Dr. Franklin Kameny, known by many as a father of the modern gay-rights movement, died this week. He was 86.
Kameny died of natural causes at his home in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 11, National Coming Out Day.
Born May 21, 1925 in New York City, Kameny served in the Army in World War II and went on to attain his master’s and Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University in 1949 and 1956, respectively.
A year after earning his doctorate, Kameny began working at the Army Map Service but, after just a few months, was let go after being spotted in a gay-cruising spot in Washington, D.C.
Kameny fought his termination for five years, bringing the first civil-rights claim based on sexual orientation to a U.S. court. The Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
Among his bevy of LGBT-rights accomplishments, Kameny was one of the most vocal supporters of the American Psychiatric Association removing homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, which it did in 1971, the same year Kameny became the first openly gay Congressional candidate.
Throughout the previous decade, Kameny had accrued a wealth of experience in political activism.
In 1961, Kameny and Jack Nichols established a Washington, D.C.-based Mattachine Society, a “homophile” group that advocated for fair treatment of gays and lesbians in all aspects of society, especially in federal employment.
In 1965, Kameny was among the participants in the first gay-rights protest outside The White House and organized similar demonstrations at the Pentagon and outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on July 4 of that summer.
The silent picket, in which the protestors sought through their mainstream dress and strict behavioral code to demonstrate to passersby that gays and lesbians were not much different than heterosexuals, was continued on July 4 each year through 1969.
Kameny told PGN last year that the location and date for the Philadelphia protest seemed “conceptually appropriate.”
“You have to bring yourself back to the ’60s and think that at that point these types of protests were the way for us to express our dissent,” Kameny said at the time.
Kay Lahusen and her late partner Barbara Gittings participated in a number of protests alongside Kameny, and Lahusen said Kameny had a “tremendous” impact on her.
“He was an intellectual giant who had absolutely the best vision for how to advance our cause,” she said. “I really loved Frank for his contribution to our movement.”
In July 2005, 40 years after Kameny, Lahusen and Gittings first marched outside of Independence Hall, the Philadelphia pickets, known as the Annual Reminders, were permanently memorialized with a state-issued historical marker.
“Basically, we were right, and we were always right, and now we are recognized for having been right,” Kameny told PGN when the marker was installed.
In the summer of 2010, Kameny was again invited back to Philadelphia to participate in the Fourth of July parade as part of a contingent of early LGBT-rights pioneers — an invite he humbly denied the significance of.
“With a big event like that, I don’t really know that my presence is all that much noteworthy,” he said.
Kameny couldn’t deny, however, the importance of his 1968 coining of the slogan “Gay is Good.”
“If I am remembered for anything, I hope it will be that,” Kameny told the Associated Press in 2009.
His legacy extends far beyond that slogan, said American Foundation for Equal Rights board president Chad Griffin.
“Because there was one Frank Kameny, trailblazing and honest enough to speak out 50 years ago, there are now millions of Americans coming out, speaking out and fighting for their basic civil rights,” Griffin said. “His is a legacy of bravery and tremendous impact and will live on in the hearts and minds of every American who values equality and justice.”
In the past several years, Kameny’s memory has come to be preserved in the American consciousness through such efforts as the Kameny Papers Project, which fueled the donation of more than 70,000 items from Kameny’s home — including original picket signs used in the 1960s demonstrations — to the Library of Congress.
In 2009, the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board designated his longtime home as a historic landmark, and last year a street in Washington, D.C., was renamed “Frank Kameny Way.”
And just as Kameny’s participation in Philadelphia’s July 4 parade was a full-circle occasion, Kameny also saw several other wrongs righted in recent years.
In 2006, the APA presented him and Gittings with its John M. Fryer Award and, three years later, he received a formal apology from the United States government for his firing, 52 years previously, by openly gay director of Office of Personnel Management John Berry.
In a statement this week, Berry called Kameny an “American hero who transformed our nation’s LGBT community.”
“He helped make it possible for countless patriotic Americans to hold security clearances and high government positions, including me. And in so doing, he showed everyone what was possible for every employer in our country,” Berry said. “He was known for being feisty and combative, but he was also big-hearted. He honored me personally by attending my swearing-in and showed his ability to forgive by accepting my official apology on behalf of the government for the sad and discredited termination of his federal employment.”
When President Obama signed a bill in 2009 extending domestic-partner rights to gay federal employees, Kameny stood next to him and was also invited to be present for the signing of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” last year.
“It was his great wish to see that law relegated to the history books, and we are so proud that he was able to see that day and be a key part of that shared victory,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. “At SLDN, we mourn the loss of our friend and ally, and we rejoice that Frank could join SLDN for special events and provide us with encouragement and wise counsel at critical stages as we followed in his footsteps and lifted posters to lobby Congress, The White House and the Pentagon for recognition and our equality.”
Of all of his contributions, Lahusen said one of the most remarkable was Kameny’s all-encompassing devotion to the movement.
“He made the gay movement and the fight for gay equality the mission of his life,” she said. “He set aside any other hopes and plans and dreams he had for himself. This was his mission and he worked tirelessly for it. It is the end of an era with his passing.”
A public memorial is expected for Kameny in November in Washington, D.C.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].