Attendees pass police officers to enter the Council on Religion and the Homosexual’s New Year’s Mard
Attendees pass police officers to enter the Council on Religion and the Homosexual’s New Year’s Mardi Gras Ball, California Hall, San Francisco, California, January 1, 1965. Photo c/o LGBT Religious Archives Network.Among the pioneering gay rights organizations formed in San Francisco in the mid-twentieth century was the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH), which Daughters of Bilitis founders Phyllis Martin and Del Lyon established with assistance from Glide Memorial Methodist Church. CRH was unique in many respects, but chiefly because it brought gay and straight people—including many clergy members—together to work on behalf of gay rights.For one of the first CRH fundraisers, organizers planned a New Year’s Mardi Gras Ball for New Year’s Day 1965. In the weeks leading up to the event, a number of CRH’s straight ministers negotiated a truce with the San Francisco Police Department, officers of which promised not to arrest any attendees of the “homosexual benefit ball.” The police had no intention of keeping that promise.On January 1, 1965, fifty-two years ago today, as guests began to arrive to the CRH Ball at approximately nine p.m., they were met by police taking pictures of everyone entering the building; the impact was immediate: an expected crowd of 1,500 evaporated into 500 brave guests. Within an hour, police demanded entry to the party, at which point three CRH lawyers explained that the police had no right to enter the private gathering without a warrant or tickets. The lawyers, along with three others, were arrested. The harassment continued and ultimately the ball ended at eleven p.m.It was the type of experience to which members of the queer community had grown accustomed; the straight attendees, however, had never dealt with such abuse. It was, as Phyllis Lyon said, “our first step into some kind of connectedness with the rest of the city.” The police, Hal Call explained, “were so brutal…that was a turning point.”The city, for its part, expressed embarrassment and remorse for the handling of the CRH Ball and efforts soon were made to modernize the police department’s approach to the queer community. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory (at San Francisco, California) -- source link
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