The Early Years
The Lawrence Gay Liberation Front
The group began as the Lawrence Gay Liberation front in the summer of 1970, shortly after the Stonewall riots in New York ignited the modern Gay Rights movement. At most, a couple of months separated the late-June riots from the founding of the Lawrence group.
According to an article in the Fall 1991 GALA Update (a KU LBGT alumni newsletter) by Michael Nelson and Charles Dedmon: “Unattached groups of gay people existed who were interested in forming a local Gay Liberation Front. A social work student, working on a paper about alternative lifestyles, became the inadvertent founder of GLF when one of his interviewees tacked a message with his name and phone number at strategic places on campus frequented by gay men.”
The note encouraged these men to make their presence known to the campus as a whole and to find a better quality of life as a gay person. Thus began two of Queers & Allies' central goals—educating through campus visibility, and the formation of a nurturing, supportive community.
But the rest of the University community wasn't quite as accepting.
Although the group applied for official recognition from the University and financing from Student Senate in 1969 and 1970, the requests were turned down.
Then-Chancellor E. Lawrence Chalmers issued an official statement in September 1970, outlining the University's position: “Since we are not persuaded that student activity funds should be allocated either to support or to oppose the sexual proclivities of students, particularly when they might violate the law, the University of Kansas declines to formally recognize the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front.” (Sex between people of the same gender is still a misdemeanor in Kansas.)
In 1971, the group took the University to court for infringing on students' First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The American Civil Liberties Union took the group's case. Outspoken liberal lawyer William Kunstler (famous for defending the Chicago Seven after the 1968 Democratic Convention) was brought on to argue for the Front.
Kunstler couldn't speak in court, however. When Lawrence Gay Liberation v. The University of Kansas reached the Topeka District Court in January 1972, Judge George Templar refused to let Kunstler—who was not licensed to practice law in Kansas—speak in court. Lawrence attorney Jack Klinknett argued for the group instead, which lost its case.
Although press coverage of the incident spread across the country (even reaching the New York Times), the University had won its battle to suppress the Front. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Templar's ruling in 1973 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.
The Lawrence Gay Liberation Front spent the next decade as an unofficial, unrecognized group.
Part 2: The 1970s
The group began as the Lawrence Gay Liberation front in the summer of 1970, shortly after the Stonewall riots in New York ignited the modern Gay Rights movement. At most, a couple of months separated the late-June riots from the founding of the Lawrence group.
According to an article in the Fall 1991 GALA Update (a KU LBGT alumni newsletter) by Michael Nelson and Charles Dedmon: “Unattached groups of gay people existed who were interested in forming a local Gay Liberation Front. A social work student, working on a paper about alternative lifestyles, became the inadvertent founder of GLF when one of his interviewees tacked a message with his name and phone number at strategic places on campus frequented by gay men.”
The note encouraged these men to make their presence known to the campus as a whole and to find a better quality of life as a gay person. Thus began two of Queers & Allies' central goals—educating through campus visibility, and the formation of a nurturing, supportive community.
But the rest of the University community wasn't quite as accepting.
Although the group applied for official recognition from the University and financing from Student Senate in 1969 and 1970, the requests were turned down.
Then-Chancellor E. Lawrence Chalmers issued an official statement in September 1970, outlining the University's position: “Since we are not persuaded that student activity funds should be allocated either to support or to oppose the sexual proclivities of students, particularly when they might violate the law, the University of Kansas declines to formally recognize the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front.” (Sex between people of the same gender is still a misdemeanor in Kansas.)
In 1971, the group took the University to court for infringing on students' First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The American Civil Liberties Union took the group's case. Outspoken liberal lawyer William Kunstler (famous for defending the Chicago Seven after the 1968 Democratic Convention) was brought on to argue for the Front.
Kunstler couldn't speak in court, however. When Lawrence Gay Liberation v. The University of Kansas reached the Topeka District Court in January 1972, Judge George Templar refused to let Kunstler—who was not licensed to practice law in Kansas—speak in court. Lawrence attorney Jack Klinknett argued for the group instead, which lost its case.
Although press coverage of the incident spread across the country (even reaching the New York Times), the University had won its battle to suppress the Front. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Templar's ruling in 1973 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.
The Lawrence Gay Liberation Front spent the next decade as an unofficial, unrecognized group.
Part 2: The 1970s