No doubt all of our lives would be different without Kennith H. Burns, one of the founding members of the Mattachine Society: the United States' first gay rights movement. The 81-year old died of lung failure in California last month.

A controversial figure in the movement, Burns is credited with moving the Society toward the center:

Burns was a founding member of the Mattachine Society, which was founded in Los Angeles in 1950 by activist Harry Hay and others.

In 1953, when McCarthyism was strengthening its grip on the national consciousness, Hay and other Mattachine leaders with communist ties were ousted and Burns assumed a prominent role in the organization.

The society moved in a more conservative direction during Burns' tenure as Mattachine president in the mid- to late 1950s. Along with other Mattachine leaders, including Harold Call and Don Lucas, he urged members to temper their public image and assimilate into society.

"We must blame ourselves for much of our plight," Burns said during this period. "When will homosexuals ever realize that social reform, in order to be effective, must be preceded by personal reform?"

Though he later stepped down from the Mattachine Society, Burns continued to work with GLAAD and LA's LGBT Center.

It's a historic day in Gayville! From Box Turtle Bulletin:

Today marks a very important milestone in LGBT history. Fifty years ago today, on January 13, 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its first ever pro-gay ruling in ONE Inc. v. Olesen, a landmark decision that allowed a magazine for gays and lesbians to be sent through the U.S. mail.
…
the Supreme Court issued its short, one-sentence decision on January 13, 1958 without hearing oral arguments. That decision not only overturned the two lower courts, but the Court expanded the First Amendment’s free speech and press freedoms by effectively limiting the power of the Comstock Act to interfere with the written word.

Good thing, too, because otherwise we'd be out of a job!

Roman Emperor Hadrian gets new life at the British Museum - and so does his homosexuality:

"Hadrian was gay, and we can say it," said Thorsten Opper, a British Museum curator of Greek and Roman sculpture, who is publishing a profile of Hadrian to coincide with the show.

Hadrian's lover Antinous, whose death caused the emperor tremendous grief, will feature throughout the exhibition. A head of Antinous, borrowed from Paris's Louvre Museum, will be displayed, as will a bowl from Georgia with his effigy.

Hadrian's perhaps most well known for the eponymous wall he built between England and Scotland. The military-minded man also crushed the Jewish revolt of 132 A.D.

The British Museum called the exhibit a "chance to write new history". What a queer statement.

There's a battle brewing in London, where developers are attempting to turn historic gay-owned hotel, The Philbeach Hotel, into a bunch of straight-washed flats. Now a coalition of queers are rallying to save their homo habitation. They've even composed a form letter:

The hotel has been open for over 20 years, and it is the only gay hotel in London which is privately owned by gays and run by gays.

It was recently announced that the hotel has been sold to an unknown developer to turn into flats.

The current staff there have been given 3 weeks to find new employment and new housing.

The hotel closes on 31st January 2008.

Apparently the Princess restaurant will also be destroyed, which would be a real tragedy.

If you're inclined to save this gay edifice, join the Save the Philbeach campaign. It's more fashionable than Ron Paul and twice as fun as Edwards.

The Czech Republic's blowing a hole in the closet.

The Prague House of Ethnic Minorities currently hosts an exhibition chronicling the nation's queer history. The exhibit, which features pieces from antiquity through the Soviet era and into today, aims to open people's minds about the Republic's lavender-tinged reality.

Says Minorities Ministry spokesman Jiri Hromada: "We want to show to the public that gays and lesbians did not fall from the Mars. The older generation used to say there were no homosexuals in its youth."

This shit's going to give some old conservative man a stroke.

Former NBC newsman Tom Brokaw's new book, BOOM! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today, goes on sale tomorrow. A reflection on, well, the 1960's, Brokaw attempts to give a personal view into America's tumultuous past. And, judging from the NY Times review, Brokaw didn't come across any queers in his travels.

Mr. Brokaw’s own history is also part of his panorama. He intersperses autobiographical anecdotes sparingly and chooses them well. He and his wife, Meredith, were married in 1962; girdles were part of her wedding trousseau, and they received five cigarette lighters as presents. Five years later he was in San Francisco being asked, “Mister, do you know what’s going on over on Haight Street?” and meeting a young woman who claimed to have slept with all of the Byrds.

“My ambitions were counter to the counterculture,” says Mr. Brokaw, who was born in 1940, had a family and an established career by 1968 and did not experience the full impact of the baby boom in his personal life. (The emergence of gay culture is notably absent from this book’s panorama.)

Poor Tom Brokaw: can you imagine a life lived without getting down with the gays. Sad…

Dozens of so-called sexual deviants cataloged their lives for one of San Francisco's public libraries yesterday.

In an effort to chronicle queer American history, Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library archivist Susan Goldstein asked gays, lesbians and trans folk to contribute their own personal photos, which will become part of the library's permanent collection.

Of her mission, Goldstein says,

We're getting the photos, and we're getting the history," said city archivist Susan Goldstein. "We're hearing: 'This is my family. They didn't talk to me because I was gay'; 'This is when I was in the military'; 'This is when I came to San Francisco.' It's a great cross section.

Not to be confused with a cross-dressing session, of course.

Activist Felizia Elizondo (pictured) submitted pictures of herself from her boyhood days, declaring, "I'm a transsexual woman who had surgery in 1974 to go from male to female. I'm here because I'm a pioneer, a legend and a diva."

Simon Tseko Nkoli may very well be the father of South Africa's gay rights movement.

Born in Soweto on November 26, 1957, Nkoli felt the pain of racial apartheid early. In an effort to bypass the National Party's pass laws, which dictated where blacks could and could not go, Nkoli famously locked his parents in a closet. That seminal event not only fueled his anti-apartheid politics, but his desire to live as an openly gay man.

Nkoli came into his gay self fairly early on. Though the government explicitly prohibited homosexuality, Nkoli's conception of the sexual divisions eschewed traditional definition. Growing up in Soweto - and then Sebokong - Nkoli learned to call homosexuality "sitabane," which translates to hermaphrodite. His sexuality had more to do with gender than actual acts. Perhaps it's the linguistic dissociation which helped him embrace his difference so readily.

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• South Korean soccer fans decided to turn themselves into human light emitting diodes. It's incredible.

• Harvey Keitel presented Snoop Dogg with his Hip-Hop Honor, saying: "There really is no artist in any discipline, any of the arts, that I would rather give an award to. Your work effects the way young people think. I can’t think of a better honor than that. You deserve it.” There you have it: all artists should stop what they're doing. Snoop's way better than you in every single way.

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Walt Whitman never could have known gay communities would cherish his prophetic poems. The American philosopher and writer never could have known gay communities would even exist. We'll save you the gory details of Whitman's life, for most of you have already studied him in high school.

If you're not familiar with Whitman's life, here's the gist. Born on Long Island in 1819 to a Quaker family, Whitman came of age in Brooklyn. Determined to make a name for himself - and money for his family - a young Whitman took odd jobs assisting lawyers and other high profile professionals. Such a life didn't suit him, however, and Whitman broke away into the world of publishing.

In 1831, the then twelve-year old Whitman started as an apprentice at a printing press. This move helped him land jobs at the Long Island Democrat and, eventually, as a journalist in New York City proper.

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George Quaintance's overly generous paintings and photography helped thrust the male physique into American popular culture.

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Painter Gluck redefined the landscape of American art. Born Hannah Gluckstein to a wealthy British Jewish family, Gluck rejected her bourgeois upbringing. Her father, who owned catering and coffee companies, and her American opera singer mother - as well as the British aristocracy - were astonished when young Hannah began wearing men's clothing - and took up with other women.

Unlike some creative minds, Gluck didn't pick up painting until later in life. Though she had no interest in art, the young artist enrolled in London's St John's Wood School of Art, where she first saw John Singer Sargent's painting of the violinist, Joachim. Inspired beyond believe, Gluck made it her mission to become a painter.

Gluck first made an impression in the 1920s, when she first began circulating her portrait and floral prints. Her big break came in 1924 when photographer Emil Otto Hoppé helped Gluck organize a show at the Dorien Gallery. Two years later, the Fine Arts Institute gave Gluck her first solo show. Within a few years, Gluck - who famously hated gendered prefixes - had become a darling of the art world.

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• Britney Spears loses kids. (As if you didn't see that one coming.)

• Mark Foley scandal still stinking up GOP.

• Focus on the Family activist wishes American Psychological Association would be more tolerant of ex-gay therapists.

• Cindy Adams does not appreciate foreign people coming to melting pot that is New York.

• Wow. The Spice Girls' London concert sold out in 38 seconds. Again: wow.

• Ridicule: more powerful than a nuclear bomb?

• Scottish and Mexican Anglicans want gay inclusion.

• Gay History Project growing.

Has it been a year already!? Just twelve months ago we celebrated Gay History Month - and, like clockwork, it's that time again! For our first installment of this month-long look back, let's shine some light on poet Countee Cullen.

Though no one seems to know for sure where the secretive Cullen came to be, we do know his mama birthed him in 1903 and named him Countee LeRoy Porter. That same mama ended up abandoning him, leaving Cullen's grandmother to raise him.

The young Cullen attended high school here in New York, where he also met up with some other bold-faced names, like W.E.B. DuBois. DuBois helped the NYU graduate get his start in the poetry business by publishing Cullen's words in The Crisis, DuBois' seminal black magazine. From there, Cullen began circulating his work to Harper's, Century and the National Urban League's Opportunity. Cullen also published a number of collections, such as The Ballad of the Brown Girl and The Medea and Some Other Poems.

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Barneys' creative director Simon Doonan may be the most analytical and keen queer historian to date: "I think over-the-top dressing began when the gay cavemen got bored and started doing wild head wraps."