Comparisons are made, even as literature also exists that posit the movement for religious tolerance as being a closer parallel to the gay movement in its aims and in its ethics (Richards. Zinn and Arnove 115-132, 389-420, 453-480. Ginsberg. Duberman. Engen. Ginsberg (b)).

Ginsberg and the artists around his time, in the period in which they lived in the ’50s and ’60s, represented the cusp of a movement that challenged existing social and cultural norms with regard to gender, morality, sexuality, and a host of other social and cultural conventions that were tied to the status quo, and the conservative views of the establishment that essentially marginalized and persecuted those who deviated from the conventions. This meant not only oppressed minorities, such as Blacks, but also women, who were relegated to restricted family roles, and those who fell outside of the normative gender designations of man and woman- gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in the main. The gay movement can therefore be situated as forming part of a larger tsunami of social revolt that pressed for changes. One can say that this social and historical situation is one that is marked by the germination of the ideas of revolt against societal norms prejudicial to gay people, embodied by the works of Ginsberg, and as coming to fruition more than a decade later, in the Stonewall riots as documented by Duberman in his work (Ginsberg. Ginsberg (b). Duberman. Zinn and Arnove 453-480).

The literature tells us that the grievances made by gay people during this time, that had legitimacy from the point of view of the present moment and the social advances made towards securing better&nbsp.treatment of gay people and more advanced recognition and protection of their civil rights, have their parallels in the grievances of other minority groups in America during that time, and that includes marginalization and repression of gays, overt acts of violence inflicted on gay people in society, and the general marginalization of aspects of gay life in mainstream social and cultural exchanges and discussions.&nbsp.