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Fair warning: this is my opinion. I do not flatter myself as some kind of profoundly erudite historian who is making some sort of indisputable lecture.
Growing up near Miami, Florida, I recall - in June 1977 - the victorious campaign by Anita Bryant and her supporters in repealing a county gay rights ordinance in Dade County. Ms. Bryant danced a little dance on the stage of her victory party (at a Miami Beach Holiday Inn) and vowed to take her campaign nation-wide to stop the growing number of cities and counties across the US that were passing laws prohibiting discrimination against gay folks. She called her crusade "Save Our Children."
Within a year similar gay rights laws were repealed in Eugene, OR, Wichita, KS, and St. Paul, MN. In California a state legislator sponsored a bill banning all gay people from employment in the public school systems of that state.
Fast forward to the summer of 2015. The LGBT community and it's supporters succeeded in abolishing the laws criminalizing homosexual acts in the remaining states were it was still illegal, electing opening gay and lesbian candidates to public office, building scores of community centers throughout the country, organizing marches and demonstrations attracting hundreds of thousands of participants, convinced major corporations to take a stand against discrimination, overturned the ban on gay people in the Armed Services, etc., etc. ... and mostly recently, accomplished the legal recognition of same sex marriage throughout the land.
What happened to Anita Bryant's campaign? Why did it fail? Opponents of gay rights had powerful allies - Evangelical Protestants, Mormons, the Roman Catholic Church, American conservatives, most Republicans, the "Moral Majority" and the Family Research Council. They had excellent funding.
From my point of view: the Anti-Gay movement was based on lies. It attempted to demonize gay people. The foundation of Anita's campaign was that gay people were child molesters and mentally defective.
The LGBT movement was grounded in reality. They stuck to the facts. Steadfast and unwavering, they never changed their arguments and showed patient determination. As more gay people "came out" to their families, friends, neighbors, work colleagues, and more celebrities came out in the media it was harder to demonize them.
Anita Briant is from my home state of Oklahoma. Even here she is seen as the face of hate. There was a fundraising effort in her hometown of Barnsdall Oklahoma, to raise money to buy her childhood home to turn into a museum. I think they raised a couple hundred dollars, most people here are turned off by her.
You would think some of these younger conservative politicians would see what happened to her and not want to go down the same path. In 10 years what will people be thinking of politicians like Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Bobby Jendel ...
Well, the other thing about it was that it didn't line up with real-world experience and the interference in private lives was anathema to many hardcore conservatives.
My father is an 84-year-old hardcore conservative, and he was never going to protest for gay rights or anything, but he is completely mystified by campaigns against gay rights when he's not being downright contemptuous about them. I think his opinions were formed when he saw a widely respected officer drummed out of the military shortly before the man's retirement. The guy had served honorably for decades, during multiple wars, and they took the best years of his life and then threw him away at their convenience with no benefits. That was 60 some years ago and my father is still outraged by the injustice.
I think the gay movement succeeded because the United States as a country is, for the most part, free. People are allowed to espouse their opinions, which may be different from the opinions of the local government, and not be shot or otherwise censured. So eventually enough people are going to hear both sides and be able to choose the side that makes the most sense, instead of just being forced into whatever other folks want us to believe.
The gay rights movement had a few very important things going for it as far as a movement is concerned.
1) It was trying to push for something rather against something. Many people are more willing to allow someone to do something that doesn't directly affect them than they are to stop someone when it doesn't affect them. Pushing for gay marriage divided people into three groups, 1) Pro-gay marriage, 2) Anti-gay marriage, 3) I really don't care, and when you're pushing for something, most of the people in group 3 just say "go ahead, I don't care"
2) They had definitive goals. The modern feminism movement is for women's equality. Ok, sounds like a good goal, but what law do you want passed. What situation can you point to where women are treated unequally that you want the legal system to correct? Occupy wall street was an even bigger example of this. A lot of passion and support... but no definitive goal.
3) Something else that made this even easier for the gay rights movement vs other ones is that for the most part, you don't know who's gay unless they make it obvious to you. It made it much easier to relate because they "look" the same. I'll admit, that sounds bad, but reality is they didn't have to overcome a skin color difference, or a gender difference, or an accent, or anything else. There was no obvious way to judge people if they were keeping it a secret, which made it easier to make people rethink their stance. Suddenly finding out a person was gay leads to thinking "I always knew and liked that person, I can't believe they were actually gay! But they're still the same person, so maybe this is ok?" instead of being able to stick to stereotypes based on a skin color for example. No one ever though "I can't believe that white person turned out to be white!" which is in some ways a shame because it would probably have a pretty dramatic impact on a lot of stereotypes.
How the gay movement succeeded....they got into hollywood and on camera, letting people see that theyre just normal people and not Satans spawn....
I think it took the necessary steps to have the USA embrace, accept, and support them. It was seen as something just unacceptable for many years. Little by little it started to be talked about in Hollywood. MTV introduced a gay character to a show that won America's hearts and other celebrities started to come out and people liked that. Little by little.
Other sexual preferences/orientations will also slowly gain acceptance and support. It may sound crazy or unacceptable for some but this is just how homosexuality was seen not so long ago.
Here's my take, gays and lesbians are present in every ethnicity, economic class and social strata. As a result it is hard to continue to discriminate against individuals you see and work with every day - often without the slightest knowledge of their sexual preferences. A lot of barriers fell when it was disclosed the viral man's man Rock Hudson revealed that he was gay.
Here's my take, gays and lesbians are present in every ethnicity, economic class and social strata. As a result it is hard to continue to discriminate against individuals you see and work with every day - often without the slightest knowledge of their sexual preferences. A lot of barriers fell when it was disclosed the viral man's man Rock Hudson revealed that he was gay.
There are other sexual preferences/orientations around us that are keeping it quiet just like LGTB did not so long ago. Maybe they are just waiting for the right moment to start their campaigns slowly but surely just like LGTB did. I don't think countries like the USA would have a problem really.
Once gays and lesbians began to come out in serious numbers - Stonewall was a significant moment that spurred this on - the myths about LGBT people began to fall apart. And the increasing visibility of those coming then encourage more to do so, and this trend simply continued. Increasingly, gays weren't something people only knew about in rumor and theory - they were acquaintances and friends, uncles and neighbors, colleagues and even public figures.
And it's a lot easier to get a populace to agree to oppress those they don't know than those they do know.
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