1969: The Birth of Gay Liberation?

The Stonewall Inn, Photo by Diana Davies, The New York Public Library

In the popular imagination, the year 1969 marks the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. That year, the Stonewall riots reverberated throughout the U.S., fueling a change in strategy away from the assimilationist tactics of the homophile movement and towards the radical impulses of gay liberation. For the next decade, gay activists founded innumerable organizations, fought back against state sodomy laws, and demanded better political representation in electoral contests. Yet, accounts of this moment often focus on the secular while ignoring how Stonewall also inspired religiously inclined gays and lesbians to organize. As Heather White shows in her agenda-setting book, Reforming Sodom, ‘the Stonewall narrative and its commemoration were a perfect vehicle for fusing gay and religious identities into a seamless whole’.

As an example of this activism in the religious sphere, Richard Daller (born March 4, 1937; died January 31, 2009) who had been involved at Grace Cathedral for five years as a leader—acolyte and lay-reader—stood in the lecturn before the congregation to address injustices towards the gay community.