This week marks the anniversary of the Stonewall riots of June 1969, when New York City police raided a Greenwich Village bar and, under a statute permitting the arrest of anyone “not wearing at least three articles of gender-appropriate clothing,” jailed people over nothing more than how they dressed and whom they stood beside. That night, the crowd finally refused to go quietly and a movement against government harassment was born.
As Libertarians, we hold that every person is the sole owner of their own life. Our founding Statement of Principles says it plainly: that all individuals “have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.” That promise protects everyone, or it protects no one.
The same principle that guards your freedom to worship, speak, own a firearm, and raise your family as you see fit guards every American’s right to live in peace, free of the heavy hand of the state. Liberty that requires government permission is not liberty and power turned loose on one group can be turned on any of us.
This Pride Month, we call on lawmakers in both parties to honor equality under the law: keep the state out of peaceful people’s lives, and treat every American as exactly that, an individual.