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Frank Kameny (1925 - )
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 Sexual
Politics, Sexual Communities : The Making of a Homosexual Minority
in the United States, 1940-1970 by John D'Emilio
With thorough
documentation of the oppression of homosexuals and biographical
sketches of the lesbian and gay heroes who helped the contemporary
gay culture to emerge, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities
supplies the definitive analysis of the homophile movement in the
U.S. from 1940 to 1970. John D'Emilio's new preface and afterword
examine the conditions that shaped the book and the growth of gay
and lesbian historical literature.
"How many students of American political
culture know that during the McCarthy era more people lost their
jobs for being alleged homosexuals than for being Communists? . .
. These facts are part of the heretofore obscure history of
homosexuality in America--a history that John D'Emilio thoroughly
documents in this important book."-- George DeStefano, Nation
"John D'Emilio provides homosexual
political struggles with something that every movement requires--a
sympathetic history rendered in a dispassionate voice."-- New
York Times Book Review
"A milestone in the history of the American
gay movement."-- Rudy Kikel, Boston Globe
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By Bob Kunst
Excerpt:
Bob Kunst: What circumstances caused you
to lock horns with the Pentagon?
Frank Kameny: Confronting them on
military issues-- this came later on with Mattachine in D.C. in
'61, and (there was) no competition (from other challengers), and
nothing much going on and we wrote our own agenda, and were the
cutting edge of doing anything in the country, and doing
'Government vs. Gays'- civil service employment, security
clearance and the armed services.
Some of our picketing was done at the Pentagon
in 1965.
Since during Draft I handled a number of cases
of those who wanted to get out of the draft or were in the service
and were being attacked and needing to be defended...
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From The Knitting Circle
He was sacked from the US Army Map Service in
1957 for being homosexual. He surprised himself by find that he
became radicalised by this. His specialism in astronomy meant that
he could not see how he could continue his career elsewhere and he
decided to fight to get his job back. For a while he lived with
very little money and on a meagre diet, but in 1959 he got a job
in physics.
He first went through the low level appeals
procedures without success. He followed this by making pleas to
the House and Senate Civil Service Committees but got nowhere. He
then took his case to the US District Court and the US Court of
Appeals but was turned down. He filed his own petition to the
Supreme Court in January 1961 but in March 1961 his case was
denied.
In 1961 he and Jack Nichols formed a branch of
the Mattachine
Society in Washington D. C. Although the press took no notice
the FBI watched and recorded their every move...
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From planetout.com
Excerpt:
Unlike many other gay leaders of the time,
Kameny embraced direct action along the lines of the black civil
rights movement. "The [gay] movement of those days was very
unassertive, apologetic, and defensive," Kameny noted. But he
believed that gay people should fight a "down-to-earth,
grass-roots, sometimes tooth-and-nail" battle...
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From closetdoor.com
It wasn't until the late 1950s that gays in
Washington, DC began to push for political and legal rights. Frank
Kameny, was only one of many fired from a federal job because he
was gay, but he was the first willing to come out and fight for
his dismissal. His appeal failed, but Kameny continued efforts
through his involvement with the Mattachine Society, the first gay
organization in Washington. The organization, founded in 1961,
aimed to "secure for homosexuals the right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness." With its members dressed in
business attire, the Washington chapter of the Mattachine Society
led the first gay picket of the White House in April 1965...
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The purpose of this posting is to inform you
that on Wednesday afternoon, December 23, 1998, during a gay radio
program on an Alexandria, Virginia radio station, I solicited to
engage in sodomy with me the entire adult population of the state
of Virginia, with particular emphasis upon all prosecutors, police
chiefs and police officers, and judges in the state. The precise
wording of my solicitation and the challenge which accompanied it
are as follows [It was preceded by a brief statement identifying
me by name, and explaining the meaning and coverage of the
Virginia sodomy law, and the fact that given the near-universality
of oral sodomy, that law makes habitual, recidivist, repetitive
felons of virtually the entire adult population of Virginia, gay
and non-gay alike]:
"I hereby solicit, urge, entreat, and
invite every person in the state of Virginia of the age of 18
years or above, to engage with me in an act of sodomy of his or
her choice and as defined by Section 18.2-361 of the Virginia
Code, in some indisputably private place in the state of Virginia
at a time of our mutual convenience. This solicitation includes,
but certainly is not limited to all police chiefs and police
officers, other law enforcement officials, prosecutors under
whatever formal title, and judges in the state of Virginia, with
particular emphasis on police and other officials in the cities of
Charlottesville and Roanoke, where there have been eplsodes of
numbers of arrests for solicitaton for sodomy in recent months.
"If I am proseuted for this solicitation, I
will fight it with intent to achieve the striking down of the
Virginia sodomy law...
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