Gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny will be
inducted into the U.S. Department of Labor's Hall of Honor on
Tuesday, June 23.
Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez will
be present at the ceremony, which will take place at 3 PM at the
agency's national headquarters.
Kameny, who died in 2011 at the age of
86 of natural causes in his Washington D.C. home, was fired by the
United States government because he was gay. The instance prompted
him to co-found the Mattachine Society of Washington, one of
America's earliest gay rights groups. He is also credited for
coining the phrase “Gay is good.”
Kameny worked tirelessly to force the
federal government, the nation's largest employer, to end
discrimination based on sexual orientation in its employment
practices.
The department's Hall of Honor
recognizes the contributions of men and women for the betterment of
“work, workers and workplaces in America.”
Previous honorees include Cesar Chavez,
Samuel Gompers, Mother Jones, Frances Perkins, Charles Walgreen,
Helen Keller and Walter Reuther.