To my fellow queers:

Scientist-activist Franklin Kameny, Ph.D., joins belatedly
the official heroes and sheroes of Labor.

In 1965, I had the privilege of marching in one
of his pioneer Washington pickets.

I did so as a member of an allied group -- the Homosexual League of New York --
which had picketed a few months earlier in Manhattan.

Fifty years later, a few queers and allies foolishly try to
compare and contrast Kameny with Milk.

And some local-chauvinists
debate over which U.S. city was the "real" birthplace of Gay Lib.
Such competitiveness dishonors our past.

Mere written history may trace LGBT freedom-seeking
to 19th century Europe.

But at a deeper level,
rebellions find their roots
deep in the human soul,
where urges toward freedom,
like urges toward love,
evolved to be vital foundations of human nature.

-- NAME WITH-HELD,
U.S.A.
June 2015