The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle

Lieutenant Dan Choi, who was discharged from the army in 2009 because he “told,” removes a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell tape from his lips.

Frank Kameny shaking hands with President Barack Obama, who signed a memorandum in 2009 extending benefits to partners of federal employees. Vice President Joseph Biden, US Representative Barney Frank, US Senator Joe Lieberman, and US Representative Tammy Baldwin are witnesses.

Frank Kameny’s observation bears repeating: “We started with nothing, and look what we have wrought!”

“Sorry, it’s the wrong time in the movement to bring up a case like this,” a Lambda lawyer told her.

Her supporters circulated a petition asking that she be reinstated. It got 8,000 signatures.9 When they put the petition on the net, it got 130,000 signatures.

Major Margaret Witt, air force nurse and poster girl, discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: the judge who ordered her reinstated declared, “There is no evidence that wounded troops care about the sexual orientation of the flight nurse or medical technicians tending to their wounds.”

There she met Evan Wolfson. He convinced her that marriage would be the surest shield against society’s contemptuous abuse of those in same-sex relationships.

In the California campaign, Mormons, working with Catholics, became the backbone of Yes on 8 fund-raising.

Spyer, still a handsome woman, sitting tall in her wheelchair; and Windsor perched on the arm of the chair, decked out in pearls, her beautifully coifed hair still platinum blonde (thanks to Clairol now), were married by Canada’s first openly gay judge, Harvey Brownstone.