During World War II, like the Jews, gays were forced to wear a symbol to indicate their difference. Instead of a yellow Star of David, the gays wore pink upside down triangle.

While the history of gay rights movement is as rich as the civil and women’s rights movements, not enough people are aware of it, said government professor Brian DiSarro. He gave a lecture about the gay rights movement in the University Union on Monday hosted by the PRIDE center.

The lecture was the first event of the semester for PRIDE Center, which promotes understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.

DiSarro, who has been teaching American Government and Gay and Lesbian Politics since Fall 2008, started the lecture with the history of gay rights movement starting at World War II.

DiSarro said before Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, there were other major milestones in gay rights movement, such as the defeat of Proposition 6, which was proposed to ban LGBT people from working in public schools.

The lecture, which lasted for an hour with Q & A, was meant to educate the attendees the history of the gay rights movement as well as what needs to be done more to promote equal rights between straight and LGBT people.

“Dr. DiSarro has really good perspective on everything,” Alex Harris, PRIDE center coordinator, said. “There were things that even I as a coordinator didn’t know about, and a lot of the things about connecting the (different) movements were very interesting.”

DiSarro also explained the origins of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy which came during the Clinton administration, and how President Obama has promised to eliminate the policy and allow LGBT to serve without being discharged for their sexual orientation.

“The subject of gay rights has been a hot button topic over the last couple of years,” Alyson Satterlund, interim director of the PRIDE Center, said. “Yet many people are not aware of the movement’s beginnings.”

The gay rights movement is a very generational movement, DiSarro said, because statistics shows that 60 to 65 percent of people under the age of 25 are in support of gay rights while older generations tend to oppose same-sex rights.

DiSarro said it is important to understand the history of gay rights movement because it is important to put the facts into perspective.

“Gay and lesbian rights are a part of civil rights history and part of the movement like African Americans’ and women’s movement,” DiSarro said. “It is a movement that is still ongoing. Despite all the advances in the last 20 years, there are still lots of places gays and lesbians don’t get protection against discrimination.”

When Proposition 8 passed, DiSarro said many Californians were surprised because of the state’s traditionally liberal views.

But with more understanding of the history and previous strategies used for gay rights movement, DiSarro said he hopes that gay rights supporters will be better activists.

“You can’t just rely on San Francisco (to act for gay rights),” he said. “Supporters should be a little bit more political and a lesson needs to be learned.”

Miyu Kataoka can be reached at [email protected].