Remembering rights pioneer Frank Kameny (1925-2011)

This photo appeared with a post yesterday, "Remembering Frank Kameny, civil rights pioneer," on the blog of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, showing (l-r): former museum director Brent D. Glass, Frank Kameny, and Political History curator Harry Rubenstein.

"Frank Kameny, who died yesterday, was one of those Americans whom few people have heard of but who spent his time on the planet making the kind of good trouble that benefitted all of us. Kameny devoted his life to furthering civil rights, most especially for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) people."

-- the opening of the above-cited Smithsonian
National Museum of American History blogpost

by Ken

The post, by Katherine Ott, curator in the museum's Division of Medicine and Science, continues:

While he received recognition from many individuals and groups for his work, we in the museum hold a special place for those who not only make history but also preserve it along the way. The museum had the good fortune of being the recipient of some of his protest material. Kameny donated objects a few years ago and one poster is currently on display in the exhibition, The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden. His papers are at the Library of Congress, where some are also on display.

Kameny either instigated or participated in many of the important gay rights actions of the twentieth century. Organizing men to understand being gay as an identity—not as a sickness—Kameny started the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Mattachine Society in 1961. Calling out the federal government for discrimination, Kameny, Barbara Gittings, and a handful of others picketed the White House in 1965. Ending the American Psychiatric Association's stigmatization of homosexuality—Kameny and company forced that change, too.

Thanks, Frank. We have your history and it is part of everyone’s.

Tributes have been pouring out, both from people who never met Frank Kameny and by lots and lots of people who did. My friend Bob Witeck, who directed my attention to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History post, also directs attention to two Facebook remembrance pages: "Remembering Frank Kameny" and a "Kameny Papers Project."

I'm especially grateful to Bob for sharing (and authorizing the people with whom he shared it to pass it on) an especially substantive remembrance, explaining:

On December 1, 2008, my husband Bob Connelly, who is also an adjunct professor at American University, invited Frank to speak to his undergrads about LGBT civil rights issues, and to conduct a Q&A with his students. Frank always had game on, especially talking with students.

Here’s the final question from the class, asking Frank how he wished to be remembered. I am aware many of us are familiar with Frank’s coda, “Gay is Good,” but not entirely aware of its genesis, and the kinds of logic and messaging that Frank gave to everything he said and wrote.

Bob recalls that "Frank loathed at least two things above all, all forms of homophobia, and editing his words. He clearly loved thinking out loud and it helped explain his path forward." I think you'll enjoy this bit of "thinking out loud," and I wouldn't dream of editing it.

Professor Bob Connelly: Is there one thing you’ve done that stands above all others, as what you are most proud of?

Dr. Franklin Kameny: Well, yes. The one thing I’ve said, if I want to be remembered for nothing else, it’s back in July, 1968 I coined the slogan “Gay Is Good.”

And that really, it sort of, it epitomizes really my entire approach to all the issues. You have to take an affirmative approach on these things. In other words, if I may expound for a moment -- people tend almost automatically, since we are under attack, and we are under criticism, they tend to respond defensively and reactively. Around then, taking the next step and responding on the offensive and proactively. In other words, the tendency -- we’re told that homosexuality is bad in all sorts of different ways so the response tends to be “It’s not bad.”

You have to take the next step and say, “Not really, it’s not bad. It’s good.” It’s not that same sex marriage will not damage the institution of marriage. Same sex marriage will enhance the institution of marriage. You have to consciously take the next step and move over into being affirmative and so here again, it’s not that gay is not bad, it’s that gay is affirmative and good.

That came out of, in those days -- again you have to go back to the issues of that day and the rhetoric of that day -- in June of 1968 I saw on television an item of Stokely Carmichael leading a group of students at a college in Salisbury Maryland, chanting, “Black Is Beautiful.” And again, same thing. It’s not that black is not ugly, or in other ways lesser. We’re going to take the next step, “Black Is Beautiful,” and I realized I had to do exactly the same thing. I tossed around words and phrases. “Homosexuality” was obviously too clinical. “Good” was sort of bland; on the other hand it covered all the possibilities. Some people had suggested to me, “Gay Is Great,” but that sounded a little bit too informal. So ultimately I came up with that. It was adopted in August at a meeting of what was then the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations as a slogan.

Meanwhile, in those days, Playboy had a separate little publication called the Playboy Forum, and they had a long article, just about that time, July, August, September, which was sort of, at best wishy-washy about the gay issue. So I wrote them a long letter -- I can be verbose at times -- and I included “Gay Is Good.” And to my pleased astonishment, the following February or March of 1969, they published my whole letter under their heading, “Gay Is Good.” And that sent it out to the whole public, and we're off and running.

Bob notes two of his favorite phrases in the above: “if I may expound for a moment” and “I can be verbose at times.” He also reminds us about Kameny's "association with the African-American civil rights movement too, especially one of the more radical voices in the 1960s.


RACHEL MADDOW REMEMBERS FRANK KAMENY

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