Tidmus’ death was reported on his Facebook page by his brother:

“My name is Lindsay Tidmus, Mike’s brother. It is with a heavy heart that I inform his Facebook friends of Mike’s passing. He left us this morning after a battle with cancer.”

On his Facebook page, Mike Tidmus described himself as “Just your basic left-leaning, snark-loving, disbelieving, AIDS-aware online hangout for intelligent ‘mos and the folks who love us.”

Born Aug. 22, 1951, in Toronto, Canada, Tidmus worked in Europe and the United States before settling in San Diego in 2008. He had built a successful career as a creative director, art director, writer and photographer for advertising and marketing firms.

Tidmus wrote a popular blog miketidmus.com, where he wrote about heterosexual privilege, “Poor Oppressed Christians,” “ChristoFascism,” “Crazy Fundies” and other issues facing the LGBT community.

On his blog, Tidmus was proud to be an outspoken opponent of religious oppression of LGBT rights, and he noted that he was a long-time survivor of AIDS.

The news of Tidmus’ death brought an outpouring of grief and appreciation.

Last March, we posted this article about Derence Kernek and Ed Watson, who recorded a video for California’s 9th Circuit Court, requesting that they allow Judge Walker’s decision to overturn Prop 8 to stand. This request was because Watson had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and they wanted to be married while he still had memories of their 40 years together.

On August 4th, 2010, Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional as it denied gays and lesbians due process and equal protection under the law.

As Walker had not disclosed that he was gay and in a relationship at the time, Prop 8 supporters filed a motion to dismiss his decision as he would stand to benefit from it. Of course their argument fails to recognize that according to their anti-gay claims – any heterosexual judge would stand to benefit from a decision in their favor.

That argument failed in a lower court and today’s hearings before the 9th circuit were in regards to the anti-gay side’s appeal of that decision.

Last night, on the eve of these arguments, Ed passed away due to complications from his quickly-advancing Alzheimer’s and Diabetes. They were never married.

On top of that, because of the inequality in the law, and the couple’s inability to marry, Watson had been denied coverage under Kernek’s retirement plan (as any heterosexual couple would be entitled to). This caused incredible financial hardships.

Kernek could not be reached for comment as their phone had been disconnected.

Please watch the video that this couple put together urging for marriage equality in California:

About the Author:

He climbed through a lower-level window to avoid metal detectors and proceeded to Mayor George Moscone’s office.

White had resigned his office and went into Moscone’s office hoping to be re-appointed to the seat he’d resigned from. When Moscone refused, White shot and killed him.

With extra ammunition, he proceeded to the office of Harvey Milk, who in 1977 was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the only the third openly gay man in U.S. history to be elected to public office.

White shot Milk five times — the final two shots had White pressing his gun directly at Milk’s skull, according to the medical examiner.

Prior to his death, Milk had recorded a message after receiving several death threats simply because he was gay. The message said:

“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet shatter every closet door.”

Milk served only 11 months on the Board of Supervisors, but his high profile election victory gave hope to millions of gays and lesbians across the country that a day would come when they could live without fear of discrimination.

As a Supervisor, Milk worked to secure passage of San Francisco’s landmark gay rights ordinance that extended employment protections to gays and lesbians in San Francisco, and became a model for anti-discrimination legislation throughout California and the nation.

On May 21, 1979, White was acquitted of the first degree murder charge, but found guilty of voluntary manslaughter of both Milk and Moscone.

While White’s confession included statements such as “I was on a mission” and “I wanted to kill four of them,” he was found innocent premeditated murder due to his “poor diet.” White’s lawyers successfully argued that White had been consuming many sugary foods, which led to his mental state. This became known as the “Twinkie Defense.”

White was sentenced to serve seven and two-thirds years, but the sentenced was reduced for time served and good behavior, meaning White would be released in only five years.

The sentence sparked outrage in San Francisco’s Castro District, and protestors marched from the Castro to City Hall, chanting “Avenge Harvey Milk” and “He got away with murder.” Eventually the crowd swelled to over 3,000 and riots broke out — angry residents lit police cars on fire, shoved a burning newspaper dispenser through the doors of City Hall, and cheered as the flames grew.

But only hours after the riots had ended, police made a retaliatory raid on a San Francisco gay bar. Two dozen arrests were made and in the following weeks, gay leaders refused to apologize for the riots. This is what gave them political power and led to the election of Mayor Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein then appointed a pro-gay chief of police who actively recruited gays into the city’s police force.

Dan White served five years of his seven-year sentence. Two years later, he was found dead after committing suicide in his garage by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Feinstein, now a U.S. Senator, is leading the way for LGBT equality by sponsoring the “Respect for Marriage Act,” which would repeal the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis on Friday issued this statement, marking today’s 2011 Transgender Day of Remembrance, and memorializing transgender Americans who have lost their lives as a result of violence.

Hilda Solis

“I am proud to stand and be counted as an ally to the transgender community and to every person and family impacted by anti-transgender violence.

“What began as an online project in 1999 to memorialize the murder of a transgender person will this year include hundreds of vigils and events throughout the country and around the world.

“I hope that this year’s commemoration will serve as an opportunity to shine a brighter light on both progress made and the challenges ahead.

“The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality recently joined me at the U.S. Department of Labor to present a comprehensive study on the experiences of transgender people in America. More than 90 percent of transgender people experience harassment and mistreatment in the workplace, with nearly half being fired or denied a promotion. This is unacceptable.

“And while my department focuses on the nation’s workforce, I am equally troubled by the experiences of transgender people in their homes and in our schools and hospitals that promise to shelter, educate and heal.

“This administration has taken specific steps to protect our transgender citizens. In 2009, the president signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, expanding the 1969 United States federal hate crimes law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s gender identity. The following year, our federal government updated its nondiscrimination policy on USA Jobs to explicitly include protection on the basis of gender identity.

“I am proud to say that the Department of Labor this year joined other executive branch agencies in updating its policy on equal employment opportunity and its policy on harassing conduct in the workplace to specifically prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity. And I am also proud that transgender individuals serve openly at the U.S. Department of Labor.

“To address the pervasive issue of bullying among our youth, including those targeted due to their gender identity or expression, the administration hosted the first White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, and the president and many of us in the cabinet recorded “It Gets Better” videos to assure our youth that they are not alone.

“On this day of remembrance, as we pause to reflect on the lives that have been lost, we renew our commitment to an America that celebrates and values every person.”

Today marks the 13th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance around the world, a day when the LGBTQ and allied community honor those who have lost their lives to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice, and seek to raise awareness of the ongoing threat of brutality faced by the transgender community.

The day of memorial was created in response to the murder of Rita Hester, a popular and outgoing transwoman, who was brutally stabbed at least 20 times in the chest in her Boston apartment by an unknown assailant in November 1998.

Hester’s death prompted community members to organize a candlelight vigil and march that December. Activists in San Francisco created the Transgender Day of Remembrance event in 1999 in her memory.

In the years that have followed since Hester’s murder, this day has been set aside each year to commemorate the lives of the victims by way of memorial services, vigils and other events to raise public awareness of hate crimes against transgendered people, crimes that are rarely reported in the mainstream media.

Of the more than 320 transgender deaths reported in the U.S. over the past 30 years, many of the victims are still unnamed and were brutally beaten and tortured — their deaths largely ignored.

In 2011, there were at least 23 more lives lost to anti-transgender hate, including seven in the United States.

“From Minnesota to Maryland and from Houston to Detroit to the nation’s capital, violence against transgender people has continued unabated this year,” said Allyson Robinson, HRC Deputy Director of Diversity.

“These crimes attempt to erase transgender lives and terrorize our community. On the Transgender Day of Remembrance, we defy that erasure and intimidation by coming together to remember those we’ve lost.”

This year there is some encouraging news, reported the HRC.

Polling released earlier this month by the Public Religion Research Institute shows strong majorities of Americans favor rights and legal protections for transgender people. Key findings include:

• Overwhelming majorities of Americans – including strong majorities of all religious and partisan groups – agree that transgender people should have the same civil rights and legal protections as others;
• Approximately three-quarters of Americans say Congress should pass employment nondiscrimination laws to protect transgender people, and a similar majority favors Congress’s recent expansion of hate crimes legislation to protect transgender people; and
• Approximately two-thirds of Americans are able to identify what the term “transgender” means and report being well informed about transgender people and issues.

“Despite the positive news that more Americans favor rights and legal protections for transgender people, across the country, and particularly in Washington, DC, we are mindful of the increase in violence against the transgender community,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese.

“This Transgender Day of Remembrance, we salute those who put a face on this anti-trans violence. Educating others about their horrific stories will move us to a place where members of our community no longer need to live in fear,” Solmonese said.

To find a Local event and more information about Transgender Day of Remembrance, visit transgenderdor.org.

Walker was found brutally beaten, burned and left by the side of a road in the early morning hours of Oct. 22 in the Caponacre Industrial area near his home.

Police have since arrested an 18-year-old man, Ryan Esquierdo, in connection with Walker’s murder, but have released few details.

In his eulogy, Vicar the Reverend John Paterson praised Walker’s character, and told the gathering his murder had “devastated the community.”

“Stuart lived life to the full and everyone who came into contact with him was affected by his love for life,” he said. “He enjoyed socializing and whenever he was out he always charmed his company into getting a dance.”

“[The murder] has devastated his family. But it has also devastated the community as you can see by the turnout today.” Paterson said. “Stuart was very generous in the widest sense of the word. In his time and his spirit and that’s what people will remember him by. The number of people who have stood in support will give great strength to the family.”

Kameny’s flag draped coffin — a nod to his service in the U. S. Army during the Second World War — was flanked by by an honor guard comprised of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, who served as pallbearers at the conclusion of the ceremony, and veterans and gay rights activists Lt. Dan Choi and Captain James Pietrangelo II, both former U.S. Army officers.

The ceremony was held in Washington’s old Carnegie Library in the heart of the city Kameny called home for over 50 years. Kameny died on Oct. 11 at the age of 86.

Frank’s close friends Charles Francis and Bob Witeck had placed at one end of the coffin a picket sign that Kameny made for a 1962 gay rights protest he organized outside the White House. The sign, still attached to its original wood stick handle, read, “Homosexuals Ask for the Right to the Pursuit of Happiness.” At the other end of coffin stood a portrait of Kameny painted by local gay artist Don Patron.

The ceremony opened with the national anthem sung by a Chorale from Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington which was then followed by opening remarks from D. C.’s congressional representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who told the assembled crowd of hundreds of activists, community allies, public officials, and D.C. residents.

“Frank Kameny no more set out to sacrifice his livelihood when he refused to deny his sexual orientation to federal authorities than Rosa Parks intended to give up her work as a seamstress when she refused to move to the back of the bus,” Norton said.

“Rosa Parks got tired of suppressing her full identity and her full dignity. So did Frank Kameny,” said Norton, adding, “There is a special place in our country for people like Frank Kameny. The phrase he coined, ‘Gay is Good,’ is every bit as significant as Black is Beautiful.”

Kameny was dismissed from his position as an astronomer in the Army Map Service in Washington, D.C. because of his sexual orientation, which he contested in a federal lawsuit against the then U.S. Civil Service Commission.

Kameny argued his case all the way to the United States Supreme Court in 1961. The high court later denied his petition, however the case was noted as the first civil rights claim based on sexual orientation.

John Berry, the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, successor agency to the old U. S. Civil Service Commission and the highest ranking openly gay appointee in the Obama administration, officially apologized to Kameny about his firing in June of 2009, presenting Kameny with the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the department’s most prestigious award. The director was among the dignitaries present at the ceremonies Thursday.

D. C. city council member Jim Graham, gave a moving remembrance of Kameny, reflecting on his first acquaintance with the activist when Graham was director the Whitman-Walker Clinic during the HIV-Aids pandemic that struck the city in the 1980′s.

Councilman Graham called Kameny an “extraordinary” figure in the city and the nation.

“It is not possible to overstate the contribution that has been made by Frank Kameny for human rights, for gay and lesbian people and for everybody because, in point of fact, he was concerned about everybody.”

Graham’s sentiments were echoed by District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray.

“Frank Kameny is one of the most significant figures in the history of the American gay rights movement,” said Gray.

“It was a poignant coincident that Dr. Kameny passed away on National Coming Out Day because he came out as a proud gay man in an era in which there were virtually no social and legal supports for sexual minorities who chose to live their lives openly in this country.”

The Mayor also made reference to the movie “Milk,” the story of the slain San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk, another gay icon who followed in Kameny’s footsteps as a gay activist.

“Everyone in this room has heard about the movie Milk,” the mayor said,” well maybe it is now time for a movie called “Kameny.”

Rick Rosendall, vice president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance — which Kameny co-founded — and who had worked alongside him for over two decades, read from a chapter Kameny wrote for a book about the early “homophile movement” as the nascent LGBTQ equality rights movement was often referred to as, published during Kameny’s tenure of activism:

“It’s time to open the closet door and let in the fresh air and the sunshine. It is time to doth and discard the secrecy, the disguise and the camouflage.

It is time to hold up your heads and to look the world squarely in the eye as the homosexuals that you are, confident of your equality, confident in the knowledge that as objects of prejudice and victims of discrimination, you are right and they are wrong, and confident of the rightness of what you are and the goodness of what you do.

It is time to live your homosexuality fully, joyously, openly and proudly, assured that morally, socially, physically, psychologically, emotionally, and in every other way — gay is good.”

The death came less a month before the planned celebration of the 50th anniversary of Kameny’s founding of the Mattachine Society of Washington, the first gay rights organization in the nation’s capital.

LGBT rights advocates Charles Francis and Bob Witeck, who were longtime friends of Kameny’s and established the project to preserve Kameny’s papers over a 50-year period, said they would be announcing soon plans for a memorial service to honor the gay rights leader’s life.

Timothy Clark, Kameny’s tenant, said he found Kameny unconscious and unresponsive in his bed shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Clark called 911 police emergency and rescue workers determined that Kameny had passed away earlier, most likely in his sleep. Clark said he had spoken with Kameny shortly before midnight on the previous day and Kameny didn’t seem to be in distress.

Kameny is credited with being one of the leading strategists for the early gay rights movement — beginning shortly before the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village and continuing afterward.

Ettelbrick has been honored for her leadership roles at Lambda Legal, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, as well as the Stonewall Community Foundation.

Paula Ettelbrick

A lawyer by profession, Ettelbrick had a 25-year history in leadership positions within LGBT advocacy non-profits in the United States. From 2003 to 2009, she was the Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), a U.S.-based non-profit headquartered in New York with regional offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Cape Town, South Africa and Quezon City, Philippines.

IGLHRC, also a recipient of Stonewall funding, partners with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups around the world to challenge human rights abuse and discrimination and advocate for global policies and laws that respect the rights of LGBT people everywhere.

Ettelbrick also served as the legal director at Lambda Legal, policy director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, legislative counsel for the Empire State Pride Agenda, and family policy director at the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

She was considered an expert on matters pertaining to civil, constitutional and human rights issues related to sexuality, gender and sexual orientation. She was an adjunct professor of law at New York University Law School, teaching courses on Sexuality and the Law, and a lecturer in the Women’s Studies Department at Barnard College. She also taught in the law schools of the University of Michigan, Columbia University, Wayne State University, and the Whittier Law School’s Amsterdam Summer Program.

Tributes poured in from all over the globe as former associates, colleagues, and others acknowledged Ettelbrick’s contributions to advancing the cause of LGBTQ equality rights.

Kate Kendall, the Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which Ettelbrick served as policy director from 1993-1994, said in a statement:

“Paula was possessed of singular intelligence, integrity, ferocity and wit. She was also unfailingly generous and open-hearted. She will be missed as a tireless advocate of the most disenfranchised. But at this moment what I miss most is her passionate and inspiring friendship. We wish her family, especially Marianne, Suzanne, Adam, and Julia, much love and comfort at this very difficult time.”

The Stonewall Community Foundation released this statement:

As a lifelong advocate for LGBTQ people across the globe, Paula will always be remembered for her leadership roles at Lambda Legal, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the Stonewall Community Foundation.

In the words of Interim Executive Director, Richard Burns, “There are countless LGBTQ citizens around the world whose lives are better today because of Paula. Paula was a passionate and powerful advocate for all LGBTQ New Yorkers and a true friend. At Stonewall, we’re grateful for all she did for the foundation and we’ll miss her greatly.”

In New York, the GMHC organization noted:

Beautiful, articulate, smart and hard-hitting, Paula was a force to be reckoned with. We will miss her fierceness, eloquence and graciousness. We send our tender thoughts to all the members of her family, chosen and biological, as well as all those who have been touched by Paula’s life and work.

Cary Alan Johnson, the executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission wrote:

Paula was IGLHRC’s third Executive Director and took our organization to whole new places in terms of our capacity and depth. Paula was so many things to so many people — her family, the movement, the New York City and global queer communities. First and foremost I can say that I found her to be so genuinely deeply unfalteringly committed to our liberation as LGBT people. [...] More will be said by many in the coming weeks, as we have lost an icon of our movement.

Jamey, 14, committed suicide last week after enduring years of anti-gay bullying at school and online. He was laid to rest on Saturday.

“We lost a little monster this week and I wanted to dedicate this song to him tonight,” Gaga said before playing her song about identity and individuality, “Hair.”

During the emotional performance, Gaga said “Jamey, I know you’re up there looking on us, and you’re not a victim, you’re a lesson to all of us.”

At one point, Gaga shouted “Bullying is for losers.”

Watch the tribute here:

Jamey was a devoted fan of Lady Gaga, and was inspired by her message of tolerance when he created his “It Gets Better” video in May.

“Lady Gaga, she makes me so happy, and she lets me know that I was born this way,” Jamey said in his video. “Hold your head up and you’ll go far. Because that’s all you have to do, just love yourself and you’re set,” he added, echoing the lyrics of Gaga’s hit, “Born this Way.”

Last week, Jamey’s mother said she would bury Jamey in a t-shirt that reads “Born This Way.”

More than 500 mourners, many of who were strangers to his family, turned out in Williamsville, N.Y. to say goodbye to Jamey, a 14-year-old gay teen who committed suicide earlier this week after enduring years of bullying at school and online.

Jamey’s parents and friends said that the bullying had begun during middle school — he had told his parents, sister and closest friends that the hateful comments were mostly all directed at his sexual orientation.

Jamey often blogged about the bullying he was suffering at school, but tormentors also followed him online and left messages on his Formspring page calling him “gay and ugly,” and encouraging him to kill himself.

“Jamey’s suicide is a heartbreaking reminder of the vulnerability of gay teens … while some may say that Jamey took his life, unrelenting homophobia murdered him,” said Malcolm Lazin, founder and Executive Director of Equality Forum, in a statement.

In May, inspired by singer Lady Gaga and her message of tolerance, Jamey posted this “It Gets Better” video on YouTube, in which he said, “Hold your head up and you’ll go far. Because that’s all you have to do, just love yourself and you’re set.”

On Saturday night, Sept. 17, Jamey posted a lyric from Gaga’s song “The Queen” on his Facebook page: “Don’t forget me when I come crying to heaven’s door.”

Around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, Jamey posted two final messages on his Tumblr blog. One said he wanted to see his great-grandmother, who had recently died, and one that offered thanks to Lady Gaga. His body was discovered hours later.

Earlier this week, his mother Tracy Rodemeyer told CBS News she would bury Jamey in a Lady Gaga t-shirt that reads “Born This Way.”

Outside the church during Saturday’s funeral, a caravan of trucks and buses loaded with students passed by, displaying signs that conveyed messages advocating for tolerance, and support for Jamey’s family.

Tyler was a gifted and award-winning violinist, who played with the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra and participated in the Bergen Youth Orchestra as concertmaster.

Tyler’s death was the third in what would become a spate of suicides among gay, or perceived gay, teens that occurred in September and October 2010, and the first to gain international attention and be reported extensively by mainstream media due to the impact of bullying and cyber-bullying of the victims.

Two Rutgers University students — Dharun Ravi, Tyler’s roommate, and Molly Wei — allegedly placed a camera in Tyler’s dorm room and streamed the images onto the internet on Sept. 19.

Ravi was also accused of setting up his webcam to try to capture Tyler in a second liaison two days later.

On Sept. 22, 2010, Tyler left a final goodbye on his Facebook page that read “jumping off the gw bridge, sorry.”

Police recovered Tyler’s body on September 29 in the Hudson River just north of the bridge.

Since Tyler’s suicide, New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act was passed and signed by Gov. Chris Christie in January. Advocates say it’s one of the toughest laws of its kind in the nation.

On April 20, Ravi received a 15-count indictment, including a charge of the hate crime of bias intimidation, for his alleged actions that led to Tyler’s death, and for trying to cover up it up afterward.

Weeks later, Wei struck a plea deal to avoid jail time on the condition she testifies against Ravi.

Earlier this year, Tyler parents, Jane and Joseph Clementi, announced plans to start the Tyler Clementi Foundation, which will focus on promoting awareness of bullying, particularly cyber-bullying.

Rick Gerharter, Bay Area Reporter

Arthur Evans at a protest of the relocation of the Human Rights Campaign store into the former location of Harvey Milk's camera store.

Naphtali Offen, a close friend of Mr. Evans’s and the executor of his estate, said that he suffered a heart attack around 4:30 a.m. Mr. Evans had been diagnosed with a large aortic aneurysm in October 2010 and was not expected to live more than a few months, Offen said.

“He spent his last year pursuing his pleasures: translating ancient Greek, playing chess with his best friend, going to the Castro Theatre, dining out, writing letters to the editor, and visiting friends,” Offen said. “He remained chipper to the end.”

Mr. Evans was a complicated man, working for gay liberation in its earliest days, but supporting local quality of life measures to the consternation of progressives in his later years.

“It’s not hard to remember the Arthur Evans who embodied the defiant spirit of gay pride that was born at Stonewall (no, he wasn’t among the cast of thousands claiming to have been there). Or the tireless activist of the 1970s and 1980s, who shouted down homophobes and protested outside drug companies because of their price gouging of AIDS medications,” said longtime housing activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca. “Or the gentle man who did extensive research into faeries and gay male involvement in spiritual traditions in the west because he didn’t believe in the hyper-masculine Castro clone identity that so many gay men were drawn to during the disco era.”

But Avicolli Mecca and others opposed Mr. Evans on several local issues, including last year’s sit/lie ballot measure, which bans sitting or lying on city sidewalks during certain hours.

In recent years, Mr. Evans often clashed with progressive LGBTs. His support for the sit/lie measure provoked intense criticism from many of the city’s self-styled progressives. To which, he replied: “Neighborhood safety is a progressive issue. How can we make the world a better place if we neglect improving our own neighborhoods?”

Avicolli Mecca, for one, broke with Mr. Evans on quality of life issues.

“Though in the last decade Arthur and I were on opposite sides of many issues, I never stopped respecting him for the work he did in the 1970s and 1980s to challenge the still-entrenched homophobia in this country. He remains a giant of gay liberation,” Avicolli Mecca said.

The Reverend Jim Mitulski, a former pastor at Metropolitan Community Church-San Francisco in the Castro, also disagreed with Mr. Evans on the homeless issue.

“He was a complex and creative person,” Mitulski, now pastor at New Spirit Community Church in Berkeley, said. “As he aged he seemed to me to embrace positions that seemed counter to his early days as a social and political radical with deeply spiritual roots. Though I was puzzled and even disappointed by his apparent animosity toward the homeless, for example, I admire his contribution to our movement, especially during the early years.”

Joey Cain, who was a neighbor of Mr. Evans’s, said that for the last 15 years or so, Mr. Evans “wasn’t about rational dialogue.”

“I think he was very harmful in terms of politics in the Haight-Ashbury. He actively worked to defeat programs that helped kids.”

According to Cain, Mr. Evans was known as the “Ann Coulter of Haight Street,” in spite of his progressive roots and work with early gay activism.

“I did have an affection for Arthur,” Cain said, but the two usually avoided discussing political issues when they saw one another.

Early days

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mr. Evans played a pivotal role in the newly emergent gay liberation movement in New York City.

A few weeks after the famous Stonewall Riot of June 1969 (which he missed), Evans and his lover, Arthur Bell, joined the Gay Liberation Front, a new group that proudly proclaimed itself to be gay, countercultural, and revolutionary.

Within GLF, Mr. Evans and others created a cell called the Radical Study Group to examine the historical roots of sexism and homophobia. Many of the participants later became published authors, including, besides Mr. Evans and Bell, John Lauritsen, Larry Mitchell, and Steve Dansky.

A number of GLF members, including Mr. Evans, soon became dissatisfied with the organization, complaining that it lacked a coherent, ongoing program of street activism. At the suggestion of GLF member Jim Owles and Marty Robinson, about 12 people met in Bell’s Manhattan apartment on December 21, 1969, and founded the Gay Activists Alliance. Mr. Evans wrote the group’s statement of purpose and much of its constitution.

Through GAA, Robinson, Evans, and Owles developed the tactic of “zaps.” These were militant (but non-violent) face-to-face confrontations with persons in authority. Mr. Evans was often arrested in such actions, participating in disruptions of local business offices, political headquarters, local TV shows, and the Metropolitan Opera.

In November 1970, Robinson and Mr. Evans, along with Dick Leitsch of the Mattachine Society, appeared on the Dick Cavett Show. They were among the first openly gay activists to be prominently featured as guests on a national TV program.

It was a big change from Mr. Evans’s earlier days in York, Pennsylvania, where he was born on October 12, 1942. His father worked most of his life on assembly lines, the last in a chain factory. His mother ran a small beauty shop out of a front room in the family house.

When Mr. Evans graduated from public high school in 1960, he received a four-year scholarship from the Glatfelter Paper Company in York County to study chemistry at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. While at Brown, Evans and several friends founded the Brown Freethinkers Society, describing themselves as “militant atheists” seeking to combat the harmful effects of organized religion.

The group picketed the weekly chapel convocation at Brown, then required of all students (even though Brown is a secular institution) and urged students to stand in silent protest during the compulsory prayer. National wire services picked up the story, which appeared in a local York newspaper.

As a result, the Glatfelter Paper Company informed Mr. Evans that his scholarship would be canceled. For help, Mr. Evans turned to Joseph Lewis, the elderly millionaire who headed the national Freethinkers Society. Lewis threatened the paper company with a highly publicized lawsuit if the scholarship were revoked. The company relented, the scholarship continued, and Mr. Evans changed his major from chemistry to political science.

Although obstreperous politically, Mr. Evans remained closeted sexually and very lonely, not knowing any other gay person. Throughout both high school and college, he often thought of suicide. In 1963, after completing three years at Brown, he read an article in a national magazine reporting that many “homosexuals” lived in Greenwich Village in New York City. He promptly withdrew from Brown and moved to the Village, a change that he later described it as the best move he ever made in his life.

Gay life

In 1963 Mr. Evans discovered gay life in Greenwich Village and in 1964 became lovers with Bell. In 1966 he was admitted to City College of New York, which accepted all his credits from Brown University. He participated in his first sit-in on May 13, 1966, when a group of students occupied the administration building of City College in protest against the college’s involvement in the Selective Service System. A picture of the students, including Mr. Evans, appeared the next day on the front page of the New York Times.

In 1967, after graduating with a B.A. degree from City College, Mr. Evans was admitted into the doctoral program in philosophy at Columbia University, specializing in ancient Greek philosophy. His doctoral adviser was Paul Oskar Kristeller, then the world’s leading authority on Renaissance humanist philosophy. Kristeller had studied under Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger in Germany but fled to Columbia University after his parents were killed in the Holocaust.

Mr. Evans participated in many anti-war protests during these years, including the celebrated upheaval at Columbia in the spring of 1968. In the same year he also participated in the protests at the Democratic convention in Chicago. During this time, the poetry of Allen Ginsberg had a powerful influence on the formation of his values. While at Columbia, Mr. Evans joined the Student Homophile League, founded by Nino Romano, although he was still closeted.

In 1971 Mr. Evans and Bell, by then a columnist for the Village Voice, separated. Bell later died from diabetic complications in 1984.

By the end of 1971, Mr. Evans had become alienated from urban life and the academic world. With a second lover, Jacob Schraeter, he left New York in April 1972 to seek a new, counter-cultural existence in the countryside.

Using Seattle as a base, Mr. Evans, Schraeter, and a third gay man formed a group called the Weird Sisters Partnership. They bought a 40-acre spread of forest land on a remote mountain in northeastern Washington state, which they named New Sodom. Mr. Evans and Schraeter lived there in tents during summers.

During winter months in Seattle, Mr. Evans continued research that he had begun in New York on the underlying historical origins of the counterculture, particularly in regard to its sex. In 1973 he began publishing some of his findings in a gay journal called Out and later in Fag Rag. He also wrote a column on the political strategy of zapping for the Advocate, a national gay newspaper.

San Francisco

In 1974, Mr. Evans and Schraeter moved into an apartment at the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets in San Francisco. Schraeter returned to New York in 1981 and died from AIDS in 1989.

In the fall of 1975, Mr. Evans formed a new pagan-inspired spiritual group in San Francisco, the Faery Circle. It combined counter-cultural consciousness, gay sensibility, and ceremonial playfulness.

In 1976 he gave a series of public lectures, entitled “Faeries,” on his research on the historical origins of the gay counterculture. In 1978 he published this material in his groundbreaking book Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture. It demonstrated that many of the people accused of “witchcraft” and “heresy” in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were actually persecuted because of their sexuality and adherence to ancient pagan practices.

Cain said the book “was incredibly influential.”

At this time, Mr. Evans also was active in Bay Area Gay Liberation and the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, which later became the vehicle through which Harvey Milk rose to political prominence. He and his friend Offen opened a small Volkswagen-repair business, which they named The Buggery.

In the late 1970s, Mr. Evans became upset at the pattern of butch conformity that was then overtaking gay men in the Castro. Adopting the nom de plume of “The Red Queen,” he distributed a series of controversial satirical leaflets on the subject. In a leaflet of 1978, entitled “Afraid You’re Not Butch Enough?” he facetiously referred to the new, butch-conforming men of the Castro as clones, initiating use of the now widely used term “Castro clones.”

In 1984 Mr. Evans directed a production at the Valencia Rose Cabaret in San Francisco of his own new translation, from the ancient Greek, of Euripides’s play Bakkhai . The hero of Euripides’s play is the Greek god Dionysos, the patron of homosexuality. In 1988, this translation, together with Mr. Evans’s commentary on the historical significance of the play, was published by St. Martin’s Press in New York under the name of The God of Ecstasy.

As AIDS began to spread in the 1980s, Mr. Evans became active in several San Francisco groups that later morphed in ACT UP/SF, although he himself was HIV-negative. With his good friend, the late Hank Wilson, he was arrested twice while demonstrating against the drug-maker Burroughs-Wellcome, accusing it of price-gouging, and once against a local TV station, charging it with defamation of people with AIDS.

In 1988, Mr. Evans began work on a nine-year project on philosophy. Thanks to a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission, it was published in 1997 as Critique of Patriarchal Reason and included artwork by San Francisco artist Frank Pietronigro.

The book is a monumental overview of Western philosophy from antiquity to the present. It shows how misogyny and homophobia have influenced the supposedly objective fields of formal logic, higher mathematics, and physical science. Kristeller, Mr. Evans’s former doctoral adviser at Columbia University, called the work “a major contribution to the study of philosophy and its history.”

Mr. Evans is survived by his brother Joe Evans of Durand, Michigan, his best friend Offen, and a host of longtime friends. A memorial service is being planned for mid-October. For details contact Offen at lamda23@yahoo.com.

Walter Righter

Righter was bishop of Iowa from 1972 to 1988, during which time he ordained the first female deacon in Iowa. From 1989 to 1991, he was an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Newark, N.J.

Righter became a lightning rod for dissent over the ordination of gays in the Episcopal Church when he was an assistant bishop in Newark, N.J., under Bishop John Spong, an outspoken supporter of ordaining lesbians and gays.

In 1990, with Spong’s approval, Righter ordained Barry Stopfel, whom he knew to be gay, as a deacon, a rank below that of priest. The next year Spong ordained Stopfel as a priest.

Church conservatives focused their outrage on Righter but did not file formal charges against him until 1995, when a five-year statute of limitations was set to expire. He was tried in 1996 by a panel of eight bishops, who, in voting 7 to 1 to dismiss the heresy charges, ruled that there was no church doctrine forbidding the ordination of gays and lesbians who are in a committed relationship.

Los Angeles Times

Righter wrote about his experience in a 1998 memoir, “A Pilgrim’s Way,” and once said that his accusers were “irrational,” did not understand “the tides of history” and focused only on their fears.

In 2009, the Episcopal Church affirmed that “gays and lesbians in lifelong committed relationships,” could be ordained, saying that “God has called and may call such individuals to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church.”

The Episcopal Church currently has two openly gay bishops.

In what he describes as the first horrifying hours following the crash of two hijacked jetliners into both World Trade Center towers, causing them to collapse, Levi said the ESPA staff joined other New Yorkers in helping survivors and victims any way they could.

“We opened the doors to our offices, which were on 12th Street at the time, to people as they were fleeing the World Trade Center site and coming downtown,” he said. “Many of them came right by our offices and so people were coming in just to use the bathroom and get some water and make phone calls,” he said.

“And in that way we were just a member of the New York family that had to go through this horrible event,” Levi said.

But Levi and other LGBT activists observing the Sept. 11 events as they unfolded said they quickly discovered within a week of the attacks that same-sex partners of those killed, injured or missing in the World Trade Center collapse faced additional hurdles in obtaining government and private sector assistance.

He said ESPA first became aware that same-sex partner survivors were being treated differently when the city and private relief agencies like the Red Cross set up an emergency station on a pier along New York’s Hudson River where people could go to find a family member missing and as yet unaccounted for in the World Trade Center carnage.

Related:
Gays among heroes, victims of Sept. 11

“Literally [gay] people had to go there, turn around, go back home and get some paperwork that spouses didn’t have to get to prove a relationship existed,” Levi said. “You were nervous and scared and sad and then you had to go through that. And worse, other people turned them away, even with the paperwork, saying sorry you’re not a family according to our guidelines.”

Activists reflecting on the Sept. 11 tragedy this week said New York City and New York State officials quickly recognized the inequities faced by same-sex partner survivors and took steps to change polices and laws to correct the situation. The changes began to take place, activists, said, following news media reports of the loss of individual LGBT people at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon just outside Washington, which was hit by a third hijacked plane.

“It had such an impact because the loss was about death and relationships,” said Jennifer Pizer, senior counsel for Lambda Legal, an LGBT litigation group, in a 2006 interview with the Blade at the time of the 5th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“The grief and loss was the same between heterosexual and same-sex couples, and a perception of this seemed to come through to much of the public,” Pizer said.

Blade File Photo

Mark Bingham, pictured here with partner Paul Holm, helped prevent United Flight 93 from reaching D.C. Those passengers are widely credited with saving the U.S. Capitol or White House on Sept. 11, 2001.

Among the victims widely reported on
by the media was Mark Bingham, a gay
public relations executive and avid
rugby player from San Francisco, who
was one of the passengers on United
Airlines Flight 93, which crashed
into the countryside in Pennsylvania.

Bingham’s mother said she spoke to
him by cell phone after his hijacked
plane was believed to be heading
toward Washington, D.C. for another
terrorist attack. She said she believes
her son was part of a small group of passengers believed to have attempted to wrestle control of the plane from the hijackers.

Authorities have speculated that passengers such as Bingham and others most likely intervened to prevent the hijackers from crashing the jetliner into a building in Washington, such as the Capitol or the White House.

Bingham was among the 9/11 victims portrayed in the Hollywood film “United 93.”

Blade File Photo

American Airlines pilot David Charlebois, who was gay, served as co-pilot onboard American Airlines Flight 77 when terrorists hijacked it and crashed it into the Pentagon.

Another of the victims widely reported in the media was American Airlines pilot David Charlebois, who was gay and an active member of the National Gay Pilots Association. Charlebois was serving as first officer, or co-pilot, onboard American Airlines Flight 77 when terrorists hijacked the Boeing 757 jetliner and crashed it into the Pentagon.

All of its crew and passengers perished along with dozens of Pentagon employees working in the part of the building struck by the plane.

Charlebois’ surviving partner of 14 years, Tom Hay, was treated with respect and honor by American Airlines’ top brass and colleagues when more than a dozen uniformed company pilots and flight attendants attended Charlebois’ funeral mass at St. Matthews Cathedral in downtown D.C.

“It was a time when all Americans did come together with a single, united focus,” said David Smith, vice president of programs for the Human Rights Campaign and the national LGBT advocacy group’s media spokesperson at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“And there were extraordinary acts of kindness and recognition that this is an issue that needs to be dealt with, i.e., our families need to be protected,” Smith said. “But it also really brought into stark reality how the lack of recognition of our families causes real pain and at times almost insurmountable challenges that families that are protected by law through marriage don’t have to experience.”

Levi said ESPA was pleased when, in response to requests by LGBT advocacy groups and media reports, then GOP Gov. George Pataki issued an executive order in October 2001 that included surviving partners of gay and lesbian victims of the World Trade Center attacks in receiving full spousal benefits from the state’s Crime Victims Board.

“The order marks the first official step taken by any level of government in the nation to address the inequities faced by gay and lesbian survivors of the terrorist attacks in obtaining benefits,” ESPA said in a statement at the time.

The New York State Legislature soon followed suit by passing three separate bills that included same-sex partner survivors in various state benefits to be allocated to 9/11 survivors and their families. One provided state worker’s compensation benefits to domestic partners of 9/11 victims.

Another bill approved by the legislature enabled same-sex partners and their children to be eligible for a newly created World Trade Center Memorial Scholarship Program. A third bill passed by the legislature called on the federal government to include same-sex partners in federal relief programs for 9/11 survivors.

A short time later, the Red Cross responded to requests by ESPA, HRC, Lambda Legal and other LGBT groups by opening up its disaster relief programs to same-sex partner survivors. Activists called the action historic and noted it resulted in badly needed relief for LGBT victims of Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast several years later.

On the federal level, President George W. Bush and Republican members of Congress joined Democrats in approving a massive, $7 billion Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund. Officials said the program was aimed at providing a viable alternative to thousands of individual wrongful death lawsuits that likely would have emerged against airline companies and the company that operated the World Trade Center if such a fund were not created.

But LGBT advocacy groups once again discovered that the relief funds would likely be out of reach for surviving same-sex partners of 9/11 victims. Among other things, the fund’s administrator, attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who had worked for the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), said rules for who is eligible for receiving as much as $1.3 million in compensation payments would have to be linked to state probate laws and rules.

At the time, no state probate law recognized same-sex relationships, even if they were made legal on the local level by a city or county domestic partnership ordinance.

ESPA, HRC, Lambda Legal and other advocacy groups said they worked hard to lobby the U.S. Justice Department, which had jurisdiction over the compensation fund program, to take administrative steps to include same-sex couples survivors in the program.

At the time, Feinberg told the Blade that while he was concerned about the plight of surviving domestic partners of the Sept. 11 victims, it was not feasible to include specific domestic partner provisions in the relief fund’s regulations.

“If I get in the middle of that fight and try and trump local probate law in a particular case, I’ll be up to my neck in lawsuits,” he said. “I’m not saying they’re not entitled,” he said. “I’m not saying they are entitled.”

Smith of HRC said at least two of about 22 known LGBT partner survivors in the Sept. 11 attacks did receive compensation from the fund. Smith said the compensation payments came about, however, when surviving blood relatives chose not to challenge the same-sex partners’ application for the compensation.

In a separate development, HRC, ESPA, Lambda Legal and other LGBT advocacy groups created the September 11 Gay & Lesbian Family Fund to provide some relief to surviving partners who were ineligible for help from the federal relief fund program.

In a May 2006 announcement, ESPA said the known surviving partners of gay or lesbian victims of 9/11 had received nearly $17,315 each from the new Gay & Lesbian Family Fund. ESPA said at the time that the groups raised a total of $378,812 for the fund, with only $11,193, or 2.9 percent, being spent on administrative costs.

“The Family Fund was established in December [2001] to help offset the discrimination gay and lesbian partners faced in obtaining benefits automatically afforded to surviving spouses, including Social Security and Workers Compensation survivor benefits, and compensation under the Federal 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund,” the ESPA statement said.

“I don’t think there is one of us who were of remembering age who lives their life the same on Sept. 11 at 8 o’clock in the morning as we did at 10 o’clock in the morning on that day,” said Winnie Stachelberg, senior vice president for external affairs for the Center for American Progress, and who served as HRC’s political director in 2001.

“And my hope is it’s changed us to respect our diversity, to honor our humanity,” she said. “I don’t know if we’ve embraced those lessons but in this 10th year anniversary if we don’t remember that we need to honor our diversity and our humanity we will not have learned from the tragedy of Sept. 11.”

Another of the widely reported 9/11 victims was Father Mychal Judge, a gay Catholic priest and beloved New York Fire Department chaplain. Judge was killed when struck by falling debris next to the World Trade Center while he was performing last rites for a dying firefighter. His sexual orientation, while not widely known until after his death, was confirmed by New York Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, who told New York magazine that Judge confided to him that he was both gay and celibate.

In 2002, Congress honored Judge by using his name for the landmark Mychal Judge Police and Fire Chaplains Public Safety Officers Benefit Act. The law marked the first time the federal government had extended an equal benefit for same-sex couples, in this case allowing domestic partners of public safety officers killed in the line of duty to obtain a federal death benefit.