Stonewall Nation was the informal name given to a proposition by gay activists to establish a

separatist Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...

community in

Alpine County, California , other_name = , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_flag = Flag of Alpine County, California.svg , flag_size = , image_seal = Seal of Alpine Co ...

in 1970. The small population of the county and the election rules for California counties at the time suggested to these activists that if they could induce a relatively small number of gay people to move to the county, they could recall the county government and replace it with an all-gay slate. The plan did not gain traction in the LGBT community and a right-wing Christian minister announced plans to move large numbers of Christians to the county to counteract any attempt by gay people to take over the county government. The plan was abandoned about a year after it was conceived and the idea has come to be seen as a practical joke.

Alpine County

In 1970, Alpine County had a population of about 430 people, with 367 registered voters. Under a recent

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...

ruling, new county residents could register to vote after 90 days in residence. Activist Don Jackson presented his idea for taking over the county at a December 28, 1969

gay liberation The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xiii. ...

conference in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

. He was inspired by gay activist and writer

Carl Wittman Carl Wittman (February 23, 1943 – January 22, 1986) was a member of the national council of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later an activist for LGBT rights. He co-authored "An Interracial Movement of the Poor?" (1963) with Tom Hayd ...

, who wrote in his "Gay Manifesto", "To be a free territory, we must govern ourselves, set up our own institutions, defend ourselves....Rural retreats, political action offices...they must be developed if we are to have even the shadow of a free territory."New York activist Craig Schoonmaker developed his own plan for a free gay territory, suggesting that LGBT people establish majorities in Manhattan's 19th and 20th Congressional districts and elect openly gay members of Congress from this "First Gay-Power District" (Teal, p. 292). He (incorrectly) suggested that if as few as 200 gay people moved to Alpine County, they would constitute a majority of registered voters. Taking over the county government, he said, would result in:

"a gay government, a gay civil service...the world's first gay university, partially paid for by the state...the world's first museum of gay arts, sciences and history... nd afree county health service and hospital..."

These things would be partially paid for through property taxes and state and federal subsidies. The

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

chapter of the

Gay Liberation Front Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a ...

assumed responsibility for the project, which became informally known as "Stonewall Nation".Teal, p. 295 In the fall of 1970, a member of the

Metropolitan Community Church The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), also known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), is an international LGBT-affirming mainline Protestant Christian denomination. There are 222 member congregations in 37 ...

, an LGBT-interest church founded in Los Angeles, bought a five-acre lot in the county and wrote a report on the feasibility of the project. According to the "Alpine Report", while many were apathetic, some county residents expressed active hostility to the idea (to the point of threatening violence) while others, believing that the current county government was unresponsive, would welcome any change. Nonetheless, the report urged caution, noting that a mass move into the county would probably trigger a backlash. The report counseled moving people in a few at a time over a long period of time to allow current residents time to adapt to the changing circumstances. According to gay rights activist

Craig Rodwell Craig L. Rodwell (October 31, 1940 – June 18, 1993) was an American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on November 24, 1967, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors, and as the prime mover ...

, after the takeover of Alpine County was effected, work to take over the entire adjacent state of

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

would begin by using the same process, only then involving tens of thousands of gay men and lesbians.

Opposition

The Alpine County Board of Supervisors was gravely worried by the takeover plan. "We are all very concerned," said board chairman Herbert Bruns. "Naturally, we'll do everything we can to prevent anyone taking over our county." Members of the board met with then-Governor Ronald Reagan's assistant secretary for legal affairs, hoping for state assistance in resisting a takeover. The Reagan official advised the delegation that there was nothing that the state could do as long as the GLF followed the law. Activist

Don Kilhefner Don Kilhefner is an LGBTQ rights activist, community organizer, and Jungian psychologist living in West Hollywood, California. He founded and co-founded multiple gay organizations, including the Radical Faeries, the LA Community Services Center (now ...

expressed amazement that state or county officials would be concerned, saying, "We are simply following the advice of

President Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was t ...

and

Spiro Agnew Spiro Theodore Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th vice president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1973. He is the second vice president to resign the position, the other being John ...

to work within the electoral process." County residents hoped that the cold weather and the lack of jobs in the county would deter gay people from moving.

Carl McIntire Carl Curtis McIntire, Jr. (May 17, 1906 – March 19, 2002), known as Carl McIntire, was a founder and minister in the Bible Presbyterian Church, founder and long-time president of the International Council of Christian Churches and the Ame ...

, a right-wing fundamentalist Christian minister, announced that he would move hundreds of "missionaries" to Alpine County to stop any attempt by gay people to effect the plan.Donn Teal: 'The Gay Militants: How Gay Liberation began in America, 1969 - 1971'. (New York: Stein and Day, 1971). p. 296 Support within the LGBT community was slow to materialize. Lesbian journalist and author

Martha Shelley Martha Shelley (born December 27, 1943) is an American activist, writer, and poet best known for her involvement in lesbian feminist activism. Life and early work Martha Altman was born on December 27, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York, to parents of ...

stated, "A lot of us said, 'OK, let's get real.' I mean, blacks outnumbered us ten times over, and they made no headway at getting their own separate piece of land."quoted in Streitmatter, p. 248 Similarly,

homophile Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been sodomite, Achillean, Sapphic, Uranian, homophile, lesbian, g ...

activist and journalist Jack Nichols said "I never thought of it as a serious proposal. Sure, a lot of gays wanted to live in an all gay world... t creating an entirely new all-gay society with no connections to the dominant straight society whatsoever? That just wasn't going to happen." Gay liberation groups and publications, including Red Butterfly and ''Gay Flames'', criticized the plan, stating that gay separatism was not a workable strategy. The Berkeley chapter of the GLF withdrew from the project, calling it "sexist" and "counter-revolutionary". Despite announcing in November 1970 that it had close to 500 people ready to move, in February 1971, the GLF released a statement that it was abandoning Alpine County for a warmer climate. It has since been suggested that the entire Stonewall Nation idea was a hoax perpetrated by the Los Angeles GLF to generate mainstream publicity.Bianco, p. 211

Footnotes

Notes

References

* Bianco, David (1999). ''Gay Essentials: Facts For Your Queer Brain''. Los Angeles, Alyson Books. . * Blasius, Marc and Shane Phelan, eds. (1997). ''We Are Everywhere: A Historical Sourcebook of Gay and Lesbian Politics''. New York, Routledge. . * Carter, Jacob. D. (2015).
Gay Outlaws: The Alpine County Project Reconsidered
' (A Thesis ... for the degree of Master of Arts). Boston. * Rutledge, Leigh (1992). ''The Gay Decades''. New York, Penguin Books Ltd. . * Streitmatter, Rodger (2001). ''Voices of Revolution: The Dissident Press in America''. Columbia University Press. . * Teal, Donn (1971, reissued 1995). ''The Gay Militants: How Gay Liberation Began in America, 1969–1971''. New York, St. Martin's Press. (1995 edition). {{American gay villages 1970 in LGBT history History of California Gay villages in California History of Alpine County, California Politically motivated migrations

Alpine County

Opposition

See also

Footnotes

Notes

References