Founder Harry Hay, In 1951 a non-profit organization for educating the public in all aspects of homosexuality. Mattachine Society, lobbied for the revision of federal,, state and municipal laws discriminating against gays in employment, and housing, the decriminalization of consensual sodomy between adults, and assembly, demanded honorable discharges for homosexuals in the armed forces, and the suppression of police harassment and entrapment, and the enactment of a bill of gay rights.
http://www.sodomylaws.org/usa/dc/dcnews02.htm
http://www.sbu.ac.uk/stafflag/mattachine.html
http://www.shapingsf.org/ezine/gay/files/gaymatta.html
http://qsfmagazine.com/qsf/9606/hay.html
http://www.indegayforum.org/articles/varnell99.html
http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/garchive/events/122000ev.htm