The Homophile is a Sexual Being: Wallace de Ortega Maxey’s Pulp Theology and Gay Activism

Abstract

Largely forgotten today and omitted from most histories of gay activism and queer religion, Universalist minister Wallace de Ortega Maxey played a central role in the pioneering homophile group the Mattachine Society in the 1950s, for which he suffered great personal costs in his career. Using disparate and previously unused archival sources to reconstruct Maxey’s eclectic life, beliefs, and career, this article intervenes in these historiographies to recover his important work, including his largely unread 1958 manifesto Man is a Sexual Being, which challenged homophile respectability politics with its radical Universal Existentialism. Ultimately, incorporating Maxey into the histories of queer religion and homophile activism helps broaden the genealogies associated with both of these intertwined histories and clarify how members navigated their various constraints.