Forum gathers on hallowed ground for gay rights

For the gay rights movement, Independence Mall has always been hallowed ground. It's where Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings, and a small band of gay men and women gathered 44 years ago to declare they were taking a stand against discrimination as usual.

That one brave public act led directly to the famous 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Greenwich Village, the liberating Gay Pride parades, the increasing visibility of gays and lesbians in public life, and now the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage.

So participants in Philadelphia's annual Equality Forum, which seeks to advance gay rights, were not about to let yesterday's unrelenting downpour stop them from assembling again on the mall to mark the end of their weeklong conference. Huddled under umbrellas with their partners, and clutching the hands of small children, several hundred activists gathered just steps from where Kameny and Gittings had protested. Kameny himself, now white-haired and stooped, stood with them, rivulets of water coursing down his face.

"Hey," forum organizer Malcolm Lazin shouted to the cold and the soaked, "We don't wilt, and we don't melt."

"Nooooo!" they roared back.

As noted by several of the speakers who addressed the Philadelphia branch of the international civil-rights organization, it's been a roller-coaster year for gay rights. A rural Midwestern state unexpectedly legalized same-sex marriage (Iowa), while a progressive, urban state unexpectedly revoked that same right (California). It was the year that a movie about gay activist Harvey Milk became a box-office hit, but also the one in which a California beauty pageant winner became a 15-minute celebrity for a blunt dismissal of gays.

No wonder the speakers veered between celebrating their accomplishments and bemoaning the difficulties of extending full civil rights to non-heterosexuals.

"Gay people are like the Israelites in Egypt," Lazin declared. "Forty years ago we stood at the Red Sea. Today we've crossed to the other side, to Sinai. It took us 40 years to reach the promised land, but we've still got another 40 to go."

The crowd was living proof of the years of progress. It was dotted with family broods headed by same-sex couples, teenagers who came as representatives of their high schools' Gay-Straight Alliances, and many elected officials from around the country.

For all the hope, the speeches were full of references to unfinished business and the often Kafkaesque complications of gay life in America.

Same-sex couples can set up a household and raise a family but still live in fear of losing custody of their children if something happens to one of the partners.

"Look at us," said Jennifer Raison, taking the stage with her partner, Claire Baker, and their two tow-haired boys. "We're one Portuguese water dog short of being the perfect family," she joked, alluding to the Obama family and their new pet. "Let's call what we have marriage."

The organizers took special pains to list the outstanding issues facing the gay community: There are still no laws to prevent job discrimination in many places. Gay couples do not qualify for equal social benefits from the government or their employers. Medical research for diseases associated with gays, such as HIV, is still woefully underfunded.

And those serving in the military are still subjected to the humiliating "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. Gay military personnel still face discharge if their sexuality becomes known. Lazin said he was disappointed that President Obama appears to be dragging his feet about ending the policy after promising reform during the campaign.

But it took Frank Kameny to put it all in perspective.

He organized the 1965 protest in front of Independence Hall after he was fired as an astronomer in the Army Map Service for being gay. Unable to obtain a routine hearing from the federal government's civil-service director, he decided to travel to Philadelphia to make a point: He wanted to demonstrate that he deserved the same rights as the men who gathered there to write the Constitution.

Kameny gained plenty of notoriety, but he never did get his job back. Nor was he ever compensated for being unfairly dismissed.

But as he told the rain-soaked crowd yesterday, he finally achieved a kind of "closure" this year.

When Obama held the swearing-in for his new civil-service director, John Berry, Kameny was invited to the ceremony.

"And," he added with a laugh, "I had the satisfaction of watching the swearing-in of an openly gay man. It was almost like a fairy-tale ending."