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So that young people know their movement matters

David Carter.   Photo by Lincoln Anderson
David Carter. Photo by Lincoln Anderson

BY DAVID CARTER  |  The following is the testimony that the author gave to Community Board 2 at its full board meeting on Thurs., July 23, in support of designating Christopher Park as a national monument within the national parks system.

The debate about whether the Stonewall Uprising site should be a national park compels us, I think, to consider what the meaning of history is. I would answer that history is about much more than knowing a list of facts and dates. History is also about defining ourselves, for history attempts to answer the basic questions of who we are, why we are here, as well as where have we come from and where are we going.

Every culture has its own common narrative, whether it be a Native American myth about the origin of a particular tribe or, for Jews, the story of Moses leading the Hebrews out of bondage in Egypt. Those stories are valued because they answer the most basic questions about meaning and identity.

But for gay people, our culture is less evolved for two reasons. The first is that our group was until recently considered so unhuman that it was perceived as a threat to culture and civilization.

I remind you that it was not long ago that our opponents often successfully argued that homosexuality had led to the downfall of Greece and Rome (certainly not a statement grounded in history), and that passing laws that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation would similarly doom our society.

And since we were seen, literally, as unspeakable, gay history was not recorded but was suppressed, distorted or destroyed. And, indeed, yesterday’s Times reports that President Obama is being urged not to talk about L.G.B.T. rights on his trip to Africa.

The second factor is that L.G.B.T. people are generally not born to parents who are homosexual or transgendered, and so, unlike you in other minority groups, they do not grow up with a family that automatically can support them with the knowledge that comes from being part of that community. That leaves our young people vulnerable, particularly when they are coming of age, at the time when sexuality and romance bloom, a time that is inherently awkward for many adolescents.

Several popes and vice presidents have spoken recently about the need to respect human labor through living wages and health benefits that give people the ability to have essential care, so that working-class laborers are able to live with dignity. But dignity does not only come from having our material needs met: As a great Jewish rabbi said, Man does not live by bread alone.

Certainly, I doubt anyone here would argue that it is unimportant for young black people to have the history of the black civil rights movement recognized as legitimate and important civil rights history and United States history. I’m sure you all want young girls — and young boys — to know about the meaning of Seneca Falls for similar reasons.

But the history of the L.G.B.T. civil rights movement is left out of the history books in public schools. There is a national park at Seneca Falls and one at Selma, but there is not one U.S. national park or monument that was created to recognize the history of the L.G.B.T. civil rights movement.

Tonight, you can help change that, and I urge you to do the right thing, to seize this opportunity to make history yourself, and to help ensure that young L.G.B.T. people will grow up knowing that their movement matters, because it is no longer excluded from the status of being recognized as a national park, because by telling them that their history matters, you will also be telling them that their lives matter.

Carter is the author of “Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution”