Abstract
On August 2, 1982, Michael Hardwick, a 29-year-old bartender in Atlanta, was engaging in oral sex with another man when a city police officer knocked on his front door. A houseguest directed the officer to Hardwick’s bedroom, and upon opening the door, the officer witnessed the sexual encounter between Hardwick and his date. The officer explained that he was there to serve Hardwick an arrest warrant related to public intoxication, and the young bartender protested, saying that he could show the officer a receipt indicating he had already settled the matter in court. But the officer proceeded to arrest Hardwick and his date anyway—on grounds that they were violating a sodomy statute that criminalized oral and anal sex.1
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Notes
For details and a legal analysis of this case, see David A. J. Richards, The Sodomy Cases: Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009).
For a critical response to the case, see Toni M. Massaro, “Gay Rights, Thick and Thin,” Stanford Law Review 49, no. 1 (November 1996): 45–110.
And for a book that is particularly adept at setting the case in its legal context, see Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price, Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court (New York: Basic Books, 2001).
Although Cothren has attracted more attention than Johnson has, he is yet another understudied figure in the history of civil rights and gay rights. For more on Cothren, see Jason Michael, “Lynn Cothren: In the Shadow of a Civil Rights Icon,” Between the Lines, May 13, 2004 (accessible at http://pridesource.com). Several interviews of Cothren are also available online.
Isaiah J. Poole, “Gay Groups Denied Formal Role in March,” The Washington Times, August 22, 1983.
See, for example, John A. Barnes, “Four Arrested in Gay-Rights Sit-In,” The Washington Times, August 25, 1983.
Lou Chibbaro Jr., “Gays, March Leaders Reach Compromise over Speaker,” The Washington Blade, August 26, 1983.
See Troy D. Perry and Thomas L. P. Swicegood, Profiles in Gay and Lesbian Courage (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), 92–93.
See Susan Cavin, “An Interview with Audre Lorde,” Big Apple Dyke News 3.7, (October–November 1983);
repr., Joan Wylie Hall, ed., Conversations with Audre Lorde (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), 105.
Shortly before the march, Fauntroy announced that “gay activists and civil rights leaders had agreed to ‘pursue mechanisms for future collaboration.’ ” See George DeStefano, “Audre Lorde Speaks and Gays Join March on D.C.,” The New York Native, September 13–25, 1983.
For excerpts of this speech, see Coretta Scott King, “We Must Lead By Our Moral Example; We Can and Must Be Peacemakers,” The Atlanta Journal, July 21, 1988.
Coretta Scott King, “Keynote Address—AIDS Memorial Quilt Initiative,” October 18, 1999, Atlanta, Georgia, LCP.
See also Cynthia Tucker, “King Nails Scourge: Black Homophobia a Catalyst for AIDS,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 24, 1999.
Quoted in Mary Frances Berry, “Gay but Equal?,” The New York Times, January 16, 2009.
Holly Morris, “Civil Rights Leaders Back End to Military’s Gay Ban,” The Atlanta Journal, July 1, 1993.
For a copy of her excerpted remarks, see Coretta Scott King, “We Cannot Stand for Freedom for Blacks and Deny It to Gays,” The Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1993.
“Same-Sex Marriage: Bush’s Remarks on Marriage Amendment,” The New York Times, February 25, 2004. See also Elisabeth Bumiller, “Same-Sex Marriage: The President; Bush Backs Ban in Constitution on Gay Marriage,” The New York Times, February 25, 2004.
“Coretta Scott King Gives Her Support to Gay Marriage,” USA Today, March 24, 2004; and Bob Keefe, “Blacks’ Old Guard Feels Link with Gays,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 28, 2004.
Karl Ross, “Center Appalled by MLK Use in Flier,” The Miami Herald, August 2, 2002. Ross reported that Lynn Cothren had spoken with Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth about the quotation attributed to him and that Shuttlesworth could not recall making the comment and then disavowed it. The civil rights veteran died in October 2011.
See, for example, “Address by Coretta Scott King, Circles of Hope Dinner,” LCP. For King’s words, see Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 77.
Compare this to Harry Emerson Fosdick, Riverside Sermons (New York: Harper), 251–52.
For more on the comparison, see Keith D. Miller, Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its Sources (New York: Free Press, 1992), 16.
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© 2012 Michael G. Long
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Long, M.G. (2012). “It’s Consistent with His Philosophy”. In: Martin Luther King Jr., Homosexuality, and the Early Gay Rights Movement. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137275523_2
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