Gay is Good

Gay is Good
The Collected Writings of Frank Kameny
Edited by Charles Francis

The first book from one of the founding fathers of the gay movement, of whom President Obama says “We are proud of you— we are grateful to you for your leadership.”

Before there was Stonewall or Harvey Milk, Frank Kameny, an astronomer in the US Army Map Service Department who was fi red by the federal government in 1957 for being gay, introduced militancy into the staid agitation among homosexuals that had defined the protest movement since its inception in the early-1950s. Determined to see justice carried out, he sought reinstatement all the way to the US Supreme Court. When Kameny’s petition was denied, he persisted in his fight, most notably leading the historic 1965 picket outside the White House. His struggle continues up to the present, including his determination to see the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, with President Obama praising Kameny’s “conscience . . . and extraordinary courage.”

Gay is Good (a phrase Kameny coined after “black is beautiful”) collects for the first time highlights from the author’s private papers from the Library of Congress. Among the materials included are letters of protest pertaining to his 1957 dismissal, essays documenting the first public protests for gay rights at the White House, his statement submitted in hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, speeches protesting the US military’s ban on gay and lesbian soldiers, and writings and advocacy to remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Gay is Good functions as a memoir from fifty years of activism.

Charles Francis is an openly gay Washington player who served on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV/AIDS under President George W. Bush and is the founder/director of The Kameny Papers Project.