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04/01/2011
Pre-nuptial disagreement: Looking back at NYC's equality fight, 1986 vintage
Andy Humm leads off this, one of the more insightful clips from Phil Zwickler and Jane Lippman's 1988 documentary Rights and Reactions:
*More clips and information: Rights and Reactions [Phil Zwickler Foundation]
Organizeed Catholic opposition? Yehuda Levin saying incendiary things? Religion, religion, and, did I mention, the Bible?
Now, twenty-five years after that contentious nondiscrimination bill's long-delayed signage, a more seasoned Andy -- today a journalist for Gay City News and co-host of the weekly "Gay USA" program -- is looking back on a fight that may seem dated in one sense, yet is so undeniably familiar in another. Go read Andy's firsthand take and perhaps even glean a thing or two about what then-councilwoman Ruth Messinger said was "exactly the kind of legislative story from which people in any field can learn a lot":
It’s the silver anniversary of the passage of New York City’s gay and lesbian rights bill. The City Council adopted it 21-14 on March 21, 1986, and Mayor Ed Koch signed it into law on April 2.
A quarter of a century ago sounds like a long time in the past, but New York was actually one of the last big American cities to pass such a bill, even though the concept of adding “sexual orientation” to non-discrimination laws was dreamt up here by the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in 1971.
KEEP READING: NYC's Gay Rights Silver Anniversary [Gay City News]
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