From planetout.com,
Lesbian Activist Del Martin Dies at 87
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 / 11:46 AM
"World-renowned lesbian activist Dorothy L. (Del) Martin died Wednesday at UCSF Hospice in San Francisco.
"An eloquent organizer for civil rights, civil liberties and human dignity, Del Martin created and helped shape the modern LGBT and feminist movements...
"Ever since I met Del 55 years ago, I could never imagine a day would come when she wouldn't be by my side," [Phyllis] Lyon, 83, said in a statement Wednesday. "I also never imagined there would be a day that we would actually be able to get married.
"I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed," Lyon said..."
I had the singular honor, some 20 years ago, to meet Del and Phyllis here in San Diego. Having read their landmark work, Lesbian/Woman in my mid-20s, having known their story since my teens in the 1960's, long thrilled with the story of their founding of the Daughters of Bilitis and of the publication called The Ladder, I could not speak to them.
I remember listening to their words like a disciple sitting at the feet of the Buddha. I studied their faces, trying to find where their courage and their sense of commitment had come from in that time of the Love That Dared Not Speak its Name.
Their love and personal commitment to each other was evident in every glance and every touch. To a young lesbian, it was an overwhelming event, to see an actual lesbian couple together for over 30 years. I had reached out and touched herstory. They were so humble and yet so much larger than life.
It is with great sadness, but also with great joy and thanks for the life she lived, that I bid farewell to a woman whose life has enriched mine in ways she would never know. And to Phyllis, her partner of 55 years, I send, with thousands of others who came before me and after me, all of the love and the support I can muster.
They were legally married in San Francisco on June 1716, 2008.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~Dylan Thomas
I fell a-weeping, and I cried, 'Sweet youth,
Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove
These pleasent realms? I pray thee speak me sooth
What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'
Then straight the first did turn himself to me
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,
But I am Love, and I was wont to be
Alone in this fair garden, till he came
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the love that dare not speak its name.'
~Lord Alfred Douglas
"Gifts in lieu of flowers may be made to honor Del's life and commitment and to defeat the California marriage ban through the National Center for Lesbian Rights' No On 8 PAC at www.nclrights.org/NoOn8.
"Martin is survived by her wife, Lyon; daughter Kendra Mon; son-in-law Eugene Lane; granddaughter Lorraine Mon; grandson Kevin Mon; sister-in-law Patricia Lyon and a vast, loving and grateful LGBT family. (National Center for Lesbian Rights, with contributions from AP)"
