Truly tragic news coming out of the Nation's Capitol today. Longtime LGBT activist, Frank Kameny, has died. Throughout his long life, he fought tirelessly for gay equality, challenging the government's ban on hiring gays and lesbians, founding DC's Mattachine Society nearly 50 years ago, and participating in the first demonstrations for gay and lesbian rights. His papers are in the Smithsonian, and his life will live on in the history books.
from the Washington Blade:
Franklin E. Kameny, one of the nation’s most prominent gay rights leaders, died in his home today apparently from natural causes. He was 86.
The death came less than a month before the planned celebration of the 50th anniversary of Kameny’s founding of the Mattachine Society of Washington, the first gay rights organization in the nation’s capital.
Washington Blade
Frank Kameny was the first activist who really pushed the early homophile movement, as it was then called, to recognize that there was nothing wrong with being gay or lesbian - that we are not mentally ill or a threat to our society. An idea that began with one or two people 50 years ago is now accepted among most of our fellow citizens (but it's a scant majority in many ways). Our lives are still threatened for the crime of being LGBT, but they are also infinitely better because of the work of Kameny and his colleagues.
There is too much to say about Mr. Kameny to even try to express right now, but we are losing a generation of activists who reshaped the American landscape for those of us who are different; most have toiled in obscurity. It is truly Ironic that the anti-gay forces in California announced today that they do not have the signatures to force a ballot initiative on the state's Fair Education Act, which calls for the inclusion of LGBT stories in our children's history lessons. Kameny's story should be prominent among them.