Arthur Cyrus Warner

From Philosopedia

Arthur Cyrus Warner (14 February 1918 - 22 July 2007)

Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Warner for almost the last half century of his life lived in the house built by his parents. His mother was born in Paynesville, Minnesota, and his father was in the wholesale grocery business in Princeton.

Warner earned an LLB from Harvard Law School in 1946, an AB (magna cum laude) from Princeton in 1950, and a PhD degree from Harvard University (in American and British history) in 1960.

Warner became a leading gay advocate and headed the Mattachine group in the 1970s, masking his homosexuality and operating under a the pseudonym of Austin Wade.

John Lauritsen, writing of Warner in David Carter's Before Stonewall, described Warner's upbringing:

His mother came from a background which, although educated, reflected the Victorian ethos in matters of sex. A a child, Warner was not told myths about where babies came from, and he was allowed to see biology books showing the birth of animals, and so on, up to the point of fornication. However, when he was put to bed, his hands always had to be on top of the blanket, even on the coldest nights. Because the windows were always open for health reasons, his shoulders also would be cold.

Nevertheless, as with virtually all boys, he discovered the pleasures of masturbation, and at the age of seven or eight he did this several times a day, although without ejaculation. On one such occasion he was apprehended by his governess, who felt dutifully obliged to tell his parents.

Early the next morning the case was presented to his parents, who had just returned from a trip. His mother, "who wore the pants," took charge. She was in a frenzy and told him that if he ever did this again he would be taken to the state prison at Rahway, "where the bad boys go." He was also told that if he continued to do this, he would certainly become crazy. He was shaken by these warnings and for a year remained "good and pure."

When nine, again found masturbating, he was driven the twelve miles to Rahway State Prison, ordered out of the car, and for about twenty minutes stood outside the car, screaming for forgiveness, finally given "one more chance."

Warner's first sexual experience - mutual masturbation with a black man in an abandoned school yard - occurred when he was seventeen during his sophomore year at Princeton, and he ran away, terrified. In 42nd Street movies in 1938, he caught gonorrhea from a person he had met and gone home with - it was in the pre-penicillin days, and Warner suffered for eight weeks from sulfanilamide that was injected into the urethra.

Lauritsen describes Warner's becoming a lieutenant in the Navy (1942- 1945), finishing his law degree, working for the American Association for the United Nations as a field representative in Minnesota and North Dakota, and in 1948 founding The League, "the first American homophile group (although it was predated by Henry Gerber's short-lived Society for Human Rights in Chicago, and by the still earlier homosexual rights organizations in Europe and the United Kingdom during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries). In 1952 Warner attended the first organizational meeting of what subsequently became the Mattachine Society of New York, one organized by Thomas Morford

In an obituary, William A. Percy wrote:

Arthur Cyrus Warner died in Princeton, New Jersey on 22 July 2007 at the age of 89. A leader of the homophile movement, he began attending meetings of a New York City group known simply as The League in the late 1940s. From 1954 on he was active in Mattachine New York, serving as chairman of the legal department. In 1971 he founded the National Committee for Sexual Civil Liberties (later renamed the American Association for Personal Privacy) a high-level think tank comprising lawyers, historians, theologians, and other professionals. From the beginning, Warner's focus, and that of the group he founded, was legal reform - especially the repeal of sodomy statutes (the generic term for laws that criminalize sex between males). Working largely behind the scenes, they achieved success in many individual states up to the eventual victory of the Supreme Court in the Lawrence case of 2002.

After receiving his AB degree from Princeton, Warner entered Harvard Law School. His studies there were interrupted by World War II, and he served a stint in the Navy, attaining the rank of lieutenant. After being given an undesirable discharge, based on homosexuality, he returned to Harvard Law school, receiving his LLB degree in 1946. Although he succeeded, after a long legal battle, in having the Navy discharge changed to honorable, the damage was done, and he was never able to practise law. He then entered Harvard Graduate School to study English history, receiving his AM degree in 1950 and his PhD degree in 1960.

According to Lauritsen, Warner held strong opinions and was never hesitant in expressing them.

I vividly remember the monthly meetings of the New York Scholarship Committee, held during the 1970s in the apartment of Art History Professor Wayne R. Dynes. In response to what he perceived to be an incorrect or sloppy statement, Warner would command attention with the interjection: "Now just a minute!". He would then - for many minutes - patiently and ruthlessly analyze the offending statement, exposing factual errors, carrying faulty arguments to conclusions of manifest absurdity, and dissecting the underlying philosophical premises. On such occasions we were ultimately grateful, if a bit shaken or annoyed at the time.

Raised as a Presbyterian, though of at least partly Jewish ancestry, he became in his later years a secular humanist, who regarded the homophile cause as being, on one level, a struggle against superstition, part of the unfinished business of the Enlightenment.

For most of the past half century, Arthur Warner lived in a large house built by his parents. Nothing in it changed since the deaths of his parents about four decades ago, except some of the books. He was particularly proud of the antique furniture: the tall clock and dozens of old and unusual table lamps

In 2001 to the Princeton Secular Society, Warner gave a lecture: "Atheism and Science: Beyond Biblical Criticism." He was described as representing the American Association for Personal Privacy.

The Princeton University Library has a document, "Arthur C. Warner Papers, 1934-1939: Preliminary Finding Aid" (MC219):

Abstract: Arthur Cyrus Warner (1918-2007) was a prominent figure in the gay liberation movement, focusing his efforts on legal reform to protect the civil liberties of gays. His work included successful efforts to overturn anti-sodomy and other laws used to persecute gays in many states. Warner's papers document his involvement in legal reform and other issues pertaining to gay rights. The majority of the papers consist of legislative and court documents about cases affecting gay civil liberties, and related memoranda, correspondence, and writings.

{WAS, John Lauritsen e-mail, 4 April 2008}