Tom Gallagher, Foreign Service officer who quit to live as openly gay, dies at 77
In July 1975, the U.S. Civil Service Commission reversed long-standing policies that effectively prohibited gays from working in government. There had been no explicit ban, but reportedly hundreds of men and women over the decades had seen their careers ruined on the grounds of “immoral conduct” at the first hint of their sexual identities being exposed.
Gay activists hailed as a victory the commission’s ruling, which followed a federal-court decision, but it did not cover such agencies as the Secret Service, the FBI or the Foreign Service, which are administered separately. Gays in those bureaus were believed to be more susceptible to blackmail — security risks given the sensitivity of their jobs, especially in an era when psychiatrists had only just declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Three months after the commission’s ruling, amid his increasingly difficult struggle with being forced to muffle his sexuality, 35-year-old Foreign Service officer Tom Gallagher attended a Washington gathering of the Gay Activist Alliance. He served on a panel titled “Gays as Federal Employees” and that included Franklin E. Kameny, a gay Army Map Service astronomer who had been fired in 1957 and subsequently spearheaded the Washington-area gay rights movement.
The panel proved to be what Mr. Gallagher, who died July 8 at 77, called his “coming out party.”
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