Dec 05, 2008  |  By: AMY CAVANAUGH  | COMMENTS     

Two years in the making at a cost of $85 million. A three-day opening festival with President Bush in attendance. The original Star-Spangled Banner, painstakingly restored.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History reopened last month with plenty of pomp and buzz. But one aspect of the nation’s history is woefully underrepresented in the revamped museum: Except for a “Gay is Good” pin, gay history is virtually absent.

And it doesn’t seem to be a space issue — the museum, which attempts to tell America’s story in a compelling visual way, has staggered its exhibits, leaving large, empty spaces throughout the building.

In a country that boasts so many important political, cultural and social contributions from people, some are wondering why the museum fails to reflect them.

“Obviously we would like the Smithsonian to be collecting our historical documents and artifacts as avidly as they collect others’,” says Mark Meinke, chair and founder of the Rainbow History Project. “Certainly with Dorothy’s red shoes in the museum, there should be artifacts from the Friends of Dorothy.”

He’s referring, of course, to one of the pairs of “ruby” slippers (they’re actually adorned with red sequins) Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz.” They’re perhaps Hollywood’s most famous Golden Age prop and one of the Smithsonian’s signature possessions. Garland is a gay icon and “Friends of Dorothy” is slang for gay men.

There are a few other objects in the museum with a gay connection or appeal. There are Women’s National Basketball Association items — Rebecca Lobo’s shoes and Nykesha Sales’ jersey. The sport is popular among lesbians. Also in the pop culture section is “Sesame Street’s” Oscar the Grouch, which puppeteer Kermit Love helped design. Love, who died in June, was gay.

But is that all? For a gay visitor, it’s surprising that the story of American history as seen through the museum leaves out the gay civil rights struggle. In the Civil War section of “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War,” there’s a display about caring for wounded soldiers. But no mention of gay poet Walt Whitman and his local contributions.

Though the museum has 3 million objects in its collection and only has the space to display 4,784 of those, other groups’ fights for rights are better represented. Among other objects depicting the fight for equal rights, the Greensboro Lunch Counter is the signature artifact for the section of the museum focused on American ideals. The counter is significant because four black men, who were required to stand and eat as seats were only for whites, held a sit-in there in 1960.

What would Smithsonian’s original benefactor James Smithson think of the gay omission?

Timothy Scofield, founder and CEO of the Velvet Foundation, which is developing a museum of American gay history and culture, says Smithson’s sexual orientation was up for debate.

“Some people argue that he was gay,” Scofield says. “He went to many places that were known in his day as being gay establishments and he never married.”

Scofield, who used to work at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum as a museum specialist in the collections department, says he realized that “not only was LGBT history being neglected in the Smithsonian, it wasn’t being told anywhere.”

Scofield is looking at various locations in Dupont Circle and other areas of the city to open his gay museum, which is in the second year of a five-year development plan.

The Smithsonian has at times shown tremendous sensitivity to gay history.

In October 2006, Frank Kameny, one of the founders of the gay rights movement, presented more than 70,000 letters, documents and memorabilia to the nation. His personal papers are in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, while protest and picket signs became part of the permanent collections of the National Museum of American History. Other signs were donated to gay archives throughout the United States. Last September, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum displayed some of the artifacts as part of an exhibit called “Treasures of American History.” Though none of these are on display at the National Museum of American History, they are in its collection.

So what objects that represent gay culture should be on display in the museum?

Kameny says he would display protest signs, buttons and news items from the early days of the gay rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Scofield suggests several exhibits, including the evolution of marriage, the AIDS epidemic and Harvey Milk.

Other important events to commemorate would be the Stonewall riots and the legalization of same-sex ...