American gay rights pioneer Arthur Evans has died from a heart attack at his home in San Francisco, at the age of 69. Inspired by the 1969 police raid on Stonewall Inn, in New York, he was among the initiators of the Gay Activists Alliance, with the dream of being more assertive than the Gay Liberation Front. Based New York, the alliance became a model for gay rights organisations nationwide. One of Evans' most notorious demonstrations was a 1970 "tea party" Harper's Magazine in Manhattan, which had published an anti-gay article. Evans came up with the idea of bringing a coffee pot, doughnuts, a folding table and chairs. The New York Times reports that when the editor refused to print a rebuttal as the group demanded, Evans erupted. "You knew that this article would contribute to the oppression of homosexuals!” he yelled. "You are a bigot, and you are to be held responsible for that moral and political act." In 1972 he moved to Washington State and lived in a tent, then he moved to San Francisco and helped open a Volkswagen repair business they named the Buggery. Evans was also a writer, penning Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture and Critique of Patriarchal Reason.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 15th September 2011 - 5:07pm