Franklin Kameny
Franklin E. Kameny (* 21st May 1925 in New York City ; † 11. October 2011 in Washington, DC ) was an American astronomer and important LGBT - activists .
Life
After his school education and his service as a soldier in World War II, Kameny studied physics. He received an MA and a Ph.D. from Queens College in 1948. in astronomy from Harvard University . After graduating, he worked as an astronomer.
In 1957, Dr. Kameny was fired from his job as an astronomer at the Army Map Service in Washington because of his homosexuality . In 1961 he founded the Mattachine Society in Washington with Jack Nichols . Mattachine Society became an association that aggressively supported the struggle for LGBT rights in the United States.
Kameny was inspired by Stokely Carmichael's slogan Black is Beautiful to create the Gay is Good slogan for the lesbian and gay movement.
In 1963 a campaign began to abolish the criminal liability of homosexuality and to abolish the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness from the catalog of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
Kameny and Nichols initiated the first public protest by lesbians and gays in front of the White House on April 17, 1965 , where a human chain was formed. With the support of the New York group of Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis organization , the Washington group of Mattachine Society achieved in the following years the expansion of the demonstrating human chains at the Pentagon , the United States Civil Service Commission and in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia .
In 1971, Kameny became the first openly gay candidate for the United States Congress when he ran for the Columbia District . Kameny and his LGBT colleagues started the Gay Activists Alliance , an organization that lobbyed the US government.
Finally, in 1973, at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, homosexuality was removed from the catalog of mental illnesses, after the psychologist John E. Fryer helped this endeavor to break through at the previous year's meeting.
Kameny was named the District of Columbia's first gay member on the Human Rights Commission .
On July 3, 2012, asteroid named posthumously in honor of Kameny: (40463) Frankkameny .
literature
- Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price , Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. The Supreme Court , Basic Books, 10 East 53rd Street, New York New York, 2001.
- Jeff Kisseloff , Generation on Fire: Voices of Protest from the 1960s , University Press of Kentucky, 2007.
Web links
- The official website of the Smithsonian Institution - Kameny Papers Collection
- Pages about Kameny (including material on pictures, articles and quotations) ( Memento of June 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Biography about Kameny
- Interview with Kameny
- Washington Post article on Kameny
- "Frank Kameny" An encyclopedia about LGBT culture
- "A Pariah's Triumph - and America's" 07/12/06 Article by Jonathan Rauch
- Advocate
- Frank Kameny in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kameny, Franklin |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kameny, Franklin E. (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American astronomer and LGBT activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 21, 1925 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 11, 2011 |
| Place of death | Washington, DC |