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Kay Tobin (Lahusen)
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 The
Gay Crusaders by Kay Tobin and Randy Wicker
This
first-and so far only-collection of biographical sketches of
American Gay activists vividly communicates, through their
personal stories, a sense of the concerns, ideas, and feelings
motivating a variety of Gay liberationists between 1955 and 1972;
it is an important source on seventeen years of Gay movement
history. The accounts are derived from tape-recorded interviews
conducted in 1971-72 with eleven male and four female homosexuals,
supplemented by quotes from published materials by and about them.
The authors, themselves long-time activists, chose their
interviewees "for their record of accomplishment in advancing
the Gay cause, and for the diversity of their contributions and
viewpoints." Each of the fifteen crusaders reveals what in
his or her own experience led to a commitment to change the
conditions of life for Gay people. The men interviewed are Troy
Perry, Jim Owles, Craig Rodwell, Dick Michaels, Frank Kameny, Jack
Baker, Michael McConnell, Marty Robinson, Lige Clark, Jack
Nichols, and Arthur Evans. The women are Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin,
Ruth Simpson, and Barbara Gittings. The book includes sixteen
pages of photos and a "Symposium" section of comments by
the interviewees on such topics as psychiatry and
"cure," revolution versus reform, Gays in old age,
confrontation tactics, Gays in politics. The Gay Crusaders, issued
originally as a paperback original, is now first offered in a
library edition.
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By Kay Tobin
"Restrictive institutions have always drawn my fire,"
Jim Owles exclaims, as he looks back over his 25 years as a rebel.
He is still firing away at restrictive institutions from his
position in Gay Activists Alliance. At the time of this interview
Jim is now serving his second term as president of GAA of New
York.
This pioneer Gay Activist Alliance (now there are others around
the country) grew from a membership of 12 men and women meeting in
an apartment in January 1970, to a membership of around 300 by the
summer of 1971. Not bad for a year and a half, Jim feels. He likes
to recall that, even in its early months, GAA was called by a
Boston admirer "the hottest little gay group on the East
Coast." Now the New York organization has a center of its
own, a four story, 10,000 square-foot renovated
firehouse--"The GAA firehouse" as it's called--located
just below Greenwich Village proper. And Jim Owles is one of those
at the heart of the GAA success story.
Jim was born October 9, 1946, in Chicago. The eldest of six
children, Jim has two younger sisters and three younger brothers.
His father was a professional man, and both his parents were
"middle class, liberal Republicans." They sent Jim to
both public and private schools, and in both settings he remained
completely consistent: he was a known underachiever...
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By Kay Tobin
Excerpt:
Sassy! That's how Marty Robinson sees the gay
liberation movement. "It's sassy, arrogant, determined, head
strong, gonna win! There are lots of gays who think that way now.
We're growing!"
Marty is well known as a supermilitant who has
given hard zaps to Mayor Lindsay, Governor Rockefeller, and
others. He sees himself as a political theoretician as well. Catch
him bounding down Bleecker Street toward his tub-in-the-kitchen
apartment, and chances are he's in work clothes and coming either
from his job or from the Gay Activists Alliance Center.
"I love my work," be says. "I
work in the construction trade. I'm a hard-hat, a journeyman
carpenter." Marty's kind of skill is so much in demand in the
New York area that he can work when he wants to and take time off
when there's movement work to be done. Consequently, he's usually
in the thick of any GAA zap action. Over Italian coffee he talks
about the sassier side of gay liberation...
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Part Two: Kay Lahusen
by Bruce Stores
Excerpt:
This is the second in a continuing series of
articles chronicling the advancement and progression of the gay
movement among Christian Scientists.
One of the earliest workers in the gay movement
was Kay Lahusen, who, like Craig Rodwell, was a pre-eminent
activist before and after the watershed events at Stonewall. Kay's
sexual awakening came in the 1940's when she began a lover
relationship with another woman she met at college. Both were
active on the Christian Science college organization. It was a
close relationship, yet Kay's partner couldn't endure the
universal condemnation of their love. Two years after graduation,
the relationship ended.
Kay was devastated. Worse, she knew no other
lesbians or gays anywhere. Her sorrow was compounded by not being
able to talk with friends and relatives about her grief She did
have Christian Science. In this dark period, Kay turned
wholeheartedly to her religion. She left her Midwestern home and
went to Boston and "threw herself into the Movement and tried
to find salvation, somehow, in that direction." Kay applied
to the Church for employment and landed a job in the Publishing
Society.
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Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
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