Google honours LGBT rights activist Frank Kameny by featuring him in Doodle in honour of Pride Month.
Source: Wikipedia
Dr. Frank Kameny, an American astronomer, veteran, and LGBT rights activist, was honoured in a Google Doodle on Wednesday in honour of Pride Month. Kameny is widely regarded as one of the most influential individuals in the LGBTQ rights movement in the United States..
Kameny, a Harvard graduate, was the first homosexual rights activist to file an appeal in the United States Supreme Court after being denied federal employment due to his sexual orientation. Kameny also questioned if homosexuality should be classified as a mental illness.
Kameny obtained a position as an astronomer with the Army Map Service in 1957, but he was sacked just months later due to a presidential order effectively prohibiting LGBTQ people from working for the federal government.
Kameny obtained a position as an astronomer with the Army Map Service in 1957, but he was sacked just months later due to a presidential order effectively prohibiting LGBTQ people from working for the federal government.
In response to his dismissal, Kameny sued the federal government, filing the first LGBT rights appeal in the United States Supreme Court in 1961.
Kameny was denied but not deterred, and he began a lifelong campaign for equal rights. He founded one of the country’s first homosexual rights advocacy groups years before the Stonewall Riots.
He also overturned the Civil Service Commission’s ban on LGBTQ personnel in the early 1970s, after successfully challenging the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of homosexuality as a mental disease.
What is Pride Month?
Pride Month is a commemoration of those who were involved in the Stonewall Riots that takes place every June. When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village, in 1969, it sparked a six-day movement of protests and violence.
The campaigners called for the creation of safe spaces where LGBT+ persons may openly discuss their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested.
Pride Day is observed on June 28th, the day of the first gay pride march in New York City in 1970. Pride Day is celebrated on several dates during the month of June in communities all around the world.