In 1975, Massachusetts State Representative Elaine Noble contacted New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug. Noble, among the first openly gay and lesbian elected officials in the country, was one of the figureheads of the national gay rights movement.Footnote 1 A shrewd political actor, she was willing to cut ties with mainstream organizations like the National Organization for Women (NOW) when she felt they failed in their advocacy for lesbians.Footnote 2 She had long regarded the fifty-five-year-old Abzug as an ally and friend to gay people, and as a legitimate intermediary in the fight.Footnote 3 Noble now wrote regarding Abzug's proposed federal gay rights bill: “I was a speaker at a national gathering of Metropolitan Community Churches in Dallas several months ago,” she said, “at which I urged people to write their representatives in Congress regarding H.R. 5452.”Footnote 4 She enclosed a collection of this correspondence, written by gay Americans, to support Abzug's bill.Footnote 5 She gave the cache to Abzug to use in the fight for the bill's passage. Abzug, in return, thanked Noble for the letters and placed their authors on a mailing list to keep them abreast of the bill's status. “Presently,” Abzug replied, “letter writing is the appropriate effort needed to help in our fight.” Abzug pledged to work for the “abolition of discrimination in this country because of sexual preference.”Footnote 6
This exchange might appear commonplace. Noble, writing in her capacity as both an activist and state representative, was lobbying on behalf of a piece of legislation that favored gay rights. What is notable, however, is that Noble regarded Abzug as a reliable intermediary, a conduit for facilitating information, and a person through whom gay people could lobby for their rights at the federal level. In 1975, few national politicians were willing to support gay rights. Despite the precipitous increase in gay and lesbian activism in the early 1970s, mainstream support remained rare. It was uncommon to find a consistent ally within the federal government or the national Democratic Party.Footnote 7 Even pro-gay politicians, typically, endorsed a narrow version of gay rights based solely on sexual privacy and not full legal equality.Footnote 8 Abzug, however, advocated for more robust equal protections. In her time in Congress from 1971 to 1977, she elevated gay voices, facilitated connections, and used her significant platform to speak on behalf of the marginalized.
On May 14, 1974, Abzug introduced the Equality Act. An amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it would have prohibited discrimination based on “sex, marital status, and sexual orientation.” The bill protected gay, lesbian, and bisexual people from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations.Footnote 9 Abzug's Equality Act was the first proposed piece of federal legislation that would have protected people on the basis of sexual orientation. All previous acts of Congress relating to homosexuality had been discriminatory.Footnote 10 Abzug, therefore, was the first national legislator not only to endorse gay rights in principle, but also in practice. She would reintroduce a version of the Equality Act every session for the remainder of her time in Congress. In 1975, she became the first member of Congress to defend gay rights on the floor of the House of Representatives.Footnote 11 For gay Americans in the 1970s, the Equality Act was the ultimate expression of solidarity. It did not pass, but it proved to be an important national moment. For both activists and ordinary people, Abzug's allyship became a yardstick against which to gauge all other politicians of the period.
Abzug's advocacy occurred in a context of limited national success for gay rights. Achievements came almost exclusively at the state and local levels. In the 1970s, gay activists lobbied for antidiscrimination laws and changes to existing state and local statutes. Results were mixed. By 1973, activists had successfully agitated to overturn or repeal sodomy laws in eight states. But dismantling sodomy laws proved easier than passing antidiscrimination legislation. While activists did work for such state and local laws throughout the 1970s, repeal efforts often followed any successful attempts.Footnote 12 At the federal level, gay rights activists were routinely stonewalled. Despite the expansion of rights during the sexual revolution, gay activists found themselves unable to challenge discriminatory immigration guidelines or overturn the federal sodomy statute.Footnote 13 In 1973, gay and lesbian activists established the National Gay Task Force (NGTF) with the explicit goal of lobbying federal agencies, but had only limited success. NGFT's victories mostly consisted of establishing working relationships with nongovernmental organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the American Bar Association (ABA).Footnote 14 In this context Abzug introduced various iterations of the Equality Act. Federal legislation, she argued, would remove “local bigots” from the equation “in the same way that black civil rights were guaranteed through federal laws.”Footnote 15
That Abzug's Equality Act has received little scholarly attention is not surprising given the context of its introduction. Abzug submitted the Equality Act at the peak of the Watergate scandal, and the mainstream press largely ignored the bill. When scholars recount the bill's introduction, the negative reaction of a few gay rights activists has dominated the narrative. These activists supported the bill but resented Abzug's quiet initial introduction.Footnote 16 Indeed, the legislative failure of the Equality Act can render the unpassed bill unremarkable. Every iteration died without debate or hearings. Not until the early 1980s—after Abzug's departure—were public hearings held on a federal bill banning employment discrimination.Footnote 17 Abzug's bill has primarily been viewed as the precursor to bills like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). To the extent that scholars have discussed Abzug's bill, they note its symbolic character while disregarding the importance of that very symbolism.Footnote 18 But we should recognize the larger cultural influence of Abzug's bill.
I excavate Bella Abzug's allyship as a uniquely important instrument in the development of gay rights. At the national level, gay activists regarded visibility and consciousness raising as a significant achievement in a period otherwise bereft of substantive policy changes.Footnote 19 Indeed, activists urged gay people to come out in order to normalize homosexuality and mobilize a national constituency. Prominent figures like Harvey Milk felt that their presence as openly gay officials could mobilize and inspire people in small town America as well as San Francisco.Footnote 20 Measured by this same metric, Abzug reached individuals otherwise inaccessible to activist groups. The Equality Act served as the type of national event for which people such as Milk advocated. Indeed, even some of Abzug's cosponsors regarded the bill primarily as encouragement for gay people to “surface” nationally. The federal legislative process could encourage public testimonies that would “broaden public perception.”Footnote 21 Indeed, all the letters sent to Abzug's office, and the gay media coverage, reveal that Abzug's support profoundly resonated with gay Americans.
While histories of gay liberation have always included allies, they are typically treated as peripheral. No previous history has focused on the role of allies in gay mobilization and consciousness raising. With a few important exceptions, historians’ focus on activists has left allies as tangential figures.Footnote 22 They have primarily examined the movement as a bottom-up phenomenon, and have focused on local efforts to pass ordinances and repeal discriminatory state statutes.Footnote 23 Others have looked beyond local organizing, but these studies have remained intracommunal, focusing only on gay people's efforts to raise political awareness and community identity.Footnote 24
I instead evaluate what Abzug meant—culturally and politically—to gay people throughout the United States. Until recently, most scholarship has regarded the federal government as inherently oppositional to gay rights.Footnote 25 This article adds to the growing field of scholarship that complicates the relationship between gay activists and federal officials in the post–Stonewall era.Footnote 26 As a unique figure with broad political appeal, Abzug garnered the support of middle-class, reformist groups, as well as the countercultural gay press.Footnote 27 She also appealed to isolated individuals not traditionally incorporated into the national gay rights narrative. Thus, she represented a rare national unifying figure for gay people throughout the United States. Abzug's bill was important not only as a possible law, but as political tool and galvanizing moment.
In the 1970s, Bella Abzug was an exceptional political advocate for gay Americans. Her fame extended her gay rights message beyond formal activist organizations. Her intersectional political philosophy, national stature, and commitment to universal human rights made Abzug the most prominent mainstream ally of the movement. Both publicly and privately, she lent her status as one of America's most celebrated elected officials to the cause of gay rights. While the Equality Act never became law, it provided a cause around which gay Americans could rally. For people detached from formal activist networks, Abzug was a rare mainstream figure to contact. Letters gay Americans sent to Abzug testified to the emotional significance of her allyship. They expressed what Abzug's support meant to gay people in cities and the countryside. On a practical level, Abzug provided a benchmark, a gold standard against which activists could judge other politicians. In a period when most elected officials were enemies of—or indifferent to—the rights of gay people, Abzug stood apart.
Bella Abzug: “Minor Folk Heroine”
A radical, born in New York City in 1920, Bella Abzug often noted how the year of her birth coincided with the year women won the vote.Footnote 28 She served as member of Congress from New York City during the 1970s, and was known for her leftist ideals, political boldness, and no-nonsense personality. As Leandra Zarnow has argued, Abzug advocated a “pragmatic radicalism” and became a unique figure who sought to bring about sweeping reform from within the American political system. Her electoral politics were grounded in her leftist ideology. Influenced by her religious upbringing and Old Left worldview, Abzug was a “Socialist Zionist” who instinctively allied herself with oppressed groups and sought common cause across political ideologies.Footnote 29 She identified strongly as an outsider, both because of her gender and her Jewish heritage.
During the social upheavals of the postwar period, Abzug was involved in nearly every major social justice movement of the era. She was a feminist, civil rights attorney, and peace activist. As a young lawyer in 1950, Abzug traveled to Mississippi to serve as chief defense counsel for Willie McGee, an African American veteran accused of raping a white woman. Even at this early stage in her career, Abzug's intersectional politics led her to find common cause with oppressed peoples with whom she ostensibly had no connection.Footnote 30 Despite being elected in a period of increasingly fractured identity movements, Abzug's leftist ideology led her to consider overlapping spheres of oppression, and she “thought deeply about the interplay between race, class, sexuality, and gender.”Footnote 31 She also ran a congressional office wherein she encouraged her staff to promote political causes and push her on emerging issues, making her more open to new social movements compared to other politicians of her era.Footnote 32
Abzug's pro-gay sympathies also made her an outlier in the leadership of the women's movement. Sexual orientation caused divisions within feminist movements in the early 1970s. Lesbians, in their doubly oppressed status, were often alienated both in the male-dominated gay rights movement and the straight-dominated women's movement. While liberal feminists sought integration into pre-existing power structures and legislative reform, lesbian feminists often pursued separatist utopias free of men and patriarchy. The leadership of women's groups like NOW advocated for gender equality but viewed issues relating to sexual orientation with skepticism. Feminists like Betty Friedan saw lesbians as a political liability and felt oppression based on sexual orientation was unrelated to the broader movement.
Thus, in the early 1970s, a schism formed within the feminist movement between heterosexual feminists and the “woman-identified woman.” Historians generally agree that this schism, while at times overstated, hindered feminists’ unity and activism. The so-called “lesbian question” caused tensions within both radical and liberal feminist groups. However, anti-gay sentiment was not universal among feminists, and NOW's leadership did not always speak for its rank-and-file members. By the mid-1970s, NOW and other groups expressed solidarity with lesbian feminists and their struggle. Within this context, Abzug was an earlier advocate for gay people than many high-profile feminists. Indeed, Abzug's feminism occasionally diverged from her liberal feminist contemporaries precisely because she centered economic issues and overlapping systems of oppression in her political philosophy. Yet Abzug also did not feel comfortable with socialist feminists’ emphasis on consciousness-raising groups and instead favored institutional reforms. Thus, in a period when many feminist leaders struggled to understand or accept the connection between lesbian oppression and the women's movement, Abzug's ideology made her immediately sympathetic to the plight of gay Americans.Footnote 33
In 1970 Abzug defeated fourteen-year incumbent Leonard Farbstein for the Democratic nomination in New York's 19th congressional district. In her first campaign, she openly courted New York City's burgeoning “gay vote.” Her campaign headquarters was a short distance from the Stonewall Inn. Her campaign manager, Doug Ireland, himself a gay man, encouraged Abzug's solicitation of gay voters.Footnote 34 For gay New Yorkers, Abzug was a logical ally. Not only did she support gay rights, but her leftist politics had a broader appeal to many urban gay voters.Footnote 35 She pursued this voting bloc before other politicians recognized its importance. Despite occasional squeamishness with certain aspects of gay culture, Abzug's politics clearly aligned her with gay Americans. Still, Abzug was uneasy when Ireland sent her to Fire Island, where she encountered several men wearing only towels “held up by Bella buttons.”Footnote 36 Personally, Abzug was not always comfortable with some of the campier or more overtly sexual aspects of gay life. Nor was she a perfect and unproblematic ally. Richard Wandel, a member of New York's Gay Activist Alliance (GAA), fondly recalled Abzug's allyship, but noted her flaws:
[Abzug was], clearly, a friend—and I think truly so … a true friend—but she loved to call us “her little fagelas.” Alright? It's not as bad as “faggot,” alright, but in the Yiddish community, it's the form of referring to a gay person as being somewhat insignificant … So it's a time, in other words, when here's truly a friend who still has those kind of ideas.Footnote 37
Despite this mild homophobia, Abzug nevertheless understood the political struggle in clear terms. In a very public way, Abzug embraced her gay constituents. She glad-handed constituents in gay bars. When confronted with a group of semi-nude men during one campaign stop, Abzug won them over with humor, saying “I'm sorry that I'm not quite dressed for the occasion!”Footnote 38 Campaigning in this fashion solidified gay support, and several members of GAA began volunteering on her campaign.Footnote 39 In 1970, Abzug received endorsements from national periodicals such as GAY and The Advocate. Peter Ogren, managing editor of GAY, declared, “Bella Abzug is one of the most dynamic people I've ever met.” His magazine was thrilled at her “openly request[ing] the vote of New York's homosexual community.”Footnote 40 Such attention in gay publications allowed Abzug's reputation as a pro-gay advocate to spread far beyond her district. As early as her first year in office, Abzug had a nationwide reputation for supporting gay rights. Merle Miller referenced Abzug's allyship in his famous coming out essay in the New York Times.Footnote 41 In early 1971, Rolling Stone contacted Abzug for an article on gay liberation. The journalist noted that he kept “running across” Abzug's name and news of her “outspoken work” for gay people. “In the interviews I am conducting,” he told her, “I discover you are a minor folk heroine.”Footnote 42
Abzug continued her vocal support after her election, becoming arguably the most pro-gay member of Congress of the 1970s.Footnote 43 Abzug's commitment was even more important given her status as a national figure and reputation as a savvy political actor. By the end of 1971, a Gallup poll listed Abzug among the most admired women in the United States.Footnote 44 She gained a reputation as both principled and effective. She was a civil libertarian and an anti-imperialist. She supported gender equality and a robust welfare state. She earned her radical reputation with bold stances. On her first day in Congress, Abzug submitted a resolution to set a date for removal of all U.S. troops from Vietnam.Footnote 45 She was among the first members of Congress to call for Richard Nixon's impeachment. After the difficult campaign in 1972, she operated from a relatively safe congressional seat and could risk taking more left-wing positions than the average Democrat.Footnote 46 At the 1972 Democratic National Convention (DNC), she was among the few delegates who supported the gay rights plank in the party platform. At the 1974 National Women's Political Caucus, she encouraged women to withhold their votes from male candidates who did not support women's rights, racial equality, and gay rights.Footnote 47
Abzug was also known for her effectiveness in Congress. In 1974 she authored the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which banned discrimination against women who sought to obtain their own lines of credit, loans, and mortgages.Footnote 48 Alongside Shirley Chisholm (D-NY), Abzug wrote and oversaw the passage of the Comprehensive Child Development Act, which would have established a national daycare program were it not for a presidential veto.Footnote 49 As a subcommittee chair, Abzug oversaw implementation of the 1974 Privacy Act and Freedom of Information Act Amendments.Footnote 50 House Leader Tip O'Neill (D-MA) made Abzug a Democratic at-large whip, and by 1976 US News & World Report designated her the “third most powerful member of Congress.”Footnote 51
Both publicly and privately, Abzug established her bona fides as a friend to gay Americans. When members of GAA were arrested for public displays of affection in 1970, they called Abzug and she provided them with a lawyer.Footnote 52 In January 1971, Abzug and Congressman Ed Koch (D-NY) sent letters of support to the New York State Assembly's Special Committee on Discrimination Against Homosexuals. Members of GAA, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), NYC Mattachine, NYC Radicalesbians, and the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) were in attendance. Bob Kohler of GLF invoked Abzug's allyship during a speech criticizing the assemblymen: “Bella Abzug will walk the streets with me, will you?”Footnote 53 When 250 gay rights activists protested the New York Daily News in May of 1972, Abzug spoke at the demonstration.Footnote 54 If she could not attend protests, Abzug sent statements of support.Footnote 55 She petitioned the New York Supreme Court on behalf of Jim Owles of GAA. Owles had sued New York for refusing to certify GAA's incorporation due to the organization's name. Abzug defended GAA's purpose and name. Ever the lawyer, Abzug cited a lack of precedent in the state's denial of the certificate of incorporation.Footnote 56 Several gay rights activists attended an Abzug fundraiser in May 1972, and the Washington Post made the presence of a “drag queen” named Aurora Borealis the central focus of its coverage. Borealis supported Abzug because she was “the only one in Congress championing all minorities, including homosexuals.” While the Post found the presence of a drag queen noteworthy, Abzug seemed nonplussed. “With typical equanimity,” the Post noted, Abzug “shrugged her shoulders” about her gay supporters: “Everybody is people,” she told the reporter.Footnote 57
Abzug's reputation spread, and some gay Americans felt she was their only federal ally. Dorothy Dedman, representing a group called the Association for Homosexual Rights in the Military, contacted Abzug in December 1972. Dedman had lobbied various government offices in protest. Her letter catalogued the indifference she encountered from other federal officials. She had tried formal petitions of complaint, contacting the White House and even the Supreme Court. Ultimately, however, her group had received no assistance. Federal officials’ unresponsiveness had driven her organization's members to their breaking point. Dismayed, Dedman wrote to Abzug: “It has come to our attention that you are sympathetic to our cause.” She asked Abzug to endorse a list of four “demands.” The group wanted Abzug to support reversal of their discharges, support nondiscrimination legislation, endorse their right to privacy, and advocate repeal of the federal anti-sodomy law.Footnote 58 Abzug's response was prompt. She endorsed the group's demands, calling them a “matter of sound public policy” as well as constitutional law. Perhaps most importantly, she offered to keep the lines of communication open, encouraging Dedman to write again. It was entirely in keeping with Abzug's principles and her unwavering support for the rights of gay Americans. When she wrote to Dedman, it was at the conclusion of a year in which Abzug had fought for her political life. Redistricted out of her congressional seat, Abzug lost her 1972 primary only to remain in Congress after her opponent, William F. Ryan, died of cancer. She also wrote in a political climate where Democrats had suffered their worst defeat in decades.Footnote 59 Abzug offered her “full support” to Dedman even in dire political circumstances.Footnote 60
During her time in office, Abzug worked with gay activist organizations. She maintained an ongoing dialogue with New York's Mattachine Society.Footnote 61 From her first campaign, she had a strong working relationship with GAA.Footnote 62 A logical ally, GAA was not as radical as other organizations.Footnote 63 While pre–Stonewall homophile activists publicly performed a conservative politics of respectability, post–Stonewall radicals advocated systemic, revolutionary change.Footnote 64 In the early 1970s, gay liberation's more radical groups gave way to rights-oriented activism. The anticapitalist, anticolonial critique of groups like GLF made for splintering and unstable organizations. Subsequent groups like GAA and NGTF advocated for the development of gay political power rather than revolutionary change.Footnote 65 Reformers rather than radicals, GAA and NGTF worked toward a politics of inclusion and a rights-based equality.Footnote 66 Thus, gay reformers’ worldview coupled well with Abzug's “practical radicalism.” This is not to suggest the relationship was without friction. Peter Fisher, one of GAA's central members, chastised Abzug in March 1972 for failing to consistently mention gay people during her public statements. Somewhat vexed, Fisher stressed that Abzug could not continue to “leave gay people—and their votes—in the closet.”Footnote 67 Still, GAA and NGTF had an ongoing working relationship with Abzug's office.
Gay activists like Fisher pushed Abzug for even more visible allyship out of a desire for publicity for their cause. Behind the scenes, however, Abzug consistently advocated for gay people in her capacity as a congresswoman. In 1971, she supported GAA's efforts to pass New York City's Intro 475—a controversial municipal bill that would have added sexual orientation to New York City's Human Rights Law. She lobbied City Councilman Thomas Cuite directly, as he was the obstructionist member of the council delaying a public hearing on the bill.Footnote 68 That same year, she acted as an intermediary for GAA, encouraging Mayor John Lindsay to publicly endorse the measure. In her advice to Lindsay, Abzug pressured him using her typical rhetoric of human rights and solidarity. Other groups, including women's and civil rights organizations, had endorsed the bill. Lindsay's “silence,” she warned, “would be seen as tacit support for … discrimination that exists against homosexuals.” Abzug informed Lindsay that the activists felt his office had been “aloof” on gay rights. She urged Lindsay to meet with the organization to discuss the bill.Footnote 69
Abzug often lobbied on behalf of GAA's interests with powerful political figures. She chastised Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy, for example, in April 1972:
I was shocked to read newspaper accounts of an incident at the Inner Circle dinner April 15, at which members of the Gay Activist Alliance were reportedly stomped and beaten in public view while police refused to intervene or to let the victims identify their assailants.… I urge you to conduct an immediate investigation of this episode and to take whatever action the findings require. Homosexuals are human beings, citizens and taxpayers who are entitled to the full protection of the law. It is the responsibility of your department and the city administration to assure them of this protection and to guarantee that their civil rights are not violated.Footnote 70
In July 1975, Abzug petitioned Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger on behalf of Air Force veteran Leonard Matlovich. A decorated Vietnam veteran, Matlovich chose publicly to come out to fight the military's ban on gay service members.Footnote 71 Abzug protested Matlovich's dismissal, arguing both for Matlovich's right to privacy and the larger principle that sexuality had no impact on a person's right to employment.Footnote 72 Abzug also facilitated connections to other areas of government for gay rights activists. In 1976, at the DNC platform committee, Abzug placed Jean O'Leary of NGTF in contact with Midge Costanza, who would go on to serve in the Carter White House.Footnote 73 Abzug thus facilitated O'Leary and Costanza's partnership and—indirectly—the historic NGTF meeting that occurred in 1977. While the NGTF White House meeting did not yield long-term policy consequences, it is regarded as a historic first step both symbolically and in national gay groups beginning to be heard as a lobby.Footnote 74 Of course, while grassroots activism pressured the Carter administration, Abzug's role as an intermediary facilitated this connection.Footnote 75
In addition to directly interceding on behalf of activist groups, Abzug viewed herself as both a congresswoman and organizer, one who could introduce bills in order to encourage grassroots activism outside of Congress. She considered one of her primary functions as a radical within the halls of power to be raising political awareness for various oppressed groups. Abzug detailed her theory of change during her first re-election bid:
I have a greater appreciation of what can be done [in Congress] and I believe that the kind of activism I represent is unique. I think we need more of it, not less, and we need it in Congress. Before I was elected, I would organize and lead mass delegations to Washington in support of end the war resolutions that had been introduced by liberals. Now I do both: I introduce legislation or work inside to see that others do so, and then I mobilize support for it inside and outside of Congress.… My presence in Congress assures [organizers] that there is hope that other women and young people and other unrepresented groups can break through the barriers and have an equal voice in their government.Footnote 76
Thus, when Abzug became the first member of Congress to introduce gay rights legislation, she was not only introducing a potential law but providing a signal to gay Americans to mobilize around her efforts.
The Act Itself
Abzug quietly introduced the Equality Act in 1974, with only Ed Koch as cosponsor. On March 25, 1975, she reintroduced the bill to the new session of Congress with twenty-three cosponsors. Her office had worked directly with NGTF's Bruce Voeller and Sidney Abbott on the revised language of the bill. NGTF preferred the term “sexual preference” to “sexual orientation” because they felt it reflected a constitutionally protected right to choice and, therefore, privacy. Abzug's revised bill reflected NGTF's wishes.Footnote 77 The reintroduction of the Equality Act did garner some press coverage, and also satisfied activist organizations.Footnote 78 Much had changed since its first introduction. Richard Nixon had resigned, and Gerald Ford ascended to the presidency. In the 1974 Congressional elections, Democrats won landslide victories in the backlash over Watergate. Abzug's own 1974 re-election had been overwhelming. She garnered over 78 percent of the vote, and her landslide firmly established her seat as safe.Footnote 79
Her fight for gay rights remained a risky political stance, however, as Abzug had aspirations of higher office. By the time Abzug reintroduced the Equality Act, she had already begun an exploratory committee for the 1976 Senate campaign, which would ultimately end her political career.Footnote 80 Despite these ambitions, Abzug remained firm in her commitments. In March 1975, she became the first person to speak in favor of gay rights on the floor of the House of Representatives. In her speech, she argued for gay equality with the terminology of both civil rights as well as principles of full equality and inherent human rights:
This bill would ensure that gay individuals would be entitled to jobs, to housing, to education, to utilization of public accommodations, to participation in federally assisted programs, on the same basis as other Americans.… What is at issue here is equal rights for all Americans.… I have long been a proponent of measures which would ensure that these [Constitutional] principles are guaranteed for all individuals—women as well as men, married individuals as well as those who are unmarried, people of every nationality, ethnic groups [sic], race, or religion. Likewise, sexual orientation should be no barrier to equal treatment under the law. Homosexuals are a minority group whose concerns have too long been ignored. If the prejudice and discrimination that they suffer are to be eliminated it is essential that Congress enact measures such as the one I am introducing today. It has been estimated that there are 20 million homosexuals in the United States. But even if homosexuals were only a small minority, the considerations would be the same. These considerations are the right to privacy, and the right of a person to choose his or her own affectional or sexual preference without being denied other basic rights—principles which I firmly support.Footnote 81
Abzug lobbied Don Edwards (D-CA), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, for public hearings on the bill, but to no avail.Footnote 82 Because of the busing controversy, the subcommittee was unwilling to hold hearings “on any proposed amendments to the Civil Rights Act.”Footnote 83 From a legislative perspective, this is where the story of the Equality Act might end. However, her vocal reintroduction was not only an important example of Abzug's allyship, but the bill itself became a cause for gay people across the country. Correspondence to Abzug's office testifies to the bill's importance as a focal point. Letters show that Abzug's message of full equality resonated across the political spectrum. While the bill did not pass, Abzug's allyship motivated gay people across the United States to engage with the politics of gay rights. Additionally, the bill became the gold standard against which gay and lesbian press could gauge would-be political allies.
Abzug's advocacy mattered more than other members of Congress. Comparing the importance of Abzug's allyship against the similar positions of Congressman Ed Koch provides a useful juxtaposition. Like Abzug, Koch represented New York City and supported gay rights earlier than most politicians.Footnote 84 When Abzug argued on behalf of various gay rights causes, Koch was often one of the few members of Congress to make similar shows of support.Footnote 85 In 1974, Koch was the lone cosponsor of Abzug's initial bill. Indeed, once Abzug left Congress, it was Koch who briefly oversaw subsequent reintroduction in 1977.Footnote 86 And yet, for gay Americans, Abzug was the more popular ally. In press coverage of the bill, Koch never received the kind of attention Abzug did. When Koch was mentioned at all, his name was an afterthought. After Abzug, when Koch reintroduced the equivalent of the Equality Act in 1977, gay press coverage was perfunctory.Footnote 87 From 1974 until Abzug left Congress, gay media and the broader public plainly considered the legislation to be “Bella's Bill.”Footnote 88
Why did gay Americans and media fawn over Abzug and disregard Koch? For both stylistic and substantive reasons, Koch's support mattered less than Abzug's. Prior to his run for mayor of New York City in 1977, Koch lacked the name recognition of Abzug; he was not yet a national figure.Footnote 89 While Koch supported gay rights in principle, rumors about his sexuality and his political ambition made such backing a delicate issue. Koch's support fell within traditional liberal justifications of privacy rights. Unlike Abzug, a socialist who advocated for human rights in addition to civil liberties, Koch considered himself “a moderate and a pragmatist.” He was much further to the right than Abzug, and his worldview presaged the ascendancy of the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party.Footnote 90 On a personal level, Abzug and Koch disliked each other, and that animosity stemmed as much from their differing political ideologies as their personalities. Koch disliked Abzug's radicalism and advocated change “without destroying the system.”Footnote 91 After the Stonewall Uprising, which occurred in Koch's district in 1969, Koch criticized police raids in New York City not as immoral, but instead asserted it was not a technical violation of the law “to be homosexual or heterosexual, and the law should never be used to harass either.”Footnote 92 He remained consistent in this right-to-privacy argument even when he was the primary sponsor of the successor to Abzug's Equality Act. The solitary time Koch spoke about gay rights on the floor of the House, he did so only to clarify that the bill would not require affirmative action programs. He made no positive statements regarding the gay community, instead adopting the language of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, stating the government had “no business in the bedrooms” of its citizens.Footnote 93 As a leftist, Abzug was willing to make an affirmative case for the humanity of gay people in addition to privacy-based arguments.Footnote 94 It was Abzug's allyship that resonated with a more politically diverse contingent of gay people.Footnote 95
People wrote to Abzug to convey the meaningfulness of her advocacy. Letters shared stories of discrimination, testifying to the necessity of the Equality Act as legislation. Gay people emphasized the need for protection in public housing and employment by sharing their personal histories. They recounted ugly episodes of hate crimes and harassment. Expulsion from the armed forces was a recurring form of discrimination, and Abzug received several letters detailing dishonorable discharges based on sexual orientation. Many framed this injustice as an issue of equality as well as privacy, citing the sexual double standard that gay service members faced compared to their straight counterparts.Footnote 96 In 1975, Harold Pitcock of Amarillo, Texas, told Abzug that “a homosexual was beaten in the streets” there and a “local gay bar was burned down.” Despite the severity of the crimes, Pitcock related the indifference of local law enforcement.Footnote 97 Others relayed stories of being denied entrance to colleges because of their sexual identity.Footnote 98
Stories like these were evocative and harrowing. In sharing them, gay people attempted to turn terrible acts of hate into tools with which they could advocate for social change—and into ammunition for their intermediary to use in Azbug's advocacy for gay rights.Footnote 99 Sharing stories of assault, harassment, suicide, and police brutality was more than a cathartic experience; it was the documenting of reality and a meaningful political act.
Abzug's broad appeal inspired a wide array of gay Americans. Different aspects of Abzug's ideology appealed to different people. Some who reached out to Abzug were self-described gay rights activists who showed an understandable interest in Abzug's efforts. Others were drawn to Abzug's bill because of their feminist identity. Cheryl Reeves, who had come to her lesbian identity through the women's movement, praised the initial bill for protecting women in their sexuality, gender, and marital status. Originally from West Virginia, Reeves was “a novice in terms of gay politics” and regarded Abzug as her best possible ally.Footnote 100 Another woman exalted the bill because it would liberate all women, straight and gay alike, from the insidious reality that homophobia created in professional environments. Not only were gay women subject to harassment, she told Abzug, but men could weaponize threats of homophobic slander to force women into sex. She viewed the bill as a blow against this type of heterosexism, not just a civil rights bill for lesbians.Footnote 101
Abzug's appeal also reached gay Americans who fell squarely within traditional liberal politics. They advocated for privacy rights, the right to be left alone and free of state-sponsored harassment.Footnote 102 Others understood Abzug's allyship as a push for full, comprehensive equality and in keeping with expanding civil rights. The bill was an affirmation of their right to live publicly and proudly. Symbolically, they regarded Abzug's bill not as an attempt to protect their privacy rights, but a signal that their group had the ability to claim full equality in both the public and private sphere.Footnote 103 Additionally, Abzug's actions even inspired straight-identified people to advocate for gay rights. Marian Carr, a heterosexual New York teacher, said the bill had given her a “fresh reason to love” Abzug. She wanted to help, not for her sake, but for her gay students and friends.Footnote 104 In this way, Abzug also modelled allyship for straight Americans.
Abzug was even more important for people who otherwise had no outlet. Rural gay people saw Abzug as someone who could advocate on their behalf and provide connection to larger gay networks.Footnote 105 In regions of limited access to gay political movements and subcultures, affirmatively asserting their gayness was an important—albeit limited—form of identity work.Footnote 106 Abzug's intermediary status made her the go-between through whom people could channel this identity work. Both to bolster Abzug's sense of support and to affirm their sexual identities, nonmetropolitan gay people used correspondence to assert their existence. Representative of a broader trend in the letters, one wrote from Kansas to declare “I am openly GAY and feel very liberated.”Footnote 107 People from rural locales were glad to inform Abzug about gay existence “out here in the hinterlands.”Footnote 108 Authors asserted their presence in small towns, the Midwest, and Deep South.Footnote 109 Far removed from formal activist organizations, rural gay Americans could do little to pressure social change in the 1970s. Physically and economically isolated from groups such as Radicalesbians or NGTF, nonmetropolitan gay people had to pursue a different method of involvement. Even the relatively small act of writing to a congresswoman allowed gay Americans outside metropolitan spaces to participate in gay liberation.
Abzug was important for these rural gay people. For example, James Moody was isolated “both politically and socially” from the gay rights movement living in rural Tennessee. Though “aware” of gay organizations, he was unable to make contact throughout the 1970s. Moody overcame this reality by accessing gay newspapers, and it was here he first learned about Abzug's Equality Act.Footnote 110 “Reaching out to Bella Abzug,” he recalled, “seemed to be the only viable option at that time.” Letter writing was one of his “few means of working as an activist.”Footnote 111 In July 1975, Moody contacted Abzug to advocate, in a small but meaningful way, for gay rights at the national level.Footnote 112 For people unable to overtly organize, contacting Abzug was a practical option. Thus, while mainstream allies like Abzug may initially seem peripheral to the identity formation process, the letters instead show that mainstream resources were an important tool in identity work.
J. F. Hastings, a 25-year-old dairy farmer from Pennsylvania, regarded Abzug as a potential guide to the gay world. His town was stiflingly small, composed of fewer than 500 people.Footnote 113 Hastings wanted to help in the movement but did not know “how to become involved.” He turned to Abzug to facilitate connection. “My problem is that I have no contacts,” he confided. Unable to live openly in his rural community, Hastings felt he had “no way of knowing who to contact” within urban gay communities. He included a self-addressed stamped envelope, and requested that Abzug send him names, phone numbers, and addresses for gay organizations in the Pittsburgh area. He urged her to be discrete, as he felt it was “still unsafe to live openly in rural central PA.” Hastings longed to participate in a community with which he self-identified despite having virtually no knowledge or contacts. For him, writing to Abzug was a lifeline.Footnote 114
Gay people often used Abzug's office in this way, and the Equality Act raised her already visible profile. They frequently asked Abzug for copies of the bill to reference and redistribute.Footnote 115 Additionally, people asked for details about the larger political process. Some knew only vague particulars and wanted to know what the bill would do and when it would be reintroduced.Footnote 116 More politically savvy authors showed they were following the bill's progress with great interest. “Last I heard,” wrote Rick Troth of Pasadena, California, “it was sent to the Judiciary Committee. This was, however, some time ago.” Troth's curiosity extended beyond the standard legislative process and into the machinations of the political strategy: “I would like to know … what its present state in Congress is and what strategy as it were would be appropriate for seeking its passage.”Footnote 117 Far from mere letters of support, letter writers were trying to effect change at the federal level.
The Equality Act inspired such participation, and people volunteered to help in the limited capacity they could. Writing to Abzug in September 1975, one woman succinctly spoke for many in a national gay community, asking simply: “What can I do?”Footnote 118 Spurred to action, letter writers concluded it was not enough “to just write a letter to the Times,” but instead participate actively in the process.Footnote 119 Letters inquiring about the bill's status often asked for practical details to help its passage. Letter writers wanted information about legislative procedure, which subcommittee the bill would go to, and who was on that committee.Footnote 120 They wanted names of their representatives and “whatever key figures” they should write to.Footnote 121 Although their access to this kind information was limited, gay people used Abzug as an intermediary to stay informed and become involved in the endeavor. Abzug's office provided a standard response letter to these inquiries, informing people of the bill's status and providing the name of Congressman Don Edwards, the chair of the Judiciary Committee.
Gay Americans informed Abzug of their efforts on behalf of the bill. Even more common than letters that asked, “what can I do?” were letters informing Abzug about what was already being done. Curtis Ball wrote from Bowling Green, Kentucky, to tell Abzug of a newly formed local organizing effort. The group's first project was “writing our representatives in support” of Abzug's bill.Footnote 122 Cheryl Reeves wrote to Don Edwards, and vowed to send additional letters “to appropriate people.”Footnote 123 Jerry White of Tampa wrote to every congressional representative in Florida.Footnote 124 Others informed Abzug that they had contacted their members of Congress from Colorado, Maine, and Washington.Footnote 125 Multiple people wrote to Abzug from prison, citing their incarceration as a major handicap that would not stop them from advocating for the bill. Ronald Rose wrote from prison in Vacaville, California, promising to spread the word about Abzug's bill. “I write for several publications plus know many people across the nation,” he wrote. “Althouh [sic] I am a prisoner, my voice is heard.”Footnote 126
The Gold Standard
In both its original and reintroduced forms, Abzug's bill served as a cause célèbre in the gay and lesbian press. While mainstream media coverage was limited, some major outlets such as the New York Times noted the bill and Abzug's declaration that “all individuals, regardless of differences” were entitled to full equality.Footnote 127 In correspondence with Abzug, gay Americans showed that they were monitoring gay media to keep track of the bill, typically through the Advocate.Footnote 128 The magazine had a relatively large circulation by the mid-1970s and was one of the rare lifelines for gay news in smaller urban and suburban markets.Footnote 129 Others referenced short articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Time magazine. Regardless of where people heard about the Equality Act, the correspondence shows an engaged cohort of gay people eager to learn more about the national “gay cause.”Footnote 130 As the letters to Abzug attest, gay press coverage also sparked interest in the bill and mobilized letter writing campaigns.
Gay and lesbian media touted Abzug's Equality Act. A gay radio station in Dallas devoted an entire episode of programming to what it called the “Abzug Emancipation Proclamation.”Footnote 131 Articles in gay periodicals—both radical and reformist—from across the United States stressed the practical and symbolic importance of the bill. In December 1974, the Bay Area Reporter (BAR) summarized how the bill would intercede in existing laws. “Write to your member of Congress today,” BAR counselled its readers. “You may need this kind of law tomorrow.” Gay people were urged to engage with the process: “If YOU don't support it, who will?”Footnote 132 But the gay press coverage went beyond the practical implications of the bill. Gloria de la Rosa, writing in the radical Lesbian Connection, framed the bill's importance, not only as a matter of civil rights, but also of human dignity and an affirmation of personal identity. Advocating on behalf of the bill was in keeping with personal politics and, in her view, a way to “reaffirm our right to be you and me.”Footnote 133
Throughout the bill's various iterations, gay and lesbian publications updated readers about its status and instructed them on how best to participate. Detroit's Gay Liberator encouraged persistence, telling readers even Abzug felt it would “take at least several terms of Congress” before passage and would require “extensive pressure” from gay people.Footnote 134 The Washington, DC–based Blade reported that prospects were “not bright” in 1976 but noted that the bill's profile was on the rise and caused “almost daily” inquiries to Abzug's office. The paper encouraged gay people “to write, call, or visit your Congressman's office.” The Blade delved into the minutia of the committee process, telling readers to cajole their own member of Congress rather than committee members. Since most members of Congress did not feel gays were “politically strong,” it was important for “constituents [to] let them know that there is an interest in gay rights within their districts.”Footnote 135 Similar instructions came from gay publications throughout the country.Footnote 136 The NGTF Newsletter encouraged people nationwide to write to Congress with details of their experiences with homophobic prejudice.Footnote 137 Thus, the bill offered an incentive for gay Americans to refute congressmembers’ assumptions that they had no gay constituency. The assumption was somewhat fair, the Chicago-based Blazing Star noted, as most Representatives had “never been contacted by a gay constituent.” Abzug's act encouraged gay Americans to “explode this myth.”Footnote 138 The Equality Act provided gay and lesbian Americans with an opportunity to “come out” to their representatives.
And gay and lesbian Americans did just that. People petitioned their own representatives, not just Abzug. They asserted the existence of gay people in unexpected places. Letter writers told their representatives that gay people were members of their constituency. In April 1975, the Houston-based Contact disdainfully published a “non-committal response” from Congressman Bob Eckhardt (D-TX) regarding an inquiry about the bill.Footnote 139 Wisconsin resident Don Schweitzer wrote to Henry Reuss (D-WI) urging him to support Abzug's bill. “Perhaps you are not aware,” he told Reuss, “but the State of Wisconsin has a considerable number of homosexual and bisexual people … far more than you might imagine.”Footnote 140 An Illinois man told Philip Crane (R-IL) that the only reason he did not hear from more of his gay constituents was due to fear that “to even write their congressman on this subject might invite discrimination.” The very assumption that gay people did not live in Middle America was itself an argument for the necessity of the Equality Act.Footnote 141 Susan Henderson contacted Congressman William Cohen (R-ME) in March 1975. She urged Cohen to support the bill and offered to answer “any questions concerning the need of Gay residents” in his district.Footnote 142 In June 1975, James Dawson of Kansas City, Missouri wrote to Senator Thomas Eagleton (D-MO), imploring him to take up Abzug's bill in the Senate. Dawson wrote on behalf of himself and “the thousands of gay people in Missouri who do not want or cannot afford to reveal their names to you.” Dawson pressed Eagleton by referencing “the constant cloud of fear and risk of exposure” that most gay Americans lived under. He cited homophobic murders as well as suicide among gay Americans as proof of the bill's necessity.Footnote 143 Tony Pritchard, writing from Norfolk, Virginia, told the Judiciary Committee that discrimination “daily grinds the homosexual into the dust [and] makes a mockery of [American] values.” The Committee ought to know that gay people were everywhere: “We are your neighbors, your friends, your sons and daughters.”Footnote 144
Perhaps no one ruminated on the importance of the Equality Act more than radical lesbian feminist activist Jeanne Córdova. Founder of The Lesbian Tide and Human Rights Editor for the Los Angeles Free Press, Córdova was one of the most prominent lesbian voices of the 1970s.Footnote 145 While she was committed to the ideals of lesbian feminism, including the rejection of patriarchy, heterosexism, and monogamy, she nevertheless eschewed lesbian separatism. Thus, Córdova felt that when national figures embraced gay rights it was too significant an opportunity to ignore.Footnote 146 In the August 1974 Free Press, Córdova discussed the Abzug bill, its obstacles and its importance as a turning point in the gay rights movement. The bill's initial language, which included sex and marital status, was indicative of Abzug's status as a “long-time feminist advocate as well as ‘friend’ of the gay community.” Córdova told her readers the Equality Act was significant “on several levels.” The crucial element was that the bill represented “a qualitative leap of consciousness among gay people.” It was simultaneously a testament to the previous decades of struggle and a signal for the possibilities of full equality in the future. Córdova argued the bill represented a shift from the homophile movement's desire “to be left alone” toward a positive affirmation of the right to love. “The new wave of gay women and men are no longer content to fuck freely, we want to live freely,” Córdova told her readers. “We have developed an unnatural desire for secure jobs and equal protection under our laws.”Footnote 147
Two years later, Córdova would make use of Abzug's bill in a different way. Reflecting on the upcoming 1976 presidential election in The Lesbian Tide, Córdova used the bill as a litmus test for gay voters. President Gerald Ford did not deserve the gay vote, she reasoned, as he had “made no comment on the gay rights legislation of Abzug and Koch.” Governor Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, had at least acknowledged the legislation and indicated he “would probably” support it.Footnote 148 Since no iteration of the Equality Act would ever pass Congress, this kind of application was ultimately its most practical political utility. Over a decade before NGTF gave “report cards” to judge representatives’ standing on gay rights, gay and lesbian journalists employed Abzug's bill in a similar way.Footnote 149
San Francisco's BAR employed Abzug as the true measure of political allyship. The paper ran an editorial by California Senate candidate Tom Hayden in which he announced his support of Abzug's bill.Footnote 150 In the same issue, the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club endorsed Hayden over incumbent John Tunney, citing Hayden's support for the “Abzug amendment” as a key factor.Footnote 151 Hayden would lose that primary, and BAR subsequently endorsed Tunney after he came around on the bill.Footnote 152 The paper applied the Abzug standard at the presidential level as well. In an interview with BAR, presidential candidate Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN) would not commit to supporting Abzug's bill despite claiming to be an ally.Footnote 153 Conversely, BAR received commitment from Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. In May 1976, the Carter campaign ran a full-page ad in BAR declaring his support for gay rights generally and Abzug's bill specifically.Footnote 154 In an interview in the same issue, Carter said as president he would sign Abzug's Equality Act.Footnote 155 When the gay rights plank was dropped from the 1976 DNC platform, BAR feared Carter was betraying his gay supporters. One gay delegate urged patience, however, pointing to Carter's promise on the “Abzug bill.”Footnote 156 After the election, it seemed apparent that Carter had no intention of actively pursuing the legislation. In December 1976, San Francisco activist Wayne Friday wrote a scathing critique of Carter in BAR. Gay people, he said, had been betrayed, won over with Carter's false promise on the Equality Act. When Carter “made that commitment,’” Friday opined, “Ms. Abzug had already been defeated in a Primary Election.… Carter really went out on a limb by making that ‘commitment,’ didn't he[?]Footnote 157 Friday's condemnations proved somewhat overstated. The Carter administration would become the first to listen to its gay constituents and allow them access to the executive branch.Footnote 158
When Abzug lost her Senate race in 1976, gay Americans lost their most prominent friend in Congress. The gay press was dismayed by Abzug's defeat.Footnote 159 The Philadelphia Gay News bemoaned her primary loss because the victor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, had not shown similar commitment to gay rights.Footnote 160 Of course, federal gay rights legislation did continue after Abzug's exit, and future iterations of the bill received some attention in Congress. In 1978, with Ed Koch gone to become the Mayor of New York, Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ted Weiss (D-NY) briefly shepherded a bill. In 1979, Senator Paul Tsongas (D-MA) introduced a more limited rights bill in the Senate, which would have prevented discrimination in private employment but not housing or public accommodations. Two hearings were eventually held on the House bill in 1981 and 1982.Footnote 161 The allyship of Waxman, Weiss, and Tsongas is notable. Waxman, in particular, would go on to be a key ally in the federal response to the AIDS epidemic. However, the changing political landscape rendered the antidiscrimination bills moot. The rise of the New Right clearly impacted gay people's reaction to the various bills, and enthusiasm waned. BAR was grateful for the efforts of Senator Tsongas, but gone was the passionate reverence for the bill's symbolism.Footnote 162 Ideologically, Tsongas was not Abzug. And while his allyship was meaningful, the antigay backlash of the new political context rendered symbolic victories less satisfying for BAR, which noted the futility of his Senate bill. By 1979, BAR also reported a general disengagement among gay Americans who faced increasing attacks with the rise of the New Right. The antigay Family Protection Act, proposed by Senator Paul Laxalt (R-NV), had received 500 letters of support from constituents, whereas Tsongas's office had not received any. Backed by powerful cultural forces such as Reverend Jerry Falwell, BAR feared Laxalt's bill was much closer to becoming a political reality than Tsongas's.Footnote 163
BAR was similarly skeptical about the chances for the House bill introduced by Waxman and Weiss. The paper kept tabs on the bills and urged people to write to their representatives.Footnote 164 Still, while BAR continued to promote this activism, it acknowledged the reality of the situation. Just as the Senate bill was less likely to pass than its antigay counterpart, BAR noted that an increased number of cosponsors on the House bill was not particularly meaningful in the Reagan era. In 1981, when the bill was reintroduced yet again, BAR took a cynical tone, noting that 159 members of Congress had just signed on to reinstate the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). One of HUAC's primary functions, famously, had been the persecution of gay Americans during the height of the Red Scare.Footnote 165 The message, then, was clear: gay activists must soldier on, but the political realities of the Reagan era meant the Equality Act was a much more distant possibility than previously imagined.
Conclusion
In 1976, Daniel Patrick Moynihan defeated Abzug in an election that pitted Abzug's practical radicalism against an emerging conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Moynihan barely defeated Abzug: he won by less than one percent of the vote.Footnote 166 After her senate campaign, Abzug ran for mayor of New York City in 1977, losing to Ed Koch. She ran to fill Koch's vacant congressional seat in 1978 but lost to Republican S. William Green, who ran an underground smear campaign against her. Among other things, Green tried to establish Abzug as “Queen of the Lesbos.”Footnote 167 She never again held elected office. Various iterations of the federal gay rights bill were introduced by a handful of congressional allies and eventually by Barney Frank (D-MA), an openly gay member of Congress. In 1992, activists coalesced around ENDA. This narrower measure stood the best chance of passage since the Equality Act. However, conservatives in Congress and the ascendency of Third Way Democrats impeded its advancement. ENDA languished in Congress well into the twenty-first century.Footnote 168 In 2020, the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton County affirmed LGBTQ people's right to federal employment protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In an ironic and unlikely turn of events, conservative jurists on the Supreme Court—Justice Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, joining with the liberal justices—affirmed employment protections for LGBTQ Americans.Footnote 169 As of this writing, no such protections exist in housing or public accommodations, and the Equality Act remains unpassed.
The end of Abzug's congressional career, then, can be viewed partially as an inflection point. Having a charismatic, adept ally at the federal level had encouraged gay Americans to assert themselves as constituents. It had also given gay and lesbian media a fixed goal for federal legislation. The counterfactual this raises is what might have happened to the Equality Act had Abzug—a serious, popular, and fervent proponent of gay rights—risen to the United States Senate. While no single political figure could prevent America's rightward shift, Abzug at least represented a more forceful ideology than the incrementalist vision that supplanted her generation of Democrats.Footnote 170 For her part, Abzug continued to fight for all forms of civil and human rights until her death in 1998.
Abzug's efforts presaged an important phenomenon in the struggle for LGBTQ equality: the unique position of allies and intermediaries in the movement. America's rightward drift, as well as the emerging AIDS crisis, consumed most organizational energy throughout the 1980s. These factors left lobbying federal antidiscrimination legislation a lower priority and in the hands of increasingly professionalized and corporate organizations.Footnote 171 In some cases, such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), gay organizations simply failed to operate coherently as an effective lobbying group within presidential administrations.Footnote 172 At the same time, gay activists—in conjunction with local political allies—managed to pass rights ordinances throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s.Footnote 173 At the federal legislative level, mainstream allies were rare, but in a more secure position than LGBTQ organizations.
Indeed, LGBTQ people's most reliable federal allies in the late twentieth century were politicians much like Abzug: people in safe districts who espoused more leftist ideologies than their contemporaries. In 1995, the socialist congressman from Vermont, Bernie Sanders (I-VT), indignantly chastised Congressman Duke Cunningham (R-CA) for a flippant comment about “homos in the military.” Sanders, a longtime ally in the Abzug mold, demanded an apology from Cunningham on the floor of the House.Footnote 174 In 1996, while the House debated the Defense of Marriage Act, Representative John Lewis (D-GA) stood in vocal opposition. While many Democrats supported the bill, Lewis forcefully opposed it. Like Abzug, Lewis's politics were informed by his civil rights activism and an intersectional understanding of oppression. He called the bill a “slap in the face of the Declaration of Independence,” because it denied the “basic human right” of marriage. Like Abzug, Lewis’ allyship was based on principled solidarity:
You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love.… I will not turn my back on another American. I will not oppress my fellow human being. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I have known racism. I have known bigotry. This bill stinks of the same fear, hatred, and intolerance.Footnote 175
Although a legislative failure, the Equality Act is far from a historical footnote. Abzug's unique status as a national ally allowed her to expand participation in gay liberation, working with activists and engaging average gay people otherwise isolated from the movement. Her Equality Act encouraged a vigorous participation in a national conversation for full and comprehensive equality at a moment when formal organizations were divided, and when the movement began facing widespread backlash. It also created a benchmark against which gay and lesbian Americans could judge other would-be allies, helping them distinguish the committed few from false friends. The significance of Abzug's allyship challenges us to reconsider the importance of historical actors ostensibly outside gay rights organizations and to occasionally center the narrative of allies in histories of the movement.
