Kameny Calls Out
Brokaw on Lack of Gays in New Book

Longtime gay activist Frank Kameny has sent an angry letter to former news anchor Tom Brokaw about his latest book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties. Kameny complained to the book's publisher, Random House, and the author about Brokaw's omission of anything pertaining to the seminal gay rights movement of the '60s, though references are made to civil rights, gender issues, and the environmental movement.

"In 1965," Kameny writes, "we commenced bringing gays and our issues 'out of the closet' with our then daring picketing demonstrations at the White House and other government sites, and our annual 4th of July demonstrations at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Smithsonian Institution displayed these original pickets last month, in the same exhibition as the desk where Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. The name of the Smithsonian's exhibition? 'Treasures of American History.' In your book: No Boom; only silence."

Kameny also mentioned the momentous 1969 Stonewall rebellion, which propelled the movement forward from "what had been a tiny, struggling gay movement into the vast grassroots movement which it now is." According to the letter, Boom also leaves out important LGBT figures in history such as Barbara Gittings, Harry Hay, and Harvey Milk.

"The only allusions to us in your entire book are the most shallow, superficial, brief references in connection with sundry heterosexuals," he continued. "Where are the gay spokespeople? We are certainly there to speak for ourselves. But in your book, only silence."

Brokaw could not be reached for comment. (The Advocate)