California Hall was a tremendous representation of how the people reacted to the LGBT community. It was a huge turning point for the community as a whole and helped the modern LGBT movement push on. I chose this event because I believe it was a huge precursor to Stonewall and I am sure helped lead the way to many other events that occurred within the LGBT movement.
The documentary, Lewd & Lascivious, focused not only on the California Hall event but also what was going on years before and what happened after the event. The documentary brought us back to 1960s San Francisco - before Stonewall – right when things were getting started. "To be gay or lesbian was a crime" back in those days (Lewd & Lascivious, 2012). Individuals were not allowed
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No longer were they combative, according to the documentary; the next year, the police were more helpful when it came to the ball and did not interfere as they did before. In 1965 the police were outnumbered; the churchmen and women, the LGBT people, and the judges were not on their side and because they didn’t get away with what they did that night, they realized that they could no longer go on and act the way they had been. This was a major leap and kick start to both San Francisco’s and the nation’s gay rights movement. California Hall was the start of a close relationship and joint venture between gay activists, San Francisco’s Christians churches, and some politicians that were ahead of their time. This event began the belief of San Francisco being a safe haven for LGBT people. In 2013, San Francisco police chief stated that the Mission police station “along with the city’s nine other precincts have been designated as safe havens for members of the LGBT community to report crimes” (CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service, 2013). This year, San Francisco legislators have brought up a “bill to protect LGBT seniors in assisted-living facilities” (LA Independent,