In 1957, Frank Kameny, an astronomer for the government, was fired from his job because he was gay. This was an enormous mistake on the government's part, as Kameny immediately took on the government's policies of purging gays from government jobs and the military. He said, "My dismissal amounted to a declaration of war against me by the government,"... "and I tend not to lose my wars."
By 1961, he had attempted and failed at the more sensible and legal remedies to his situation. He'd even filed the first gay rights brief at the Supreme Court - a petition for certiorari (pdf) that was ultimately rejected. The language in the petition would make today's gay rights groups blush:
"Petition asserts, flatly, unequivocally, and absolutely uncompromisingly that homosexuality, whether by mere inclination or overt act, is not only not immoral but that, for those choosing voluntarily to engage in homosexual acts, such acts are moral in a real and positive sense, and are good, right, and desirable, socially and personally."
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"Respondent's case is rotten to the core. Respondent's case has been shown to fail factually and to be defective procedurally ... The entire bases for respondents actions in this and in similar cases have been shown to be arbitrary, capricious and without reasonable foundation ... The govenrment's entire set of polciies and practices in this field is bankrupt, and needs a searching re-assessment and re-evaluation ..."
These arguments were, of course, proven correct in study after study, starting in 1957 and leading into today. The government never actually had any reason to ban gay people from either government jobs or the military. It was done out of plain dislike for gay people. Its effects still reverberate and they'll continue on until the government rids itself of its institutionally discriminatory policies.
The climate in which Kameny pursued a remedy for his dismissal, and the climate in which he pursued his activism was a pretty terrifying time for gays:
McCarthyism is the term applied to the attempts in the late 1940s and early 1950s to expunge Communists and fellow travelers (often identified as homosexual) from American public life. Named for Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, the term has come to signify Red-baiting, political extremism, and civic hysteria.
For gay men and lesbians, the period was one of police harassment, witch hunts, suspicions of disloyalty, and dismissals from jobs, especially in the public sector.
Indeed, McCarthyism may be seen as the time when homosexuals became the chief scapegoats of the Cold War. In the United States and Great Britain, throughout the 1950s, thousands of individuals were arrested and imprisoned on homosexual charges. The popular consensus that homosexuals were immoral, emotionally unstable, and untrustworthy justified their punishment and stigmatization.
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Republican Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska summarized these popular perceptions in an interview with the New York Post in December 1950: "You can't hardly separate homosexuals from subversives. . . . Mind you, I don't say that every homosexual is a subversive, and I don't say every subversive is a homosexual. But [people] of low morality are a menace in the government, whatever [they are], and they are all tied up together."
This oppressive behavior by the government only made the gay rights movement more desperate for acceptance and more willing to stand up and fight. Like anyone who is oppressed, gays during that time were strong and determined to make it through that rough period. Despite government and religious and societal persecution, people do what they need to do to survive. And people find support if it is out there.
But the harassment of homosexuals throughout the 1950s also led them to believe in the necessity of mutual support. Although fighting back was not always possible and many gay men and lesbians were affected by guilt and internalized the stereotypes of the era, the 1950s was also the beginning of activism in the lesbian and gay communities.
During this time, the gay rights movement was called the homophile movement, and it was not very successful. Their strategy was to say, basically, "We're just sick! We aren't criminals! There's just something wrong with us!" Kameny was having none of that:
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.
He got the gay rights movement to talk to politicians, lead marches and protests, and he got them to start saying, loudly, that "Gay is Good" and that it is equal to heterosexuality. He organized some of the first protests at the Pentagon and the White House for gay rights. And he wrote letters to President Johnson:
October 23, 1965
Dear Mr. President:
A group of homosexual American citizens, and those supporting their cause, is picketing the White House, today, in lawful, dignified, and orderly protest - in the best American tradition - against the treatment being meted out to fifteen million homosexual American citizens by their government - treatment which consistently makes of them second-class citizens, at best.
The letters go on to discuss both the dismissal of gay employees from government jobs and the firing of gays from the military.
In April 1965, the group organized the first gay demonstration at the White House. A dozen or so gay men and lesbians, including Kameny and Barbara Gittings, dressed in business attire, carried signs reading "First Class Treatment for Homosexuals" and "Civil Service Commission is Un-American."
A few months after that demonstration, the U. S. Court of Appeals issued a ground-breaking decision. The court held that rejection of an application for federal employment on the grounds of "homosexual conduct" was "too vague." The Civil Service Commission, the court ruled, failed to state "why [homosexuality] related to occupational competence or fitness."
It took ten more years to end that particular ban, but it would not have happened without Kameny's involvement, in the protests and in court actions, and the strength of gay activists and their supporters. It takes constant fighting to win these battles. It takes stubbornness and unwillingness to ever back down.
Kameny and the rest of our predecessors in the gay rights movement fought the military's gay ban and did not succeed until now. The US government finally apologized for firing Kameny in 2009.
We have a long way to go before we can gain employment discrimination protections or marriage, but we wouldn't be where we are without our fighters in the gay rights movement. This relentless, decades long fight has resulted in few victories, but we will not give up. We will keep being stubborn, impatient and we'll continue to be unwilling to back down from this fight as long as there's opposition to recognizing our humanity. We won't lose this war, I can promise you that.