Stop the Church Demonstration, 1989

Footage shot outside St. Patrick's Cathedral at the ACT UP/WHAM! Stop the Church Demonstration on December 10, 1989. This was ACT UP’s most notorious demonstration and the one that brought it worldwide attention for the first time. Held in collaboration with WHAM! (Women’s Health and Action Mobilization) to protest the AIDSphobic, homophobic, misogynistic and anti-abortion policies of the Catholic Church and, in particular, John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York. Over 7,000 protestors gathered in the bitter cold on December 10, 1989 outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Several hundred protestors peacefully entered the church and 111 were arrested for disrupting the mass.