Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force

The Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force since 1978 has supported the rights of all oppressed minorities focusing on law, public policy, and development of public education and mass media as critical elements in the long process of social change. The Task Force played a critical role in the campaign to end the classification of homosexuality as a disease by the American Psychological Association. It also worked to lift the prohibition on federal civil service employment for gays and lesbians, strove in the 1970s to make the Democratic Party responsive to the gay community, and took the lead in the 1980s in national organizing against homophobic violence. As AIDS began to devastate gay male communities, the Task Force shaped the first serious efforts in Washington to address the epidemic. It was a founding member of the Military Freedom Project which prepared the ground for the gays-in-the-military debate of 1993.