Pioneer fighter for gay rights
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/24/carter.gay.rights.kameny/
By David Carter
12/2/10
Editor's note: David Carter is the author of "Stonewall: The Riots
That Sparked the Gay Revolution," the basis for the American
Experience film "Stonewall Uprising" that will be shown on PBS in
April. He is working on a biography of Frank Kameny.
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New York (CNN) -- This week President Barack Obama signed into law
the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," which banned gay men and
lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. armed forces.
A seat at the front of the audience was reserved for 85-year-old
Frank Kameny, who attended wearing the Combat Infantryman Badge that
he was awarded for his service in World War II. Kameny recalls his
service fighting in the wake of the Battle of the Bulge by saying, "I
dug my way across Europe slit trench by slit trench, practically."
But Kameny was not invited because of any heroism he demonstrated in
World War II, but rather for a much greater act of courage than even
that conflict had demanded of him. He was invited because it was
Kameny who began the assault on the military policy of discharging
homosexuals by leading a demonstration at the Pentagon in 1965.
Indeed, it was Kameny who called upon the minuscule pre-Stonewall gay
rights movement -- known then as the homophile movement -- to model
itself upon the civil rights movement.
This may not sound radical today, but in the mid-1960s homosexuality
was seen as the ultimate taboo. As the homophile movement stated,
homosexuals were triply condemned: The medical establishment deemed
them mentally ill, the law made them criminals, and religions branded
them sinners.
At a time when lesbians and gay men were so totally ostracized, the
homophile movement had decided its best tactic was to embrace the
label of sickness: at least that seemed a half-step up from being
criminals. But Kameny felt that such an approach was
counterproductive, and that rather than begging for crumbs, gay
people should demand equality with heterosexuals. To gain equality,
he argued, the movement should renounce the sickness theory and
embrace militant tactics.
Kameny succeeded to an astonishing degree. He led the fight for
tactics such as public demonstrations, went on the attack against the
Civil Service Commission for its policy of firing homosexuals and
spearheaded an effort to get the homophile movement to take the
position that homosexuality was not only not a mental illness but was
on a par with heterosexuality. In 1968, he got the only existing
national association of gay rights organizations to adopt as its
slogan a phrase that Kameny had coined, "Gay Is Good." Kameny himself
had been discharged from the Army Map Service in 1957 for being gay.
His relentless efforts paid off by not only making the homophile
movement more militant but in changing laws and policies. In 1975, in
response to a series of court decisions in which Kameny was involved,
the Civil Service Commission announced that it was ending its ban on
employing homosexuals.
That same year the American Psychiatric Association declassified
homosexuality as a mental illness as the result of a drive organized
by Kameny. Long before the Supreme Court declared sodomy laws
unconstitutional in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling, Kameny had
crafted strong legal arguments for overturning such laws, including
the first brief submitted to the Supreme Court for nondiscrimination
against gay people, filed by Kameny in 1961.
While waging all these other battles, Kameny did not shirk the
Pentagon. To give but one example, when a decorated Air Force veteran
of the Vietnam War reached out to Kameny for support with a phone
call from Florida in 1974, Kameny mentioned that he was looking for a
military test case to take to the Supreme Court. Kameny was seeking
someone with a model record who had been kicked out of the military
simply for being homosexual.
Months later, the Air Force veteran volunteered to serve as that
case. In 1975, carefully coached and prepared by Kameny and a lawyer,
Technical Sgt. Leonard Matlovich handed a letter to his superior
officer stating that he was a homosexual, and the Matlovich case
became a national news story.
Still, success in ending the military's discriminatory policy eluded
the combined efforts of Kameny and hundreds of other activists and a
slew of organizations until this week. Asked why it had taken so long
to change the military's policy, Kameny responded that it was a
policy that went back to George Washington's day.
Where does this leave the national movement for equality for
lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and the transgendered? Many would
probably say that the biggest remaining LGBT issue is the right to marry.
But what most Americans, gay or straight, do not realize is that if a
lesbian is fired from her job or thrown out of her apartment by her
landlord or denied credit because of her sexual orientation, she
cannot go to the federal government for redress. The reason she can't
is because 60 years after gay people began to fight for their rights,
Congress has not extended basic civil rights protection to LGBT people.
Not only has Congress failed to pass a comprehensive law that would
outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation --
protecting us in the realms of housing, employment, public
accommodations and credit, for example -- but, to its shame, Congress
has not even passed a much narrower law, Employment
Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, that would have given LGBT people
protection only in the realm of employment.
Of course, the right to marry is an important issue, but it is high
time that Congress pass a law to extend civil rights that are more
basic than marriage to LGBT citizens.
Today, Washington has named a street for Frank Kameny and his 1965
picket signs are in the Smithsonian Institution, but if Congress were
to pass basic civil rights protection for America's LGBT citizens, it
would be the greatest tribute yet to Kameny's pioneering work.
.
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