Leonard Matlovich

Born at Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, Georgia, Matlovich was the only son of retired Air Force sergeant Leonard Matlovich (of Czech ancestry) and his wife, Vera.[http://www.leonardmatlovich.com/gallery.html Leonard Matlovich dot com, Gallery]{{cite news |last1=Berliner |first1=Burt |title=Movie depicts sergeant's struggle |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21145582/detroit_free_press/ |access-date=June 21, 2018 |work=Detroit Free Press |agency=Associated Press |date=August 21, 1978 |page=10D |via=Newspapers.com}} {{free access}}{{cite news |last1=Narvaez |first1=Alfonso A. |title=Gay Airman Who Fought Ouster Dies From AIDS |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/gay-airman-who-fought-ouster-dies-from-aids.html |access-date=June 8, 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=June 24, 1988}} He spent his childhood living on military bases, primarily throughout the Southern United States.{{cite news |last1=Burnside |first1=Susan |title=Ex-Airman Matlovich 'On Campaign Trail' |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21145672/detroit_free_press/ |access-date=June 21, 2018 |work=Detroit Free Press |date=February 24, 1976 |via=Newspapers.com}} {{free access}} Matlovich and his sister were raised in the Catholic Church.{{Cite web|url=http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/matlovich_lp_S.pdf|title=Matlovich, Leonard P., Jr. (1943-1988)|last=Bateman|first=Geoffrey W.|website=glbtqarchive.com|access-date=2019-06-13}} He spent much of his teenage years in Charleston, South Carolina, attending the Catholic Bishop England High School. When the Candlestick Murder occurred in Charleston in 1958, Matlovich saw it as proof of the negative societal consequences of homosexuality.{{Cite book|last=Sears|first=James T.|title=Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2001|isbn=9780813529646|location=New Brunswick|pages=197–211}} Not long after he enlisted at 19, the United States increased military action in Vietnam, about ten years after the French had abandoned active colonial rule there. Matlovich volunteered for service in Vietnam and served three tours of duty.{{cite news |last1=Folkart |first1=Burt A. |title=Gay Activist Leonard Matlovich, 44, Dies |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-24-mn-5916-story.html |access-date=June 8, 2018 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=June 24, 1988}} He was seriously wounded when he stepped on a landmine in Đà Nẵng.{{cite news |last1=Oelsner |first1=Lesley |title=Homosexual Is Fighting Military Ouster |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/05/26/archives/homosexual-is-fighting-military-ouster-sergeant-challenges-air.html |access-date=June 8, 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=May 26, 1975}}

While stationed in Florida near Fort Walton Beach, he began frequenting gay bars in nearby Pensacola. "I met a bank president, a gas station attendant – they were all homosexual", Matlovich commented in a later interview. In 1973, when he was 30, he slept with another man for the first time.{{cite news |last1=Barnes |first1=Bart |title=Leonard Matlovich, Gay Sergeant Discharged from Air Force, Dies |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1988/06/24/leonard-matlovich-gay-sergeant-discharged-from-air-force-dies/ef8e19fa-4f53-47eb-942d-714ac749556a/ |access-date=June 8, 2018 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=June 24, 1988}} He "came out" to his friends, but continued to conceal the fact from his commanding officer. Having realized that the racism he had grown up around was wrong, he volunteered to teach Air Force Race Relations classes, which had been created after several racial incidents in the military in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He became so successful that the Air Force sent him around the country to coach other instructors. Matlovich gradually came to believe that the discrimination faced by gay people was similar to that faced by African Americans.

In March 1974, previously unaware of the organized gay movement, he read an interview in the Air Force Times with gay activist Frank Kameny, who had counseled several gay people in the military over the years. He contacted Kameny, who told him he had long been looking for a gay service member with a perfect record to create a test case to challenge the military's ban on gay people. Four months later, he met with Kameny at the longtime activist's Washington, D.C. home. After several months of discussion with Kameny and ACLU attorney David Addlestone during which they formulated a plan, he hand-delivered a letter to his Langley AFB commanding officer on March 6, 1975. When his commander asked, "What does this mean?" Matlovich replied, "It means Brown versus the Board of Education" – a reference to the 1954 landmark Supreme Court case outlawing racial segregation in public schools.{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917785,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090528203115/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917785,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 28, 2009 |title=The Sergeant v. the Air Force |magazine=Time |date=September 8, 1975}}

Perhaps the most painful aspect of the whole experience for Matlovich was his revelation to his parents. He told his mother by telephone. She was so stunned she refused to tell Matlovich's father. Her first reaction was that God was punishing her for something she had done, even if her Roman Catholic faith would not have sanctioned that notion. Then, she imagined that her son had not prayed enough or had not seen enough psychiatrists. His father finally found out by reading it in the newspaper, after his challenge became public knowledge on Memorial Day 1975 through an article on the front page of The New York Times and that evening's CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.{{citation needed|date=September 2018}} Matlovich recalled, "He cried for about two hours." After that, he told his wife that, "If he can take it, I can take it."{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/20/archives/air-force-sergeant-feels-he-is-a-patriot-fighting-for-freedom.html |title=Air Force Sergeant Feels He Is a Patriot Fighting for Freedom |date=1975-09-20 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2018-09-06 |language=en |df=mdy-all}}

At that time, the Air Force had a fairly ill-defined exception clause that could allow gay people to continue to serve if there were extenuating circumstances. These circumstances might include being immature or drunk, exemplary service, or a one-time experimentation (known sarcastically as the "Queen for a day" rule).{{cite book|last=Shilts|first=Randy|title=Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military|year=2005|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=9780312342647|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iOAmL6JPCE0C|page=199}} During Matlovich's September 1975 administrative discharge hearing, an Air Force attorney asked him if he would sign a document pledging to "never practice homosexuality again" in exchange for being allowed to remain in the Air Force. Matlovich refused. Despite his exemplary military record, tours of duty in Vietnam, and high performance evaluations, the panel ruled Matlovich unfit for service, and he was recommended for a General (Under Honorable Conditions) discharge. The base commander, Colonel Alton J. Thogersen, citing Matlovich's service record, recommended that it be upgraded to Honorable. The Secretary of the Air Force agreed, confirming Matlovich's discharge in October 1975.{{cite book|last=Shilts|first=Randy|title=Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military|year=2005|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=9780312342647|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iOAmL6JPCE0C|page=280}}

Matlovich sued for reinstatement, but the legal process was a long one, with the case moving back and forth between United States District and Circuit Courts.{{cite book|last=Shilts|first=Randy|title=Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military|year=2005|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=9780312342647|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iOAmL6JPCE0C|page=286}} When, by September 1980, the Air Force had failed to provide U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard Gesell an explanation of why Matlovich did not meet its criteria for exception (which by then had been eliminated but still could have applied to him), Gesell ordered him reinstated into the Air Force and promoted. The Air Force offered Matlovich a financial settlement instead. Convinced that the military would find some other reason to discharge him if he reentered the service, or that the conservative Supreme Court would rule against him should the Air Force appeal, Matlovich accepted. The figure, based on back pay, future pay, and pension, was $160,000.{{cite book|last=Shilts|first=Randy|title=Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military|year=2005|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=9780312342647|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iOAmL6JPCE0C|page=371}}

A converted Mormon and church elder when he lived in Hampton, Virginia, Matlovich found himself at odds with the Latter-day Saints and their opposition to homosexual behavior; he was twice excommunicated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for homosexual acts. He was first excommunicated on October 7, 1975, in Norfolk, Virginia, and then again January 17, 1979. By this time, Matlovich had stopped being a believer.

{{more citations needed|section|date=September 2018}}

From the moment his case was revealed to the public, Matlovich was repeatedly called upon by gay groups to help them with fundraising and advocating against anti-gay discrimination, helping lead campaigns against Anita Bryant's efforts in Miami, Florida, to overturn a gay nondiscrimination ordinance and John Briggs' attempt to ban gay teachers in California. Sometimes he was criticized by individuals more to the left than he had become. "I think many gays are forced into liberal camps only because that's where they can find the kind of support they need to function in society," Matlovich once noted. While appealing his discharge, he moved from Virginia to Washington, D.C., and, in 1978, to San Francisco. In 1981, he moved to the Russian River town of Guerneville, where he used the proceeds of his settlement to open a pizza restaurant.{{Cite web|url=http://www.advocate.com/news/2009/03/03/he-told-39don%E2%80%99t-ask39|title=He Told Before 'Don't Ask'|date=2009-03-03|website=www.advocate.com|language=en|access-date=2019-06-13}}

With the outbreak of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. in the early 1980s, Matlovich's personal life was caught up in the hysteria about the virus. He sold his Guerneville restaurant in 1984, moving to Europe for a few months where, during a visit to the joint grave of lovers Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and the grave of gay writer Oscar Wilde in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France, he got the idea for a gay memorial in the United States. He returned briefly to Washington, D.C., in 1985 and, then, to San Francisco where he sold Ford cars and once again became heavily involved in gay rights causes and the fight for adequate HIV/AIDS education and treatment.

In 1986, Matlovich felt fatigued, then contracted a prolonged chest cold he seemed unable to shake. When he finally saw a physician in September of that year, he was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.{{cite news |last1=Folkart |first1=Burt A. |title=Gay Activist Leonard Matlovich, 44, Dies |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-24-mn-5916-story.html |access-date=June 12, 2018 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=June 24, 1988}} Too weak to continue his work at the Ford dealership, he was among the first to receive AZT treatments, but his prognosis was not encouraging. He went on disability benefits and became a champion for HIV/AIDS research for the disease which was claiming tens of thousands of lives in the Bay Area and nationally. He announced on Good Morning America in 1987 that he had contracted HIV, and was arrested with other demonstrators in front of the White House that June protesting what they believed was an inadequate response to HIV/AIDS by the administration of President Ronald Reagan.{{cite news |last1=Boodman |first1=Sandra G. |last2=Specter |first2=Michael |title=64 demonstrators arrested in protest of US AIDS policy |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/06/02/64-demonstrators-arrested-in-protest-of-us-aids-policy/cc77861f-8086-4c4c-8bac-857bc1c108ab/ |access-date=June 12, 2018 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=June 2, 1987}}

Despite his deteriorating health, he tearfully made his last public speech on May 7, 1988, in front of the California State Capitol during the March on Sacramento for Gay and Lesbian Rights:

... And I want you to look at the flag, our rainbow flag, and I want you to look at it with pride in your heart, because we too have a dream. And what is our dream? Ours is more than an American dream. It's a universal dream. Because in South Africa, we're black and white, and in Northern Ireland, we're Protestant and Catholic, and in Israel we're Jew and Muslim. And our mission is to reach out and teach people to love, and not to hate. And you know the reality of the situation is that before we as an individual meet, the only thing we have in common is our sexuality. And in the AIDS crisis – and I have AIDS – and in the AIDS crisis, if there is any one word that describes our community's reaction to AIDS, that word is love, love, love.{{Cite web|url=http://aver.us/aver-honors-american-heroes-on-memorial-day-in-washington-dc/aver-honors-american-heroes-on-memorial-day-in-washington-dc.htm|title=AVER Honors American Heroes on Memorial Day in Washington DC|last=Apedaile|first=James|date=2015-06-05|website=American Veterans for Equal Rights. We Are You!|language=en-US|access-date=2019-06-13}}

On June 22, 1988, less than a month before his 45th birthday, Matlovich died in Los Angeles of complications from HIV/AIDS. His tombstone, meant to be a memorial to all gay veterans, does not bear his name. It reads, "When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."{{cite news |title='A Perfect Soldier': Remembering A Warrior In The Battle Against Homophobia |url=https://www.npr.org/2015/10/30/452849153/a-perfect-soldier-remembering-a-warrior-in-the-battle-against-homophobia |access-date=June 12, 2018 |publisher=NPR |date=October 30, 2015}} Recognizing military officials would not then allow such a marker in Arlington Cemetery,{{Cite web|url=https://www.hillnow.com/2016/03/31/lgbt-icon-tour-planned-for-congressional-cemetery/|title='LGBT Icons' Tour Planned for Congressional Cemetery|date=2016-03-31|website=Hill Now|language=en|access-date=2019-06-13}} Matlovich chose a gravesite in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.{{cite news |title=Gay Activist Leonard Matlovich, 44, Is Buried With Full Military Honors |url=http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-07-03/news/8801120440_1_homosexuals-in-concentration-camps-congressional-cemetery-gay-rights-activists |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612142004/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-07-03/news/8801120440_1_homosexuals-in-concentration-camps-congressional-cemetery-gay-rights-activists |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |access-date=June 12, 2018 |work=Chicago Tribune |date=July 3, 1988}} Another reason was because the man many believe to have been the greatest love of poet Walt Whitman, Peter Doyle, is buried there. He chose the same row where the graves of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Hoover's longtime Assistant Director and heir Clyde Tolson are, as a kind of "last laugh".

File:Gay vietnam veteran tomb.jpg, which reads:
{{center|"A Gay Vietnam Veteran
When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."}}]]

Before his death, Matlovich donated his personal papers and memorabilia to the GLBT Historical Society, a museum, archives and research center in San Francisco.GLBT Historical Society. [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf5t1nb11k "Guide to the Leonard Matlovich Papers, 1961–1988 (Bulk 1975–1988)"] (Collection No. 1988-01); retrieved October 27, 2011. The society has featured Matlovich's story in two exhibitions: "Out Ranks: GLBT Military Service From World War II to the Iraq War", which opened in June 2007 at the society's South of Market gallery space, and "Our Vast Queer Past: Celebrating San Francisco's GLBT History", which opened in January 2011 at the society's GLBT History Museum in the Castro District.GLBT Historical Society (2007). [http://glbthistory.org/OutranksWeb/Index2.htm Out Ranks website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111128125244/http://glbthistory.org/OutranksWeb/Index2.htm |date=November 28, 2011 }}; retrieved October 27, 2011.Leff, Lisa (June 16, 2007). [http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/06/ap_gay_veterans_070616/ "Exhibit puts history of gay veterans on view,"] Army Times (Associated Press); retrieved October 27, 2011.Ming, Dan (January 13, 2011). [http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/culturefeed/visit-nations-first-queer-museum/ Visit the nations's first queer museum] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120804023902/http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/culturefeed/visit-nations-first-queer-museum/ |date=August 4, 2012 }} The Bay Citizen; retrieved October 27, 2011.

A bronze plaque in his memory was installed near the entrance of the apartment in which he once lived at the corner of 18th and Castro Streets in San Francisco.{{cite news |last1=Macarow |first1=Moe |title=Plaque Dedicated to First Nat'l Visible Gay Service Member |url=https://www.glaad.org/2008/11/21/plaque-dedicated-to-first-natl-visible-gay-service-member |access-date=June 8, 2018 |publisher=GLAAD |date=November 21, 2008 |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612140349/https://www.glaad.org/2008/11/21/plaque-dedicated-to-first-natl-visible-gay-service-member |url-status=dead }} In October 2012, another, larger bronze memorial plaque was installed on Chicago's Halsted Street as a part of the Legacy Walk,{{cite web|url=http://www.legacyprojectchicago.org/Leonard_Matlovich.html|title=Leonard Matlovich|author=Victor Salvo // The Legacy Project}} an "outdoor museum" of LGBT historical figures including Milk, Wilde, Barbara Gittings, Bayard Rustin, and Alan Turing, and the Legacy Project Education Initiative in Illinois public schools.

San Francisco resident Michael Bedwell, a close friend and the original executor of Matlovich's estate, created a website in honor of Matlovich and other gay U.S. veterans. The site includes a history of the ban on gay and bisexual people in the U.S. military both before and after its transformation into "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and illustrates the role that gay veterans fighting the ban played in the earliest development of the gay rights movement in the United States.[http://www.leonardmatlovich.com/aboutthissite.html "About this site,"] at LeonardMatlovich.com; retrieved October 30, 2011.

Matlovich's gravesite has been a site of attraction and ceremony for LGBT rights activists since his interment including an annual LGBT Veterans Day observance, and several individuals and couples have chosen to also be buried in Congressional Cemetery identifying their being gay on their tombstones per his suggestion such as Gittings and her partner Kay Tobin Lahusen. In May 2011, gay Iraq veteran Capt. Stephen Hill – who would later become famous for being booed by audience members during a Republican presidential candidates debate for asking whether any would attempt to restore "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" – and his partner Josh Snyder chose to be legally married next to the gravesite to honor Matlovich's fight against the original ban. His grave is the starting point for the annual Pride Run 5K sponsored by DC Front Runners, a running, walking, and social club serving Washington DC's LGBT people and their friends.{{Cite web|url=https://www.dcfrpriderun.com/|title=DC Front Runners Pride Run | A LGBT Pride 5K Race in Washington DC|website=dcfrpriderun|access-date=April 9, 2018|archive-date=April 10, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180410134750/https://www.dcfrpriderun.com/|url-status=dead}} On Veterans Day 2015, a Veterans Administration memorial for his mentor Kameny (1925–2011) was dedicated immediately behind Matlovich's grave. Activists including Army Lt. Dan Choi, Army Staff Sergeant Miriam Ben-Shalom and members of GetEQUAL held a vigil at Matlovich's gravesite on November 10, 2010 before proceeding to chain themselves to the White House fence (and be subsequently arrested) to protest "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".{{cite web|url = http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/11/15/DADT_Vigil_at_Matlovich_Gravesite/|title = DADT Vigil Held at Matlovich Grave Site |date = November 15, 2010 |author = Julie Bolcer|work = The Advocate}}

In June 2019, Matlovich was one of the inaugural fifty American “pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes” inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City’s Stonewall Inn.{{Cite web|url=https://www.metro.us/news/local-news/new-york/stonewall-inn-lgbtq-wall-honor|title=National LGBTQ Wall of Honor unveiled at Stonewall Inn|last=Glasses-Baker|first=Becca|date=June 27, 2019|website=www.metro.us|access-date=2019-06-28}}{{Cite web|url=https://sdgln.com/news/2019/06/19/national-lgbtq-wall-honor-be-unveiled-historic-stonewall-inn|title=National LGBTQ Wall of Honor to be unveiled at historic Stonewall Inn|last=Rawles|first=Timothy|date=2019-06-19|website=San Diego Gay and Lesbian News|language=en|access-date=2019-06-21}} The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history,{{Cite web|url=https://www.ebar.com/news/news//272833|title=Groups seek names for Stonewall 50 honor wall|website=The Bay Area Reporter / B.A.R. Inc.|language=en|access-date=2019-05-24}} and the wall’s unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.{{Cite web|url=http://sfbaytimes.com/stonewall-50/|title=Stonewall 50|date=2019-04-03|website=San Francisco Bay Times|access-date=2019-05-25}}

• Castañeda, Laura and Susan B. Campbell. "No Longer Silent: Sgt. Leonard Matlovich and Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer." In News and Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity, 198–200. Sage, 2005, {{ISBN|1-4129-0999-6}}.
• Hippler, Mike. Matlovich: The Good Soldier, Alyson Publications Inc., 1989, {{ISBN|1-55583-129-X}}
• Miller, Neil. "Leonard Matlovich: A Soldier's Story." In Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, 411–414. Virginia: Vintage Books, 1995, {{ISBN|0-679-74988-8}}
• Shilts, Randy. Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military, Diane Publishing Company, 1993, {{ISBN|0-7881-5416-8}}
• Sergeant Matlovich vs. the U.S. Air Force, made-for-television dramatization directed by Paul Leaf, written by John McGreevey, starring Brad Dourif in title role. Originally aired on NBC, August 21, 1978.
• The Strange History of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, HBO television documentary directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. Originally aired September 20, 2011.

• Sexual orientation and the United States military

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{official website|http://www.leonardmatlovich.com}}
• [http://www.glbthistory.org GLBT Historical Society] (San Francisco); holds the personal papers and memorabilia of Leonard Matlovich (Collection No. 1988-01)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20061117053459/http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/?ak=2397 Honor Roll: Gay Veterans Gather To Honor those Who Served] Metro Weekly (November 9, 2006)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090619140650/http://glbthistorymonth.com/glbthistorymonth/2006/video.cfm?LeaderID=7 "Leonard Matlovich"] glbthistorymonth.org (October 7, 2006)
• [http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/06/ap_gay_veterans_070616/ Exhibit puts history of gay veterans on view] Army Times (June 16, 2007)
• [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/11/AR2008111102629.html Gay Veterans Gather to Honor Their Own] Washington Post (November 12, 2008)
• {{IMDb name|1614640}}

{{LGBTQ}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Matlovich, Leonard}}

Category:1943 births

Category:1988 deaths

Category:American LGBTQ rights activists

Category:United States Air Force non-commissioned officers

Category:United States Air Force personnel of the Vietnam War

Category:American military personnel discharged for homosexuality

Category:Gay military personnel

Category:American LGBTQ military personnel

Category:People excommunicated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Category:AIDS-related deaths in California

Category:Burials at the Congressional Cemetery

Category:Military personnel from Savannah, Georgia

Category:LGBTQ Latter Day Saints

Category:LGBTQ people from Georgia (U.S. state)

Category:20th-century American LGBTQ people