Washgton, D.C.'s hidn gay history is unvered 'Secret Cy'

Contents:

• A BRIEF HISTORY OF CIVIL RIGHTS THE UNED STAT: NATNAL MARCH ON WASHGTON FOR LBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS
• WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
• THGS TO DO DC THIS WEEKEND MARCH 10-13: SEE THE GAY MEN’S CHOS PERFORM AT LLN THEATRE
• GAY RIGHTS MARCHERS PRS CSE WASHGTON
• GAY AND LBIAN MARCH ON WASHGTON
• GAY PARTI AND EVENTS WASHGTON DC

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CIVIL RIGHTS THE UNED STAT: NATNAL MARCH ON WASHGTON FOR LBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS

Protect gay and lbian youth om any laws which are ed to discrimate agast, oppose and/or harass them their hom, schools, jobs and social environments.

WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'

Marks Ridger, ed., Speakg for Our Liv: Historic Speech and Rhetoric for Gay and Lbian Rights (1892-2000), available as an eBook (2012) through Howard Universy Librari.

“Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, " by Jam Kirchick, is a 654-page tome that took years of rearch and an exhstive vtigatn to printial archiv, historil terviews and once-classified ernment rerds.

THGS TO DO DC THIS WEEKEND MARCH 10-13: SEE THE GAY MEN’S CHOS PERFORM AT LLN THEATRE

“I realized that all the stori I was readg, and the personali and phenomena, whether was McCarthyism or the Reagans, FDR or JFK, that there were the gay stori lurkg the background, ” Kirchick said. Those stori lurked the background out of necsy: The st of g out as gay — or, more likely, beg outed agast one’s will — was enormo profsnally and socially.

GAY RIGHTS MARCHERS PRS CSE WASHGTON

“It was the specter of homosexualy that provoked the first and only suici by a member of Congrs his Capol Hill office, ed Lyndon Johnson to et that his historil lead would evaporate, and seized the paranoid md of Richard Nixon send only to the plots of his ever-expandg enemi list, ” Kirchick wr. ” Rumors of homosexualy were tastrophic to those who were acced of , but Kirchick also asks the rear to nsir the broar human and societal impact of such wch hunts on gay Amerins workg ernment.

GAY AND LBIAN MARCH ON WASHGTON

“To asss the full sle of the damage that the fear of homosexualy wrought on the Amerin polil landspe, one mt take to acunt not only the reers ed and the liv cut short, but somethg vaster and unquantifiable: the possibili thwarted, ” Kirchick wr.

Although openly LGBTQ people have ma their way to the hight ranks of ernment today, was not long ago that spected homosexuals workg for the feral ernment were hunted down, publicly huiated and termated wh the full force of the ernment. There were whispers that Reagan was possibly participatg “homosexual nduct, ” and some Republins saw Reagan’s potential nomatn as a “danger to the Republin Party and the untry. The possibily that Kemp uld jo the ticket was evince that there was a “homosexual rg” around Reagan and that he was “the ventriloquized pawn of shadowy and sister forc, ” Kirchick wr.

GAY PARTI AND EVENTS WASHGTON DC

When a ngrsman later asked Reagan’s munitns ai about the loss of the nomatn for Kemp, he reportedly said, “It was that homosexual thg, ” Kirchick wr.

“Secret Cy” ends wh the princy of Bill Clton, who said a mpaign speech ont of a largely gay dience Los Angel 1992, “I have a visn, and you are a part of . ” Wh those words, Clton would do somethg that would have seemed unfathomable to most, if not all, of his precsors: make an explic appeal to gay Amerins for their support a printial electn.