Government

Entrepreneur

b. August 19, 1919
d. February 24, 1990

“Failure is success if we learn from it.”

Malcolm Forbes was an American businessman and publisher of Forbes, a magazine founded by his father in 1917. 

The son of a Scottish-born journalist and an American mother, Forbes was born in Brooklyn and grew up in New Jersey. After graduating from Princeton as a political science major, Forbes enlisted in the Army in 1942 and served in Europe as a machine gunner in the 84th Infantry Division. He rose to the rank of staff sergeant before he was wounded in combat. He received both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for his heroism. 

Forbes served as a borough councilman and later as a state senator in New Jersey. He ran unsuccessfully for New Jersey governor in 1957. It was publishing, not politics, however, that would eventually cement his fame and fortune. 

Forbes acquired control of the family business in 1964, cultivating Forbes magazine into one of the most successful print publications in the world, covering real estate, finance and business. The magazine, which is published in print and online, is still owned and operated by his family. 

During the 1980s, Forbes became known for his lavish lifestyle and celebrity-studded parties. He regularly discussed his holdings, which included private jets, yachts, an international art collection and homes around the world. Actress Elizabeth Taylor co-hosted his legendary 70th birthday party in Morocco, for which the rich and famous were flown in on private jets. Forbes also gave millions of dollars to charity. His worth was estimated between $400 million and $1 billion.

In addition to life as a publishing mogul, Forbes became the first person to fly coast to coast in a hot air balloon; he also flew over Beijing, setting a world record. 

It was only after his death in 1990 that he was outed in a story called “The Secret Gay Life of Malcolm Forbes,” written by Michelangelo Signorile. In the controversial exposé Signorile asked, “Is our society so overwhelmingly repressive that even individuals as all-powerful as the late Malcolm Forbes feel they absolutely cannot come out of the closet?” The Forbes family has always denied the allegations. 

Forbes was married for 39 years and had five children.

Israeli Gay Pioneer and Scientist

b. October 18, 1940

“You no longer have to be ashamed. You can even be elected.”

A pioneering advocate for LGBT rights in Israel, Uzi Even became the first openly gay member of the country’s parliament, the Knesset, in 2002. He is a professor emeritus of physical chemistry at Tel Aviv University, from which he earned a Ph.D. in physics and molecular chemistry. 

Even worked for the Israeli army at the Nuclear Research Center. When the Israel Defense Forces discovered he was gay, Even was stripped of his security clearance and his rank as a lieutenant colonel. His testimony about the matter led Yitzhak Rabin’s government to change the law in 1993, thus allowing open homosexuals to serve in any position in the armed forces. The same year, under President Bill Clinton, the U.S. Department of Defense issued "Don't Ask Don't Tell," which remained official military policy until 2011.

Even first ran for a seat in the Knesset in 1999. He lost, but in 2002 was appointed to a vacant seat. During his tenure in parliament, he helped to advance LGBT rights and brought attention to important social issues related to the gay movement. 

Even also helped to advance same-sex spousal protection on the university level, advocating for health care coverage for his partner. He brought same-sex adoption into the spotlight when he and his partner became the first gay couple in Israel to legally adopt (by then) their 30-year-old foster son—a young man who had been kicked out of his home at 16 for being gay. “We opened a door, … a window for others,” said Even’s son, Yossi Even-Kama, “an opening of hope for the couples that will follow.”

In 2006 Even joined the Labor Party in hopes of further advancing LGBT rights. “As a community, it is important that we be involved in a major party,” he said. 

Six years later, Even set another legal precedent when he divorced his partner, whom he married in Canada in 2004. Because the Rabbinical Court does not recognize same-sex marriage, the divorce was granted in Family Court, paving the way for both straight and gay couples to bypass religious law in marriage matters. 

Even hopes his coming out and public advocacy on behalf of LGBT people will inspire others to do the same. “It’s a symbolic act,” he said. “I’m the one breaking the glass ceiling.” 

LGBT rights in Israel are the most advanced in the Middle East. Israel is the only Middle Eastern country to recognize same-sex marriage.

Presidential Adviser

b. November 28, 1931
d. March 23, 2010

“It is the link from the present to the past that gives us a spirit to address the future.”

Margaret “Midge” Costanza was a political activist and an adviser to President Jimmy Carter. When Carter ran for president in 1976, Costanza served as co-chair of his New York campaign, delivering a fiery speech for him at the Democratic National Convention. When Carter was elected, she served as the assistant to the president for public liaison with an office next to the Oval Office. At the White House she earned the nickname “Window on America.”

Born in New York to Italian immigrants, Costanza began her political career as a volunteer for W. Averell Harriman’s gubernatorial campaign; she later served as executive director of Robert F. Kennedy’s 1964 Senate campaign. 

Costanza became an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights and, in 1973, became the first woman elected to the Rochester (N.Y.) City Council. She then served as vice mayor of the city from 1974 to 1977. 

Costanza invited members of the National Gay Task Force to the White House during Anita Bryant’s controversial Save Our Children campaign. She also hosted a group of 30 women in protest of the president’s opposition to federal abortion funding. She was featured on the cover of Newsweek with the headline “Woman in the White House.”

After resigning from her White House post, she coached political candidates in public speaking and worked to get Barbara Boxer elected to the Senate in 1992. California Governor Gray Davis appointed Costanza as a special liaison to women’s groups, a position she held until 2003. 

Costanza was a professor at San Diego State University, where she worked with the political science and women’s studies departments. She created the Midge Costanza Institute at the University of California at San Diego to help young people engage in political and social activism. 

Costanza was also active with an AIDS research organization and fought for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. She worked tirelessly to elect more women to public office. In 2005 she joined the San Diego district attorney’s office as public affairs officer focused on the prevention of elder abuse. 

In 2011 she was inducted into the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame at the Women’s Museum of California.

U.S. President

b. April 23, 1791
d. June 1, 1868

“The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.”

James Buchanan was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. A lawyer and a Democrat, he represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives and later in the Senate. He served as minister to Russia under President Andrew Jackson, secretary of state under President James K. Polk and minister to Great Britain under President Franklin Pierce. 

Buchanan was born into a well-to-do family in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Dickinson College, where he was known as a gifted debater. 

During his presidency, Buchanan led a country sharply divided over the issue of slavery. The Supreme Court issued the controversial Dred Scott decision two days after he took office, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to ban slavery in the territories. It forced Buchanan to admit Kansas as a slave state, which upset Republicans and alienated some members of his own party. 

Abraham Lincoln denounced Buchanan for failing to support the elimination of legal barriers to slavery. Buchanan vetoed both the Morrill Act and the Homestead Act, which Lincoln later signed into law. Near the end of his term, Buchanan declared that Southern states had no legal right to secede, but that the federal government could not actually prevent them from doing so.

Personally opposed to slavery, Buchanan was an ardent Unionist. He undertook numerous efforts to avoid a civil war, which Lincoln as president-elect opposed.

A lifelong bachelor, Buchanan is believed to have had a long-term relationship with William Rufus King, who served as vice president under Franklin Pierce. The two men lived jointly in the same boardinghouse in Washington for a decade and regularly attended functions together. Andrew Jackson referred to them as “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy,” both popular euphemisms for effeminate men. Biographer Jean Baker believes that King’s nieces destroyed love letters between the men for fear that the nature of their “special friendship” might be revealed. At age 26 Buchanan was engaged briefly to a woman.

A memorial honoring Buchanan was unveiled in 1930 in Washington. It bears the inscription: “The incorruptible statesman whose walk was upon the mountain ranges of the law.” Counties in Iowa, Missouri and Virginia are named after him.

Activist and Government Official

b. October 14, 1961

“Coming out isn’t easy, but it is getting easier with each passing day.”

Brian Bond was an executive director of the Victory Fund and, in the Obama administration, became the first openly gay deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

A Missouri native, Bond got his start in politics as the executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party, where he helped to elect Democrats in local and state elections.

Bond told The Washington Blade that growing up in rural Missouri, he was always looking for openly gay role models and often came up short. “Coming out for me was extremely hard and honestly terrifying, as I know it has been for so many of us,” he said.

Bond searched the local library for what it meant to be gay and came out when he was 16. “When I finally had the courage to utter the words out loud,” Bond said in an interview, “it was to my priest during a face-to-face confession.” 

From 1997 to 2003, Bond served as the second executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a nonpartisan political action committee (PAC) dedicated to electing openly LGBT candidates for public office. During his tenure, the Victory Fund was instrumental in helping Tammy Baldwin win a Congressional seat. She was the first out lesbian elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Bond went on to serve as executive director of the Democratic National Committee’s Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council and then as National Constituency Director for the Obama for America Campaign in Chicago, before joining the White House staff.

In his 30s, Bond discovered he was HIV positive. “For some of us,” he said, “we don’t come out once, but twice.” He became an advocate for AIDS education, declaring that a mobilized community can reduce the number of people who become infected. Bond has written about his experiences as a gay man, a Democrat and an AIDS survivor in many nationally known publications. 

In 2016 Bond served as deputy CEO for public engagement for the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Prime Minister of Luxembourg

b. March 3, 1973

“I didn’t get up one morning and say, ‘Hey, I’m gay.’ It’s not a choice.”

Xavier Bettel is the prime minister of Luxembourg. A member of the Democratic Party, he became the country’s first openly gay leader in December 2013 and one of only three openly gay world leaders. Previously, Bettel served as mayor of Luxembourg city and also as a member of the city’s chamber and council. 

Bettel has described Luxembourg as a place where “people do not consider the fact of whether someone is gay or not.” The tiny European country—one of the smallest in the word with just over half a million people—is a leading financial and banking center, second only to the United States in investment funds.

As prime minister, Bettel has advocated for teaching ethics instead of religion in public schools. He is credited with reinvigorating the political scene with progressive reforms and was instrumental in passing same-sex marriage laws in the predominately Roman Catholic country. He has been vocal on social media about LGBT rights.  

Under Bettel’s leadership, Luxembourg legalized same-sex marriage in 2014. One year later, after the marriage reforms went into effect, Bettel married his partner, the architect Gauthier Destenay. Bettel is the first openly gay European Union leader and only the second gay leader in the world to marry. The couple have been civil partners since 2010. “I wish for everyone to be as happy as I am,” Bettel told a crowd gathered on his wedding day. 

Born in Luxembourg city, Bettel graduated from the University of Nancy where he received a masters degree in public and European law, followed by a post-graduate diploma in advanced studies of political science and public law. He hosted a weekly television talk show early in his career.

Bettel came out publicly in 2008.

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.

U.S. General

b. 1963

“Anyone who has ever busted through a glass ceiling got cut a little.”

Tammy Smith is the first out lesbian general in the U.S. Army. She was named a brigadier general in 2012 and formally promoted during a ceremony at the Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. She became the commanding general of the 98th Training Division.

Born in Oakland, Oregon, Smith began her military career when she received a four-year Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 1986 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps.

During her 30-year military career, Smith has served as a platoon leader in Panama, a logistic support detachment commander in Costa Rica and a company commander in South Carolina. She was stationed in Afghanistan, where she was chief of Army Reserve affairs during Operation Enduring Freedom.  

Smith holds a Doctor of Management in Organizational Leadership from the University of Phoenix and received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Lincoln University. She has been decorated with numerous medals and awards and is in the ROTC’s Hall of Fame. 

Smith married Tracey Hepner in 2012. The ceremony, held at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, was officiated by a military chaplain just two years after same-sex marriage was legalized in the nation’s capital. 

“For me it’s really been transitional,” Smith said in an interview, “to go from being 100 percent in the closet to being globally gay.” She continued, “She [Tracey] has been so wonderful in helping me cut loose the shackles of those 26 years in the military, of having to hide a part of myself. I don’t live a double life anymore.” 

Hepner founded the Military Partners and Families Coalition, a national military advocacy organization that provides support, education and resources for LGBT military members and their families. Smith has become active in LGBT events and advocacy and has been honored by many LGBT organizations and publications. She served as grand marshal of the 2013 Gay Pride Parade in Washington.

U.S. Cabinet Member

b. April 10, 1880
d. May 14, 1965

“Feminism means revolution and I am a revolutionist.”

Frances Perkins was the first woman appointed to the U.S. cabinet, serving as U.S. secretary of labor under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945—longer than anyone else who held the post.  

As the principal architect of FDR’s New Deal, Perkins helped write and lobby for legislation in response to the Great Depression. Her myriad achievements include establishing pensions, unemployment and workers’ compensation, a minimum wage and overtime, the 40-hour workweek, child labor laws, new jobs through public works programs, and the blueprint for the Social Security Act—considered her greatest accomplishment.

During Hitler’s rise to power, Perkins facilitated the entry of tens of thousands of immigrants to the United States, two thirds of whom were European Jews fleeing the Nazis.

Perkins studied economics at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and earned a master’s degree from Columbia University. She dedicated her life’s work to reforming labor laws, after witnessing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City—one of the deadliest industrial disasters in U.S. history.

Perkins married Paul C. Wilson in 1913. She had a long, romantic relationship with Mary Harriman Rumsey, founder of The Junior League. The women, both friends of Eleanor Roosevelt, lived together in Washington, D.C., until Rumsey’s death.

In 1945 President Harry Truman appointed Perkins to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, where she served until 1952. She wrote a best-selling biography of FDR, “The Roosevelt I Knew,” published in 1946. She taught and lectured until the end of her life.

In 1980 the U.S. Department of Labor named its headquarters building after her. In 2009 the Frances Perkins Center was established in Maine (her family home) to preserve and promote her work. Her undergraduate alma mater, Mount Holyoke College, offers a scholarship in her memory.

U.S. Vice President

b. April 7, 1796
d. April 18, 1853

“The law established by the Creator, which has existed from the beginning, extends over the whole globe.”

William Rufus King was the 13th vice president of the United States for six weeks before he died of tuberculosis, making him the shortest-serving vice president in American history. He was the third vice president to die in office.

King served in the U.S. Congress for nearly 30 years. He was elected a U.S. representative from North Carolina and a senator from Alabama. He won a record-breaking 11 elections to the position of president pro tempore of the Senate. He also served as minister to France.

A Democrat, King was a Unionist with moderate views on slavery and westward expansion. He helped draft the Compromise of 1850, a series of bills that attempted to diffuse tensions between the North and the South.

A native of North Carolina, King purchased property along the Alabama River. At what came to be known as “King’s Bend,” he operated one of the largest plantations in the state. He and others founded the nearby town of Selma, which King named after a site in a classical legend.

For most of his adult life, King enjoyed a close relationship with James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States. For 10 years, he and Buchanan (neither of whom ever married) shared a home in Washington, D.C. Nicknamed the “Siamese twins,” they regularly attended social functions together. Andrew Jackson referred to them as “Miss Nancy” and “Miss Fancy.”

In January 1953, vice-president-elect King became gravely ill. He left for Cuba, hoping to regain his health in a warmer climate. When he was unable to return to Washington in time for the inauguration, he took the oath of office in a town near Havana. It is the only time in the nation’s history that an executive official has been sworn in on foreign soil.

King is interred in a mausoleum in Selma. The U.S. Senate displays a bust of him in its collection.