In the late 1960s and early 1970s, multiple groups began to criticize local, state, territorial, and national plans for the bicentennial. Some of the most active protesters were African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, New Leftists, Pacific Islanders, and women. In contrast to all of these groups, which official bicentennial planners made efforts to include, LGBTQ+ people were not invited to the nation’s birthday party. They were part of all of the major constituencies that criticized the official bicentennial, but LGBTQ+ people also began to engage in their own distinct forms of counter-bicentennial activism.

The Liberty Bell Zap

            As far as I have been able to determine, the first gay protest related to the bicentennial occurred in January 1973, when Mark Segal, the leader of the Gay Raiders and later the publisher of Philadelphia Gay News, handcuffed himself to a banister on a stairway overlooking the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall. Segal noted that he wanted “to stress the point that gay people have no liberty.” He originally had hoped to stage his protest in the Old Supreme Court chamber to signal criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent refusal to consider an appeal of Minnesota’s denial of a marriage license to a gay couple, but he changed his plans on learning that the chamber was closed for repairs. Within minutes, local police cut through the handcuffs and took him into custody; he was released several hours later without charges.[1]

            Segal’s protest followed similar gay zaps at a Philadelphia television station in August 1972, a campaign appearance by Democratic vice presidential candidate Sargent Shriver at Temple University in October, the Philadelphia headquarters of Nixon’s presidential campaign in October, and a Nixon campaign fundraiser at the Philadelphia Civic Center in November. And Segal was not finished; there were further zaps of the Philadelphia United Fund in February 1973, The Tonight Show in March, The Mike Douglas Show in May, the Today Show in October, and the CBS Evening News in December.[2] Segal’s clever tactics stemmed from his realization that there was minimal security on most live television sets and that, by posing as a student journalist or purchasing audience tickets, he could gain access to network studios, handcuff himself to cameras, and interrupt some of the nation’s most watched television programs.

            In 2025, I wrote to Segal to ask for further details about the 1973 Liberty Bell zap. After I showed him a short summary of what I had gleaned from media reports, he responded, “The facts are correct, but what was left out is that the police were not prepared and started to chase me all over Independence Hall. It was like one of those old black and white keystone cops movies. Best $450 fine ever paid!” Asked if the chase was before or after he handcuffed himself to the banister, Segal replied, “Before; that’s why I ran upstairs, as they chased me. Was arrested and the pic on the front of my book is of that arrest.” With respect to whether the handcuffing was pre-planned, Segal noted, “The Liberty Bell was the symbol I intended, but the keystone cops pursued a chase around the building. That is how I ended up above the bell. I already had a reputation as a disruptor and they were on the watchout for me. Someone leaked our intentions to the police.” Asked if his original intention was to handcuff himself to the bell itself, Segal responded, “Yes. That was the intention. I had handcuffs and a small chain in my pocket.”[3]

            Segal’s Liberty Bell protest marked the return of the LGBTQ+ movement to Independence Hall, where homophile activists had marched on five consecutive July Fourths from 1965 to 1969 and where the first local gay pride march had concluded in 1972.[4] Some scholars have dated the rise of “homonationalism” to the early twenty-first century, but there is a longer history of LGBTQ+ entanglements with nationalism.[5] In the July Fourth Annual Reminders, for example, activists had called attention to gaps between the rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence and the realities of LGBTQ+ life. In so doing, they were following in the footsteps of Abigail Adams in the eighteenth century and Frederick Douglass in the nineteenth, who had commented on the nation’s founding principles from the standpoints of women and African Americans. From 1973 through 1976, LGBTQ+ and other activists came to see the bicentennial as an opportunity to highlight those gaps in an effort to reduce them. Or to put it another way, the bicentennial came to be a favored framework for addressing the meanings of equality, liberty, and justice for those who thought that the promises of the American Revolution had not been kept, had never been sufficient, or were antithetical to democracy.

The Boston Tea Party’s Gay Revolution

             Further to the north, the first major LGBTQ+ participation in a counter-bicentennial protest took place in December 1973, when the People’s Bicentennial Commission, a New Left group founded by Wharton School graduate Jeremy Rifkin in 1971, disrupted a reenactment of the Boston Tea Party on its bicentennial in December 1973. For the official event, thousands of spectators gathered on a pier to watch “Bostonians draped in blankets, over their colonial costumes, haul containers from the hold of the Beaver II and throw them overboard.” In a nod to environmental concerns, the containers were empty. After the official event, the Peoples Bicentennial Commission staged a “Boston Oil Party,” seizing the Beaver II (with permission), running up “pennants and banners pleading for the impeachment of President Nixon and crying for the heads of the oil companies,” and dumping empty oil barrels into the harbor. In contrast to most of the mainstream media coverage, Boston’s Gay Community News reported that the protesters included “a gay contingent of over 100” with a “large banner proclaiming ‘Gay American Revolution.’”[6]

The Tricentennial

            In 1974, LGBTQ+ people responded to the upcoming national birthday in complex ways. In April, trans celebrity Rachel Harlow (best known for her appearance in the 1968 documentary The Queen) was a judge for the annual Beaux Arts costume ball in Philadelphia’s Memorial Hall; the “tricentennial” theme looked forward to 2076 and featured four categories: “Ecologically sound clothing for 2076 A.D.; Clothes without benefit of needle and thread; Little clothing on splendid bodies . . . ; and Designs designated for cryogenic occasions.”[7]

Gay Revolution in the Cradle of Liberty

            Back in the twentieth century, in May 1974, when the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Sunday magazine published a major feature titled “Gay Philadelphia,” the cover depicted two powdered men in eighteenth-century wigs and pink colonial drag, with a tagline that referenced “The Gay Revolution in the Cradle of Liberty.” The article explained that “homosexuals” were “demand[ing] that the Bill of Rights…finally be applied to them.” The article also noted that “the gay equivalent to the American Revolution took place a scant five years ago at a bar called the Stonewall” in New York.”[8] A few weeks later, Mark Segal referred to the Stonewall Riots as “the Boston Tea Party of the gay movement.”[9] Shortly thereafter, Philadelphians celebrated gay pride week by signing a “Gay Declaration of Independence” at Independence Hall; one gay media report about this called Segal the “John Hancock of the movement.”[10]

The Gay American Way

            The next significant moment on Philadelphia’s gay bicentennial calendar took place in May 1975, when the city’s bicentennial commission celebrated the 200th anniversary of the convening of the Second Continental Congress with “The American Way,” a Benjamin Franklin Parkway festival that attracted an astonishing 1.5 million people. While the festival, viewed as a dress rehearsal for 1976, was generally praised, gay activist John Whyte reported more critically on what he experienced in The Weekly Philadelphia Gayzette, a newsletter founded by his partner Tom Wilson Weinberg. “Tom and I were walking arm in arm around the booths, enjoying ourselves, but getting the usual number of stares,” he explained. Then a group of teenage boys began harassing them; one hit Whyte in the back of his head with a thrown beer bottle. Whyte and Weinberg reported the attack to the police, but the teens had disappeared by the time they returned to the scene. Whyte concluded, “I’m getting  a little turned off to this commemoration of 200 years of freedom. Why didn’t the festival have a booth for racists, one for anti-semites, one for sexists, one for homophobes, along with the Ukrainians, Greeks, Poles…. It is, after all, The American Way.”[11]

Gay Independence Day

            A few weeks later, in June 1975, more than 1200 people marched from Rittenhouse Square to Independence Mall to commemorate the anniversary of what the Inquirer termed “the Independence Day of the gay movement, June 27, 1969—the day New York City gays battled police after a long period of alleged harassment.” According to a gay press account, one of the featured speakers, the mother of a New York gay activist, “compar[ed] the gay struggle to the American Revolution,” noting that in both cases “everyday fighters” were crucial. “We are involved in a revolution to humanize America,” she declared, “and you people are the footsoldiers.”[12]

Toward A Gayer Bicentennial

            In the second half of 1975, LGBTQ+ activists around the country began to engage more substantially with the bicentennial. In July 1975, Reverend Joseph Gilbert of the gay-affirmative Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Providence, Rhode Island, wrote to his state’s bicentennial commission. Headlined “Toward a Gayer Bicentennial,” his letter asked that the commission incorporate gay pride events into its planned activities. More specifically, Gilbert asked that the Old State House be made available for a “gay congress” since it was “being made available to community groups” and the commission was making efforts to include diverse ethnic groups. In August, the commission rejected the request, citing the state’s sodomy law and claiming that it was “inadvisable to endorse groups which advocate practices that are of questionable legality.” The commission did not seem to realize that sodomy laws criminalized heterosexual as well as homosexual acts. The commission also stated that there was not “sufficient connection between your activities and the Bicentennial,” which had not stopped commissions elsewhere from endorsing projects having little to do with the bicentennial. LGBTQ+ activists announced plans to sue.[13]

            Eleven months later, a federal district court judge in Rhode Island used the First and Fourteenth Amendments to rule that the Rhode Island Bicentennial Commission had one week to either grant permission for Toward a Gayer Bicentennial (TGB) to use the Old State House for a “Congress of People with Gay Concerns” or establish “clear, “precise,” and “even-handed” guidelines for all. Responding to the state agency’s claim that Rhode Island’s sodomy law justified its actions, Judge Raymond Pettine asked, “Does the Bicentennial Commission need reminding that, from the perspective of British loyalists, the Bicentennial celebrates one of history’s greatest illegal events?” As for the claim that there was no connection between gay people and the bicentennial, Pettine found convincing the argument that the event would “discuss the historical presence in society of homosexuals . . . and perhaps discuss their contributions to the development of this nation over the last 200 years.”

            Several days later, the commission deferred action, claiming that TGB had failed to provide sufficient details. “We’re not opposed to them because they’re gay,” one official defensively asserted. “We simply insist that what individual groups do be related to the Bicentennial. If the gay group wants to do a history of homosexuals in America since 1776, this would be OK.” With just days to go before the planned start of the congress, TGB returned to Judge Pettine, asking him to order the commission to grant access to the State House and issue a restraining order to prevent the police from denying a permit for a gay pride march. On June 25, just one day before the congress, Pettine ruled in favor of the activists. At the march, which had seventy-five participants, a banner featured an image of the Liberty Bell with a lambda-shaped crack and the words, “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land.” This was based on the Liberty Bell’s inscription, which was taken from the Judeo-Christian book of Leviticus.[14]

Purple Hearts, Gay Stamps, and the Bill of Frights

            Hostility from local, state, and national officials did not stop LGBTQ+ people from claiming, invoking, and referencing the bicentennial. In September 1975, after Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, who had won a Purple Heart and Bronze Star in Vietnam, told his commanding officer that he was gay, the Air Force ordered him discharged. After an administrative panel ruled against him, Matlovich held up a bicentennial half-dollar at a press conference and declared, “It says 200 years of freedom. Not yet.” Matlovich also announced plans to appeal, which led to an out-of-court settlement in the 1980s.[15]

            In October 1975, more than 450 people participated in a four-day Bicentennial Conference on Gays and the Federal Government. Sponsored by the D.C. Gay Activists Alliance, the conference was held at the All Souls Unitarian Church. Marion Barry, an African American city councilman and future mayor, provided a welcome; Professors Dolores Noll (Kent State) and Martin Duberman (Lehman College) delivered keynote addresses.[16]

            In November 1975, Pittsburgh Gay News reported that the Gay Coordinating Society of Reading, Pennsylvania, was planning to propose a gay bicentennial stamp to the U.S. Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee. The red, white, and blue stamp design featured a drawing of the Liberty Bell on a blue background on the left. On the top right, the design declared, “Proclaim Liberty Unto All Humanity, And Grant To All the Freedom To Love.” Underneath the words there was a red heart with a white lambda, a popular symbol of gay activism in the 1970s.[17]

            In December 1975, LGBTQ+ people responded critically to the Criminal Justice Reform Act, a repressive proposal that Congress was debating. Hera, a Philadelphia-based feminist periodical, wondered whether the federal government’s “bicentennial present” was going to be a “police state in 1976.” According to the Detroit-based Gay Liberator, the “monstrous” legislation, nicknamed the “Bill of Frights,” demonstrated that “some sections of the ruling class have decided to repeal the Bill of Rights as their contribution to the bicentennial.” The same Gay Liberator issue featured a two-page image of a modified American flag. Replacing the fifty white stars in the conventional flag were white letters spelling out “200 Years of Gay Oppression,” with “1776” on the left and “1976” on the right. Replacing the thirteen stripes on the conventional flag were four white stripes alternating with five red words: “Racism,” “Capitalism,” “Sexism,” “Puritanism,” and “Ageism.”[18]

            As the start of the bicentennial year approached, the Philadelphia LGBTQ+ community came under increased public surveillance, leading some to wonder whether they were experiencing the type of crackdown that had occurred in other cities before major fairs and festivals. In March 1975, the lesbian community came under intense scrutiny in the weeks following the arrest of Susan Saxe. Saxe had been on the FBI’s list of ten most wanted fugitives since 1970, when she participated in two bank robberies, one of which led to the killing of a Boston policeman. In 1975, she was living underground in Philadelphia, partnered with a leading lesbian activist, when she was recognized and arrested by a policeman.[19]

            In August 1975, the Philadelphia Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), the Gay Media Project, Philadelphians for Equal Justice, the Coalition against Police Abuse, the National Lawyers Guild, Radical Queens, and the Socialist Workers Party rallied at City Hall against the “increased harassment of Gays by the police.” GAA announced that it was initiating a lawsuit against the Philadelphia Police Department. A short time later, Mark Segal offered an alternate theory about the increase in police harassment. “It’s like this before every election,” he explained.[20]

            Notwithstanding Segal’s comment, police harassment and violence increased after the November elections. On December 1-4, the Gay Raiders, GAA, and Dyketactics staged a series of sit-ins, hunger strikes, and demonstrations to protest city council inaction on antidiscrimination legislation. Police responded violently on the fourth day, brutally attacking lesbian protesters, several of whom filed ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits against the police.[21] A few days later, John S. Knight III, Philadelphia Daily News editor and grandson of the cofounder of Knight-Ridder Newspapers, was murdered in his Rittenhouse Square apartment. The search for his killers, which lasted for two weeks, led to another round of anti-LGBTQ+ surveillance and harassment because the police suspected that Knight and/or his killers were gay and/or bisexual. Dozens of men who had sex with men were brought in for questioning; dozens more were questioned in gay bars and on the streets.[22] As the bicentennial year approached, Philadelphia’s LGBTQ+ community had good reasons to ask whether the Declaration of Independence’s promises of liberty, equality, and justice applied to them.

[1] “Gays Zap Bell’s Home,” Advocate, 28 Feb. 1973, 28. See also “‘Raider’ Unshackled at Independence Hall,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 29 Jan. 1973; “In a Gay Liberation Protest,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 30 Jan. 1973, 3C; “Activist Chains Self in Independence Hall,” GAY, 12 Mar. 1973, 8. See also Mark Segal, And Then I Danced: Traveling the Road to LGBT Equality (New York: Open Lens, 2015); Marc Stein interview with Mark Segal, 17 Mar. 1993, https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/philadelphia-lgbt-interviews/int/segal.

[2] See Marc Stein, “LGBT Direct Action Bibliography, Chronology, and Inventory, 1965-1976,” OutHistory, Oct. 2025, https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/direct.

[3] Email correspondence with Mark Segal, 10-17 Feb. 2025.

[4] See Marc Stein, “Annual Reminders in Philadelphia, July 4, 1965-July 4, 1969,” July 2019, https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/50th-ann; Stein, City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves, 371-78.

[5] See, for examples, George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe (Fertig, 1985); Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer, and Patricia Yaeger, eds., Nationalisms and Sexualities (Routledge, 1992); Esther Newton, Cherry Grove, Fire Island (Beacon, 1993), 268-85; Marc Stein, “‘Birthplace of the Nation’: Imagining Lesbian and Gay Communities in Philadelphia, 1969-70,” in Creating a Place for Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories, ed. Beemyn (Routledge, 1997), 253-88; Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Duke University Press, 2007); Simon Hall, “The American Gay Rights Movement and Patriotic Protest,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 19.3 (Sept. 2010): 536-62; Jerry T. Watkins III, Queering the Redneck Riviera: Sexuality and the Rise of Florida Tourism (University Press of Florida, 2018), 101-29.

[6] Stephen Isaacs, “Boston Tea Party Restaged,” Washington Post, 17 Dec. 1973, A1; “Boston Tea Party,” Gay Community News, 22 Dec. 1973, 1. See also “Boston Has a Party,” Bicentennial Times, Jan. 1974, 1, 7; Dorothy McGhee, “20,000 Rebels Rise Up at Boston Oil Party,” Common Sense, Jan. 1974; “Boston Tea Party,” Bicentennial Times, Feb. 1974, 15.

[7] Bill Curry, “No, Honorable Bell Still Belongs Here,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 Apr. 1974, 17.

[8] Rod Townley, “Gay Philadelphia,” Philadelphia Inquirer Today, 12 May 1974 (cover). For criticisms, see letters in subsequent Inquirer issues; Drummer, 21 May 1974; Len Lear, “Gay Community Outraged over Magazine Article,” Philadelphia Tribune, 8 June 1974, 2. According to a handwritten note in the Tommi Avicolli Mecca Collection (Inquirer Controversy folder) at the Wilcox Archives, “The cover photo for this spread was posed by the editor Scott DeGarmo using models. . . . The copy was reviewed by Bill Curry, a columnist for the Inq.—a self admitted ‘Gay,’ who thought it was a fair article and gave good coverage to the Gay Community.” See also GAA Minutes (25-19-12) and Media Project Minutes (25-21-9).

[9] Bill Curry, “It’s a Rare Mammal That Doesn’t Hum,” PI, 28 June 1974, 21. See also People v. Segal, Criminal Court of the City of New York, New York County, 31 July 1974, 78 Misc. 2d 944 (N.Y. Crim. Ct. 1974).

[10] John Zeh, “The Philadelphia Story,” Advocate, 8 May 1974, 34; John Zeh, “The Philadelphia Story,” Advocate, 5 June 1974, 34. See also “Gay Day Saturday,” Weekly Philadelphia Gayzette, 21 June 1974, 1-3; Bill Curry, “On the Go,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 22 June 1974, 4; John Zeh, “The Philadelphia Story,” Advocate, 31 July 1974, 29.

[11] John Whyte, “The American Way,” Weekly Philadelphia Gayzette, 9 May 1975, 2.

[12] Steve Twomey, “1,200 Gays Attend Freedom Program,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 2 June 1975, 10; John Zeh, “Footsoldiers,” Advocate, 30 July 1975, 20.

[13] “Bicentennial Group Denies Gay Input,” Pittsburgh Gay News, 4 Oct. 1975, B3.

[14] Toward a Gayer Bicentennial Committee v. Rhode Island Bicentennial Foundation, 417 F. Supp. 632 (D.R.I. 1976); “Rhode Island Gays Win Bicentennial Suit,” Gay Community News, 19 June 1976, 1; “Rhode Island ‘Gay Centennial’ Still in Doubt,” Gay Community News, 26 June 1976, 1; “Providence Fights for Parade Permit,” Gay Community News, 3 July 1976, 1; Annette D. Gagne, “Providence Gays Prevail over Police,” Gay Community News, 10 July 1976, 1, 7; “Toward Gayer Bicentennial,” Advocate, 14 July 1976, 9; “Rhode Island Gay Group Wins Out over Bigotry,” Philadelphia Gay News, Aug. 1976, B1; “Committee Wins Endorsement Re: First Amendment Rights,” Sexual Law Reporter 2.5 (Sept. 1976): 51.

[15] “Oust Gay,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 20 Sept. 1975, 3.

[16] Lynn Darling, “Gays’ Conference Concludes Here,” Washington Post, 13 Oct. 1975, A12; Joseph R. DeMarco, “Over 400 Gays Meet in DC,” Weekly Philadelphia Gayzette, 17 Oct. 1975, 1, 3; John Kyper, “400 Flock to D.C. Conference,” Gay Community News, 25 Oct. 1975, 1; “Nat’l Conference Held,” Washington Blade, Nov. 1975, 1, 12.

[17] “Gay Postage Stamp Move Underway,” Pittsburgh Gay News, 1 Nov. 1975, B4.

[18] “Bicentennial Present,” Hera, Dec. 1975, 19-20; “Bill of Rights Repealed for Bicentennial,” Gay Liberator, Winter 1975, 2; “200 Years of Gay Oppression,” Gay Liberator, Winter 1975, 9.

[19] On Saxe, local press coverage began with James S. Lintz, “Phila. Police Seize Most-Wanted Radical,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 Mar. 1975, 1, 4. There also was extensive coverage in the LGBTQ, feminist, and left press. See also Marc Stein interview with Rosalie Davies, 29 May 1993, https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/philadelphia-lgbt-interviews/int/davies.

[20] Harry Eberlin, “Gays Protest Police Harassment,” Weekly Philadelphia Gayzette, 22 Aug. 1975, 1, 2; John Corr, “200 Years Later,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 Sept. 1975, 30. See also Tommi [Avicolli Mecca], “GAA Protests Police Harassment,” Weekly Philadelphia Gayzette, 15 Aug. 1975, 1, 2, 3; Harry Eberlin, “Class Action Suit Against Police,” Weekly Philadelphia Gayzette, 22 Aug. 1975, 1, 2.

[21] See “Gay Leader Plans Protest at City Hall,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 1 Dec. 1975, B7; Gunter David, “Gay Rightists Fight Police,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 4 Dec. 1975; Dan Enoch and Nels Nelson, “Gay Scene Disrupts Council,” Philadelphia Daily News, 4 Dec. 1975; “Gay Activists, Police Clash at City Hall,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 5 Dec. 1975, 17; “75 Gay Activists Disrupt Council,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 5 Dec. 1975, B2; “Homosexual Demonstration Disrupts Council Meeting,” New York Times, 5 Dec. 1975, 83; “Gays Disrupt Council Meeting,” Courier-Post (Cherry Hill, NJ), 5 Dec. 1975, 25; “Dyketactics! A Statement,” Weekly Philadelphia Gayzette, 12 Dec. 1975, 1, 3; “Tommi,” Weekly Philadelphia Gayzette, 12 Dec. 1975, 3; “Lesbian-Feminists Molested by Phila. City Hall Goon Squad,” Hera, Dec. 1975, 1; “In the Eyes of the Law, All Uppity Women Are Lesbians,” Hera, Dec. 1975, 1, 9; Len Lear, “Gays Plan Police Brutality Suit,” Philadelphia Tribune, 16 Dec. 1975, 5; Marci Shatzman, “Lesbians Sue Police,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 19 Dec. 1975, 52; “Gays Sue Officials,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 Dec. 1975; “In the Eyes of the Law,” Hera, Dec. 1975. For developments in 1976, see Stein, “LGBT Direct Action Bibliography, Chronology, and Inventory, 1965-1976. See also Kevin J. Mumford, “The Trouble with Gay Rights: Race and the Politics of Sexual Orientation in Philadelphia, 1969–1982,” Journal of American History 98.1 (June 2011): 49-72; Paola Bacchetta, “Dyketactics! Notes Towards an Un-silencing,” in Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation, ed. Tommi Avicolli Mecca (City Lights, 2009), 218-31; Barbara Ruth, “Dyketactics! Electrifying the Imaginations of the Gay and Women’s Communities,” in Mecca, Smash the Church, 137-46.

[22] Local press coverage began with “Newspaper Editor J. S. Knight 3d Slain Here,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 Dec. 1975. See also Kathy Begley, “Search for Killers Upsets Homosexual Community,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 10 Dec. 1975; and extensive coverage in the LGBTQ press.