We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2009
A movement succeeds not when everything is perfect but when so much has changed that there's no going back. This is inarguably where we're at. Skirmishes will be won and lost, greater changes are to be anticipated, and the fight still needs everyone's best, but think of those women and men at the first Mattachine demonstration in 1965 and then watch a tape of Clinton's HRC speech.
Something's changed … We're still living in a world of shit, a lot of the shit is homophobic, all the shit's interrelated, and the fight is far from finished. But if we don't take an opportunity like a movie or a speech to mark that progress has been made, how are we going to remember, when we have cause to despair, that political action changes the world?
Tony Kushner, “Gay Perestroika”In 1969 some drag queens started a riot in Greenwich village sparking the gay liberation movement, and in 1997 the President of the United States of America delivered a speech to the Human Rights Campaign in Washington DC. In 1967, after Parliamentary debate ended on the Sexual Offences Act, the Act's primary architect, Lord Arran, contemptuously stated that “homosexuals must continue to remember that while there may be nothing bad in being homosexual, there is certainly nothing good.” Thirty years later, Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair proclaimed “I am eager to see a Labour government make significant progress towards ending discrimination and fostering a society free of homophobic prejudice.” In the mid-1980s few American mainstream films addressing gay themes or having gay characters were released.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
