After a grueling battle with lung cancer, lesbian activist
Jean O'Leary passed away Sunday at the very young age of 57. O'Leary may not be a name you have heard on a frequent basis, but if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or care about the rights of your GLBT friends or family, then you owe her a debt of gratitude.
The issue of visibility of lesbians--and also of gay men--continued to be important to O'Leary, who worked with Midge Costanza and Virginia Apuzzo to get gay rights language into the Democratic Party platform at the 1976 convention. The motion was tabled, but when the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, won the election, he took Costanza to the White House as a presidential assistant, and O'Leary saw--and seized--an opportunity.
Soon after Carter's election O'Leary asked Costanza to set up a White House meeting at which gay rights leaders could discuss matters of concern. O'Leary and Voeller, together with twelve others, including Frank Kameny, Charlotte Bunch, and Troy Perry, used the March 1977 forum to raise a variety of topics such as health care, gays in the military, and discriminatory laws and policies.
I was not around for the pain and pleasures experienced by the gay community in the 70's and 80's, but the efforts to repeal sodomy laws, to fight the national backlash engineered by Anita Bryant, to combat AIDS required patience, intelligence, strategy, and passion that seem far too rare in today's black-tie, corporate sponsor, DC-insider atmosphere. At a time many may look back with in shame, O'Leary worked to give gays and lesbians something to feel proud of.
O'Leary joined with Rob Eichberg, the founder of The Experience, a program designed to develop self-esteem in gay men and lesbians, to establish National Coming Out Day. The initial observance was on October 11, 1988, the one-year anniversary of the second march on Washington. The event has developed into the National Coming Out Project of the Human Rights Campaign.
People so often die and we never get the chance to tell them goodbye. O'Leary fought to the very end to help the gay community gain a voice in this country. At a time when so many of us feel so disenfranchised from our nation, from religions, from political parties or ideologies, O'Leary's story and her contributions should be remembered.
Thank you, Jean O'Leary. You will be missed.