The National Park Service has recognized the historic significance of gay rights activist Dr. Franklin E. Kameny by listing his home in the National Register of Historic Places.

“Dr. Kameny led a newly militant activism in the fledgling gay civil rights of the 1960s,” said NPS Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “He was a landmark figure in articulating and achieving gay civil rights in federal employment and security clearance cases, and in reversing the medical community’s view on homosexuality as a mental disorder.” Dr. Kameny’s efforts in the civil rights movement, modeled in part on African American civil rights strategies and tactics, significantly altered the rights, perceptions, and role of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people in American society, a Park Service release said.

Franklin Kameny (1925-2011) was a Harvard trained astronomer and World War II veteran. In 1957, Dr. Kameny was fired from his job with the Army Map Service for refusing to answer questions about his sexual orientation. Based upon an Executive Order issued by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, thousands of men and women lost their federal civil service jobs solely due to their sexual orientation, based upon a belief that homosexuality posed a security risk. Dr. Kameny waged a four-year legal fight against the idea that sexual orientation could make one unfit for federal service....