Frank Kameny, born May 21, 1925 in New York City, was an early gay advocate and one of the most significant figures in the history of the American gay rights movement. He enlisted in the US Army in May 1943 and, after finishing basic training, sent to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to study mechanical engineering. Kameny was withdrawn from the program to prepare for an invasion of France. He was sent to the frontlines where he served as an infantry private.
After the war, he enrolled at Harvard University and graduated with a Master's degree in 1949 and a doctorate in 1956 in astronomy. In August 1956, he was "detained" in San Francisco after being accused of "lewd and indecent acts".
A year later, Kameny was hired by the US Army Map Service, but when they heard of his arrest in San Francisco he was fired. He appealed his firing through the courts and even the US Supreme Court, but never won a case. He devoted himself to activism.
Kameny's pushback against the government's policy on gay employees was the first of its kind, arguing that discrimination on the basis of sexuality is no different from discrimination based on race or religion.
In 1961, he co-founded the Washington DC branch of the Mattachine Society. He campaigned to overturn DC sodomy laws in 1963, and was finally successful in 1993. He also worked to remove the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association.
He represented and defended government employees who had their security revoked or suspended due to allegations of "perversion" or immoral acts".
Kameny ran for US Congress in 1971 in DC's first election for a non-voting Congressional delegate, the first gay to run for Congress, but lost unfortunately. After his defeat, he created the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Washington, DC, which still lobbies the government and pushes for equal rights.
Kameny passed away in October 2011.
