Lar Lar Larson

High res mcdonald’s promotional bionicle comic from 2002, plus 1 panel I thought was cool from a different comic. They’re all 2000x1268

behold: the magma block

spent a few days on it. should quit while i’m ahead

there are no bonkle themes in this one (aside from a MNOG sound and a desktop takua sound) so I’m proud that i’m able to make something that isn’t bonkle related

no idea what to do with this song, i just sorta came up with it

The first gay rights public demonstration in 1964. Randy Wicker with the Sexual Freedom League organized a picketing of the Whitehall Street Induction Center over confidentiality violations of gay men’s draft records, which followed them as permanently unemployable.

The first gay pride parade in 1966. Multiple city protests were held against the military exclusion of homosexuals on Armed Forces Day, including a 15 car, twenty mile motorcade from Don Slater’s Committee to Fight Exclusion of Homosexuals from the Armed Forces.

The first association of PRIDE with gay rights in 1967. A month after undercover police arrested 16 gay men at the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles, over 500 people organized by Personal Rights in Defense and Education marched outside the bar with signs denouncing “blue fascism,” then held a same-sex kiss-in.

While these events influenced what later became gay pride, the direct heir is the Annual Reminder protests held every July 4 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia between 1965 and 1969. Craig Rodwell, better known as the dyslexic owner of the first gay bookstore, introduced the idea to the East Coast Homophile Organizations (the Janus Society of Delaware Valley, Mattachine Society of Washington DC, the New York chapter of Daughters of Bilitis, and the Mattachine Society of New York). Veteran activists Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings helped the event grow from 40 people to 120, at the time the largest gay rights demonstration in the world.

“The name of the event was selected to remind the American people that a substantial number of American citizens were denied the rights of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ enumerated in the United States Declaration of Independence.”

Before I get ahead of myself, in New York City, gay rights groups increased their organizing and attracted new members after the 3-5 night uprising at the Stonewall Inn. Craig Rodwell ran to various NYC newspapers to ensure coverage for the Stonewall rebellion so this didn’t disappear from public consciousness like the Compton Cafeteria or Cooper’s Donuts Riots. Lucien K. Truscott IV’s enthusiastic coverage was hailed by Don Teal as “inadvertently initiat[ing] the gay liberation movement.” Michael Brown, as part of the newly-formed Mattachine Action Committee, called for a town hall meeting on July 9 at the Freedom House. One of the estimated 400 attendees, Martha Shelley first proposed to Bob Kohler, then the crowd, they hold a protest march.

A couple weeks after Stonewall, the New York chapters of the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis put ads in the Village Voice for a march around the West Village and speeches at the fountain in Sheridan Square, starting with a few hundred but attracting thousands. Marty Robinson and Martha Shelley promised, “OK, you know, the march is over, let’s all go home peacefully, but what we started, this ain’t over. There’s going to be more,” which lead to the creation of the Gay Liberation Front. GLF later splintered groups like Third World Gay Revolutionaries and Radicalesbians, but the ones who wanted to focus soley on gay rights issues, not women’s liberation or anti-war protests, created the Gay Activists Alliance. They intruded everywhere from public forums and celebrity speeches to chant pro-gay slogans and wave signs, confronting the mayor’s refusal to meet with gay community liasions, discriminatory bar service practices, and negative news coverage. When an Argentinian student, Diego Viñales, was impaled on a fence trying to escape a police raid on the Snake Pit and possible deportation if arrested, and 127 gay patrons were arrested, the Gay Activist Alliance’s march on the precinct responsible and candlelight vigil outside the hospital renewed interest in the upcoming Christopher Street Liberation Day with its extensive TV and newspaper coverage.

“No one was more responsible for conceiving and organizing that first march on the last Sunday in June than Craig Rodwell,” says his presumably biased partner, Fred Sargent. “After months of planning and internal controversy, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Umbrella Committee negotiated with more than a dozen very different gay organizations. One of the largest hurdles was which group would have the honor of heading the march. It was only when Craig and Michael Brown, who’d arranged for those first permits, decided that each group would have one representative was the matter finally settled. Even the question of a chant was endlessly discussed—the winner: Say it clear, say it loud. Gay is good, gay is proud. Craig and police brass worked out a glitch over permits for the parade and the post-parade ‘Gay-In’ in Central Park’s Sheep Meadow only moments before the events began.”

At the November 1–2, 1969 meeting of the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (the successor to ECHO), Ellen Broidy of the NYU Student Homophile League presented Craig Rodwell’s proposal for a new commemorative demonstration. The conference passed a resolution drafted by Rodwell, Fred Sargeant, Broidy, and Linda Rhodes to move the demonstration from July 4 in Philadelphia to the last weekend in June in New York City.

“That the Annual Reminder, in order to be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged—that of our fundamental human rights—be moved both in time and location.

We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration be called CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration.

We also propose that we contact Homophile organizations throughout the country and suggest that they hold parallel demonstrations on that day. We propose a nationwide show of support.”

All attendees to the ECHO meeting in Philadelphia voted for the march except for Mattachine Society of New York, which abstained. Members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) attended the meeting and were seated as guests of Rodwell’s group, Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN).Meetings to organize the march began in early January at Rodwell’s apartment in 350 Bleecker Street. At first there was difficulty getting some of the major New York City organizations like Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) to send representatives. Craig Rodwell and Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, Michael Brown, Marty Nixon, and Foster Gunnison of Mattachine made up the core group of the CSLD Umbrella Committee (CSLDUC). For initial funding, Gunnison served as treasurer and sought donations from the national homophile organizations and sponsors, while Sargeant solicited donations via the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop customer mailing list and Nixon worked to gain financial support from GLF in his position as treasurer for that organization. Other mainstays of the organizing committee were Judy Miller, Jack Waluska, Steve Gerrie and Brenda Howard of GLF. Believing that more people would turn out for the march on a Sunday, and so as to mark the date of the start of the Stonewall uprising, the CSLDUC scheduled the date for the first march for Sunday, June 28, 1970. With Dick Leitsch’s replacement as president of Mattachine NY by Michael Kotis in April 1970, opposition to the march by Mattachine ended. 

Did you know, Chicago held their gay pride event the day before New York City? 

Tl;dr:

Any one of the hundreds of Stonewall participants could be isolated as the impetus. Heterosexuals from Greenwich Village made up a significant portion of the crowd fighting back after police randomly assaulted and arrested a semi-popular folk singer named Dave van Ronk from the straight gawkers spilling out of nearby bars. Do we call him the catalyst for the rioting crowd? Of course not. Stonewall was opened by a rumored 420 lb. mafioso named Fat Tony Lauria who paid off the police with $2000/wk. Did he give us gay rights or pride by providing a social gathering space? No! David Eisenbach’s book Gay Power: An American Revolution describes a young Puerto Rican named Gino who threw a cobblestone at a squad car: “Bam! The riot had begun.” Was no-surname Gino the cobblestone heard around the world? Evidently not. Storme Delarverie is remembered by many as the Mother of Stonewall and eyewitness accounts in gay documentaries name a white butch lesbian throwing the first punch, which may or may not have been biracial Storme. This was never about one person. Gay men and lesbians were unambiguously responsible for starting gay rights organizations, protesting the federal government and military, coordinating public displays of pride, and eventually securing the right to same-sex activity and marriage through the courts. Secondary to Marsha P. Johnson being a transvestite or a trans woman is the fact he, like most of the trans community of the decade, was homosexual. The policeman who led the Stonewall raid said, “So many showed up immediately, it was as if a signal were given. And that was the unusual thing because usually, when we went to work, everybody disappeared. They were glad to get away. But this night was different. Instead of the homosexuals slinking off, they remained there, and their friends came, and it was a real meeting of homosexuals.“ Again, these people came together under the right to be same-sex attracted. Lots of people and advocacy groups inspired pride. There was more than just a bisexual woman named Brenda Howard on the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee. There were sister marches in Los Angeles and Chicago the same weekend nobody can give you any facts about or names of participants for either. Nobody gave anyone pride. Gay people, with assistance from the other letters in the LGBT, built everything we have.

02/14/19

13 Same-Sex Couples In Japan Sue For Equal Marital Rights On Valentine’s Day

In a society where pressure for conformity is strong, many gay people hide their sexuality, fearing prejudice at home, school or work. The obstacles are even higher for transgender people in the highly gender-specific society.

“When There’s a Smile in Your Heart”

Think of all the joy you’ll find

When you leave the world behind

And bid your plans goodbyyyyyye

You can fly! You can fly! You can fly!

Or nap, I guess.

TricksyWizard.com