In 1969 gay liberation was new and exciting. The collision between existing homosexual organizing and the New Left had transformed activists' understandings of what could and should be accomplished by organizing on behalf of homosexuals. In this moment of intense energy the ideologies of the movement were contradictory. Gay liberationists wanted both to solidify gay identity and to demolish sexual identity categories altogether. They wanted both revolution and civil rights. By 1972 the revolutionary and anti-identity currents of the movement were on the wane. Many scholars have remarked upon the transformation of gay liberation from a radical movement into one focused on identity building and gay rights (Altman 1982; Bernstein 1997; Epstein 1987; Escoffier 1985; Gamson 1998; Seidman 1993; Vaid 1995). Affirming gay identity and celebrating diversity replaced societal transformation as goals. This turn toward identity building was accompanied by rapid political consolidation and the explosive growth of a commercial subculture oriented around sex. For the first time, gay organizations agreed upon a national gay rights agenda and moved aggressively to pursue common goals in the political arena.

This sudden transformation of the movement is puzzling. How did the movement come to settle in this way at this moment? How, in general, does settlement occur? This question, in both its general and specific forms, can best be addressed by drawing on both social movement and organizational theory, as “weaknesses in one field … might be redressed by insights from the other” (McAdam and Scott this volume: 5).