The tidal wave of social change that began with the black civil rights movement of the early 1960s carried many other social movements on its crest. These included the anti-Vietnam War protests, women's liberation, and the gay and lesbian liberation movement, and all of these movements owed tremendous debts to each other. Many gay men and lesbians worked in the civil rights, anti-war, and feminist movements and their labor to fight oppression in these movements sparked dissatisfaction with the hidden oppression in their own lives. Many people, even those working politically in other movements, saw sexual orientation as a personal issue, removed from politics. Even progressive activists, who were sympathetic and respectful of many differences among people, often ridiculed gays as savagely as their conservative counterparts. Feminism, in particular, began to change this perception, with its emphasis on the political meaning in each person's...