Gay Day

Today is June 28, which officially marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City's Greenwich Village that lasted for three days after police tried to raid a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. This set of events proved a transformative moment in the gay rights movement which had till then relied on non-confrontational approaches to education and advocacy. Marking this anniversary eventually morphed into what is now Pride Week, and the more recently proclaimed Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgendered Month (LGBT) as articulated by the Obama administration.

To honour this I submit a small piece on the Stonewall Riots from Democracynow broadcast this Friday.http://www.democracynow.org/embed_show_v1/300/2009/6/26/segment/1"



In a somewhat related thread I also submit this performance of Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror from the 1988 Grammy awards in honour of his passing. It is truly a powerful monument to the human spirit through music. Regardless of what you may think of all the media hullabulloo surrounding his death or the past wasted years of his sadly perverted life, there was so often an unusually strong force of spirit and finesse in his performance. Sadly, I think the corrupted integrity of his personal life can be somewhat instructive or illustrative of the wasted life wrought by child abuse or whatever social chastity may be prescribed for holding what are deemed unacceptable or shameful aspects of one's personal identity. And in this regard gender and sexuality issues remain right at the top of society's list of ultimate taboos.