Source: Los Angeles Times, with additional material
Kennith H. Burns, an early leader of the Mattachine Society, one of the country's first gay rights organizations, died Dec. 16 at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. He was 81.

The cause was lung failure, according to a friend, Dale Olson.

Burns was a founding member of the Mattachine Society, which was founded in Los Angeles in 1950 by activist Harry Hay and others.

In 1953, when McCarthyism was strengthening its grip on the national consciousness, Hay and other Mattachine leaders with communist ties were ousted and Burns assumed a prominent role in the organization.

The society moved in a more conservative direction during Burns' tenure as Mattachine president in the mid- to late 1950s. Along with other Mattachine leaders, including Harold Call and Don Lucas, he urged members to temper their public image and assimilate into society.

"We must blame ourselves for much of our plight," Burns said during this period. "When will homosexuals ever realize that social reform, in order to be effective, must be preceded by personal reform?"

In his 1998 book Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities John D'Emilio described the curious non-activism of the Mattachine Society under Burns' leadership:

The retreat from collective action stemmed in part from the leadership's acceptance of society's evaluation of gays. "We didn't have much confidence at that time," Burns later acknowledged. "We felt we had to work through people ... who could better present what [homosexuality] was all about -- better than ourselves.... [We made] a definite decision that by working through research projects and people in education and religion that we would get acceptance." And, as [Hal] Call conceded, they felt the need to work through professionals "to give ourselves credibility. To be just an organization of upstart gays, we would have been shattered and ridiculed and put down."

After stepping down from his duties as head of the Mattachine Society in 1959, he remained active in the gay and lesbian community and was honored for his contributions by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Full article: Kennith H. Burns, 81; led gay rights Mattachine Society in the 1950s - Los Angeles Times