among them, Merchan might fine Trump and issue a stern warning that could threaten jail time if he violates the gag order in the future.
From the bench, Merchan had directed attorneys to create a timeline of events to show if Trump was reacting to what the ex-president’s attorneys called “attacks.”
“We’re gonna take one at a time, otherwise it’s going to get really confusing,” Judge Merchan said to Trump lead attorney Todd Blanche, as Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien reports. McBrien noted the judge “wants to get the timeline of these posts, reposts, and replies clear.”
RELATED: Fox News Host Suggests Trump ‘Force’ Court to Throw Him in Jail – by Quoting Him
Trump’s attorneys appeared to suggest if his posts are “political” they should not be subjected to the gag order, which bars Trump from making “public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”
“Blanche says that the witnesses are making money, documentaries, TV interviews about Trump, all while Trump is gagged and threatened with jail if he responds,” McBrien also reported. “Merchan wants to get into what was actually said rather than interpret and ‘read between the lines.'”
Blanche earlier had insisted Trump was aware of what the gag order requires.
“‘Just to set the record very straight and clear: President Trump does know what the gag order’ allows him to do and not do,” MSNBC contributor Adam Klasfeld reported.
One of the larger issues discussed appears to be Fox News segments made by host Jesse Watters. One aired hours before then-juror number two asked to be excused, saying they no longer felt they could be impartial.
MSNBC’s Katie Phang posted this exchange between the judge and Trump’s lead attorney:
“Now, Merchan asks Blanche about what Jesse Watters, in fact, said.
Blanche: No.
Merchan: “So your client manipulated what was said and put it in quotes?
Blanche: I wouldn’t say it was a manipulation.
Merchan: This isn’t a repost at all. Your client had to type it out. Use the shift-key and all.”
It did not go well for Trump and his legal team.
At one point Judge Merchan told Blanche, “You’re losing all credibility.” McBrien reports when Merchan said that, “there was an audible gasp from the press.”
Former U.S. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal weighed in:
Very very ominous for a judge to say Trump’s lawyer has lost all credibility with the court. https://t.co/yAKk5HzFby
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) April 23, 2024
“This isn’t quite like watching a full blown car accident, but it’s certainly like watching a fender bender,” McBrien also noted.
“This is going very badly for Trump already,” reported Courthouse News’ Erik Uebelacker. “Judge Merchan is losing his patience with Blanche, who can’t seem to prove that any of Trump’s attacks are ‘responses.'”
Attorney George Conway went further: “Blanche is flailing. This is painful to watch. Merchan is cutting him to shreds.”
Continuing, Conway wrote (not in quotation marks) Merchan said: “I’ve asked you several times to show me the post that the defendant was responding to. You haven’t done so once.”
He called the judge’s remark “BRUTAL.”
READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide
“Basically, Blanche is pretty much arguing there’s a ‘running for president’ exception to the gag order that has been specifically directed at the man running for defendant,” Conway adds. “Merchan now getting pissed at Blanche’s unresponsiveness and evasiveness.”
Klasfeld also characterized the exchanges as “brutal.”
“Merchan says he’s going to ‘reserve decision on this,’ after brutal arguments for the defense.”
Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of hush money to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which could be deemed election interference.
Image via Shutterstock
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is promoting a conspiracy theory suggesting Hillary Clinton wants to assassinate her. Her remarks came just one day before she lost her attempt to have the Supreme Court review what some have called her conspiracy-theory fueled lawsuit about electronic voting machines.
“Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured ‘a fair and accurate vote.’ Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue,” CNN reported Monday.
Also on Monday Law&Crime reported that when she filed her lawsuit, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson “rejected Lake’s cybersecurity claim, telling Law&Crime it was ‘implausible and conspiratorial.'”
Democracy Docket, founded by top Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias, called it “the end of the road for a conspiratorial lawsuit,” and Lake and Fincham, “election deniers.”
READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow
Lake, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has yet to concede the 2022 election, which she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, has a history of pushing exaggerated and baseless claims.
On Sunday, as MeidasTouch Network reported, Lake promoted an old, anti-Clinton conspiracy theory but twisted it to try to make it appear she was in danger from former U.S. Secretary of State and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Lake on Newsmax listened to a clip of Secretary Clinton calling Trump’s fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin a “bromance,” and saying the ex-president is “just gaga over Putin, because Putin does what he would like to do: kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive, you know, journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance.”
Then Lake promoted a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory by responding, “Oh, boy. Oh, that’s really rich coming from a woman like Hillary Clinton, who’s, how many of her friends have just like, mysteriously died or committed suicide?”
“I mean, honestly, that’s rich of her. What President Trump wants is to root out the corruption and deliver our government back to We The People and she looks very nervous. She talked about her friend Mark Elias, Mark Elias has meddled in in his and his cohorts have meddled in the elections.”
She called Democratic policies, “destructive, deadly and frankly, in some ways, diabolical,”and added, “it’s almost comical that Hillary Clinton is talking about Trump wanting to kill his opponents.”
READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument
“I just want to say as I’m as I’m speaking about this topic, I want everyone out there to know that my brakes on my car have recently been checked and they work. I’m not suicidal. And Hillary, I don’t mean any harm to you. Please don’t send your henchmen out to me. We understand what you’re about. ”
Watch below or at this link.
.@HillaryClinton is talking about Trump wanting to kill his opponents.
We call that projection.
While on the subject of Hillary, I want everyone out there to know that the brakes on my car work just fine. I’m not suicidal.
I’m very happy to be alive & working to save Arizona… pic.twitter.com/Mhj84g5bVu
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) April 22, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide
MSNBC top host Rachel Maddow, inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courthouse on Monday declared Donald Trump appeared “old and tired and mad,” as she delivered observations about the ex-president on trial for 34 counts of falsification of business records alleged in the alleged pursuit of election interference to protect his 2016 presidential run.
Trump “seems considerably older, and he seems annoyed. Resigned, maybe, angry. he seems like a man who’s miserable to be here,” the award-winning journalist told MSNBC viewers Monday afternoon.
“I’m no body language expert,” she conceded, “and this is just my observation. He seemed old and tired and mad.”
The New York Times’ Susanne Craig, from inside the courthouse Monday morning reported: “Trump is struggling to stay awake. His eyes were closed for a short period. He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him.”
The Biden campaign was only too happy to pick up and report Craig’s observation, adding “feeble.”
A feeble and tired Donald Trump once again falls asleep in court pic.twitter.com/ShcnxYI8jH
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) April 22, 2024
Former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod, pointing to his piece at The Atlantic, wrote of Trump: “He has charmed & conned, schemed & marauded his way through life. He was bred that way. But the weariness & vulnerability captured in courtroom images betray a growing sense in Trump that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled:
A loser.”
Watch Maddow’s remarks below or at this link.
Maddow: Trump seems old and tired and mad pic.twitter.com/kQuHrBo4v1
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 22, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument
‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument
‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow
‘I’m Not Suicidal’: Kari Lake Pushes Hillary Clinton Murder Conspiracy Theory
‘Cutting Him to Shreds’: ‘Pissed’ Judge Tells Trump’s Attorney ‘You’re Losing All Credibility’
‘Cutting Him to Shreds’: ‘Pissed’ Judge Tells Trump’s Attorney ‘You’re Losing All Credibility’
‘I’m Not Suicidal’: Kari Lake Pushes Hillary Clinton Murder Conspiracy Theory
‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow
‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument
‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide
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