Wallace de Ortega Maxey was a founding member of the Mattachine Foundation, which was the public face of the clandestine Mattachine Society. In that capacity, Maxey is best known as having hosted the Mattachine’s constitutional conventions, in the spring of 1953, at Los Angeles’ First Universalist Church where he was pastor. Later, Maxey became a champion of free speech, to the point of being a defendant in a significant obscenity case.
I composed two versions of the profile of Maxey.
- A relatively brief overview of Maxey’s life focusing on his work with the Mattachine and anti-censorship efforts, posted on The Tangent Group
- A longer profile of Maxey from an ecclesial perspective for The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Religious Archives Network / Pacific School of Religion
