indeed. indeed. well, i want to thank all of your guests. congresswoman karen bass, congresswoman val demmings. thank you all to all of our viewers who submitted questions. good night, everyone. this is an msnbc special presentation. >> being a gay person, a lesbian in the '50s, not only were you a depraved person, bad person, you could be arrested and put in jail. >> oh my god. i think i am one of these people they're talking about. >> commie, pinko fag. it was a true witch hunt. >> there's only so long you can treat people that way before they decide, enough is enough. >> we by follow take it anymore. we will not have it anymore. >> an explosive confrontation at an illegal bar that changed history.

>> this was the rosa parks moment for gay people. >> it was their neighborhood, it was their bar. >> it seemed like it was a war zone. there was the tactical police force, police cars, sirens. >> and then somebody started a fire. >> stonewall was the spark. the gay liberation front was the torch lit by that spark. we carried that torch out of the closet, into the streets. >> we're america. you can't separate us out. >> i think it's not a civil rights issue, it's a moral issue. >> a 50-year battle for equal rights and respect. >> i could not have guessed that at this age i would be married to a man. i never could have seen that coming. >> i'm here doing what i'm doing because of all of the generations before me. >> stonewall has taught us, you have to fight for what you want. and once your voice is heard, there's no turning back.

♪ ♪ they call me mayor pete, and i am running for president of the united states. >> 50 years ago, it would have been unthinkable for an openly gay person to run for any public office. >> we did capture 73% of the vote. >> today, more lgbtq people have been elected than at any time in our nation's history. >> i want to make sure that we all feel represented. that is so important. >> it's really exciting to see the expansion of what the american story is. >> this is what democracy looks like! >> i'm here doing what i'm doing because of all of those generations before me. >> gay history, lgbtq history, is not a straight line. it's three steps forward and two

steps back, sometimes. but in many ways it's part of what makes america great. >> this movement is about creating an america that actually is the stuff of our dreams. every human being really having liberty and justice. and peace and joy and love. without threat. >> in media, in business, in communities, in families across the country, lgbtq americans are woven into all aspects of society. something once unimaginable before the stonewall rebellion launched the modern gay rights movement out of darkness, shame,

and oppression. >> i'd like to begin with a fact. a simple yet shocking fact. homosexuals, lesbians. this moral decay weakens our resistance to the onslaught of the communist masters of deceit. >> in the '50s in america, communism became this catch-all thing to scrub the government of people deemed unworthy or unamerican. and so how much more unamerican than homosexuals? >> there were very serious witch hunts of homosexuals that began in 1950 by the federal government. >> commie pinko fag put gay people in this category where if you were gay, you were a potential betrayer of the united states. >> literally he knows of thousands of gay men and women

were hounded out of government service. >> while gays were being routed out of government, most americans didn't know of or talk about homosexuality. >> i grew up in an evangelical home. they loved jesus, i loved jesus. my dad was mayor. hired a city manager. came home one day and said, he walks a little light in his sandals. and i said to myself, what does that mean? >> i went to school in virginia. in my senior year, the teacher wanted to talk about a police raid on a house with queers. so the girls were saying, oh, those poor, sick people. and the boys were saying, boy, if i could just get my hands on those guys. and there i was thinking, oh my god, i think i am one of these people they're talking about. >> i grew up in flatbush, brooklyn, a middle-class, jewish family. my mother seemed to think that homosexuality was a disease that

men caught from the hairspray. she just had no idea of what homosexuality was. >> the american psychiatric association did determine the nature of homosexuality in 1952, classifying it as a mental illness. >> now that was a big deal to a lot of people. if the american psychiatric association says we are pathological, we must be. >> what jimmy didn't know was ralph was sick. a sickness of the mind. you see, ralph was a homosexual. >> if you were a homosexual, you had to be treated for your homosexuality. >> the first shock is given. >> the message i was getting was both, i was sick and needed to be cured or healed. i confessed my sin to a pastor. then i went to an exorcist and i said, can you exorcise the demon of homosexuality out of me?

i went to exorcism rituals. i went to behavior psychiatrists, can you get rid of this thing? they put electric things on me and took pictures of me and pictures of beautiful women, and when i saw a picture of a beautiful man come up, i had to shock myself. i was terrified. >> in the '50s and '60s there was also this enormous amount of shame, that you were a depraved person, you were a bad person. you could be arrested and put in jail. >> there wasn't a single state in the union that didn't have a sodomy law. >> the community was underground. it was in hiding. had to go to extraordinary measures to find each other. we found each other through bars. there was a great deal of fear. >> homosexuals from all over america sought refuge and community in large cities like new york. and there the neighborhood to find was greenwich village. >> the most important decision i ever made in my life was to move to greenwich village, the gay world.

>> i found pulp novels. and these novels said, there are lesbian bars in the village where these women met each other, you should find these evil bars, and then you too could meet a sexy woman. >> it was the village, it was magic to the whole village. there were all these places and all these people. it was that kind of excitement. and we were all or mostly gay. >> but there remained a web of laws and harsh enforcement that kept gays and lesbians oppressed and criminalized. >> it was very tightly policed. it was almost like we were some kind of like animals that had to be given some kind of recreation and a little bit of area, but shouldn't spread out too much. >> you couldn't really hold hands, right? if i had makeup on my face, the cops would arrest you for female impersonation. if we saw lily law, which was the police, we would hide. >> there was no law that said you couldn't serve homosexuals

alcohol. but you couldn't serve people who were disorderly. gay people were, by assumption, disorderly. >> you had to have a cabaret license in order to dance in a bar. there were red lights in the bar. if the police came in, the lights were flash, you were supposed to separate and stop dancing. >> one law stated that at least three items of gender-appropriate clothing must be worn. >> so before i went to the bar i got in front of the mirror and i did a check. blouse. buttoning the correct way, check. women's underwear, check. pants -- ah, wrong, men's pants. because women's pants zip up the side or the back in the 1960s. not up the front. >> the police could use these laws to shut down bars. >> but one early gay rights group, the mattachine society, tried to challenge this oppression in 1966 by staging a

sip-in. >> four activists walked up to the bar, ordered a drink. the bartender had begun to serve it. and they said, and we're homosexuals. so then he extended his hand out over the glass and said, well, i can't serve you because you're homosexuals. >> they called the press. they got photographers, including "the new york times," to come. their goal was to show that these laws were unjust. >> mattachine did get the word out, but serving gays remained effectively illegal. that wasn't a deal breaker for those whose businesses were outside the law. >> the mafia had a lock on this. they were the only ones who were going to take the risk of serving illegal patrons. >> it all got to go on because the mob paid off the cops. >> in 1967, a new mob-owned bar opened on christopher street in greenwich village in the shell of a burnt-out restaurant called the stonewall inn.

>> it was like another world. i mean, it seemed like paradise. people were dancing, young, having fun. >> it was kind of dark, very little lighting, you know. >> so much different from others. stonewall would not shame you when you danced slow with someone. and dancing slow, we're able to hold on to each other and know that we're people. >> even with payoffs, the stonewall wasn't immune to raids by the nypd. >> occasionally they'd raid a bar, make arrests, to show they were cleaning up the village. gay people wound up being the pawns. you found gay people were under increasing pressure during that time. but you squeeze gay people enough, they're going to fight back. coming up -- >> the police are raiding the stonewall, the police are raiding the stonewall, get to sheridan square! ♪ e you know us. yoo-hoo, progressive shoppers. we laughed with you.

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i sat on the stoop about two houses down from stonewall bar. it was hot and humid. but no breeze. you expected something to happen that particular night because the air was really, really heavy. >> at the stonewall inn on friday night, june 28th, 1969, the lights were low. music was loud. and the dance floor packed. >> the diversity of the people who were at stonewall ranking from street kids, people dressed in scare drag, the guys in khakis and button-down shirts. you had the drag queens come on the dance floor who were controlling the jukebox. >> across the street from the stonewall, unnoticed in christopher park, undercover nypd cops seymour pine and charles smythe of the public morals division were staking out the bar. >> pine and charles smythe were

charged with enforcing censorship, pornography, and closing legal bars. >> the detectives leading the team closed in on the stonewall. >> smythe and pine, along with police agents, knocked on the bar saying, we're here, open the door, we're the police. lights were turned on, the jukebox was unplugged. there was anger. there was also terror because people were afraid they would be arrested. >> as the police began rounding up patrons inside the bar, a crowd gathered outside. >> walking up christopher street, and i see this police car in front of the stonewall. i think, well, what's going on? >> this guy came running down the street screaming that the police are raiding the stonewall, the police are raiding the stonewall, get to sheridan square! >> i was walking from my loft, and right there, 50, 60, maybe 100 people.

>> the mood was sort of like defiant and jubilant and gay. >> it was very exciting. i saw a lot of police cars. i saw a lot of people screaming. >> people were laughing and camping it up and patrons were being let out of the bar and people would bow, a crowd would applaud and cheer. >> they're calling to trends and theirs and say, come over to the 6th precinct later and bail me out. haven't got the money. well, find it! >> adding to the cheers and applause, the crowd of gays, lesbians, and transgender people began taunting the police. >> people started throwing pennies. one of the names for cop, copper. pennies are made of copper. cops knew they were being insulted. >> at that point things started to get a little touchier. not quite so festive. >> the cops got a little rougher.

then the crowd started throwing pebbles. >> hey, kids, you know, knock it off! >> tension increased between the police and the crowd, and soon hit the breaking point. >> the door opens and this very masculine, butch woman who's dressed like a man is being taken out. >> she was fighting with several police officers. >> they were trying to push her in a car. and she wasn't getting in. so they got rougher and rougher with her. they got a night stick and started pushing on her. >> she was screaming out, "what is the matter, why don't you help, why don't you do something, why are you just standing there?" >> once that happened with that woman, things got darker. i could feel it. >> that's when the whole change came about, and there was a massive eruption of anger. >> people started grabbing anything they could lay their hands on. >> there were bottles and beer cans and somebody threw things through the window, people were yelling and screaming. it became a mob scene in the

street. >> the police soon realized they were outnumbered by the rioters and retreated into the stonewall. >> that moment of retreat caused a whole avalanche of gay anger that was like nothing that had ever been witnessed before. >> this one policeman was bent over hitting somebody in the doorway. so i launch forward and kicked him in the rear with all my force and fled into the crowd. >> and somebody picked up a garbage can, put that through the window. and then somebody started a fire. >> some group of people had managed to pull up a parking meter and were using it as a battering ram on the front door. >> people were living in the moment and just responding to this adrenaline surge.

>> we were not thinking rationally, normally. it was a mob mentality. >> the officers trapped in the bar were armed, and inspector pine would later say he feared there would be a bloodbath. >> seymour pine went to each police officer, put his hand on their shoulder, and said, don't shoot until you hear me give the order to shoot. he was able to keep a massacre from happening. >> after an hour, two busloads of the nypd's tactical police force arrived, enabling police to safely escape the stonewall. >> the tactical patrol force was organized to handle anti-war protests. >> very serious business. helmets, shields. >> but the rioters weren't easily dispersed. >> the rioters knew the village, they knew the back streets, came up behind the riot squad. throwing objects at them,

taunting them. and this shocked everyone. because they just didn't imagine gay people having such courage. >> i found this astounding. i'd never seen anything like it. >> by dawn, 13 rioters had been arrested. the streets around the stonewall were calm, but the rebellion was just getting started. coming up -- >> i was thinking, wow, what an incredible night we had. and what's going to happen saturday night? miles to the job site. the campsite. and anything else we set our sights on. miles that take us back to the places we want to go. and to the people who count on us. so, let's roll up our sleeves. because we've got miles to make up.

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new dawn powerwash. spray, wipe, rinse. ♪ the morning after the rebellion at the stonewall, june 29th, 1969, gays in the village began organizing. >> and we started, how can we keep this going? we knew something had happened. it was our time. >> all day saturday, news of the riots spread across the city. >> i heard about the stonewall uprisings and riots and i thought, wow. people fought back.

i thought it was kind of amazing. >> but not all gays thought the riots were a positive step. >> there was a sign in the window of the stonewall that had apparently been written by the mattachine society saying, essentially, don't make trouble, go home. >> the mattachine society was totally freaked out. because we were not being the nice, gay people that they wanted to present as not disruptive. we said, no! we're not nice, we're pissed off! >> that evening, rage was in the air around the stonewall. >> more and more and more and more people showed up. and i got the sense something was going to happen tonight. and it was going to be bigger than last night. >> the second night was much more militant. >> by midnight, there were more than 1,000 people in the streets around sheridan square. >> it seemed like it was a war zone. there was the tactical police force, police cars, sirens. people were setting fire to

trash cans. everywhere there were bands of gays running around, cries of "christopher street belongs to the gays." >> i heard a lot of chanting that night, you know. gay power. i'm gay and i'm proud. >> during the early morning hours, the tactical police force began a sweep to clear christopher street of rioters. >> the riot police formed phalanxes and marched up and down christopher street. and in response to this, queens formed a rockettes kick line across christopher street. and they were singing, and they were kicking. ♪ we are the village girls we wear our hair in curls ♪ ♪ we wear our dungarees rolled up above our knees ♪ >> all the while the tpf, with their helmets and their shields and their clubs and their guns, kept getting closer and closer. and they kept kicking until that moment when the police were just a few feet from them.

and then they took off. >> i think it was the bravest thing i have ever seen in before. >> the riots hit the new york papers, and for the next few nights, resistance continued in the streets around the stonewall. >> this was the rosa parks moment for gay people. this was the, i'm not getting up out of my seat. we're not going to take this anymore. you're not going to tell us to get out of our neighborhood. it was. it was their neighborhood, it was their bar. >> the bar didn't survive the riots. but in the rebellion's wake, a new gay rights movement was born. >> we said, let's get together, let's form a different way of life. and that's what we did. this new organization rose out

of the ashes of the stonewall like a phoenix. >> the gay liberation front was the first political group to come out of stonewall that replicated nationally. >> in early meetings, one woman said that she wanted to be able to walk down the street, hold her lover's hand, and be safe. another woman said she wanted to get married. and we all laughed. it seemed like such a crazy idea. >> one year after the stonewall riots, on june 28th, 1970, the first christopher street liberation day march was held with a city-issued permit and under the protection of the nypd. one of those officers was james dillon. >> our captain, he said, report to christopher 6th. some kind of parade, demonstration. we arrived down there. and it was this very large collection of people who, to our eyes, we looked and said, people

are gay. we didn't use gay. we said, "they're all fags." they started marching up to sixth avenue. >> it was a beginning of a new era for gay americans. >> stonewall was a spark. the gay liberation front was the torch lit by that spark. we carried that torch away from the bars, into daylight, out of the closets, into the streets, brothers and sisters, come out, come out. and we asked everyone to join us. coming up -- >> aids changed everything. because all our friends were dying. and the government was not doing anything. at you need? given my unique lifestyle, that'd be perfect! let me grab a pen and some paper. know what? i'm gonna switch now. just need my desk...

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they added sexual or affectional preference. things were getting better and better and there was no stopping the march forward. >> alongside the push for gay rights came a successful effort to remove homosexuality from the american psychiatric association's list of mental disorders. >> one of the most important things to come out of the soma riots was an energetic movement within the scientific and particularly psychiatric communities to have homosexuality removed from the dsm in 1973. >> overnight, millions of lgbtq people were cured of their mental illness. but it took homosexuality from the realm of the medical establishment into the realm of opinion. and sin. ♪ jesus loves me >> by the late '70s, the growing march for gay acceptance and visibility suddenly hit a roadblock in dade county, florida, when a former miss

america decided to use her fame and her faith to repeal a local gay rights ordinance. >> a woman by the name of anita bryant, who was a famous pop singer, particularly famous because she did an orange juice commercial on television for florida orange juice. she was a religious fundamentalist. >> you see, if homosexuals are allowed their civil rights, then so would prostitutes or thieves or anyone else. >> she became the public spokesperson and lead campaigner on a national crusade to quote save our children from homosexuality. and it was a campaign to roll back and prevent the passage of civil rights laws. >> here's how you strip people of their humanity, or what dr. king would say the stor are you you tell about them. you get the media to tell their story.

>> doesn't it necessarily follow homosexuality ought to be illegal? >> i do believe it should be illegal because it's not a civil rights issue, it's a moral issue. >> as bryant took her campaign across the country, a young pastor with a nationally syndicated television ministry, the old time gospel hour, took note of her success. >> a pastor of a baptist church in lynchburg, virginia, jerry fallwell, heard about anita bryant and went down and learned how he could mobilize volunteers and raise money too. >> today there's a homosexual revolution in our society. the coming out of the closets. and other places. >> so the orange juice queen released jerry fall will, the little baptist pastor, to become the first evangelical fundamentalist activist politician. >> mel white was experiencing this cultural struggle on a deeply personal level. he was not yet out and was working and writing for leaders in the growing evangelical movement.

>> i had written for billy graham, jerry fall will, the works. i knew jerry falwell very personally because he asked for strength for your journey. by the time i came out, nobody would answer the phone calls, it was over. >> but during the years white was on speaking terms with falwell, he saw firsthand how he built his base. >> jerry says, we have to get evangelicals involved in politics so we can get rid of these gay people who are influencing government. they realized that evangelicals were a voting base. that they had power in the polls. he said, let's go mobilize them. >> and mobilize them he did. into the conservative political organization, the moral majority. >> the emergence of the moral majority in the late '70s, we saw the emergence of a formal, explicit, organized, and faith-based anti-gay movement. >> by 1980, fall well's moral majority helped usher in the next president of the united states.

at just the moment when the community would be hardest hit by a silent killer. >> scientists at the national centers for disease control in atlanta today released the results of a study which shows that the lifestyle of some male homosexuals has triggered an epidemic of a rare form of cancer. >> my first awareness of the aids crisis is when i read an article about a group of homosexuals who had a rare cancer. >> some were getting kaposi sarcoma, they would have the welts on their skin, then they would die. lots and lots of people died. >> watching your best friends die really brutal deaths, painful, weird illnesses that nobody had ever seen, lesions and so much fear. it just fills you with this

incredible sense of grief and rage. >> i had people with hiv/aids coming to me saying, what have i done wrong? has god given me this virus to punish me, as jerry falwell said on television? >> we talk about aids as the judgment of god upon moral perversion in this society. >> while some took to the podium to blame gays for the disease, the president himself stayed silent on the growing epidemic until 1985. by then more than 12,000 in the united states had died. >> i find it unforgivable that our political leaders were willing to let people who had no power at that time die. because we had no political power. but we changed that through the organizing that we did. we made them pay attention. >> act up! >> guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty!

>> stonewall was the first wave. act up was the second wave. silence equals death became a mantra. that was all about visibility. >> you won't do it, so we will! you won't do it, so we will! >> aids changed everything. it changed how we organized ourselves at the national level. we got better organized politically. >> it was our responsibility to care for people, advocate for medicine, advocate for research, advocate for policy change. and out of that grew the larger lgbtq movement in a way that i don't think would have happened otherwise. this tragic life-stealing disease ended up mobilizing a community to say, our lives matter. we matter. our health care matters. we must have the right to be human in all of our forms in the united states of america. and we will have that we insist

on that. coming up -- >> in the don't ask, don't tell era, if you were going to come out, you were going to lose your commission. away from your body. so you feel cool... night after night. during the tempur-pedic summer of sleep, save $500 on all tempur-breeze mattresses. proof i can fight moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

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grubhub's gonna reward you for that with a $5 off perk. (doorbell rings) - [crowd] grubhub! (fireworks exploding) people ask me all the time where i see myself in 10 years. and i say, i see myself in the white house, baby. >> after fighting the aids epidemic for over a decade, in 1993 the now well-organized gay community showed up in record numbers in washington, d.c. to demand their full equal rights as american citizens. >> we have come out to reach out across america, to build a bridge of understanding, a

bridge of progress, a bridge as solid as steel. >> i think the 1993 march was about saying, we are americans. we are part of this country. we are proud of it. and we want access and respect. >> i stand with you in the struggle for equality for all americans, including gay men and lesbian americans. out of the aids crisis, it became very clear that there were things we needed as lgbtq people if we were going to be part of the full american community. we needed to be accepted into the military. we also needed to be allowed to marry. without those things, we were never be full and equal partners in the american dream. >> and for the first time ever, there was a president in office who, as a candidate, promised action on aids and lgbt equality on his way to the white house. >> we can't afford to waste the capacity, the contributions, the hearts and souls and the minds of the gay and lesbian american

body. >> for a gay american to see someone running for the highest office in the land talk to you and about you in a way that wasn't disparaging, like a breath of fresh air. >> when a new administration came in, there was this sense of joy, jubilation, hope. >> bill clinton said he was going to do away with the ban on gays serving in the military. >> i have asked the secretary of defense to submit a draft executive order which would end the present policy of the exclusion from military service solely on the basis of sexual orientation. >> he tried it. and i think what the gay community learned and america learned was, this is actually how power works. >> the explosive issue of gays in the military is now firmly back in president clinton's court. >> when the media started to cover it, it was really for a

while extremely sensational. it was all about showers and submarines. >> it's relatively close quarters and that's what we'd like to show you today. >> there was even the shameful tour that they did on a submarine showing the sleeping quarters to raise up the ick factor for the american people so that they would then call their members of congress and say, don't do this, don't put our son in danger of being preyed upon, these scary gay people. >> we cannot have the homosexuals wandering around in the military and seducing the younger people. >> that's what they did, and it worked. >> hearings begin today in the senate that could lead to legislation, putting a permanent gay ban into law. >> the president had to back down and ended up coming up with this terrible compromise. don't ask, don't tell. >> the don't ask, don't tell policy would permit gays in the military as long as they don't

reveal their homosexuality or engage in homosexual conduct. >> i joined the reserve in 2009. it was late in the don't ask, don't tell era, but it was very much the law of the land. it was understood that if you were going to come out, you were going to lose your commission. when you think about the military, you want to be as undistracted as possible. what's absolutely a distraction is having to check and filter and rearrange your own words and your own thoughts. that's distracting. >> no sooner had bit clinton signed don't ask, don't tell into law in 1993, another gay rights issue was heating up in hawaii over something once unthinkable to those who fought at stonewall, the potential legalization of same-sex marriage. >> last year in a landmark decision, the hawaii supreme court ruled that the state was discriminating against same-sex couples by not allowing them to marry. >> all of a sudden hawaii looks like it's going to get gay marriage. but the religious right, they

mobilized so it would never happen in the other states. >> our hope is to not let a foolish mistake by hawaii drive the law for all the other states in the union. >> we saw a backlash when marriage equality happened. the sense that you are going to destroy marriage because you allow gays to be married. >> if your marriage is in trouble, y'all see a therapist. what's at stake is privilege. >> and while the states battle it out in 1996 both houses of congress passed the defense of marriage act. in the middle of the night, the president signed it. >> after midnight and without fanfare, he signed a bill barring federal recognition of homosexual marriages. >> i think he was very embarrassed by it. usually when he signed bills, he invited the press to be there.

he didn't. >> what happened was, even though we had the defense of marriage act, which was a federal mandate, you ended up with this patchwork of states where it was completely illegal and other states where it was allowed. >> so it became clear that, you know, we really needed a supreme court case that was going to be a way to bring this issue forward. >> and in 2010 an 80-year-old widow named edie windsor would make that case. >> i am today an out lesbian, okay, who just sued the united states of america. >> the united states versus windsor would not only challenge the defense of marriage act but would open the door to marriage equality nationwide. coming up -- >> this is about the end of discrimination against lgbtq people once and for all. looks like they picked the wrong getaway driver.

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after nearly two decades of state by state marriage equality battles, in 2013 the supreme court heard a direct challenge to the defense of marriage act in the united states versus windsor. >> there is no one individual who better personifies the concept of equal protection than my client, edie windsor. >> edie windsor and thea spyer had been a couple for 43 years and were recognized as legally married in the state of new york. but when thea passed away, edie was denied spousal benefits by the federal government. >> edie windsor fought for marriage equality and took her case all the way to the supreme court. she was tiny but a force of nature. >> today is like a spectacular event for me. and i think, i think it's going

to be good. >> the court ruled for her in june 2013. the federal government could no longer deny marriage benefits to same-sex couples, a crucial step in the fight to bring marriage equality to all 50 states. >> a realtor from cincinnati will sit in the nation's highest court as his lawyer asks the nine justices to strike down the ban on same-sex marriage. >> lgbtq americans and the nation waited for the court's nine justices to make a decision in the closing days of the 2015 session. >> tonight the arguments are over and the case that could bring same-sex marriage to all 50 states is now in the hands of the nine justices on the u.s. supreme court. >> waiting to get the opinions as they come running out of the court, thomas. >> this is a big day, again -- >> from the supreme court, we have read from the bench, there is a right to marriage equality. i repeat, speaking to you from the steps of the supreme court, there is a right to marriage equality.

>> today we can say in no uncertain terms that we've made our union a little more perfect. >> i could not have guessed that at this age, i would be married to a man. even when i was beginning to come to terms with the idea that i was gay, i never could have seen that coming. >> my partner, kate clinton, and i got married on our 25th anniversary. we didn't want to rush it. >> we're legal now. we're not a threat to the nation, to the world. we're married now. and the country looking on has to accept that. i love that moment. i will -- i will live on that moment many times. >> it was a moment so significant that same night, people gathered in d.c. to

witness an unprecedented sight. >> june 26th, 2015 was probably the freest moment in american history. because there the white house was emblazoned in the rainbow colors that had been the symbol of the gay rights movement for decades at that point. we're on the white house. at the express invitation and approval of the president of the united states. you can't be more seen than that. and yet while we were celebrating, marriage equality was not the end of the fight. >> the legacy of stonewall that we have to remember is resistance. resistance against racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. things are changing. but the struggle continues. we have to organize, organize, organize. and we have to step up with all the other people alongside of us

who are experiencing repression. >> the idea that we heal that we improved, that's actually the thrust of american history. it's not even the growth of our prosperity. it's the growth of our social and political and cultural equality. that's the progress of america. >> i pronounce you lawfully wedded spouses. >> other empires measured their history, their growth, usually in terms of territorial expansion. we measure ours in terms of moral expansion. >> a foundation of the united states is rooted in a fight for liberation. and sometimes it is in elections and sometimes it's in the streets. and i think that the more we recognize that we wouldn't be doing what we're doing if it weren't for the folks at stonewall. none of this would be possible.

i wouldn't be sitting here. >> you have to fight for what you want. you have to fight for acceptance from your family, from your colleagues, from your government. and you have to fight on all those fronts all the time. but in each of these fights, we are moving forward. stonewall has taught us, keep fighting and keep marching. >> we're not finished in america and we're not finished around the globe. this movement for lgbtq justice, this revolution that comes from a stonewall rebellion, is actually our work to do. and we have got to move. to stand up for the justice toward and the liberty of every gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, nonconforming, every human being. and never forget that love is

love is love is love is love. period. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is ""dateline"." >> there was a party. there's a u.k. football player that had been shot. >> highs killed on his birthday. i was like, it's who? >> that can't happen. why him? >> no one saw a thing. >> it's at night. it's dark, nobody knows where the bullet comes from. >> nothing is making it easier. >> if you don't have a motive it's hard to know where to go. >> but someone knew. >> she said, i think i know something about a murder. >> we never could find outhy