Category: Human Rights

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Rainbow Sash Movement Takes On Bishop William Lori’s Homophobia

That the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy is on the warpath over LGBT rights, and are even going so far as to claim that any rights given to LGBT people limit the rights of Catholics is not even sitting well now with the Catholic laity. The Rainbow Sash Movement is opposed to the way that the Catholic hierarchy portrays the LGBT Community and they are now speaking out agaisnt the ad hoc committees that the US Council of Catholic Bishops is putting into place. Here is their press release:

All Saints” aka Halloween, is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic Church. The Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, (also known by its opening words Homosexualitatis problema or, disparagingly, as “the Halloween Letter”) is a letter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church written in 1985 and delivered in Rome on 1 October 1986 by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ( Pope Benedict XVI) and Archbishop Alberto Bovone. The letter gave instructions on how the Clergy should deal with and respond to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Pope John Paul II approved the letter and ordered its publication.

What does this letter have in common with the recent testimony of Bishop William Lori, head of the newly created ad hoc committee on religious liberty at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), who recently testified before Congress? According to Bishop Lori the Catholic vision of Religious Freedom should be paramount and associated with the Vatican’s perceived threats to religious liberty. Further that action in support of any legislation that promotes equality for Lesbian/Gay People would be an attack a Catholics right to practice his/hers religion. The Rainbow Sash Movement response to such a view is that it is totally unreasonable, un-democratic and homophobic.

Like the 1986 Halloween Letter Bishop Lori promotes the idea that propagation of religious belief as a justification for discrimination against Gay people should be lawful. Both continue to promote the Catholic Church’s condemnation of homosexuality under the guise “Religious Freedom”. This will only result in the corresponding denial of “Religious Freedom” to Gay people as is exampled by the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The Halloween letter did not remove violence against gay people if they try to legalize our rights.

The US Council of Catholic Bishops imperial religious behavior in respect to Gay Marriage has only sought to deny equality and fairness by promoting individual attacks on the rights of gay people generally, on Gay Catholics and their allies specifically. The Bishops seek to promote through the prism of “Religious Freedom” an atmosphere where promoting individual rights of conscience and equal rights for Gay People are somehow at odds with “Religious Freedom” which is a total fabrication of reasonable thought.

Both the Halloween Letter anniversary and Bishop Lori testimony only show how out of touch the bishops are when it comes to the lives of real people. Clearly the Bishops can no longer speak for the Catholic voter on these issues as poll after poll has shown.

Complete Article HERE!

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Catholics react to Archdiocese push for constitutional same-sex marriage ban

Catholics from both sides of the issue are weighing in on the plan by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to create ad hoc committees in every Catholic church in Minnesota to push the state’s constitutional same-sex marriage ban.

One lay Catholic who works for a church-affiliated organization, who asked not to be identified for fear of losing their job, told the Minnesota Independent that the organized campaign in support of the marriage amendment was “offensive, divisive and against the image of Christ we see in the Gospels.”

“But honestly after the sex abuse scandal and the cover-ups made by the hierarchy, nothing they do shocks me anymore,” the source said. ”After watching the Catholic Church use funds to pay for their lawyers, pay off victims and now shove through this amendment, I’ve decided to withhold my tithe from the church. I do not want to provide them more money to defend themselves or lobby against me and those I love. Instead, I will give that money directly to services in Minnesota that provide food and housing for the poorest among us.”

The move by Archbishop John Nienstedt is out of touch with many lay Catholics, according to a large survey of Catholics released on Monday that showed only 35 percent of Catholics oppose same-sex marriage.

The decision has riled some Catholics who oppose the religion’s opposition to same-sex marriage rights.

“Minnesota bishops have just taken the unusual step of urging parish priests across the state to form committees to help pass the proposed anti-marriage amendment in 2012,” wrote Freedom to Marry, a national group that supports marriage rights for same-sex couples. The group recently registered with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to work on the campaign to defeat the amendment.

The group continued with an appeal for money: “This isn’t the first time we’ve faced a multi-million dollar campaign funded by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to ban the freedom to marry. With your help, this time we will be prepared.”

The Rainbow Sash Movement, a national group working to protest the church’s policies on LGBT people, called Nienstedt’s plans an “abuse of authority.”

“Above and beyond all this, Archbishop Nienstedt appears not to have any concern about the unity of the Archdiocese in his drive to stigmatize the gay marriage as threat to society. He is naive if he thinks that Catholics will buckle under his political direction in this,” wrote Bill O’Connor, spokesperson of the Rainbow Sash Movement. “If anything has damaged marriage in our society, one only has to look to divorce. Perhaps this where the Archbishop should put his energies rather than trying impose an interpretation of marriage that is not grounded [in] today’s reality, by making gay people scapegoats.”

Scott Alessi, writing for U.S. Catholic, which is published by a Roman-Catholic community of priests and brothers called the Claretian Missionaries, said Niensted’s decision was “unusual.”

“Nienstedt has made clear that for priests in his archdiocese, fighting to ensure that the state defines marriage in the same way as the church is today’s top priority,” Alessi wrote.

Alessi wondered if anti-gay marriage amendment was the most appropriate use of resources: ”If an archbishop can call upon all his pastors to form grassroots committees, appoint parish leaders, and organize a large-scale effort, is this the issue on which to do it? What if every parish developed an unemployment committee dedicated to helping out of work people in the parish community find jobs?”

Complete Article HERE!

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John Smid’s Stunning Admission

COMMENTARY from Wayne Besen

For decades, John Smid had been the leader of Love in Action, the infamous “ex-gay” ministry that took away the underwear of clients if the undergarments appeared too gay. The strict Memphis-based ministry also used an egg timer in the bathroom to make sure its clients would not masturbate while showering.

Of all the “ex-gay” ministries this was the most cult-like – with Smid keeping tight control over the social lives of his clients, who paid a pretty penny to live in the residential program.

The amount of mind control employed by Smid to turn gay people into heterosexuals was stunning. In a 1997 interview with the Memphis Flyer, Smid, spoke of his own special technique for denying reality: “I’m looking at that wall and suddenly I say it’s blue,” Smid said, pointing to a yellow wall. “Someone else comes along and says, ‘No, it’s gold.’ But I want to believe that wall is blue. Then God comes along and He says, ‘You’re right, John, [that yellow wall] is blue.’ That’s the help I need. God can help me make that [yellow] wall blue.”

This high level of brainwashing was not uncommon for Love in Action’s star clients. For example, Anne Paulk, co-author of Love Won Out, wrote about the mind games she played to allegedly overcome her lesbian thoughts: “…I would start to experience a sexual response…So I’d look out the car window and say something like, ‘Gosh, lord, there’ a tree out there! That tree is green, and it has leaves on it. It’s got brown bark.’ I would fix my mind on anything and everything to distract myself…over time that process made me mentally disciplined enough to displace all lesbian thoughts, period.” (I photographed her “ex-gay” poster boy husband John in a gay bar)

Of course, such techniques can temporarily instill discipline to change sexual behavior – but not one’s sexual orientation. In a stunning admission this week, Smid said that altering one’s attractions are highly improbable – indeed so unlikely that he claims that he has not met a single man who truly prayed away the gay. According to Smid:

Yes, there are homosexuals that make dramatic changes in their lives as they walk through the transformation process with Jesus. I have heard story after story of changes that have occurred as men and women find the grace of God in their lives as homosexual people. But, I’m sorry, this transformation process may not meet the expectations of many Christians. I also want to reiterate here that the transformation for the vast majority of homosexuals will not include a change of sexual orientation. Actually I’ve never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual.

Wow. If the “ex-gay” myth did not work for Smid, then it won’t work for anyone. After all, he had incredible dedication, adhered to a hardcore form of fundamentalism, and enforced a strict cult-like regimen on his charges. Yet, years later, he is faced with the daunting reality that “ex-gay” programs are a Religious Right marketing program, not a legitimate movement.

Needless to say, leaving the past completely behind is not easy. Smid is still married to his wife and on a journey to discover his inner-truth. He has one foot in the reality-based community and one foot in a fantasy world. But the first step in leaving the “ex-gay” charade behind is admitting that the programs do not work.

It is never easy for one to acknowledge being wrong, especially after decades of investing mentally, spiritually and financially in a big lie. I wish Smid the best of luck on his continued evolution and am grateful that he is beginning to honestly discuss the limitations of “ex-gay” programs.

Smid’s timing is exquisite because desperate GOP presidential candidates are pandering to the Religious Right by touting the “ex-gay” myth. For example, on ABC’s The View Herman Cain said that he thought homosexuality was a “choice.” The ever-gay-bashing Rick Santorum also jumped on the “ex-gay” bandwagon falsely claiming there is credible evidence that say LGBT people can change from gay to straight: “There are all sorts of studies out there that suggest just the contrary,” Santorum stated. “And there are people who were gay, and lived the gay lifestyle, and aren’t anymore.”

Additionally, there are junk science peddlers such as Regent University’s Mark Yarhouse who produces bogus studies that claim that sexual orientation change is possible. I strongly suggest these crass political operatives stop the propaganda long enough to listen to Smid.

But, of course, that would require putting peoples’ lives ahead of political lies – so don’t expect this to happen anytime soon.

Full Article HERE!

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Catholic Bishops Endanger Church Tax Exempt Status

COMMENTARY

New York Archbishop and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) president Timothy Dolan recently wrote to Barak Obama asking the president to sign the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA): “We cannot be silent, however, when federal steps harmful to marriage, the laws defending it, and religious freedom continue apace.”

Can the marriages of some really “harm” those of others? Does Dolan not recognize how much support there is among active, practicing Roman Catholics for same-sex marriage? Does he really not know that scores of LGBT Catholics on the Communion lines at his own masses at St. Patrick’s Cathedral are married? That many work in Catholic ministry? That some are raising their children in the church? Dolan’s diocesan schools are filled with families in which there are only one or two children? Can he be naïve enough to imagine that this is accomplished through Natural Family Planning (NFP) alone? (NFP is the method of birth control the Vatican recommends and which its parishes often teach.)

Like much of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Timothy Dolan is out of touch with who we American Catholics actually are.

He has every right not to remain silent, but the bishops’ presumption (fantasy?) that a majority of active U.S. Catholics will lend support to Vatican efforts to restrict the reproductive and marriage rights of non-Catholics is alarming — especially since so many active Catholics exercise those very freedoms. Furthermore, although the pope and his bishops may truly believe a zygote is a “preborn child,” the truth is that a great number of active Catholics do not, and they vote, in great numbers, accordingly.

There’s a reason the Vatican appointed the cigar-smoking, baseball-loving, borderline-charming Dolan to serve as shepherd of the Sodom and Gomorrah that is New York City. The passing of same-sex marriage rights legislation in his state and the reproductive health aspects of the new health care mandate present New York’s top priest with fresh opportunity to make his mark as the defender of the faith in the U.S. On Sept. 30, Timothy Dolan, in his capacity of USCCB president, announced the formation of a sub-committee whose task will be to respond to the “erosion of freedom of religion in America”: “…the new subcommittee would be one of several initiatives designed to strengthen the conference’s response and bring together a broad cross-section of churches and legal scholars to oppose attacks on the First Amendment.”

Dolan is fronting this crusade, and the degree of difficulty involved makes going out on a limb with a shaky “First Amendment” argument worth the gamble. He has appointed a Connecticut Bishop, William Lori, to head up the new committee. Unfortunately the first association many Catholics have with the “Diocese of Bridgeport” is its notorious status as a locus of sexual abuse. (In 2001, the Diocese of Bridgeport settled in 23 civil sex abuse cases, and there, according to Bishop Accountability.org, Timothy Dolan’s predecessor is alleged to have allowed priests facing multiple accusations to continue in ministry.)

The USCCB is now lobbying hard to make same-sex civil marriage illegal in the U.S. and to deny (Catholic and not) employees in agencies run by the church medical coverage for contraception and sterilization. And they want Catholics in the pews to help. The bishops can count on the holy-father-knows-best Roman Catholic fringe to serve as hoplites in what the hierarchy-friendly Catholic News Service calls the “culture wars”. They’d follow the Borgia pope into hell. However, the bishops will lack critical Roman Catholic mass in these “culture wars,” and their strongest support for DOMA may come from “bring-your-gun-to-church” and “God hates fags” so-called “Christian” churches. Progressive Roman Catholics, who tend support LGBT marriage and view family planning as a moral responsibility and not a sin, are likely to think the First Amendment angle disingenuous and inane. Moderate Catholics, who might not long ago have had the USCCB’s back in a such controversies as DOMA or the health care mandate, are alienated and sickened by the pedophilia crisis. They can no longer be counted on to fall in line behind the bishops.

Were so much not at stake, I’d find Dolan’s recent foray into First Amendment advocacy amusing. Has he read the First Amendment? For he appears to miss the point. The First Amendment does not guarantee one religion the right to obtain religious liberty by stripping others of theirs.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Many religions recognized and sanctified same-sex marriages long before same-sex marriage was legal in any state in the U.S. What (legal or moral) right has Timothy Dolan to tear lawful marriages asunder? Or to nullify covenants consecrated by Reform Jewish or Christian rites? Dolan’s campaign to (in effect) annul same-sex marriages reflects neither the spirit of ecumenism nor that of secular law as it pertains to marriage.

Same-sex couples in states in which equal-marriage legislation has passed are family now.

Furthermore, many atheists hold marriage equality (for lack of a better word, I say) “sacred.” Under the First Amendment, atheist LGBT and straight Americans enjoy the right not to be subject to religious law. DOMA wold impose religious law on everyone. This is an affront to all who take seriously the principle of separation between church and state. Though same-sex marriages are legal in the state of New York, no law compels Timothy Dolan to recognize them, and the First Amendment protects his right to refuse to marry LGBT Catholics in his church.

The consternation of the conflicted “believer” working at the marriage license bureau who finds processing marriage licenses for LGBT couples distasteful is nothing new. Many a court clerk during the Civil Rights Era no doubt endured a similar kind of anguish when required to process marriage licenses for heterosexual interracial couples. People allow moral discernment to shape their decisions about employment all the time. Marriage Bureau employees who find gay marriage distasteful must either suck it up or seek employment that better accommodates their prejudice.

Dolan is quoted in the National Catholic Register as having said the following: “If the label of “bigot” sticks to us — especially in court — because of our teaching on marriage, we’ll have church-state conflicts for years to come as a result.”

The archbishop is right to worry. The “label of bigot” will stick. The best way to defend against being called a bigot is to not be one.

Dolan is not nearly so interested in the First Amendment protections as he is in holding the Vatican’s doctrinal/political ground. The Roman Catholic hierarchy is under attack from within and without. Dolan is taking his shot. He’s hoping that cloaking bigotry the finery of constitutional protections might make him and his hierarchy appear more freedom-forward and perhaps a tad less medieval. But blurring, perforating, crossing and erasing the line of demarcation between church and state won’t win the archbishop any points with most American Catholics. And outside the church, Dolan’s First Amendment-based power play is likely to come off as the Captain Queeg-like snit of a “religious leader” who knows his ship is going down.

Dolan is playing the “good cop” role now, but “bad cops” surround him. On the matter of the health care mandate, Daniel N. DiNardo, chairman of the U.S. bishop’s pro-life committee was quick to whip out the shiv. He said this on Sept. 26, about a month after the USCCB announced its dissatsifaction with the terms of the the federal health care mandate:

“Under the new rule our institutions would be free to act in accord with Catholic teaching on life and procreation only if they were to stop hiring and serving non-Catholics. … Although this new rule gives the agency the discretion to authorize a ‘religious’ exemption, it is so narrow as to exclude most Catholic social service agencies and healthcare providers.”
The ultra hierarchy-friendly Catholic News Agency’s choice of the word “warned” says a lot. It’s code for “Give us what we want or we’ll stop healing, clothing, feeding, sheltering and offering hospice to non-Catholics.”

Another bishop, Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburg, weighed in with a similar kind of warning in a Sept. 15 letter to Human Health Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sibelius;
…Catholic Charities in his diocese alone has served over 80,000 people last year 
”without regard to the religious belief” of those they ministered to.

But “under this [health care] mandate, Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh would either be forced to cease to exist or restrict its employees and its wide ranging social services to practicing Catholics alone.”
Essentially, Bishops Zubik and DiNardo are floating ultimata. They don’t come right out and say so, but the implication in Zubik’s case is that the bishops might have little choice but to add to the suffering and hardship of 80,000 people currently under the care of Catholic Charities. Not much Christ in that.

Thank God this vicious game of chicken won’t work. The public relations fallout would be disastrous if the bishops were to make good on such threats. Even the most conservative of Catholics would be ambivalent about such tactics because even daily-mass-attending, novena-praying rosary ladies who oppose abortion know that sacrificing sick, hungry, homeless “born” children to the supposed greater good of preserving the lives of zygotes and embryos would constitute a sin as grave as any.

That any bishop thinks it acceptable to use works of mercy as leverage is troubling and indicates just how estranged from Christian ideals many of the Catholic bishops are. From a public relations standpoint, the utter lack of diplomacy in such expressions as Zubik’s reveals how out of touch the Catholic hierarchy is with what the worlds sees when it beholds the church.

Much of the world now views the Roman Catholic Church as a corrupt organization led by a there-but-for-the grace-of-extradition-agreements-go-I pontiff. Were Ratzinger not head of a sovereign state, the world might well have witnessed his perp walk by now. The damning Cloyne Report turned the most pious Catholic nation in Europe against the hierarchy. The Vatican is on Amnesty International’s list of torturers for its human rights violations/crimes against children. The Center for Constitutional Rights and SNAP (Survivors Network of Persons Abused by Priests) are filing suit against the Vatican in the International Criminal Courts. Yet, even as it faces the possibility of a trial at the Hague, the Vatican continues to show poor faith in addressing the hundreds of thousands of brutal crimes against its own children.

Catholics in the pews are repulsed by this, and have grown weary of pro forma expressions of contrition for the anguish pedophile priests inflicted and which bishops facilitated. These apologies are never more tainted than when topped off with not-so-gentle reminders that justice (i.e. damages) for each and every victim would bankrupt the church.

The Vatican may be rich, but the church has money problems.

In the Brooklyn (N.Y.) diocese, where I worship, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio has used his weekly column to urge Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens to vote against the Child Victim’s Act in the New York State Assembly. Payouts, we have been told, would bankrupt the diocese. DiMarzio has publicly threatened to close parishes whose members fail to vote his way. He recorded robocalls for a local politician. His politicking is, at least, risky behavior, and, at worst, possibly a violation of tax law. The aforementioned attempts at clerical blackmail, though unseemly, may be blessings in disguise, however, because they show the world who these “religious leaders” really are and where they stand on the church/state divide.

I take great pride in the work my church does on behalf of the aged, infirm, indigent and marginalized in the city where I live. My own experience working in social justice ministry has offered me opportunity to see closely how fervently devoted we (Catholics) are in it, yet I believe the world outside the church would indeed pick up the slack were the bishops to take their ball and go home.

Bishops play a dangerous game when they threaten to use the leverage they think they have to bring secular law in line with canon law. The church receives much financial support from the government in the form of tax exemptions. I don’t want to see my diocese or any other lose its tax exempt status, but the bishops are pushing their luck — which could soon run out, along with the money. The bishops would do well to bear in mind that they are called to be teachers and priests, not emperors. They play fast and loose with their tax-exempt status at their own peril and their recklessness in this puts needy people of all faiths — and no faith — at risk. Political power can be expensive. The religious freedom argument cuts both ways.

Full Article HERE!

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Frank Kameny, pioneering gay activist, dies at 86

Frank Kameny was out and proud before people knew what being “gay” meant.

Fired from his job as a government astronomer in 1957 for being gay, he refused to go away quietly. Instead, he got louder. He took his case to the Supreme Court in 1961 and helped stage the first gay rights march in front of the White House and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in 1965.

Kameny died Tuesday at 86, leaving a 50-year legacy as an advocate who chipped away at countless other barriers for gay people in America. Kameny served as the initial protester, leader and legal strategist of what would become a movement, one historian said.

“Frank Kameny was the Rosa Parks and the Martin Luther King and the Thurgood Marshall of the gay rights movement,” Yale Law Professor William Eskridge told The Associated Press in May when Kameny’s papers became part of a Library of Congress exhibit on U.S. constitutional history.

“Frank never accumulated a nest egg or a retirement fund or any of that,” Eskridge said Wednesday after learning of Kameny’s death. “His full-time occupation was activism.”

In recent years, Kameny saw changes in society that he never thought possible. Gay marriage became legal in a handful of states, including his adopted city of Washington. In 2009 he stood in the Oval Office as President Barack Obama signed a directive extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Most recently he celebrated the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.

“Being gay has become infinitely better than it was,” he said in May.

Kameny was proud of his work toward gaining equality for gays and lesbians. When his petition to the Supreme Court was put on display at the Library of Congress, he was clearly tickled.

“I suppose you can say at this point, I have become one of the creators of the United States,” he told the AP, echoing the exhibit title “Creating the United States.”

Gay rights groups said it was Kameny’s work that helped make life better for gay Americans and called him a pioneer and an inspiration. He had been in poor health and died on what is celebrated as National Coming Out Day, when many gay people celebrate coming out and encourage others to have the courage to do the same.

In 2009, Kameny said he wanted to be remembered most for coining the phrase “Gay is Good” in 1968 to counter an onslaught of negative language about gays and lesbians.

Franklin Edward Kameny was born May 21, 1925, in New York City. He graduated from Queens College and served in World War II before earning a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard.

He was a government astronomer for just five months when he was asked to meet with federal investigators. He had been arrested for a misdemeanor in San Francisco that tipped off the civil service that Kameny was probably gay, and was fired, Eskridge said.

Kameny didn’t back down. He contested his firing, writing letters to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, both houses of Congress and eventually the White House. He sued and lost in lower courts but pressed on with a lengthy brief in 1961 that is now regarded as the first civil rights claim based on sexual orientation to be brought to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court denied his petition.

Soon after, he co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, which advocated for equal rights for gays and lesbians.

In 1965, Kameny and 10 others became the first to stage a gay rights protest in front of the White House and later at the Pentagon and in Philadelphia.

“First class citizenship for homosexuals,” their signs read, along with “Homosexuals ask for the right to the pursuit of happiness.” They wore suits and dresses at Kameny’s insistence.

He wrote to then-president Lyndon Jonson saying gay people were second-class citizens “in a country which claims that it has no second-class citizens.”

Kameny’s sister, Edna Lavey, 83, said her brother was championing gay issues when the subject was still taboo.

“The word gay did not exist yet,” she said Wednesday from her home in New York. “Before that time homosexuality was never mentioned. It was a different world then.”

Lavey said her brother was willing to endure verbal abuse and tormenting to try to win people over.

“My brother didn’t care how unpleasantly he was treated,” she said, adding that as long as he was getting publicity for his cause, that was all he cared about. “He wanted homosexuality to be recognized as something not abnormal, just another way of living.”

Kameny’s early activism and advocacy for soldiers and federal workers who faced discrimination provided a model for the civil rights group Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union’s agenda on gay rights. He also helped persuade the American Psychiatric Association to delete homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in 1973.

Friends and his sister said Kameny never spoke of having a long-term boyfriend or partner.

“Frank was guarded and private,” said Bob Witeck, a Kameny friend for three decades. “Often when asked about it, he said he didn’t have time for that.”

He didn’t have a regular job for most of his life, depending on friends and family for support.

In later years, Kameny was increasingly recognized for his work as a gay rights pioneer.

A self-described “pack rat,” Kameny amassed thousands of documents related to his activism and gay rights history.

In 2006, gay rights groups had the papers appraised and bought them from Kameny for $75,000. They donated some 70,000 items from his collection – ranging from letters to buttons and picket signs – to the Library of Congress and Smithsonian.

In 2009 the U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued a formal apology to him for being fired solely based on his sexual orientation. The office is headed by John Berry, who is gay.

On Wednesday, Berry said Kameny was a hero who was feisty and combative and whose “force of will led to victory in a decades-long fight for equality.”

Berry said Kameny “showed his ability to forgive” by accepting his official apology “for the sad and discredited termination of his federal employment.”

When gay marriage became legal in the nation’s capital in 2010, Kameny attended the first weddings. That same year the District of Columbia designated a portion of 17th Street as “Frank Kameny Way.”

Planning is under way for a memorial service in November.

Full Article HERE!