Gay Activists
Alliance cofounder G. Donn Teal passed away February 3
after a long illness. He was 76.
Born in Columbus,
Ohio, he was one of the founders of the GAA in late
1969. On February 23 of that year, his pro-gay New
York Times article "Why Can't 'We' Love Happily Ever
After, Too?" appeared. The article served as
a protest against the "doomed misfit/sinner"
stereotype of American gay men and lesbians in film,
on stage, and in literature. The article provoked great
response, and was followed on June 1 by "Why Record
Homosexual Anguish?" a Times review of A&M
Records' original-cast recording of Mart Crowley's play
The Boys in the Band.
Teal
also wrote the first history of the gay liberation
movement, The Gay Militants, as well as articles for
The Advocate, Ovation, Musical
America, and other magazines and newspapers. In
1978 he wrote "Straight Father, Gay Son: A Memoir of
Reconciliation" for The Village Voice ; the article was later republished under Mr. Teal's
nom de plume, Roger Forsythe, in Ralph Keyes's 1992
HarperCollins anthology Sons on Fathers.
"As the author of
a history of the Stonewall riots, I have always said
that the Stonewall riots are important only because they
gave birth to the gay liberation movement, just as the
fall of the Bastille is only important because it led
to the French Revolution. If the book I wrote was
about the spark that set off the revolution, Donn's book was
about something immeasurably more important: the
revolution itself," author David Carter said in a
statement.
Teal will be
buried in Columbus, Ohio. A memorial service will be held in
New York at a time to be determined. In lieu of flowers,
donations may be made in his memory to the Gay Men's
Health Crisis.
