Title
Recognizing June as LGBTQ Pride Month in the City of Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, The City of Philadelphia is historically recognized, and continues to be recognized, as one the most LGTBQ-friendly cities in the United States, with more than 60,000 residents of Philadelphia identifying as LGTBQ+; and
WHEREAS, Efforts to eliminate prejudice towards the LGBTQ+ community began in Philadelphia as early as the 1930s, through Quaker organizations; and
WHEREAS, The Janus Society, one of the first documented LGBTQ+ organizations, formed in Philadelphia in 1962. It helped facilitate landmark peaceful protests, from May 1965 to June 1965, against Dewey's restaurant for discrimination. Now known as the "Dewey's Sit-In," the protests were an early predecessor to larger organized demonstrations elsewhere in the country; and
WHEREAS, The first major LGBT civil rights demonstration was held on July 4, 1965, at Independence Hall and was repeated as an "Annual Reminder" for the next four years, to remind American people that LGBTQ+ residents were being denied the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; and
WHEREAS, Philadelphia has been home to a number of nationally recognized leaders in the LGBTQ+ community, including Barbara Gittings. Barbara Gittings is widely considered the mother of the LGTBQ civil rights movement. She edited The Ladder, the first widespread lesbian journal, and led initiatives to promote positive LGBT literature in libraries. She also successfully advocated for the end of homosexuality's classification as a psychiatric disorder; and
WHEREAS, In 1982, Philadelphia became one of the first cities to pass an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation; and
WHEREAS, Under Gloria Casarez's tenure as the first director of the Mayor's Office of LGBT Affairs, which began in 2008, Philadelphia adopted the broadest LGBTQ+ rights protections in the nation; and
WHEREAS, As part of Pride Month in 2017, the City of Philadelphia ...
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