Vern Bullough

See also:

• The Vern and Bonnie Collection on Sex and Gender, Oviatt Library, CSUN
• The Vern L. Bullough website
• Interview by Raj Ayyar Gay Today archives (Vol. VIII Issue 167)
• Vern Bullough: An Appreciation, by Martha Cornog (Council for Secular Humanism
• [Interview by C. Todd White], on Sept. 24, 2004

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Article by C. Todd White

A version of this interview was first published in the Orange County & Long Beach Blade in October 2004 in the column "Legends."

Early Life

Vern L. Bullough was one of Southern California’s most notorious scholars of human sexuality and one of our most dedicated activists on behalf of Gay rights.

Bullough obtained his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago in 1954. In 1959, he was appointed as Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Northridge, where he became a full Professor in 1965. Through the 1970s he was an Adjunct Professor at UCLA in the School of Public Health, and during this time he and his wife Bonnie were very active in the local movement for homosexual rights.

The ACLU

The Bulloughs had become involved with homosexual issues through family connections in the 1940s, but it was not until moving to Los Angeles in 1959 that they became involved with an organized homosexual/homophile movement. Vern became head of the Valley Chapter of the ACLU soon after moving to Los Angeles. As such, he met Dr. Eason Monroe, Executive Director for the ACLU, and suggested that he ACLU should go to bat on behalf of homosexuals. Dr. Monroe considered Bullough’s suggestion, and they decided to meet with Dorr Legg and Don Slater of ONE, Incorporated, which published ONE Magazine and offered courses in homophile studies from its office on Venice Blvd. Bullough was appointed chair of a committee to formulate the policy, which passed with only one dissenting vote.

The question became, how would they defend homosexuals? This had never been attempted before. The Bullough home became headquarters for the cause for a while, their telephone serving as a hotline for homosexuals who might have a case for the ACLU to defend. There were many possibilities, but none they felt they could successfully defend until the arrest of a schoolteacher who had been compelled to resign by a local school board after having been arrested for a homosexual act.

After the San Fernando Valley Chapter adopted its policy to defend homosexuals, ACLU Chapters in Washington, D.C. and Florida followed with comparable measures, and by 1967 the national organization adopted a policy similar to the one Bullough had originally devised. Thus the ACLU became the first national civil rights organization to recognize and defend the rights of homosexuals.

Local Hero

After this, the Bulloughs became celebrities within the Los Angeles movement. When they showed up to participate in the motorcade to protest the exclusion of homosexuals in the military on Saturday, May 21, 1966, they were ushered into the first of twelve cars and paraded twenty miles through Los Angeles, bedecked with signs and banners of protest. “People just stared as we went through the city,” Bullough recalled, “but we carried it out and congratulated ourselves when it was over.” The motorcade was coordinated by the Los Angeles Committee to Fight Exclusion of Homosexuals from the Armed Forces, lead by Don Slater and Harry Hay. Bullough said that it was a strange day for him because while he was there saying that gays should be drafted and be allowed to serve, he was fundamentally against the war. Still, he went to support his cohorts in the movement for sexual rights.

Guiding the Future

Bullough told me that “coming out” has been the most important and successful aspect of the gay rights movement. This was possible on a large scale relatively early in Los Angeles, in the 1950s and ’60s, because there was an economy there for homosexuals—it was relatively easy to earn a living. The police were excessively harsh, to say the least, but that began to change in 1952 when Dale Jennings, a founding member of Mattachine, was arrested for homosexual misconduct but successfully pleaded his innocence. As Jennings was publicly outed through the ordeal, many of his fellow "Mattachinos" stood with him, putting their own careers and reputations on the line. Soon after this famous court victory, Jennings and others launched ONE Magazine, in January of 1953, which became the first successful publication in the nation dedicated to homosexual issues. ONE and it's creating organization, ONE, Incorporated, drew many to the local movement who wanted to participate and find others like themselves but were not comfortable hanging out in bars.

By the time Bullough contacted ONE on behalf of the ACLU, it had been active in the homosexual rights movement for nearly a decade—longer than any other organization in the country. When ONE, Inc. divided during a rancourous dispute in 1965, Bullough remained amicable with both factions, one of a very few activists and scholars to be able to do so.

When asked, Bullough stated that he believed the most important battle yet to be fought for gay rights pertains to gay marriage. As he sees it, “If domestic partnership laws become national like the State of California’s, it doesn’t really matter about marriage—you can always get married in a church.” Nevertheless, since gays are prohibited from getting married, Bullough and his long-term partner, Gwen Brewer, decided that they too should register as domestic partners. “Since others are getting screwed, we might as well get screwed with them,” he quipped.

Such is the empathy of the activist!

This entry is part of the featured exhibit The Pre-Gay Era in the USA curated by C. Todd White. As it is content created by a named author, editor, or curator, it is not open to editing by the general public. But we strongly encourage you to discuss the content or propose edits on the discussion page, and the author, editor, or curator will make any changes that improve the entry or its content. Thanks.

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