KAMENY FOR CONGRESS

 

THE CAMPAIGN FOR ELECTION:   The Personal Freedom Candidate

The Kameny Committee for Congress raised over $7,000 in funds for Kameny's run for Congress as an independent.  Important funding (in the neighborhood of $2,000) and logistical support was contributed by Lynn Womack, whose Guild Press at 507 8th St SE printed leaflets, posters and other campaign materials.  David Harris, owner of the Regency bathhouse at 413 L St NW, also contributed significant funds and volunteers to the campaign.  On the eve of the election, the campaign even received a $500 contribution from actor Paul Newman and actress Joanne Woodward.  The campaign finished in the black, with enough funds left over to finance discussions in April 1971 in New York on creating a Gay Activists Alliance for Washington, DC. (Campaign fundraising letter)

Running as the Personal Freedom candidate, Dr. Kameny attracted support within and without the city's gay and lesbian community.  Most importantly, the campaign attracted all the media publicity, and more. that Alan Hoffard had envisioned when he first suggested the campaign in January.

CAMPAIGN OFFICE  Following certification for the ballot, the Kameny campaign moved into an office just a few doors down from the National Theater( an office previously occupied by Channing Phillips campaign staff), which was presenting the musical Hair.  The cast of Hair were supportive and even worked Kameny's campaign into one of their scenes.  The cast of Hair joined in at the party following the election.  When protesters picketed the National Theater because of Hair's alleged obscenity, Kameny volunteers organized a counter-picket next to them.

The office just opposite the District Building, home to the District of Columbia's appointed government (this was before home rule came to the District).  Dr. Kameny remembers, "We had a huge sign on [the office]: Kameny for Congress.  The biggest Kameny every written, directly across the street from the District Building.  They couldn't avoid it!"

As a candidate for office, Dr. Kameny was guaranteed a place at every public forum and in all television coverage.  Kuntzler recalled that the public and the media, for the first time, started talking about the gay community.  "It was no longer a question of individual homosexuals but that there was a community out there." (The 11 Point Platform) (Later version of the Kameny Platform)

Dr. Kameny went everywhere.  It was the campaign's intention to take advantage of every opportunity for exposing the public to the candidate and his views.  Kameny's campaign had a special emphasis on personal and civil liberties.  He touched on gay issues daily but he also spoke on the myriad of local and national issues, declaring himself against the war in Vietnam and writing position papers on crime, welfare, drugs, and the issues of the day.  Relentlessly he pressed the notion that individuals are responsible for themselves and their conduct and that government intrusion on personal freedom was intolerable.  (Campaign flyer 1)  (Campaign flyer 2)

THE RACE   At the beginning, he announced,

"This campaign represents the first to enter the political arena first hand, in our own behalf ... We intend ... to remind a government and a country which seem in many ways to have forgotten it, exactly what Americanism means -- that this is a country of personal freedom and individual diversity; that Queen Victoria is long dead and the Puritans are long gone.

As homosexuals, we are fed up with a government that wages a relentless war against us and others of its citizens, instead of against the bigotry of our society.  This is our country, our society, and our government--for homosexuals quite as much as for heterosexuals.  We are homosexual American citizens ... You will be hearing much from us in the next thirty days -- and long thereafter!" (Tobin, Kay and Randy Wicker, The Gay Crusaders, NY: 1972, p. 129)

Most of the candidates in the race for a non-voting seat in the US House of Representatives were African-Americans, as was to be expected in a city that was majority African-American.  While his opponents tagged him as the gay candidate, Dr. Kameny persisted in stressing personal liberty issues that were of concern to all citizens.  Not once did he present himself as the candidate of and solely for the gay community.  Speaking at local community forums such as March 17th meeting of the Southeast Neighbors Association, Dr Kameny's speech stressed the commonality of his experience and that of other urban minorities, noting "I am a member of another urban minority group, no less alienated from the image of self-sufficient suburbia, no less concerned about the conditions of life in Washington, and quite a bit more victimized by the attitudes and conventions of the so-called majority."

MEDIA COVERAGE AND EVENTS   Kameny posters and leaflets blanketed the city in their distinctive orange and black.  The media responded with groundbreaking coverage, much of it positive, for a man and a community that had previously been the object only of scorn and insult in the general population.  The Washington Post led its article on the independents' petition filings with the title "Homosexual Files Delegate Papers" (Washington Post, Feb. 23, 1971, p. A17).  The gay aspects of the Kameny candidacy intrigued local journalists more than campaign promises and policy statements.

As the first real election held in the city since the 1870s, community organizations and professional groups vied with each other to host candidate forums.  By mid-March, the candidates' schedules were awash in appearances and speeches before local groups.  The final week of the campaign, the press reported at least two daily candidate forums. Dr. Kameny got out and about to meet the public, conducting 'walking tours' to meet voters in Georgetown and on Pennsylvania Avenue during rush hour.

On March 13th, the Post covered Dr. Kameny in the fourth of a series of eight candidate profiles, titling him the Personal Freedom candidate.  The article opened with a lengthy description of a Kameny campaign appearance at the Pier Nine, "one of the city's largest 'gay' bars", and quoted the candidate as stressing he "says he is running as a qualified Washingtonian who happens, also, but incidentally, to be a homosexual."  The same story reported that Dr. Kameny had been asked to run in the course of a January 16th phone call from "some members of the homosexual community." (Washington Post, "Kameny Stresses Personal Freedoms," March 13, 1971, p. C1,)

On Thursday, March 18th, five days before the election, the Washington Post reported on a forum in which the newspaper's staff had questioned all of the assembled candidates.  The forum led off with a question directed at Dr. Kameny, and in keeping with the Post's insistent theme that his candidacy was not seriously intended to win the position of non-voting Delegate:  "Dr. Kameny, while citizens may sympathize with your view, why should they take you seriously as a candidate?"  Kameny responded,

"...  I am running not as a one-issue candidate.  I am running on all of the issues and, in fact, I have played down the specific homosexual issue.  I have indicated clearly that because of the homosexual issue I'm coming forward with a special concern in areas of personal freedom that none of the other candidates have given emphasis to.  But beyond that I have dealt with all of the issues fully ... "

The Post's second question focused on the personal freedoms issue that Dr. Kameny had made his theme, asking "Does your stand on personal freedoms differ markedly from that of the other candidates?"   Kameny replied,

"The other candidates haven't voiced their stand except by implication and therefore I don't know.  We have come out very explicitly and very fully with a special emphasis ... "  (Washington Post, transcript of forum, March 18, 1971, p. B1

The press's concern over what really differentiated the candidates was real.  The candidates' positions differed little on the issues of the day - true representation in Congress, taking over the private DC Transit company, halting major road construction through the city, the war in Southeast Asia and the draft, and perennially issues of drugs and crime.

Kameny used his campaign appearances to stress again and again a commonality of experience oppression with his audiences.  He provided rich opportunities for the press with a march from his campaign office to the White House on the Saturday before the election to hand a letter for President Nixon through the fence, by delivering publicly a statement about police harassment and entrapment that Police Chief Jerry Wilson refused to hear in his office (see March 16th speech delivered in front of MPD), and by telling a group of Federally Employed Women that

"A lot of women are discriminated against purely because of their sex, but I think the formation of your body and your genital equipment is completely irrelevant.  You should be considered as a human being first and a woman second."  (Washington Post, "Candidates Aim Talks at Women," March 14, 1971, p. B1)

Kameny ran on an 11 point platform focusing on employment discrimination (see press release March 9, 1971); respect for people regardless of sexual preference; an end to government spying; full representation for DC in Congress; directing federal spending to domestic needs; a publicly-owned transport system; government assurance of adequate food, housing, medical attention and education; a halt to freeway construction; immediate withdrawal from Southeast Asia; consumer protection laws; and price stabilization.  (see Kameny platform) (see later version of platform)

The day before the election, the Post featured a story of the Kameny campaign' closing party on the last Saturday before the election. The campaign had once again invited supporters from GAA in New York to attend and the busload of New Yorkers swelled the party to several hundred, all well-behaved as the reporter noted.

The Post's reporter elicited a comment from a party-goer who insisted on anonymity that explains the apparently low gay voter turnout in support of Dr. Kameny the next day (see Gay Blade article on the next page).  The young man commented to the reporter that,

"... you know, a lot of people in government, for instance, wouldn't dream of voting gay -- just in case there's some way for the government to find out how they voted."   (Washington Post, "Gay Party," March 22, 1971, p. B1)

March 1971, Kameny and Barbara Gittings at work in the office.
The Mattachine office was inundated with calls during the campaign.
photo (c) Kay Tobin Lahusen

At campaign headquarters: (L to R) Lige Clarke, Jack Nichols, Dr. Franklin E. Kameny, Barbara Gittings
photo (c) Kay Tobin Lahusen

Invitation to the election night party

IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF THE CAMPAIGN  Click here for the next page
 
 

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