Looking Back, Looking Forward

As the world centered in on the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and, later eclipsing her death from cancer, Michael Jackson, I noted on Twitter a sad, but ultimately wonderful story of one man who is not dead.  A man who continues to fight, and obtained some small measure of relief in the past week for a wrong done him more than 50 years ago.

1965 White House Picket

Moving to D.C. for undergrad in 1995 and coming out soon thereafter, the name of Frank Kameny soon became synonymous with the phrase “gay history” in my mind.  Kameny was fired from his job as an astronomer for the Army Map Service nearly 50 years before I moved to the city.

Kameny went on to become one of the leading advocates for lesbian and gay equality in the years before — and since — Stonewall.  In 1965, he and others famously picketed the White House in shirts and ties, sending a letter to the White House (page 1 page 2) explaining their presence.  Kameny, along with Barbara Gittings, successfully worked with others to convince the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of disorders in 1973.  The next year, he and Gittings served as counsel to Otis Fancis Tabler, Jr., successfully keeping the Defense Department employee from having his security clearance revoked.

Kameny did all of this after having lost his job for being gay.

And, until this month, Kameny had never heard one word of apology from the government whose aim of equality under the law Kameny has spent more than 50 years tirelessly working to make a little more real for LGBT people.

Openly gay Director of the Office of Personnel Management John Berry, finally, has done just that.  He apologized, on behalf of the federal government for the wrong done Kameny.  As we in the LGBT world today fight to speed the progress of equality, the words of Berry’s letter and the lesson of Kameny’s life show us both how far we have come and how righteous our struggle is.

The apology:

Dear Dr. Kameny:

In what we know today was a shameful action, the United States Civil Service Commission in 1957 upheld your dismissal from your job solely on the basis of your sexual orientation. In one letter to you, an agency official wrote that the Government “does not hire homosexuals and will not permit their employment…” He went on to say that “the homosexual is automatically a security risk” and that he “frequently becomes a disruptive personnel factor within any organization.”

With the fervent passion of a true patriot, you did not resign yourself to your fate or quietly endure this wrong. With courage and strength, you fought back. And so today, I am writing to advise you that this policy, which was at odds with the bedrock principles underlying the merit-based civil service, has been repudiated by the United States Government, due in large part to your determination and life’s work, and to the thousands of Americans whose advocacy your words have inspired.

Thus, the civil service laws, rules and regulations now provide that it is illegal to discriminate against federal employees or applicants based on matters not related to their ability to perform their jobs, including their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I am happy to inform you that the Memorandum signed by President Obama on June 17, 2009 directs the Office of Personnel Management—the successor to the CSC—to issue guidance to all executive departments and agencies regarding their obligations to comply with these laws, rules, and regulations.

And by virtue of the authority vested in me as Director of the Office Of Personnel Management, it is my duty and great pleasure to inform you that I am adding my support, along with that of many other past Directors, for the repudiation of the reasoning of the 1957 finding by the United States Civil Service Commission to dismiss you from your job solely on the basis of your sexual orientation. Please accept our apology for the consequences of the previous policy of the United States government, and please accept the gratitude and appreciation of the United States Office of Personnel Management for the work you have done to fight discrimination and protect the merit-based civil service system.

Sincerely yours,

John Berry, Director

Thank you, Frank Kameny, for your life of service that has led us to the far more enlightened country in which we live today.  I only hope that we can honor your life’s work by continuing the work toward full equality for all LGBT people.

ALSO: For another take on this news, check out DYM SUM, which I recently added to my blogroll.  For more biographical information about Kameny, check out The Kameny Papers.

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