Catholic

Catholic Priest

b. April 30, 1947

“Sexuality and spirituality are seen … in continuous and consistent conflict.”

Fr. Bernárd Lynch is a gay Irish Catholic priest, activist and author. Renowned for his work with the HIV/AIDS community, he founded the first AIDS ministry in New York City in 1982. He was the first Catholic priest in the world in an out same-sex partnership.

Lynch was born in Ireland. His father was a deliveryman for the local railway. Lynch attended seminary outside of Belfast and was ordained in 1971 at Saint Colman’s Cathedral Newry. After a brief mission in Zambia, he returned to Ireland and came out to another priest, who suggested he go to the United States to pursue graduate studies.

After arriving in New York City in 1975, Lynch completed an interdisciplinary doctorate in counseling psychology and theology from Fordham University and New York Theological Seminary. He began serving as a priest at Saint Gabriel's parish in the Bronx. For 15 years, he served as theological consultant to Dignity New York, an organization for LGBT Catholics and their friends.

In 1982, during the height of the AIDS epidemic, Lynch founded the city’s first AIDS ministry program at Dignity New York. The ministry was available to all, irrespective of sexual orientation, race or religion. It aided thousands of people with HIV/AIDS, providing spiritual healing by reconciling individuals with their faiths and their families and by guiding them through their deaths. He also served for 10 years on the Mayor of New York's voluntary Task Force on HIV/AIDS. Despite intense opposition, Lynch became increasingly visible and outspoken as the epidemic worsened. He publicly campaigned and testified for the 1986 New York City bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in jobs and housing.

Lynch pursued his advocacy at great personal sacrifice. In June 1987, the archdiocese denied him his canonical rights, thus banning him from serving as a priest in the United States. Shortly thereafter, a false sexual abuse charge was filed against him. Cross-examination in court revealed that politically motivated actors had forced the accuser to testify against his will. Lynch was fully exonerated.

In January 2017, Lynch married his longtime partner, Billy Desmond, in Ireland. On their wedding day, the New York City Councilhonored Lynch’s service to the LGBT and AIDS communities with a Proclamation. In 2019 the Irish government presented him with a Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor bestowed on citizens abroad.

Lynch has published a number of books and articles. His life and work are featured in three documentary films: “AIDS: A Priest’s Testament,” “A Priest on Trial” and “Soul Survivor.”

Award-Winning Actor

b. June 26, 1970 

“I know I should've come out sooner and I'm sorry for that. Especially when I think about the possibility that I might have made a difference in someone's life.”

Sean Patrick Hayes is an actor, singer, comedian and producer best known for his role as Jack McFarland on NBC’s award-winning sitcom “Will and Grace.” The role has earned him an Emmy, an American Comedy Award, four Screen Actors Guild Awards and numerous nominations.

Hayes was raised Roman Catholic by his single mother in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn. He studied piano performance at Illinois State University but left before graduating. He became the music director of a theater in St. Charles, Illinois, and worked as a classical pianist.

Hayes practiced improvisation at The Second City in Chicago, the renowned comedy enterprise that launched many of the industry’s top talents. In 1995 he moved to Los Angeles to work as a stand-up comedian. 

Hayes made his film debut in “Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss” in July 1998. Later that year, he was cast as the flamboyant, humorously self-obsessed gay character, Jack, in the new television comedy series, “Will and Grace.” The groundbreaking sitcom was one of the first widely broadcast programs to feature LGBT characters consistently and portray them positively.

“Will and Grace” ran for eight seasons (188 episodes) and garnered numerous awards and accolades. The series was revived in 2017 with its original core cast. 

In 2001 Hayes’s performance on “Will and Grace” earned him an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Between 2001 and 2006 he earned seven consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations for the role. He also received six Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor, an American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Male in a Television Series, four SAG Awards and multiple Satellite Award nominations for his work on the show.

In 2004 Hayes founded his own television production company, Hazy Mills Productions, which has produced popular NBC shows such as “Grimm” and “Hollywood Game Night.”

Hayes’s Broadway credits include “An Act of God” and “Promises, Promises,” for which he received the 2010 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. He hosted the live Tony Awards show that same year.

Although Hayes portrays a gay character on “Will and Grace,” he did not come out until he was interviewed by The Advocate in 2010. In 2018 he told the Hollywood Reporter, “I didn't have the DNA or the ability to be one spokesperson for an entire group of people.”
 
In 2013 Hayes received an honorary Ph.D. from Illinois State University. In 2014 he married his longtime partner, Scott Icenogle.

Pioneering Activist

b. March 4, 1948
d. June 4, 2005

“I wanted to do something special, to have an impact on the world.”

Jean O’Leary was a pioneering LGBT activist who founded Lesbian Feminist Liberation, one of the first gay women’s rights groups in the United States. She also organized the first National Coming Out Day in 1987 with Rich Eichberg.

Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, O’Leary joined the Sisters of Holy Humility of Mary after graduating from high school. She left the convent after earning a degree in psychology from Cleveland State University and moved to New York City to pursue a doctorate at Yeshiva University. In New York she became involved in the budding gay rights movement. 

O’Leary was an early member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Gay Activists Alliance. She created Lesbian Feminist Liberation to draw attention to gay issues related to women. In 1977 O’Leary organized the first meeting of gay rights activists in the White House with the help of Midge Costanza, an out lesbian on the president’s staff. During the event, O’Leary said, “This is the first time … a president has seen fit to acknowledge the rights and needs of some 20 million Americans.”

Her involvement in politics led O’Leary to become one of only three openly gay delegates to the 1976 Democratic National Convention. She served on the Democratic National Committee for 12 years and was the chair of the committee’s Gay and Lesbian Caucus from 1992 to 2002. 

During the 1980s, O’Leary was active with National Gay Rights Advocates, the largest nationwide LGBT group in America. It was among the first groups to publicly respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis, advocating for access to legal support and treatment. Sean Strub, founder of POZ magazine, said O’Leary’s early AIDS activism, “particularly in expediting access to new treatments, saved many lives.”

O’Leary and other gay and lesbian activists of the era have been criticized for not including transgender issues in their fight for equality. O’Leary later apologized, saying, “How could I work to exclude transvestites and at the same time criticize the feminists who were doing their best back in those days to exclude lesbians?”

O’Leary died of lung cancer at age 57, leaving behind a partner, a son and a daughter. The longtime AIDS activist Bob Hattoy said, “Jean taught gay men about feminism, she taught lesbians about AIDS, she taught feminists about gay and lesbian issues, and she taught Democrats about everything.” 

Activist and Author

b. July 18, 1948
d. January 10, 2016

“It’s the job of the young to push the societal envelope.”

Jeanne Córdova was a pioneering feminist and lesbian rights activist who helped lead the LGBT movement on the West Coast of the United States. She launched numerous civil rights and community organizations. For most of her life, she worked as a journalist and author. Her autobiography, “When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir of Love and Revolution,” was published in 2011. 

Born in Germany of Mexican and Irish-American decent, Córdova was the second of 12 children. She attended high school in California, then joined the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a convent that embraced radical changes to the Catholic Church and protested the Vietnam War. Her experience there inspired her to leave to become a community organizer. At 22 she earned a master’s degree in social work from UCLA. 

Córdova’s advocacy began as president of the L.A. chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian rights organization in the United States, where she helped open the first lesbian center in Los Angeles. She also launched The Lesbian Tide, the first American publication to use “lesbian” in its title.

Córdova went on to organize influential women’s events, including the first National Lesbian Conference. She became the human rights editor of the Los Angeles Free Press and served as president of the Stonewall Democratic Club. She worked to defeat a proposition to ban openly gay and lesbian teachers from California public schools. 

Córdova also helped create the Gay and Lesbian Caucus of the Democratic Party and became one of 30 openly lesbian delegates to the 1980 Democratic National Convention. She created the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Press Association and was a founding member of the Connexxus Women’s Center, where she worked to defeat a 1986 proposition that would have quarantined people with AIDS. 

Among other organizations, Córdova cofounded the Lesbian Legacy Coalition and the Lesbian Legacy Wall at ONE Archives in Los Angeles. 

Throughout her life, she wrote passionately about women’s and lesbian issues. Her work has appeared in popular publications nationwide, including The Advocate, ICON, The Washington Blade and countless others. In 1981 she published the Community Yellow Pages, the first and largest LGBT business directory in the country. She also started Square Peg, a queer cultural magazine, in 1992.

Córdova has received numerous awards. In 1978 she became the first out lesbian to appear in Who’s Who in America. 

Córdova spent 25 years with her partner, Lynn Harris Ballen, a feminist radio journalist. Before she died, Córdova donated $2 million to the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.

Pioneering Activist

b. June 26, 1941

“I thought I’d have to live my life with this deep, dark secret.”

Virginia “Ginny” Apuzzo is a New York native and a former nun who played a pivotal role in LGBT civil rights and the fight against AIDS during the 1980s and ’90s.

Apuzzo joined the Sisters of Charity in the Bronx when she was 26, but left after the Stonewall riots (1969) to come out publicly as a lesbian and establish herself as an activist, educator and civil servant.

“I read about Stonewall in the newspaper,” Apuzzo said in “Stonewall Uprising,” a PBS documentary. “Here I’d thought I was the only one ... it was as if suddenly a brick wall opened up.”

Apuzzo joined the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and served for many years as its executive director, working to include LGBT issues in the 1976 Democratic Party platform. In 1978 she cofounded the Lambda Independent Democrats.

In 1980 she became one of the first openly lesbian delegates at the Democratic National Convention when she co-authored the first gay and lesbian civil rights plank for the Democratic Party. In 1997 Bill Clinton appointed her to the White House senior staff as assistant to the president for administration and management, making her the highest-ranking out lesbian in the federal government.

Apuzzo joined the Women’s Caucus, an arm of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, with her partner, Betty Powell, who was the first black lesbian on the group’s board. The two became increasingly vocal about lesbian rights after butting heads with well-known feminists whom they accused of insufficiently embracing lesbians in the women’s movement.

It was during her tenure with New York City’s Department of Public Health that Apuzzo became one of the earliest, most vocal female AIDS activists in the country. In New York she created a volunteer infrastructure to address the community’s needs and established one of the first telephone hotlines to help with AIDS education and resources. Apuzzo testified at the first congressional hearing on AIDS, blasting the government’s lax response to the virus, and continued to lobby passionately for federal funds.

“It was the most tragic time of my life,” she said, “each year seeing whole segments of the gay male activist community wiped out.”

In 1985 New York Governor Mario Cuomo named her vice chair of the New York State AIDS Advisory Council. She publicly challenged pharmaceutical companies over the rising cost of AIDS drugs and helped rewrite insurance policies. Years later, she worked with President Clinton to secure disability benefits for people living with the disease.

Apuzzo was a tenured professor at Brooklyn College. In 2007 New York Governor Eliot Spitzer appointed her to the Commission on Public Integrity, where she worked until she retired.

Hero

b.  August 16, 1923

d.  November 25, 2005

“I became aware that in spite of all that I had imagined, the true liberation was for other people.”

Pierre Seel was deported for being gay from France to a German concentration camp during World War II. He is known for speaking out about his Holocaust experience.

Seel was born to an affluent Catholic family in northern France, near the German border. In 1939, while in a public garden known for gay cruising, his pocket was picked. Seel reported the theft to police and was placed on a list of homosexuals, even though being gay was legal.

In 1941, during the German occupation, Seel was deported along with other French gays to the Schirmeck-Vorbruck concentration camp. He was tortured, starved and raped. He witnessed his boyfriend mauled to death by German shepherds. On his prison uniform, Seel was required to wear blue fabric that denoted clergymen, prostitutes and homosexuals.

After six months, Seel was removed from the camp and forced to enlist in the German army. After four years, he deserted and surrendered to the Allies, who returned him to France. Unlike others, gays did not receive compensation or acknowledgment from France for their concentration camp hardship.

In 1950, Seel entered into a marriage of convenience and never told his wife of 28 years that he was gay. They had three children.

In 1982, Seel responded to Bishop Leon Elchinger’s anti-gay remarks in a letter published in a French gay magazine. He advocated for France to honor gays persecuted by Nazis. In 1994, his memoir “I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual” was published. Seel’s story was featured in the documentary “Paragraph 175” (2000). In 2003, he received recognition as a victim of the Holocaust by the International Organization for Migration.

Seel spent his last 12 years with his partner, Eric Feliu, in France.

Poet

b. June 5, 1898

d. August 19, 1936

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”

Federico Garcia Lorca was a celebrated Spanish poet and dramatist. He is internationally recognized as one of the most important poets of the 20th century.

Born in Grenada, Lorca was the son of a wealthy farmer and a pianist. He attended the University of Grenada to study law, but soon abandoned his studies to pursue poetry and theater.

In 1919, Lorca moved to Madrid, where he organized local theatrical performances and read his poetry in public squares. He wrote “The Butterfly’s Evil Spell” (1920), “Book of Poems” (1921) and “Gypsy Ballads” (1928), which garnered him international fame. Lorca became associated with a group of artists known as Generation 27, which included filmmaker Louis Bunuel and artist Salvador Dali.

In 1929, Lorca moved to New York City to study English at Columbia University. The experience inspired him to write “Poet in New York,” which was published posthumously. The book explores the oppression of minorities, a common theme in his works.

Lorca returned to Spain during a period of political turmoil. He founded a theater company and wrote the well-known tragedies “Blood Wedding” (1933), “Yerma” (1934) and “The House of Bernarda Alba” (1936).

Spain’s traditional Catholicism caused Lorca to conceal his sexual orientation. While he never used the word homosexual, many of his poems speak of his “secret desires.”

Shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Lorca was arrested by right-wing nationalists because of his outspoken liberal views. Two days later, he was murdered. His books were publicly burned in Grenada’s Plaza del Carmen and his works were banned in Spain. Controversy still surrounds the details of and motives for his death.

Comedian

b. November 9, 1947

“Coming out as a lesbian onstage is still a very political act; if it weren't, more women would do it.”

Kate Clinton is a political humorist with a gay and lesbian perspective. She is an actor, commentator and advocate for social causes.

Clinton was raised in a conservative family in Buffalo, New York. She graduated from La Moyne College and received a master’s degree from Colgate University. She taught high school English for eight years.

In 1981, Clinton started out in stand-up comedy, drawing on her Catholic upbringing, lesbianism and politics. Because of her controversial content, many major venues refused to book her. As her popularity grew, comedy clubs became more open to her material.

A former CNN commentator, Clinton has written for The Huffington Post, The Advocate and The Progressive. She has performed for LGBT organizations including the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates and Equality Forum. In 1999, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Clinton has released more than 10 comedy CDs and DVDs and has authored three books. In 2005, she was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for her second book, “What the L?” She was a Broadway cast member of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (2001) and “The Vagina Monologues” (2002). Clinton has appeared in television series and films, and was one of four lesbian comedians featured in the documentary “Laughing Matters” (2003).

Since 1988, Clinton has lived with her partner, Urvashi Vaid, in New York City and in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Theologian

b. September 2, 1925
d. September 22, 2015

"Jesus opens the possibility of bringing gay relationships within the compass of healthy and holy human love." 
    
One year after John McNeill published "The Church and the Homosexual" (1976), a book offering a new theological look at homosexuality, he received a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican. Religious authorities ordered McNeill, an ordained Jesuit priest, to halt public discussion on the topic.

McNeill's book reveals original text from the New Testament detailing Jesus's ministry to homosexuals. McNeill argues that the original Greek text of Matthew 8: 5-13 narrates Jesus's healing of a man's sick gay lover. The Latin translation of this passage describes Jesus's healing of a master's servant.

In compliance with the order from the Vatican, McNeill kept a public silence while he ministered privately to gays and lesbians. The Catholic Church, in 1988, submitted a further order to McNeill to relinquish his ministry to homosexuals. When McNeill refused, the Church expelled him from the Jesuit order.

McNeill enlisted in WWII at age 17. German forces captured him while he was serving under General Patton in 1944. He spent six months as a POW before the war's end.

After graduating from Canisius College in 1948, McNeill entered the Society of Jesus. In 1959, he was ordained a Jesuit priest. Five years later, he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy with honors and distinction from Louvain University in Belgium.

McNeill began teaching in the combined Woodstock Jesuit Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in 1972. He co-founded the New York City chapter of Dignity, an organization of Catholic gays and lesbians. In addition to his teaching duties, he served as Director of the Pastoral Studies program for inner-city clergy at the Institutes of Religion and Health.

An accomplished author, McNeill's works include "Taking a Chance on God: Liberating Theology for Gays and Lesbians, Their Lovers, Friends and Families" (1988) and "Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The Spiritual Journey to the Fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians and Everybody Else" (1995). He has also published influential articles in The New Dictionary of Spirituality and The Journal of Pastoral Care.

McNeill led the New York City Gay Rights Parade as Grand Marshall in 1987. He has received numerous awards, including the National Human Rights Award in 1984, the 1997 Dignity/USA Prophetic Service Award, and the People of Soulforce Award in 2000.