Founders Toast

Offered by Franklin E. Kameny

GLAA 32nd Anniversary Reception
Radisson Barcelo Hotel
Tuesday, April 15, 2003

On April 20, 1971, under the leadership of my Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman, Paul Kuntzler, who is here this evening, and several others, in an apartment on 25th Street near Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, as the culmination of a series of preliminary meetings, the Gay Activists Alliance of Washington was formally created and its first President chosen.

We quickly moved into a central role in the then-changing scene of DC gay politics, becoming the major organizers of the famous invasion of the American Psychiatric Association convention a mere two or three weeks later.

In the 32 years since, under the leadership of a virtually unbroken series of absolutely superb Presidents, and a small but dedicated membership, GLAA has earned recognition for the highest quality of political activism here in Washington, and has a record of accomplishment unparalleled anywhere. Flamboyant San Francisco may have a reputation as America's gay Mecca, but Washington is America's gay political success story. And that is due to the sound, solid efforts of GLAA.

So I offer a toast to GLAA's long record of past successes, and to what I fully expect will be an ever lengthening record of future successors, to the benefit of us all, gay and non-gay alike, setting an example for the city and the nation.