About The Fantabulists
Who are The Fantabulists
Los Angeles, 1970, a marginalized group of people who would be criminalized if they walked down the street holding hands decide to have a parade. Against all odds and much resistance, in the eleventh hour they are granted a permit to have a legal parade down Hollywood Boulevard. This parade blew off the closet doors and became an annual event known worldwide as Gay Pride.
The Fantabulists
A group of people who had nothing in common except for their deviant and illicit sexual desires came together to improve the quality of life for all homosexuals. The leader of an underground resource for young gay men in trouble and an irrepressible ringmaster, Morris Kight was already 50 years old when New York activists challenged him to publicly celebrate the one year anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. His friend Bob Humphries, a few years older and an unapologetic hedonist with an insatiable appetite for boys, booze, and gambling (in no specific order) joined the effort and they both invited Reverend Troy Perry, the handsome 30 year old ordained Baptist preacher who wore a priest’s collar and commanded a respect that a simple gay man could not receive. The parade had to be legal. It had to be nonviolent.
Along with younger versions of themselves, the unlikely cohorts organize a gay themed parade called Christopher Street West, an inconceivable undertaking, all done against the backdrop of love stories, struggles and successes, and other gay liberation efforts. Kight had an underground bail fund and a not-for-fee counseling and services for gay runaways and throw-aways. Humphries founded and ran the United States Mission and the Church of the Androgyny. Perry had his own activism and recently founded the Metropolitan Community Church, a gay affirming ministry that was growing quickly. Between the three of them, they had the beginnings of a gay community and certainly the makings of a parade.
- Based on actual events detailed in the Kight biography: "Morris Kight, Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist: A Story of Gay Rights and Gay Wrongs" (Process Media, 2000).
As plans for the parade continue with flyers, posters, press notices, elaborate costumes and construction of floats, momentum for the parade grows -- the opposition to the parade, to the gay community, grows. People were coming from out of town and legal or not, nonviolent or not, something will happen on Hollywood Boulevard on June 28.
Opposition isn’t just from outside the nascent gay community. Kight receives death threats, young people with ambitions are checked, many gay people feel safe in the closet.
Gay people were convinced that they'd be arrested and beaten or killed if they had a parade.
Finally, two days before the parade, the California Superior Court hears the case. Judge Richard Schauer is appalled at the behavior of the Los Angeles Police Department and cites the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. He ordered the parade permit be issued without conditions. “These are citizens,” Judge Schauer says, “they are citizens, tax payers, and they don’t have to pay extra money to have a parade. I don’t care if you have to call out the National Guard, you are to protect these people and they can have their parade.”
And what a parade it was. No one knew what to expect as it was all unexpected. A historical march down Hollywood Boulevard that changed the course of history. 1800 participants and 35,000 spectators followed the prescribed parade route. The LAPD was ready in full riot gear and what they got was a traffic jam. As the parade ended, it turned into an impromptu street celebration.
- When the story of twentieth-century heroes is told, let the people who marched down Hollywood Boulevard in the first Gay Pride parade be remembered.
"Morris Kight, Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist: A Story of Gay Rights and Gay Wrongs," chapter 10, Gay Liberation Front. The book has received consistently positive reviews for the writing and research. It is historically well-grounded. ONE Archive at USC has acquired all of my research to add to their historical archive.
This history of early gay liberation is riveting, humorous, and filled with wonderful characters. This is an opportunity for an ensemble cast to tell an important slice of American history.