NEW YORK — Barack Obama plans to mark “Gay Pride Month” in June by designating a tavern in New York City as being a national monument to “gay rights”—the first move of its kind made by an American president.
The Stonewall Inn had been raided by police in 1969 over reports of homosexual activity at the private bar and dance club, which resulted in six days of rioting from homosexuals who opposed the raid. The incident is considered by some as sparking the homosexual rights movement in America.
Barack Obama cited the location in his 2013 inaugural address, stating, “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.”
While the tavern has already been designated a landmark by the city, New York Rep. Jerrod Nadler and Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, both Democrats, proposed in September that the area be made into a national park and launched a petition drive for its designation. They stated that they believed they had a better chance of memorializing the site with Obama than with the Republican-controlled Congress and have been pushing for the designation before Obama leaves office in January.
“We must have federal recognition of the LGBT movement’s history and origins and ensure that this piece of LGBT history is preserved for future generations,” Nadler said.
Mayor Bill DeBlasio has expressed his support for the proposal, as well as Sen. Chuck Schumer.
“Making the Stonewall Inn site a unit of the National Park system is the right thing to do,” Schumer has stated.
Christopher Park, located across the street from the Stonewall Inn, would be part of the national system if approved. A sculpture of four men symbolizing “gay liberation” was dedicated in the park in 1992. It had been commissioned by Peter Putnam of the Mildred Andrews Fund and created by George Segal.
According to the Washington Post, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis are scheduled to travel to New York City for a meeting about the matter on May 9. Interior Department spokesman Amanda Degroff told reporters that Obama has “made clear that he’s committed to ensuring our national parks, monuments and public lands help Americans better understand the places and stories that make this nation great.”
The White House has yet to confirm Obama’s plans to declare the site a national monument next month.
As previously reported, homosexuality was outlawed in early America as a number of states passed sodomy laws under their criminal statutes, banning sexual activity between those of the same gender due to biblical prohibitions against it.
“By 1791, when the original 13 states ratified the Bill of Rights, they all treated sodomy as a criminal offense,” chronicles on the matter state.
In 1778, General George Washington ordered Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin to be drummed out of the camp for “attempting to commit sodomy” with a male soldier.
His March 14th proclamation stated, “His Excellency, the Commander in Chief, approves the sentence, and with abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes, orders Lieut. Enslin to be drummed out of camp tomorrow morning by all the drummers and fifers in the Army never to return; the drummers and fifers to attend on the Grand Parade at guard mounting for that purpose.”