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Young LGBTQ people continue to struggle with homophobia and lack of support in many school districts lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are almost five times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual counterparts, according to a 2016 CDC study.
While most mainline Protestant denominations and Reform and Conservative synagogues have moved toward acceptance of gay people, and Pope Francis famously replied “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay priests, conservative religious institutions have remained mostly unbending. In 27 states, LGBTQ people can still be fired for being gay. Much of this progress remains uneven today, often along “blue” and “red” lines.
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Joe Biden, in announcing his support of gay marriage, said that the TV sitcom “Will and Grace” “probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anyone’s done so far.”
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Movie and TV characters and story lines gave additional credence to the “mainstreaming” of LGBTQ life. The LGBTQ family became a part of the American suburban landscape, with lesbian couples and some gay men raising children. Marriage equality gave LGBTQ people and relationships a legal status and a social standing. The most important step forward came in the 2015 US Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
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As always, it was two steps forward and one step back. Under Barack Obama, the ban on LGBTQ military service was finally repealed, but once Donald Trump was elected, he partially restored the ban by executive order, this time singling out transgender people. In the 1992 election, Bill Clinton became the first presidential candidate to actively court the gay vote, yet when he attempted to fulfill a campaign promise to end military discrimination, he was forced into ignominious retreat. The US armed forces ban on LGBTQ people was a flashpoint for many years. A sober, mature LGBTQ community, caring for itself and for others, emerged in the national spotlight, and lesbians took a visible role in supporting gay men, engendering a greater solidarity than in the past.Ĭrowds gather to see the AIDS Quilt on display in Washington, D.C., on the Mall in 1996. However, what followed was an outburst of activism and, later, anger at governmental apathy. The toll was horrifying: The CDC estimates that 330,000 gay and bisexual men have died of AIDS in the US since the 1980s.
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By the early 1980s, AIDS was decimating the gay male community, and many wondered if the LGBTQ movement would survive. Gains, losses, suffering, and yet more gains became the paradigm of what was to come for the next 40 years. A tragic postscript to backlash was the assassination of openly gay San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk a year and a half later. Under Bryant’s leadership, in June 1977, voters in Florida’s Dade County, which includes Miami, overwhelmingly repealed its gay rights ordinance in a referendum. Anita Bryant, former Miss America runner-up and pitchwoman for Florida orange juice, was the backlash’s unlikely public face, founding an organization called Save Our Children. In the atmosphere of the closing years of the decade, with its rising opposition to issues like abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, a counterrevolution emerged. On June 13, 1977, State Representative Elaine Noble, a Democrat from the Back Bay, smiles after addressing a crowd at a gay rights rally on Boston Common.