Micro-post #204: Jim Kepner's speech “Why Can’t We All Get Together, and What Do We Have in Common?” [Pride Month #7]

Photo by Sophie Popplewell (Unsplash)

After recently thumbing through a copy I have James Daley's Great Speeches on Gay Rights (2010, Dover Thrift Editions), I found this long and detailed one by the journalist Jim Kepner that basically serves as a good history lesson on gay rights up to the 1990s (he gave the speech right before he died in 1997). While some of it is rather dated (he focuses on the movement being predominantly on the G and the L portions of the queer community, treating the others as aberrations, which was not unusual before the 2010s), it's a historically relevant document and well worth reading the whole thing for a better sense of how the movement came into being.

Note: Because I couldn't find a copy of this speech online anywhere, I transcribed a copy of it from Mr. Daily's book as a PDF. Please enjoy and understand this is intended for education/fair use purposes and not for commercial sale.