Raid Of The Rainbow Lounge

On June 28, 1969, police infamously raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City igniting riots and birthing the gay rights movement. Since that time the movement has produced remarkable achievements but, as the clich� states, "the more things change, the more things stay the same."

A this-can't-happen-here prime example is the raid on a gay bar in Fort Worth, Texas. Occurring on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, June 28, 2009, The Rainbow Lounge, which had only been opened two weeks, was subjugated to a traumatic joint raid by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and the Fort Worth police department resulting in six arrests with one young man transported to a local hospital for abrasions, bruising, a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain. The controversial raid is the subject of writer, producer and director Robert L. Camina's brilliant feature length documentary "Raid of the Rainbow Lounge."

Camina's sobering yet mesmerizing film methodically takes the viewer through the raid and its fallout. The fallout is particularly relevant because it shows how a nearly invisible gay community in a red city embedded in a red state emerged forging coalitions demanding investigations, justice, change, and answers to the most puzzling question of all: Why?

"Raid of the Rainbow Lounge" has been screened at over 30 mainstream and LGBT film festivals across the USA, Canada and Mexico winning many awards along the way. More importantly Camina has received screening requests from both the White House and the US Department of Justice.

Award winning, openly gay actress Meredith Baxter narrates "Raid of the Rainbow Lounge." But the lump-in-your-throat heart of the film is the story as told by actual witnesses that were at the Rainbow Lounge that fateful night describing the fear as agents armed with zip-strip handcuffs swarmed the bar. Perhaps raid witness Thomas Anable says it best, "Those officers took something from me I may never get back. They took away my sense of safety and security. And they had no right to do that."