Openly Gay Legislator Allan H. Spear Dies
One of the nation’s first openly gay legislators, Allan H. Spear, died on Saturday of complications following heart surgery. He was 71.
The Minnesota state Senate president, a civil rights champion, historian and one of the first openly gay state legislators in the country, was the first non-attorney to lead the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was elected in 1972 and was state president from 1993 to 2000, when he retired.
Spear announced he was gay in a 1974 interview with the Minneapolis Star, becoming one of only two openly gay legislators in the country. Spear started working that decade to amend Minnesota’s Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. The legislation passed in 1993.
He wanted to be known not as a gay legislator, but as a legislator who happened to be gay who fought for justice.
