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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 Policy”, 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.”  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.”  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.”  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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News

Senator Suggests Unusual Interpretation of ‘Advice and Consent’ Responsibility

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January 13, 2025

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A freshman Republican Senator is promoting an unusual interpretation of the Senate’s role in the constitutionally mandated “advice and consent” responsibility.

U.S. Senator Katie Britt, elected in 2022, is the first woman Alabama voters have sent to the U.S. Senate. She gained national attention, and bipartisan criticism, after delivering the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union Address. During her speech, Britt criticized President Biden’s immigration policies and referred to an incident involving human trafficking, suggesting in her remarks a woman had been sexually trafficked because of Biden’s policies. However, as NBC News reported, the incident occurred two decades earlier, in Mexico, not in the United States.

READ MORE: Wildfire Relief Tied to Debt Ceiling? Trump, GOP Spark Outrage After Mar-a-Lago Meeting

At the time, even Republicans were outraged and mystified by her speech. One GOP strategist told The Daily Beast it was “one of our biggest disasters ever.” A Trump advisor told Rolling Stone, “What the hell am I watching right now?” as The Guardian reported.

This weekend, Britt spoke with CNN’s Jake Tapper about President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees. Senate Republicans are beginning hearings this week, CBS News reports.

Senator Britt, an attorney, told Tapper that Trump’s “great nominees” will be on Capitol Hill, where they will “have the opportunity not only to make their case” to the members of various committees, “but they’ll have their opportunity to make their case to the American people of why they are best, where they are best suited to move President Trump’s agenda forward.”

In contrast, Senator Angus King (I-ME) recently outlined his view of the Senate’s role in evaluating cabinet nominees. In an op-ed last week, he wrote that a president’s “advisors, and especially Cabinet Members, must be qualified for the sake of the people they represent.”

“My position on Cabinet nominees has always boiled down to two priorities: the candidate needs to be experienced and capable, and not have a stance that is hostile to the department or bureau they would be leading,” Senator King added. “The framers of our Constitution set up a Senate confirmation process as a check on the executive branch to make sure that all parts of government are working by the people and for the people.”

READ MORE: ‘Slashing Welfare’: GOP Eyes Chopping $5 Trillion to Pay for Trump Priorities—Like Tax Cuts

Senator Britt appeared to suggest alignment with Trump’s goals should be a key qualification, telling Tapper that she and the Senate will see if they “are best suited to move President Trump’s agenda forward.”

Tapper continued to press her.

“Why would you think somebody who’s willing to lie about the election results in Pennsylvania is going to restore integrity in the Justice Department the way that you are calling for?” Tapper asked.

After a brief pause, Britt replied: “Look, Jake, I’ve had very direct conversations with each and every one of these nominees that I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with. I take my duty as a United States senator seriously, Article Two, Section Two, mandates that I do.”

“We have an obligation both to the American people and to the president, to ask these tough questions. I asked that question very directly. And with each and every nominee, the answers that I have been given with them, has satisfied me that they’re gonna move forward in that direction.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Trying to Buy Back His DC Hotel Seen as ‘Magnet’ for Conflicts of Interest: Reports

 

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Wildfire Relief Tied to Debt Ceiling? Trump, GOP Spark Outrage After Mar-a-Lago Meeting

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5 hours ago

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January 13, 2025

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House Republicans, especially the California delegation, are facing sharp criticism after spending portions of the weekend with President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort and residence. They reportedly discussed ways to take the unprecedented approach of tying passage of relief funds—for the Golden State’s historic wildfire disaster—to raising the debt ceiling, as the fires continue to burn and the death toll rises to 24 people.

“Of the nearly two dozen House Republicans who attended the Sunday dinner at Mar-a-Lago, where this option was discussed, several are caucus leaders and appropriators with major influence in upcoming budget reconciliation and government funding negotiations,” Politico reports. “Trump also discussed the wildfires Saturday night with a group of House Republicans from California, New York and New Jersey.”

According to J.D. Wolf of MeidasTouch News, the California GOP members of Congress “chose to leave the state at its most vulnerable moment,” and “have drawn criticism for abandoning their … state during the crisis, opting instead to join Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.”

READ MORE: ‘Slashing Welfare’: GOP Eyes Chopping $5 Trillion to Pay for Trump Priorities—Like Tax Cuts

“California [GOP] Representatives Jay Obernolte, Tom McClintock, Kevin Kiley, Doug LaMalfa, Darrell Issa, Ken Calvert, Vince Fong, and Young Kim were spotted in a photo with Trump this weekend when they could have been back home seeking ways to help even if the fire isn’t in their district,” he declared. “Instead, these lawmakers have prioritized meeting with Trump over exercising leadership in their home state. Their absence sends a troubling message to their state.”

In a stern rebuke, Wolf added: “In doing so, they have not only abandoned their duty to Californians but also cast doubt on their priorities and dedication as elected officials.” He also wrote: “Californians are left wondering if these leaders will ever prioritize their needs over political maneuvering.”

One House Republican from California was “not invited,” according to Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill.

“But all the talk of unity at Mar-a-Lago this weekend only went so far – Trump did not invite David Valadao (R-Calif.), 1 of the 10 House Rs who voted to impeach after Jan. 6, to the mtg of CA, NY and NJ GOP members.”

READ MORE: Trump Trying to Buy Back His DC Hotel Seen as ‘Magnet’ for Conflicts of Interest: Reports

Valadao’s presence would have made sense. Hill reports he is a caucus chief and senior appropriator.

Trump, who has a history of trying to withhold relief aid to California, has been accused of politicizing the tragedy, which Politico notes, “could become the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.”

It may become even more costly.

The Associated Press reports, “firefighters are preparing for a return of dangerous winds that could again stoke the flames on Monday.”

Over the weekend, on his social media website, Trump reposted this:

View the social media post above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘45, 47, Felon’: Trump Sentenced But Expert Warns ‘Now the Gloves Could Come Off’

 

Image via Reuters

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‘Slashing Welfare’: GOP Eyes Chopping $5 Trillion to Pay for Trump Priorities—Like Tax Cuts

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3 days ago

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January 10, 2025

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House Republicans are circulating a “menu” of options that Speaker Mike Johnson’s conference could chose from—reportedly a massive $5 trillion worth of federal government programs to put on the chopping block to pay for the President-elect’s promised priorities, including tax cuts and border security.

According to Politico, there is an “early list” of proposed cuts (below) that “includes changes to Medicare and ending Biden administration climate programs, along with slashing welfare and ‘reimagining’ the Affordable Care Act.” Also, in addition to suggesting cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), “the document floats clawing back bipartisan infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Act funding.”

Politico also reports that Republicans appear to be considering cuts to “the country’s largest anti-hunger program”—or, SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps.  This would “spark massive opposition from Democrats and would also face some GOP resistance.”

There is far more, including siphoning about $2.3 trillion from Medicaid, a federal government program that has been providing critical health insurance for low-income adults and children for six decades.

READ MORE: Trump Trying to Buy Back His DC Hotel Seen as ‘Magnet’ for Conflicts of Interest: Reports

The early list, published by Politico, has positive-sounding categories like “Making Medicaid Work for the Most Vulnerable,” but within that are proposals like “Medicaid Work Requirements.”

Republicans have for years been trying to institute work requirements for Medicaid recipients, despite the fact that about two-thirds of recipients who are able to work are already employed.

“An analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that a national Medicaid work requirement would result in 2.2 million adults losing Medicaid coverage per year (and subsequently experiencing increases in medical expenses), and lead to only a very small increase in employment,” KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) reported in 2023.

The list also proposes “Ending Cradle-to-Grave Dependence,” which, among other items, suggests “Reduce TANF by 10 Percent.”

According to the federal government, “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a federally funded, state-run program. Also known as welfare, TANF helps families pay for” items including food, housing, home energy, and child care.

Republicans also suggest they can save $152 billion in the section titled, “Reimagining the Affordable Care Act.”

Politico got a hold of a leaked list of GOP plans to cut federal spending on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act
www.politico.com/news/2025/01…

[image or embed]

— Cynthia Cox (@cynthiaccox.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 2:01 PM

Politico adds that Republicans are “also eyeing repealing significant Biden administration health care rules, which could include ending a rule requiring minimum staffing levels at nursing homes.” It is unclear how that would provide cost savings to the federal government.

READ MORE: ‘45, 47, Felon’: Trump Sentenced But Expert Warns ‘Now the Gloves Could Come Off’

They also suggest they can pull $468 billion in savings by putting President Joe Biden’s climate policies “on the chopping block.”

Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill on social media noted: “Huge cuts to SNAP – the country’s largest anti-hunger program – proposed in here…would quickly hit +40 million low-income Americans…it’s already triggering immense backlash among some GOP centrists + even more conservative Rs.”

“Speaker Johnson can’t afford any GOP defections,” she added.

Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast characterized the proposals as “Taking food stamps away from hungry children to pay for tax cuts for wealthy people.

Salaam Bhatti, the director of the Food Research and Action Center, remarked: “Cutting & gutting SNAP and kicking millions of poor people off the program at a time when people voted because they can’t afford to put food on the table is the most out of touch thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Trump voters in red states who rely on those programs are going to love this,” quipped Alex Gonzalez, a political analyst and editor-in-chief for Latino Public Policy Foundation. “Trump wants to cut $5.6 trillion from federal programs to fund $10 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Ironically, red states depend more on these programs than blue states.”

READ MORE: ‘Bananas’: Congressman Asks How Trump’s ‘Insane’ Threats Benefit Americans Economically

 

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