Gay Rights Movement

Some people say gay rights have just started, but they have been going on for a couple years now. If you keep reading this then you will read court cases and other incidents about how gay rights all started.

LGBT individuals are now allowed to serve openly in the military. Laws prohibit homosexula activity have been struck down. June 26, 2015 same-sex marriage and adoption is legal in all 50 states. A man named Henry Gerber created the first Gay rights organization in Germany.

During World War I Gerber was inspired to create his own gay rights organization. His organization was by scientific - humanitarian committee a “homosexual emancipation” group in germany. Gerbers group published a few issues of its newsletter “friendship and Freedom” the country’s first gay-interest newsletter. In 1925, police raids caused the group to seperate, but 90 years later the U.S. government designated Gerber’s Chicago house a National Historic Landmark.

For the next few decades the gay rights movement stagnated, through LGBT individuals around the world did come into spotlight a few times.

Get quality help now

Prof. Finch

Verified writer

Proficient in: Gay

4.7 (346)

“ This writer never make an mistake for me always deliver long before due date. Am telling you man this writer is absolutely the best. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

In the 1960’s there was early process. In 1961, Illinois was the first state to do away with anti-sodomy laws, decriminalizing homosexuality, local TV stations in California had the first documentary about the homosexuality, it was called the Rejected. Dr. John Oliven, wrote a book called Sexual Hygiene and Pathology in 1965. Which coined the term “transgender” describing someone that was born in the “wrong body”. The highest court in Hawaii was ban on gay marriage may go against the states Constitution.

Lawmakers also disagree, and the council passed the Defense of marriage act, (DOMA). Clinton signed the laws in 1996. The law stopped the government from granting federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples. They allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage certificates from other states.

A new anti-hate-crime law allowed judges to impose harsher sentences of a crime was motivated by victims sexual orientation. Gay rights proponents had another bt of happy news in 2003. The U.S. supreme court in Lawrence V Texas, struck down the state’s anti-sodomy law. President Barack Obama signed into a law new hate crime act in 2009. The Matthew Shephard Act, a new law extended the reach in 1994 hate crime law. The response to the act was the 1998 Murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shephard. Matthew was pistol-whipped, tortured, tied to a fence, and left to die. The court said his death was lead towards Matthew’s homosexuality.

Barack Obama fulfilled a campaign promise to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”(DADT) in 2011. More than twelve thousand officers has been discharged from military under DADT for refusing to hide their sexuaity. Section three of “Defense of Marriage Act” which allowed the government to deny federal benefits to same-sex married couples. Defense of Marriage Act soon became powerless when in 2015 the supreme courts ruled that the states cannot ban same-sex marriage, making gay marriage legal throughout the country. In 2015 the landmark ruling the boy scouts of America lifted its ban against openly gay leaders and employees. In 2017 it reversed a century-old ban against openly gay leaders and children. The organization had accepted its first transgender people serving openly, a month after Eric Fanning became secretary of the Army and the first openly gay secretary of a U.S. Military branch. State laws allow businesses to deni services to all LGBT individuals due to religious beliefs, as well as bathroom laws. This prevents transgender individuals from using public bathrooms that do not compare to their sex at birth.

LGBT activism in the late 1990s and early 2000s on to 2015, was devoted to repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. Political battles that began with former president, BIll Clinton created the policy as compromise; Barack Obama ended by signing the repeal Act in 2010. Now LGB folks could serve openly in the military and in 2016 trans folk were added in to the ok-to-serve-list. Michael McConnell agreed to move in with his boyfriend, he insisted Jack baker made an honest man of him. They became the first same-sex couple in 1970, and to apply for a marriage license, took their fight to the supreme court, they lost.

The case facturedd, indirectly, into a landmark decision more than 40 years later. After a legal change to a gender neutral name and finding a clerk in a neighboring country is still together. After McConnell and hubby, there was many litigants in a number of cities, too numerous to recount here as well as lawyers, activists and politicians who ledged hundreds of thousands of hours during these two decades to get to the final supreme court decision that made marriage equally the law of the land for the whole nation.

They were both already married and widowed by the time they filled their lawsuits. Lesbian couple Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer had been together for 40 years when a doctor told Spyer she only had a yaer to live. She had been living with progressive multiple sclerosis since 1977. The couple who had been waiting for marriage equality to come to New York decided they couldn’t wait any longer. They dashed up to Canada to wed in 2007.