Janus Society

The Janus Society was an early homophile organization founded in 1962 and based in Philadelphia. It is notable as the publisher of DRUM magazine, one of the earliest LGBT-interest publications in the United States and most widely circulated in the 1960s,[1] and for its role in organizing many of the nation's earliest LGBT rights demonstrations.[2] The Janus Society takes its name from the Roman two-faced God Janus of beginnings, endings, and doorways. The organization focused on a policy of militant respectability, a strategy demanding respect by showing the public LGBT individuals conforming to hetero-normative standards of dress at protests.[1] Due to its close ties with DRUM (LGBT publication) and Clark Polak's various sex businesses, the Janus Society faced increasing scrutiny and harassment from local, state, and federal authorities, eventually ceasing operations in 1969 weeks before the Stonewall Riots after Polak was arrested on federal obscenity charges.[1] On Friday, February 21, 1964, president of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., Dr. Franklin E. Kameny, gave a free lecture on homosexual discrimination at the New Century Club. This free lecture was sponsored by the Janus Society, and talked about the fight against employment, education and housing discrimination's against the LGBT community.

Drum

Drum (usually written DRUM) was an American LGBT-interest magazine based out of Philadelphia. Published monthly beginning in 1964 by the homophile activist group the Janus Society and edited by Clark Polak, Drum took its title from a quote by Henry David Thoreau: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the beat of a different drummer."[3]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Encyclopedia of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history in America. Stein, Marc. New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons/Thomson/Gale. 2004. ISBN 0684312611. OCLC 52819577.
  2. ↑ Loughery, p. 270
  3. ↑ Streitmater, p. 60

References

  • Loughery, John (1998). The Other Side of Silence – Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History. New York, Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-3896-5.
  • Streitmatter, Rodger (1995). Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston, Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-19873-2.


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