The Reality of the "Stonewall Riot"

Another example of the Shepard Squeegee:  wash an illegal transaction with a "Queers Are Persecuted" story.  Rinse, Repeat, repeat, repeat, until history is "fixed."  (Bonus!! Learn a bit about Rosa Parks!!!)

...the Stonewall riot was not a revolutionary uprising.  Rather, it is best understood in terms of police corruption, not the suppression of an oppressed minority demanding legal equality.  As Strausbaugh makes clear, New York City’s stringent code regulating bars did not criminalize homosexual acts.  It just banned “disorderly behavior,” and this, in effect, permitted police to arrest gays as “disorderly” and, ultimately, close the establishment.  Vagueness allowed cops free rein to extort bars where gays congregated.  The fact that Stonewall even lacked a liquor license encouraged sporadic police shakedowns and so, technically, the raid instigating the riot was perfectly legal, not officially sanctioned homophobia.

Payoffs further provided opportunities for the city’s well established Mafia, who had long protected businesses facilitating illegal activities such as gambling and prostitution.  Bars paid the Mafia a regular fee, and since the Mafia often had the police on the payroll, business ran smoothly.  But, as in all such illicit relationships, failure to make the required payments invited trouble — for example, harassing customers.

The Mafia’s involvement also drew the attention of the honest police, since the protection racket served as the cash cow financing other more serious Mafia crimes like narcotics-trafficking.  In other words, stopping a bar’s monthly protection money would undermine the mob’s more harmful criminal activities.

So when nine cops arrived at Stonewall that hot June summer night and began frisking intoxicated customers and arresting underage drinkers, this was not homophobia on steroids.  The police, as they had done many times before, were enforcing a corrupt system, but in this instance, they made the mistake of raiding a bar filled with drunk, violence-prone customers unwilling to tolerate “the game,” where roughed up patrons served as collateral damage in a long-established shakedown system.  To be accurate, this “liberation” movement began as a shakedown gone wrong, and the outcome would have been different if the raid had occurred during a freezing winter day, where it was too cold for inebriated drag queens to congregate outside and pelt the police with bottles.  This is light-years away from the carefully organized Montgomery bus boycott, where black protesters such as Rosa Parks spent hours practicing responses to police directives to move to the back of the bus.

You have to have noticed by now that most Lefty morality-tales are actually lies.  The Roe v. Wade case was based on a lie.  So is Stonewall, and so is Shepard.

Lemmeesee, heah, Ferd.........who is the 'Father of Lies' again??