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    1968: After Dozens Of Acquittals, Police Forced To End Raids On Gay Haven

    When nearly two dozen gay men were arrested, put on trial, and eventually acquitted of sodomy in 1968, it demonstrated to the larger gay community that they could organize against police harassment.
    by Jon Kalish Dec 16, 2018 5 minutes
    People attend a party in Cherry Grove section of Fire Island in New York during the 1960s.

    In the autumn of 1968, close to two dozen gay men were acquitted of consensual sodomy charges in a series of criminal trials on Long Island. The trials and acquittals marked a pivotal moment in what eventually became the gay rights movement. They demonstrated to the larger gay community — then mainly closeted — that gay people could band together to resist police harassment.

    The trials took place the year before what came to be known as the Stonewall Rebellion — violent clashes between New York activists and the police in the summer of 1969. Stonewall is often seen as the birth of the modern gay rights movement.

    Cherry Grove is and was an important gay community on Fire Island, which lies off the southern shore of New York's Long Island. It was an annual summer ritual for police from Suffolk

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