Mention the gay liberation movement in the U.S. in the 1970s, and most people think of riots and unbridled sexual exploration. Connecticut College history professor Jim Downs's trim but inspiring Stand by Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation redefines the period as the beginning of an expansion of gay print culture, the rise of the gay religious movement and the emergence of gay intellectuals.
"The 1970s was more than a night at a bathhouse," writes Downs (Sick from Freedom), who proceeds to tell the stories of "how gay people built churches, founded newspapers, established bookstores, and rethought the meaning of gay identity." Stand by Me begins with a stirring investigation into a 1973 fire in a New Orleans gay bar that killed 32 patrons attending their weekly church service. It received scant attention from the media or elected officials; Downs calls it "the largest massacre of gay people in American history."
Some of the most compelling and moving chapters are portraits of LGBT leaders, including Jonathan Ned Katz, author of Gay American History, and Craig Rodwell, who in 1967 opened the first gay bookstore in America--the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in New York City. Other chapters chart the rise of gay churches and gay organizations within established churches; gay newspapers in the U.S. and Canada; gay incarcerations; and the empowering but restrictive adoption by gay men of the macho "clone" look. Downs has written an important, thoughtful and entertaining record that shines light on unfamiliar moments in early gay and lesbian history. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant