this is how it happens:
years and courts and people
converge
in jagged strokes of
limitations and freedoms.
this is how it happens:
like a winding staircase.
push;
nineteen sixty-nine and movement is ablaze
elsewhere
with an uproar at the stonewall inn.
pull;
one-hundred and one years earlier and statute
eight-hundred point zero one
engraves love with restrictions
(and stands one-hundred and one years later.)
Advance;
nineteen seventy-one and two men are no longer
a felony together.
retreat;
nineteen seventy-one and two men are newly
a misdemeanor together.
flow;
nineteen seventy-six and a change
(the welcome sort)
is proposed in the form of ordinance
seventy-seven dash four.
ebb;
nineteen seventy-seven and opposition
(the slightly-less-welcome sort)
flourishes through protests and organizations and
saving (or so they say) our children.
(And yet and yet and yet
at intersecting timelines and parallel coasts,
California:
backwards;
proposition 6 starts with a bang and—
Forwards;
ends with a whimper.)
exhale;
Nineteen eighty-six and georgia whispers
of the same constraints of florida
fifteen years earler.
inhale;
ninteen ninety-seven and suddenly,
from florida,
there is group with a voice.
this is how it happens:
at the end of a millenium,
and it is just a
beginning.
The Stonewall riots in New York were against a police raid of a gay bar, and are largely considered one of the first events in the gay liberation movement.
Florida state 800.01 banned
any "abominable and detestable crime against nature", such as sodomy.
franklin v. state maintained florida's sodomy law as a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
ordinance 77-4, adopted in january of 1977, included "added protection from discrimination based on affection or sexual preference.
anita bryant, a singer, formed the "save Our children" coalition which sought to (and eventually did) repeal ordiance 77-4, and also later banned gay adoption in florida.
proposition 6, also known as the briggs initiative, was inspired by the "save our children" coalition. it sought to ban gay people from teaching at public schools, but didn't pass.
bowers v. hardwick upheld georgia's law against sodomy.
equality florida, a LGBT+ civil rights activism group, would later go on to help repeal the gay adoption ban.