Bringing Lesbian
and Gay Rights
Into the Mainstream
Twenty Years of Progress
HARRINGTON PARK PRESS
Sexual Minorities in Historical Context
Vern L. Bullough, PhD, RN
Editor
Bringing Lesbian and Gay Rights Into the Mainstream: Twenty Years of Progress edited by Vicki L. Eaklor
Titles of Related Interest
Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context edited by Vern L. Bullough
From Hate Crimes to Human Rights: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard edited by Mary E. Swigonski, Robin S. Mama, and Kelly Ward
Gay and Lesbian Rights Organizing: Community-Based Strategies edited by Yolanda C. Padilla
Gay Ethics: Controversies in Outing, Civil Rights, and Sexual Science edited by Timothy F. Murphy
Homosexuality and the Law edited by Donald C. Knutson
Sexual Minorities: Discrimination, Challenges, and Development in America edited by Michael K. Sullivan
Sexuality and Human Rights: A Global Overview edited by Phillip Tahmindjis and Helmut Graupner
Speaking for Our Lives: Historic Speeches and Rhetoric for Gay and Lesbian Rights (1892-2000) edited by Robert B. Ridinger
Bringing Lesbian
and Gay Rights
Into the Mainstream
Twenty Years of Progress
Steve Endean
Edited by
Vicki L. Eaklor, PhD
First Published by
Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580.
Transferred to Digital Printing 2009 by Routledge
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Cover design by Kerry E. Mack.
Line drawing of Steve Endean on back cover by John Yanson.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Endean, Steve.
Bringing lesbian and gay rights into the mainstream: twenty years of progress/Steve Endean; edited by Vicki L. Eaklor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-56023-525-5 (hc. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-56023-525-X (hc. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56023-526-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-56023-526-8 (pbk.:alk. paper)
1. Gay liberation movementUnited States. I. Eaklor, Vicki Lynn. II. Title.
HQ76.8.U5E53 2005
306.7660973dc22
2005015865
CONTENTS
To my parents, who taught me the values that have sustained me through these twenty-three years of full-time activism in the lesbian and gay community, and who particularly taught me the importance of fairness and persistence. Even in the earliest years, they practiced what they preached. Their constant love and support helped more than they could ever know.
And to the Good Lord, who has not only blessed me in more ways than I could possibly mention but who guided me through both the good and the bad times. And no acknowledgment of God's role in my life could be complete without personally acknowledging the Metropolitan Community Churches and most particularly my pastor, the Reverend Larry Urhig, and the Reverend Elder Troy D. Perry, the founder and moderator of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. Both are good friends who have patiently nurtured me along when the roads were bumpy and my faith failing.
Finally, to the Human Rights Campaign Fund, to the HRCF staff who worked for or with me, and particularly to the grassroots organizing staff who were like a family to me, along with a board of directors who often demonstrated a shared vision of bringing our movement into the mainstream. I'm particularly indebted to the two executive directors who came after my initial involvement, Vic Basile and Tim McFeeley, for taking a dream and continuing to build upon it. While I recognize I was sometimes tough to manage and often fought on behalf of our grassroots programs, they both led the organization with pride, integrity, and incredible dedication.
Steve Endean
Editor's Foreword
Fate has a funny way of bringing people together. Steve Endean and I were born only six years apart, both baby boomers turned GLBT activists and both raised far from the coastal areas commonly considered America. Apparently at least once we even were both at the same place at the same time, the 1993 March on Washington, but we never met. This is not that unusual in my profession of history, of course, since I never got to meet my subjects from the nineteenth century and earlier that so absorbed me before my professional and personal lives merged. However, reading and editing Steve's memoirsI feel I now know him well enough to call him Stevehas been especially poignant, perhaps because this is all so recent. It is one thing to read archival documents of those long gone, but it has been quite another to decipher the word-processing files of a virtual contemporary. It has made me appreciate both him and historical work all the more.
My work on this book is the result of a series of fortunate events. I began research on the history of the Human Rights Campaign in the summer of 1999 and very soon discovered not only Steve Endean, but that he had completed a book manuscript before his death from AIDS in 1993. A few phone calls led me to the executor of his political papers, Bob Meek, and by December my partner and I were driving to Minnesota so I could meet Bob. Although I doubt I'll choose to experience Minnesota in December again (it was 54 below the night we arrived), Bob was and is among the most generous and kind people I've met; I left our conversation with a box of disks and a complete hard copy of the book.
Next was deciding how to proceed. If fate had brought me to Steve, and to Bob because of him, it was still smiling: Steve, like me, had been a Macintosh user, and I was eventually able to open all the files. (I'm old enough to have written my dissertation by hand, typing the final copy on a typewriter, but the thought of reorganizing and editing a 400-plus-page manuscript without those files available was enough to make me quit before I'd begun.) Here I discovered, even before a careful reading, how alike Steve and I were: he saved everything. Good for him, bad for me. Hard copy by my side, I began the project of sorting out not only the most recent version of each chapter but, when there were discrepancies with the hard copy, determining which was the best. Then the real task of the editor was before me.
