Hero of Freedom: Frank Kameny

As we look forward to the equal protection of the laws for all queer Americans, gaining ground in state after state, it's important to stop and remember how far we have come in the space of one lifetime. And work and vote to ensure that we keep progressing forward, not backward, as a nation.

Gays under 40 have no collective memory of how utterly terrifying it was in the days before Stonewall--and for a long time thereafter--to let other people even think you might be queer. You would quickly be shunned, fired from your job, maybe sent off to a mental hospital or even prison, and all sorts of other very nasty things; and there was absolutely no recourse at law, no defense, no protection whatsoever.

Your day-to-day survival depended on presenting an absolutely straight face to the world, to all but your gay friends. If you had any.

Yeah, in a very few places like NY and SF, you could be around other queers . . . but out here in redstateland, millions of us baby boomers were well into our 20's or 30's before we ever met an openly gay man. We had to hide our sexuality from everyone, from our classmates, teachers, employers, from our closest friends and family, from sisters and brothers, from Mom and Dad -even from our own selves sometimes.

No one had ever heard that "gay is good"; all we ever heard was the exact opposite: sick, sinful, crazy, criminal. Homo, faggot, fairy, pansy, sissy, pervert. Queer.

Gays were never talked about in movies, TV shows, or newspapers when I was growing up. There was no gay pride; no gay rights; the word gay as we mean it now did not exist in our vocabularies; the only words we had to describe ourselves were the cruel, cutting ones. Think about that, and the effect on a young man's spirit when he first realizes what he is: not a person but a thing - a despised, dreaded, hateful thing.

There were no gays in Mayberry. It simply wasn't allowed.

So it's important to remember and honor the great courage of people like Frank Kameny, speaking here in a short clip from the Human Rights Campaign, who in a time of enormous social repression had the guts to take a stand in public for freedom and civil rights.

Kameny took his case all the way to the Supreme Court in 1961; the court ruled against him, but it's fair to say Kameny is the Rosa Parks of the gay rights movement. He and others who came before us made possible the relative freedom we have today just to be ourselves.

It's a big change. Be glad, be very glad.