Gays’ Quest for Civil Rights Is Hobbled by the Brethren Hiding in the Closet

Twenty years ago this week, New York City police raided a bar that catered to a gay clientele, for no other reason than to harass those present (in keeping with the custom of the time). One patron was a South American exchange student. So fearful was he of deportation that he risked death rather than be discovered in a gay bar: He leaped out a second-story window and was impaled on an iron-spiked fence below.

A few nights later, police raided another gay bar. With news of the young man’s death still fresh in their minds, the patrons spontaneously decided that this was the last straw. For the first time, gays would resist arrest en masse. The fracas grew into a riot that lasted two days. Just as Rosa Parks’ refusal to relinquish her bus seat to a white person sparked the black civil-rights movement, the Stonewall Inn confrontation sparked the gay-rights movement.

This month, gay people all over the United States are celebrating the Stonewall riot and the progress that gays have made since 1969. While it’s true that gays have made significant strides toward full civil rights, there is still a long way to go. Gays still suffer from discrimination and violence that would be unthinkable if perpetrated against a woman or a person of color.

Why has progress been limited? Because most gays as individuals have done little to change society’s perception of them.

Many gays keep their sexual orientation secret because they fear discrimination. But they perpetuate discrimination by not taking the small but significant steps that would challenge the stereotypes at the root of that discrimination.

The privacy gays seek, the privacy of the closet, is a two-edged sword. True, it can protect them by providing invisibility. It can also be used against them, for example to support the belief that gays are susceptible to blackmail, or as proof that their lives must be sordid or they wouldn’t shroud them.

Paradoxically, some loss of privacy might be necessary to guarantee civil rights. California Secretary of State March Fong Eu remarked in 1984 that “the closet stands in the way of progress more than any hate groups, religious animosities or unfair laws.” Further, “gays and lesbians must come out of that closet . . . (E)ven if it means losing jobs, losing family ties or losing so-called friends, you must make a concerted effort to stand up and say, ‘I am.’ ”

Merely by being more open about their private lives, gays “come out.” Non-gays then discover that they unknowingly have been dealing with gays in every phase of their lives. The stereotypes will begin to crack when non-gays learn that respected public figures and their own friends, neighbors and co-workers are gay. And non-gays may become an important support in this civil-rights struggle when they see gays in a different light--when they knowingly lunch with gays, work with them, are led in worship by them, play volleyball with them, consult them at tax time, agonize with them at parents’ night, recruit them for the Neighborhood Watch.

Gays who don’t talk as freely about their personal lives as do heterosexuals only reinforce the belief that their lives are not respectable. Until the respected lawyer puts her life partner’s picture on her office credenza for all to see, nothing will change. Until the successful stock broker summons the courage to join the lunchtime banter to describe the vacation trip he took with his boyfriend, nothing will change. Until Grammy-winning rock stars and NFL quarterbacks answer persistent rumors by unashamedly saying, “Yes, I am--so what?” nothing will change.