I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love. Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving! We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
Before you think we were close friends I will say we were not, everyone called him Frank. He was everywhere in Washington, D.C...everywhere gay. I first met him at an AIDS march, a year later at a friend's house and again at talk he gave in a gay bookstore.
Frank used to tell it like it is. He was one of the first outspoken members of the gay community, a role forced upon him by his firing as a government employee for being gay. He was a sage, a wonderful speaker and the force behind the Mattachine Society, Washington's first gay rights organization.
No doubt he had quite an ego, but he needed one after what happened to him. You can see that in some of the videos posted online. But he was a kind man, a caring man, and everything a gay man ought to be. He will be missed.
[Updated on: Wed, 12 October 2011 13:03]
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Location: US/Canada
Registered: September 2009
Messages: 733
By Brody Levesque | WASHINGTON D. C. -- Frank was one of those persons that you never forget. To be sure, he was a force, blunt, outspoken, and at times as he got older a tad bit crotchety- but he had one character trait that made him lovable - Frank was a decent human and he radiated that simple warmth to everyone he met.
I'll never forget some of the Fridays I spent at Lambda Rising Books up on Connecticut Avenue, standing next to the sales counter, chatting up the young folks who worked there, and observing Frank's characteristic entrances.
Why Fridays? Well, Friday was and still is the day that our local Gay newspaper, the Washington Blade is published and distributed. Frank never missed picking up the Blade, without fail around 2ish in the afternoon, along with his weekly purchase of "other" reading materials from the more "adult" oriented fare in the magazines racks at the back of Lambda.
Frank would double park out on Connecticut avenue-- illegally of course, and then make a beeline for the back pausing only long enough to grab the Blade from its rack by the front door. Then he'd amble back to pay for his purchases, all the time ignoring the cacophonous sound of horns blaring due to his car blocking the roadway. Frank would stand there and chat everyone up until the clerks would chase him off, nicely, to go move the car.
Frank was a character- no doubt. His legacy is reflected in every single LGBTQ person who celebrates pride, in some states falls in love and gets married, or who can now proudly don the uniform of the armed services of the U. S. and wear it proudly while openly serving.
He was an advocate, he was a friend, and he was truly, to quote the late President John Kennedy, " A Profile In Courage."
Photo Credit: Frank sitting in front of The Dupont Italian Kitchen cafe on 17th Street in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, along the stretch of 17th named in his honour as "Frank Kameny Way" by the DC government in 2010.
Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2009
Messages: 630
Thank you, Brody. I knew if anyone could write about the Frank I admired it would be you. He was as much an icon in Washington as the Lincoln Memorial, although he probably would have preferred to think of himself as the Washington Monument. ;-D
He deserves a memorial. A statue set somewhere near Dupont Circle where he could watch the handsome young men pass by. The man I knew was angry and serious most of the time, but that was in context of the places I saw him. You show us a lighter side and that is how I would prefer to remember him. I hope the communuity throws him a parade or a good old fashioned wake. He would attend if he could.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Location: US/Canada
Registered: September 2009
Messages: 733
Rachel Maddow On Gay Rights Pioneer Frank Kameny
NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- Frank Kameny (5/21/25 - 10/11/11) was one of the most significant figures in the American gay rights movement. In 1957, Kameny was dismissed from his position as an astronomer in the Army Map Service in Washington, D.C. because of his homosexuality, leading him to begin a Herculean struggle with the American establishment that would spearhead a new period of militancy in the homosexual rights movement of the early 1960s. Kameny protested his firing by the U.S. Civil Service Commission due to his homosexuality, and argued this case to the United States Supreme Court in 1961. Although the court denied his petition, it is notable as the first civil rights claim based on sexual orientation.
] 
A Place of Safety
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
Re: A Gay Pioneer passes on... 
