APNewsBreak: Gay rights legal papers go on view for 1st time at the Library of Congress

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Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Documents from gay rights history are on display for the first time at the Library of Congress as part of an exhibit on the nation’s constitutional history and civil rights protections.

The documents come from gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, who was fired as a government astronomer in 1957 because he was gay. The library is showing Kameny’s 1961 petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, contesting his firing.

Though it was denied, Kameny’s was the first petition to the high court for a violation of civil rights based on sexual orientation. He argued the government’s actions toward gays were an “affront to human dignity.”

“This inclusion is an epic milestone in the telling of gay history because it places gay Americans’ struggle for equality where it belongs — in the story of the Constitution itself,” Charles Francis, a founder of the Kameny Papers Project, told The Associated Press.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/apnewsbreak_gay_rights_legal_papers_go_on_view_for_1st_time_at_the_library_of_congress/2011/05/09/AFrIsOYG_story.html