Living an open gay lifestyle was unheard of across most of the U.S. “That’s a snapshot of 40 years of progress,” said Jason Marsden, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, named for the University of Wyoming gay student who died after he was beaten and tied to a fence by two men in 1998. On Sunday, police will march in solidarity and will have a robust presence among the crowd of 300,000 plus people. “Once upon a time they hit us with nightsticks, and now they’re our protectors,” said Gil Horowitz, 80, a retired research psychologist in New York who took part in the riots at Stonewall.Īt gay pride parades this weekend, that evolution will be on display in cities like Denver, where the first parade in 1975 was in response to police raids on gay bars and arrests of gay men.
The irony isn’t lost on the gay community that used to see police as the oppressor and counts the 1969 Stonewall Inn raid as the start of the gay rights movement. Nearly 50 years later, officers armed with assault rifles stand guard outside the historic bar, protecting patrons after a gunman in Florida staged a massacre at a gay nightclub and spread fear of more attacks. Decades ago, an early morning raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York sparked violent protests among gay patrons who fought back after police burst in and tried to arrest them for daring to drink and dance with members of the same sex.
