Distinguished Service Award to Charles C. Francis
Presented by GLAA President Barrett L. Brick
GLAA 36th Anniversary ReceptionWashington Plaza Hotel
Thursday, April 19, 2007
According to his associates, Charles Francis, soft-spoken and publicity-shy, is an unlikely leader. And yet his vision of the present and the past has helped to shape our community’s future.
As a young man growing up in Dallas, Charles Francis worked his way up to Eagle Scout. After graduating from the University of Virginia, he came to Washington to work with the public relations firm of Bob Gray, a prominent Washingtonian who had served in Ronald Reagan’s administration. Francis continued to spend his career in public relations and public affairs consulting in Washington.
In 2001, Charles Francis founded the Republican Unity Coalition, dedicated to making homosexuality a non-issue in a truly “big-tent” Republican Party. As the Coalition’s guiding principles state: "Neither victim nor villain, we seek no special privilege, but we deplore being penalized." These principles echo GLAA’s philosophy: simple equality, no more yet certainly no less. Under Francis’ leadership, the Coalition has won statements of support from many prominent GOP leaders, including former President Gerald Ford and former Senator Alan Simpson. In 2003, the Coalition filed an amicus brief in Lawrence and Garner v Texas in 2003, which case struck down all sodomy laws in the United States. While the Coalition still has its work cut out for it, Charles Francis’ vision of an inclusive Republican Party true to its roots will make for a better America for us all.
We also honor Charles Francis tonight for his historic accomplishment last year of conceiving, organizing, and leading the Kameny Papers Project, with the twin purposes of preserving the personal papers and historic picket signs of gay rights pioneer Franklin Kameny for posterity and obtaining funds for the benefit of Dr. Kameny. Francis obtained a professional appraisal of the historic materials and arranged for their purchase by a group of donors who then gave the papers to the Library of Congress and several of the signs to the Smithsonian Institution. The success of this project could not have been achieved without his creativity, skill, diplomacy, and persistence. As recounted by those who were there at the formal presentation of the papers, there were few dry eyes in the house. As GLAA’s Rick Rosendall recounts: “Watching Frank tell the story of his struggle against the employment discrimination by the Civil Service Commission, and its final capitulation (an official contacting him to tell him, ‘We have decided to change our policies to suit you’), took on new resonance in that we were marking the transfer of the documents from his own attic to the nation's attic.” This could not have happened without Charles Francis’ vision and efforts, which have preserved Dr. Kameny’s pioneering work for the education and benefit of future generations.
It is my privilege to present GLAA’s Distinguished Service Award to Charles C. Francis.
