Faygele Ben-Miriam was a United States. activist, particularly for LGBT rights, and a gay marriage pioneer, filing one of the first gay marriage lawsuits in American history after being denied a marriage license at the King County Administration Building in Seattle, Washington in 1971.
Background
Singer was born New York City to Jewish parents of Lithuanian and Polish background Irving and Miriam Singer. He came out to his parents in 1963 or 1964, to the initial consternation and eventual acceptance of his mother and the long-running anger of his father.
Education
City College of New New York
Career
He served as a Volunteers in Service to America volunteer for civil-rights causes in the mid-1960s, applied for conscientious-objector status and served as an Army medic in Germany. Studying at City College of New York, he received his liberal arts degree in 1970. Later that year, he left for San Francisco and, later, went to Seattle.
On September 20, 1971, Singer and fellow activist Paul Barwick applied for a marriage license at the King County Administration Building in Seattle, not being keen on actually getting married but wanting "to make a point about having the same rights as heterosexuals." Their request was refused by then-county auditor (and current County Assessor) Lloyd Hara.
They were among the first same-sex couples in the United States to apply for a marriage license, causing a flurry of media coverage and leading to a lawsuit, Singer v. Hara, which ended in 1974 with a unanimous rejection by the Washington State Court of Appeals.
Singer worked as a typist for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but his taste for women"s clothing and his open disclosure of his homosexuality resulted in him being fired after one year in 1972, despite the protests of co-workers. He sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in his favor in 1974, with the United States. Supreme Court remanding the case back to the Ninth Circuit, essentially instructing it to rule in ben Miriam"s favor, resulting in his receiving back pay from the entire span of the lawsuit.
The suit also resulted in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforcing prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of sexual preference.
While Ben-Miriam did not go back to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, he took up a job with the United States. Department of Labor, from which he retired in 1995. In 1973, Singer changed his name to Faygele Ben-Miriam, Faygele being the Yiddish word for "little bird", used both as a woman"s first name and a derogatory Yiddish term for "faggot", "ben" meaning "son of" in Hebrew and Yiddish, and Miriam being his mother"s name, thus stressing both his Jewish and his gay identity. Ben-Miriam also participated in the Radical Faeries in Wolf Creek, Oregon and for a while published Rural Free Delivery, virtually single-handedly.
He was active on the National Board of the New Jewish Agenda, worked with the International Jewish Peace Union and was active in Kadima of Seattle.
He died on June 5, 2000, at the age of 55. Ben-Miriam helped found the Gay Community Social Services of Seattle and also produced the first gay country music album, Lavender Country.