User:CmdrDan/Projects/LGBTQ people and articles/Allen Roskoff

Allen Roskoff
Allen Roskoff
Alma mater	Northwestern University
Partner	Jim Owles

DRAFT--IN PROGRESS.

Allen Roskoff (October 6, 1946) is an American gay rights activist and writer.

Progressive liberal democratic activist...

Joined: Gay Activists Alliance

Roskoff joined the Gay Activists Alliance in the early 1970s--why?? He authored the first gay rights bill with ??? and lobbied for it passage ...where???/how/with whom?

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Alan Roskoff is a gay rights activist living and working in New York City. The Allen Roskoff papers consist of subject files which document his interest in political and social activism from 1972 to 2004.

NYPL Bio

Alan Roskoff is a gay rights activist living and working in New York City. He began his activism in the early 1970s after joining the Gay Activists Alliance. While there he was chief lobbyist for the nations first gay rights bill, which he co-authored. In 1973, Roskoff and his partner Jim Owles formed the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats. In 2004, along with other liberal gay Democratic activists Roskoff formed the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club in Owles memory. Roskoff was also the first openly gay appointed official in New York City, having served on the executive staff of the New York City Comptroller, and appointments in the offices of Governor Mario Cuomo, Mayor David Dinkins, Public Advocate Mark Green, and State Senate Democratic Minority Leaders Martin Connor and David Paterson. He has also written regular political columns for various publications, including The New York Native, Outweek, QW and the New York Blade.

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Allen Roskoff President Allen Roskoff is a gay rights activist who has been a leader in the LGBT and social justice movements for over five decades. Roskoff achieved many early victories for the LGBT movement, including co-authoring the nation’s first gay rights bill.

Roskoff first became involved in the movement in 1970 when he joined the Gay Activist Alliance, became an officer and the chair of the Municipal Government Committee. Along with Jim Owles, he later co-founded the nation's first gay Democratic club. Roskoff has worked on hundreds of political campaigns going back to the congressional races of Bella Abzug. Later campaigns would include heading Lesbians and Gays for David Dinkins, Mario Cuomo, and in 1984 served as as New York State LGBT Co-Chair for Jesse Jackson for President. In 2016 Roskoff was a Bernie Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention and this year served as an official surrogate to the Sanders for President campaign.

Early in the 1970s, Roskoff disguised as himself as a psychiatrist and entered the Taxi and Limousine Commission with a couch demanding that the straight commissioner receive a psychiatric exam. Till that point, homosexual cab drivers had to produce a letter from a psychiatrist verifying that they were sane enough to drive a taxi. As a result of that demonstration the regulation was changed and no such letter was needed.

To protest regulations barring same sex couples from dancing together in an entity with a cabaret license, Roskoff went to the Rainbow Room with a male partner risking arrest. A few days later the Consumer Affairs Department changed regulations and gays were allowed to dance together. The New York Post ran an article entitled "Gays Win A Waltz."

In 1972 Roskoff helped organize a zap inside Radio City Music Hall for a ceremony put together by Mayor John Lindsay. The protest demanded an Executive Order barring discrimination within city government. Roskoff handcuffed himself to a chair in the theatre's balcony while demanding that Mayor Lindsay issue an Executive Order and showering the orchestra with leaflets. A few days after the protest, Lindsay issued an executive order.

Roskoff publicly questioned aspiring 1984 Presidential candidate Senator John Glenn about his refusal to support Federal Gay Rights legislation. His stunning public performance drew national attention to Glenn's anti-gay bigotry, resulting in the resignation of his New York State campaign coordinator, then New York State Senate Minority Leader Manfred Ohrenstein. Glenn's campaign shortly thereafter came to an end.

Roskoff was the first openly gay person appointed to a community board and also the first to serve in the offices of an elected official. In 1974, he joined the executive staff of the New York City Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin. Subsequently, Roskoff would serve in the administrations of Governor Mario Cuomo, Mayor David Dinkins, New York City Public Advocate Mark Green, and New York State Senators Martin Connor, David Paterson and Tom Duane.

Roskoff has been featured, quoted and written about in major national and local publications including Look, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, New York Post, The Daily News and The Advocate. He has written for gay publications such as The Native, QW, Outweek and The New York Blade on a regular basis, often providing front page coverage.

Source:

https://jimowles.org/about/allen-roskoff

image:

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d24c82e08c2f1000142b160/1621865849264-I2AV2V9RIND6EWTVPPXT/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kNmQsaaAZDy_yY9lIWgYUkFZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpxcYDB7HS1UZaQdX6MfOlbTuaPx0e4AfnkYiFCa8q_0Frrii61YlV-5Be0Fl2DR4bw/aroskoff.jpg

Interviews

Campaign to remove Ed Koch name from 59th Street Bridge

Roskoff discusses his personal experiences as a gay man in 1970s New York; recounts some of his actions as an activist and articulates his arguments for removing Ed Koch's name from the Queensboro Bridge with Errol Louis on You Decide with Errol Lewis 12 May 2022

External Links

Roskoff's papers at the New York Public Library; The Allen Roskoff papers consist of subject files which document his interest in political and social activism from 1972 to 2004.

To include/Investigate

Where is he from?

Category:LGBTQ_people_from_New_York_(state)