By the late 1980s politicians and elected officials who had originally sought political advantage from raiding gay bars and carting their patrons off to jail were pursuing gays and lesbians aggressively as a voting bloc not least by campaigning in those same bars. As the first history of gay politics in the post stonewall era grounded in archival research queer clout sheds new light on the politics of race religion and the aids crisis and it shows how big city politics paved the way for the gay movements unprecedented successes under the nations first african american president. Tracing the gay movements trajectory since the 1950s from the closet to the corridors of powerqueer cloutis the first book to weave together activism and electoral politics shifting the story from the coastal gay meccas to the nations great inland metropolis timothy stewart winter challenges the traditional division between the homophile and gay liberation movements and stresses gay . In queer clout chicago and the rise of gay politics timothy stewart winter engages with this problem by focusing on the gay rights movement in a single city chicago and by exploring the relationships between chicagos queer activism and the citys other major political movements this novel approach allows stewart winter to reframe the 1980s and 1990s as a culminating moment when . Queer clout chicago and the rise of gay politics april 27 2020 gerber hart library and archives has posted the episode of the 10 show a monthly cable access gay news show on the infamous 1990 meeting with where aids activists chanted shame at mayor richard m daley as he stormed out