In 1973, an arsonist killed 32 people at a gay club. Why has history shrugged?

The few survivors who managed to squeeze through the windows, bodies on fire, were rushed to Charity Hospital. Ronnie LeBOEUF—States-Item/Times-Picayune/Landov

To those who loved the Up Stairs Lounge, it was a kind of paradise.

A gay club that doubled as a church, it was a sanctuary in 1970s New Orleans at a time when homosexuality was considered sufficient grounds for deportation, in a city where assaulting gay people was sport for college fraternities…