‘If What I Did Helped Gay People, then I’m Glad.’
“I’m sorry” Seymour Pine said. Although staying true to his orders, Pine stood behind the raid on that hot night in June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn.
Pine died last week at the age of 91. There are some who would say good riddance, but in 2004 he remarked on the raid and stated that he did not know what ‘Gay’ was about and that he was ’sorry’. Again, here is a point where the lack of education regarding your fellow citizens can start a revolution or evolution that will forever change things. We would not want to say ‘good riddance’ but more importantly, we could say ‘thank you for your major misunderstanding’. Where would the LGBT community be with out the Stonewall Riots? Yes, there were other communities, such as LA, and Chicago that opened up doors for the Gay community, but the battle in NY is what gained notoriety.
It always takes two to tango in the battle of evolution and due to the loss of a partner, we hope that Pine’s legacy will teach others, especially in the police community, to accept our community as equals. No more prejudice, no more hate. In one of Pine’s last interviews he stated, ‘If what I did helped gay people, then I’m glad.’ To error is human, forgive divine.
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