The Hormel Legacy  By Tim Gaskin

For over ten years the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center , inside the San Francisco Public Library, has been documenting GLBT history. It lays out the world's largest collection of GLBT literature in the world, which connects our past struggles and accomplishments to our present lives and leaves a legacy for our future.

James C. Hormel, the San Francisco philanthropist who's endowment of $500,000 helped make the center a reality, says at the time there wasn't a library in the country that had this kind of facility. "I felt it was way past time that we recognize the lesbian and gay influence in the literary world and I was also afraid that some of our history was being lost if it wasn't being preserved or wasn't the focus of a preservation effort that would come about from having a center of this kind."

Hormel says the center is as important for those who lived through it as it is to our youngest in the GLBT community adding, "I think we really need to know our history, the history of our struggle, which continues to this day."

The philanthropist, like so many other people growing up wondering about their sexuality, says what inspired him in part was not finding anything in any library when he was younger that gave him a point of reference about his sexual orientation. "I felt there could be no better place than a public library to have this kind of facility." He finishes.

Hormel's personal story is part of the rich GLBT narrative. Like many gay men and lesbians from his generation, Hormel married and started a family. After his coming out and divorce in the 1966, the father of four moved to San Francisco where he got swept up in local politics. He helped defeat Prop 6, which would have prevented gays and lesbians from teaching in the public schools.

"It was a very, very intensive campaign which crossed all of the lines of sexual orientation and received very broad support from the non-gay community, succeeded, ultimately defeating prop 6 and that was sort of the beginning of my involvement." Says Hormel.

In 1981 Hormel became a founding member of the Human Rights Campaign. In 1997, then President Clinton nominated Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg . His nomination to become the first openly gay US ambassador drew criticism from conservative groups. Hormel responds, "Well, it was personally painful because the attacks were very personal."

However, his nomination eventually wins approved by a vote of sixteen to two. "I feel that it was a major victory for us in so many ways for example, in the time that I served I think the state department changed 13 regulations involving domestic partners so there are things we can point to that's concrete evidence that it made a difference." Says Hormel.

He is also appreciative that the president was willing to stick it out with him. He says, "At one point my nomination lapsed and he [Clinton] asked if I would allow him to re-nominate me which he didn't have to do at all so there were so many aspects of this for which I am very proud."

Hormel served as ambassador through December 2000. Today, Hormel lives with his partner Timothy Wu here in San Francisco.