Let's celebrate 50 years of pride

Fifty years ago there was an uprising.

Members of the LGBTQ+ community took a stand against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York City. The purpose of the raid was to clean the neighborhood of "sexual deviants"

After years of oppression and discrimination based solely on their sexual orientation, these brave individuals came out of the shadows and said enough is enough.

The riots that ensued that night became the catalyst for the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement and why we celebrate Pride month in June.

Today, Pride is celebrated all over the country.

Boston will hold its Pride Festival this Saturday, and Providence, Rhode Island, follows the next week on June 15 with its Illuminated Night Parade. Portsmouth will celebrate Pride on June 22.

Pride month is a time when gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans people and their allies come together out in the open and celebrate. And there is a lot to celebrate, especially this year.

This is the 10th anniversary of same-sex marriage becoming legal in New Hampshire, five years before the U.S. Supreme Court declared it legal in all 50 states.

Pride month is also a time to reflect on those who came before where it wasn't always OK to love who you love and to be who you are.

To get this point, a lot of blood, sweat and tears were shed by many.

People like transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson, who according to some accounts, was among the first to physically resist the police raid at the Stonewall Inn, and the late Brenda Howard, a bisexual activist, known as the "Mother of Pride" for organizing the first rally and march for equal rights.

We also remember Michael McConnell and Jack Baker, one of the first gay couples to push for the right to marry in 1970, and Frank Kameny, who became an activist after he was fired from a U.S. government job just because he was gay.

Kameny, along with Barbara Gittings, who formed the first lesbian civil rights organization in the USA, successfully pushed the American Psychiatric Association to delist homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973.

There are more well-known gay rights activists like Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician to be elected in California, who up until his assassination in 1978 pushed to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations.

Comedian Ellen DeGeneres pioneered LGBTQ+ rights in Hollywood when she famously came out in public in 1997 and on her television show “Ellen," which became the first sitcom to feature a gay lead.

There are countless others, too many to name.

While we have come a long way in the last half-century, the battle for equal rights continues to this day.

In many countries around the world, being gay is still against the law, and “criminals” face a range of punishments from prison to stoning and death.

Here in the United States, federal law still does not provide consistent non-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation.

In 30 states, LGBTQ+ people are still at risk of being fired, refused housing or denied services simply because of who they love.

The Equality Act would solve that by adding sexual orientation and gender identity to other protected classes, such as race or religion, in existing federal laws.

While there is still a lot of work to do for full equality, this is a great time to show your pride and celebrate how far we have come in half a century.