Co-Founder Of Mattachine Society, The Great American Gay Advocate Frank Kameny Dead At 86

Frank Kameny, 86, one of the leading figures of the gay rights movement in the Washington area and the nation, was found dead October 11 at his home in Northwest Washington. The Washington Post reports that his death was confirmed by Charles Francis, a founder of the Kameny Papers Project, and by Marvin Carter, a longtime friend. No cause of death could be learned immediately. Kameny, a Harvard PhD whose homosexuality reportedly led to his discharge from a federal government job, lived to see his years of determined advocacy rewarded by the success of many of his campaigns and by his ultimate welcome by a political establishment that rejected him. His death, apparently on National Coming Out Day, came in a year when gay people were accorded the right to serve openly in the armed forces, and D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large) noted this Tuesday night. In his efforts throughout the years, Kameny was one of the fathers of that achievement, said Catania, the first openly gay man elected to the D.C. Council. Kameny had himself been a U.S. Army veteran who had served in Europe in World War II. In what appeared to be one of the great triumphs of his uphill struggle, the protest signs that Kameny carried in front of the White House were put on display in the Smithsonian Institution in recent years, along with the museum’s other artifacts and symbols of the course of American history. Kameny was generally credited as an originator of the slogan “Gay Is Good.” Those words symbolized not only his skill at advocacy, but they also articulated the beliefs that he championed. In numerous ways over the years, starting at a time when those openly asserting their homosexuality could place themselves in physical jeopardy, Kameny worked to increase the acceptance of gay people in mainstream American society and to recognize their rights. Rather than shrink from revealing his sexual orientation, Kameny made it plain. He won attention and respect by the vigorous campaign he waged 40 years ago for election as the District’s non-voting delegate to Congress. “Out for Good,” a history of the gay rights movement in the United States, made Mr. Kameny the central figure in several chapters. One of the book’s co-authors, Dudley Clendinen has called him an “authentic hero” of American culture. In summarizing Kameny’s precarious position after the loss of his job, Clendinen noted that he subsisted on a diet of baked beans. But, the author said, “he didn’t despair.” Known for his outspokenly militant tactics and his refusal to confine himself to bland and apologetic statements, Kameny was credited with playing an important part in the achievement of what were regarded as several signal milestones passed by gay people on the road to full inclusion in American society. In addition to the White House, he picketed at the State Department, and at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He did not accept his federal dismissal without a fight, appealing through the courts, and writing his own briefs. He was a stubborn and impatient person, and that was the recipe for his success,” Catania said. “he was never going to be content with second-class citizenship.” With more than a hint of irony, he once described December 15, 1973, as the date on which “we were cured en masse by the psychiatrists.” In the effort that persuaded the American Psychiatric Association to stop classifying homosexuality as a mental disorder, Kameny played a major role. Among the victories for gay people with which he was associated was a presidential executive order signed by Bill Clinton that permitted gay people to be given security clearances. Kameny was credited with years of protest against the employment restrictions and clearance denials that had encumbered the federal careers of on gay people. He considered the District’s repeal of an anti-sodomy law to be another milestone. He was credited as a co-founder of the Mattachine Society of Washington, a pioneering gay activist group. The federal government, which had cast him aside, issued a formal apology in 2009, for letting him go. The story of his struggle, chronicled in a reported 77,000 pages of papers and memorabilia, was gladly accepted in 2006 by the Library of Congress.