Gay Rights Pioneer Franklin Kameny, 1925-2011

One of the first proponents of equal rights for gays and lesbians, Franklin Kameny of Washington DC died yesterday at his home.  He was 86 years old and there is a full obituary at the Washington Blade's website today.

In 1958, after being discharged from the Army for being gay, Kameny started fighting the fight and rounding up protestors in respectable ties and jackets to picket the White House for equal rights.   In a time when "homosexuals" were considered deviant and their activities criminal, Kameny took to the streets in the spirits of the '60s to make his case for equal rights.

I wrote about Kameny last year when he attended President Obama's signing of the bill to end the military's discriminatory policy against gays and lesbians. And it's amazing that he died just a couple weeks after witnessing the official end of that policy which made him an activist.  He was a true pioneer for equal rights for gays and lesbians.

Franklin Kameny, Age 85, Witnesses History

Yesterday, President Obama made good on his promise to repeal the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the US military.  It was not easy and the President deserves a great deal of credit for his persistence and tenacity in making this hateful policy history.  It was a landmark day for civil rights in this country.  And on hand to witness it, along with hundreds of servicemembers and activists was an 85 year old man that not many people took note of....Franklin Kameny.

If you don't know his name, you should as Kameny is one of the true founding fathers of the gay rights movement.  After being dishonorably discharged from the Army for being gay in the 1950s, he fought and argued his case all the way to the Supreme Court making his the first civil rights claim based on sexual orientation.  After losing, Kameny didn't give up. He staged some of the first protests and pickets for gay rights way back in the early 1960s.  Wearing his trademark white shirt and tie, Kameny's daring attempts to bring the discrimination against gays and lesbians to the nation's attention was bold given the times he was living in, when homosexuality was a crime in many states and homosexuals considered mentally deficient deviants.

There were surprisingly few mentions of Kameny's presence in national articles today about the signing ceremony.  But only one, Washington's nightlife mag MetroWeekly, actually got a quote from him and it was a good one: "I didn't think I'd live to see it." Frankly, I doubted it myself at times this year.  But finally "it's done," as Obama said slapping the table as he put down his presidential pen.  And now that we can fight and die equally for our country, you can bet the chorus of voices who will want to live and love equally will continue to grow.  How wonderful would it be for Franklin Kameny to see marriage equality in his lifetime?