Pioneer fighter
for gay rights

Editor's note: David Carter is the author
of "Stonewall: The Riots That
Sparked the Gay Revolution," the basis for the American Experience film
"Stonewall Uprising" that will be shown on PBS in April. He is working on a biography of
Frank Kameny.
New York
(CNN) -- This week President Barack Obama signed into law the repeal of
"don't ask, don't tell," which banned gay men and lesbians from serving openly
in the U.S. armed forces.
A seat at the
front of the audience was reserved for 85-year-old Frank Kameny, who attended
wearing the Combat Infantryman Badge that he was awarded for his service in
World War II. Kameny recalls his service fighting in the wake of the Battle of
the Bulge by saying, "I dug my way across Europe slit trench by slit trench,
practically."
But Kameny was
not invited because of any heroism he demonstrated in World War II, but rather
for a much greater act of courage than even that conflict had demanded of him.
He was invited because it was Kameny who began the assault on the military
policy of discharging homosexuals by leading a demonstration at the Pentagon in
1965.
Indeed, it was
Kameny who called upon the minuscule pre-Stonewall gay rights movement -- known
then as the homophile movement -- to model itself upon the civil rights
movement.
This may not
sound radical today, but in the mid-1960s homosexuality was seen as the ultimate
taboo. As the homophile movement stated, homosexuals were triply condemned: The
medical establishment deemed them mentally ill, the law made them criminals, and
religions branded them sinners.
At a time when
lesbians and gay men were so totally ostracized, the homophile movement had
decided its best tactic was to embrace the label of sickness: at least that
seemed a half-step up from being criminals. But 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.
Kameny succeeded
to an astonishing degree. He led the fight for tactics such as public
demonstrations, went on the attack against the Civil Service Commission for its
policy of firing homosexuals and spearheaded an effort to get the homophile
movement to take the position that homosexuality was not only not a mental
illness but was on a par with heterosexuality. In 1968, he got the only existing
national association of gay rights organizations to adopt as its slogan a phrase
that Kameny had coined, "Gay Is Good." Kameny himself had been discharged from
the Army Map Service in 1957 for being gay.
His relentless
efforts paid off by not only making the homophile movement more militant but in
changing laws and policies. In 1973, in response to a series of court decisions
in which Kameny was involved, the Civil Service Commission announced that it was
ending its ban on employing homosexuals.
That same year
the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental
illness as the result of a drive organized by Kameny. Long before the Supreme
Court declared sodomy laws unconstitutional in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas
ruling, Kameny had crafted strong legal arguments for overturning such laws,
including the first brief submitted to the Supreme Court for nondiscrimination
against gay people, filed by Kameny in 1961.
While waging all
these other battles, Kameny did not shirk the Pentagon. To give but one example,
when a decorated Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War reached out to Kameny for
support with a phone call from Florida in 1974, Kameny mentioned that he was
looking for a military test case to take to the Supreme Court. Kameny was
seeking someone with a model record who had been kicked out of the military
simply for being homosexual.
Months later,
the Air Force veteran volunteered to serve as that case. In 1975, carefully
coached and prepared by Kameny and a lawyer, Technical Sgt. Leonard Matlovich
handed a letter to his superior officer stating that he was a homosexual, and
the Matlovich case became a national news story.
Still, success
in ending the military's discriminatory policy eluded the combined efforts of
Kameny and hundreds of other activists and a slew of organizations until this
week. Asked why it had taken so long to change the military's policy, Kameny
responded that it was a policy that went back to George Washington's
day.
Where does this
leave the national movement for equality for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and
the transgendered? Many would probably say that the biggest remaining LGBT issue
is the right to marry.
But what most
Americans, gay or straight, do not realize is that if a lesbian is fired from
her job or thrown out of her apartment by her landlord or denied credit because
of her sexual orientation, she cannot go to the federal government for redress.
The reason she can't is because 60 years after gay people began to fight for
their rights, Congress has not extended basic civil rights protection to LGBT
people.
Not only has
Congress failed to pass a comprehensive law that would outlaw discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation -- protecting us in the realms of housing,
employment, public accommodations and credit, for example -- but, to its shame,
Congress has not even passed a much narrower law, Employment Non-Discrimination
Act, or ENDA, that would have given LGBT people protection only in the realm of
employment.
Of course, the
right to marry is an important issue, but it is high time that Congress pass a
law to extend civil rights that are more basic than marriage to LGBT
citizens.
Today,
Washington has named a street for Frank Kameny and his 1965 picket signs are in
the Smithsonian Institution, but if Congress were to pass basic civil rights
protection for America's LGBT citizens, it would be the greatest tribute yet to
Kameny's pioneering work.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are
solely those of David Carter.