June is Pride Month. The first Pride March took place in June 1970, to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising the year prior. Today on We the People, we look back on LGBTQ rights and advocacy throughout American history—from key stories and figures to key court cases interpreting the scope of LGBTQ rights under the Constitution. James Kirchick, author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, and Dale Carpenter, Judge William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law at SMU and author of Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v Texas, join Jeffrey Rosen for the conversation.
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This episode was produced by Melody Rowell and engineered by Greg Scheckler. Research was provided by Sam Desai, Vishan Chaudhary, Lana Ulrich, and Colin Thibault.
Participants
James Kirchick is a columnist for The Tablet magazine, a writer at large for Air Mail, and the author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington. Kirchick is currently a Nonresident Senior Fellow for the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council. Recognized for his voice on American gay politics and international gay rights, he is a recipient of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association’s Journalist of the Year Award. He is a professional member of the PEN American Center.
Dale Carpenter is the Judge William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law at SMU Dedman School of Law. Prior to joining SMU, Carpenter taught for 16 years at the University of Minnesota, where he served as a Distinguished University Teaching Professor and the Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law. He is the author of Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v Texas and is also an editor of Constitutional Commentary. Since 2005, he has been an active blogger on the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Read Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, by James Kirchick
- Read Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, by Dale Carpenter
- Read Frank Kameny’s petition to the Supreme Court after he was fired from his job for being homosexual
- Read about the Womack obscenity case, Manual Enterprises, Inc. v. Day
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