David Mixner, an advocate and political strategist who fought and criticized political figures in the fight for LGBTQ justice, passed away on Monday. He was 77.
A companion, Steven Guy, a pal, told The New York Times that Mixner had consequences from long Covid.
Additionally, Mixner was a writer, having recounted his years of advocacy in a number of acts, including Oh Hell No!, which he performed in New York, Los Angeles, and various places in 2014, 2015, and 2016, and 1969 and Who Fell Into the Outhouse? The stagings, which benefited key LGBTQ organizations, featured Mixner recalling his early years of remote poverty, his role in the Vietnam War protests, his experiences coming out, living through the AIDS problems, and his aid and crack with long-time friend Bill Clinton when the then-president failed to put an end to a ban on gays and lesbians in the military.
Without David Mixner’s leadership, love, and extraordinary spirit and laughter, the world would not be where it is today, according to Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD. David was a cherished leader to me and several other LGBTQ leaders, often pushing for more for our area. He gave his life to our community, and we must then work to leave a legacy that speaks for itself.
When he dropped out of school, Mixner began working for Eugene McCarthy, the senator from Minnesota, in 1968 on an anti-war software. He had been attending the University of Maryland. He was present at the Democratic Convention that season, and he was beaten as a result of the police riot as protesters were pursued with their truncheons. In his 1996 narrative, Stranger Among Friends, Mixner remarked, “I recall going into a fetal position and feeling the blows of the jimmy club on my feet.” He wrote in his diary for the following several years that he used and didn’t use crutches.
He organized the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, where he met Clinton at a surrender. According to Mixner, their childhoods and passions were linked by “not just our goals for the future but also by our commonality.”
In the 1970s, Mixner moved to Los Angeles to work on the campaign for Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay people to be elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. He continued to pursue social organizing. He led the re-election campaign of then-Mayor Tom Bradley and was one of the founding members of the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles, the second gay political action committee in the country.
In his memoir, Mixner described how much anxiety and depression he experienced as he transitioned from his past to his present, along with friends, business partners, and finally family.
In 1978, Mixner and his life and business partner, Peter Scott, joined friends to build a campaign against a proposed California vote program that would have forbidden gays and lesbians from holding positions in the classroom. The initial version of the measure, known as the Briggs Initiative, received overwhelming support. However, he and Scott met with former California governor Ronald Reagan, who was also considering running for president.
In a 2016 interview with Variety, Mixner described Reagan as “one of the most courteous men in politics I have ever met.”
He immediately said, “Look, I am definitely going to oppose this action,” he recalled. He was open to change after we had a lengthy discussion. And then he heard our situation and made a different opinion.
Reagan’s open criticism had a significant impact. The measure was defeated due to a shift in public opinion.
Some of Mixner’s friends and fellow protesters died from AIDS over the following ten years, including Scott, who passed away in 1989. Eventually, Mixner criticized the Reagan administration’s “mean and terrible inaction,” which he attributed to the religious right.
Politically speaking, politicians still see a potential danger in joining the gay and lesbian movement. After meeting with a group of well-known gay donors, including those in entertainment, Mixner made an offer to raise $1 million in response to the campaign when Michael Dukakis was the Democratic nominee in 1988. However, the Dukakis fundraiser turned it down. According to Mixner’s narrative, the campaign official said, “Too risky,” according to Mixner.
Four years later, however, Clinton hired Mixner to help with his campaign. He showed an openness to the gay and lesbian group in a way that none of his rivals had. In a report in the Los Angeles Blade, journalist Karen Ocamb and other protesters and donors made sure the funds raised could be “clearly designated as GAY MONEY.” In a meeting with the organization Access Now for Gay and Lesbian Equality in February 1992, Mixner “whispered in Clinton’s ear like a political strategist, treated him like a friend, and served as an LGBTQ adviser for all our hopes and dreams to the person who would become the next President,”
according to Ocamb.
Bill Clinton saw us as “a folks,” not just a culture war issue, according to Ocamb, who wrote.
Clinton stated in 1992 that he had a vision and that you are a part of it at a gay charity held at the Hollywood Palace Theater for his campaign.
Clinton had stated in his statement that he would pull the gay and lesbian military restrictions, telling the audience that “they had to be able to do it” if a person wanted to serve their country.
Clinton was immediately met with criticism for lifting the ban, though. Later in 1993, this led to the new “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which essentially permitted LGBT members to serve as long as they kept quiet about it.
Mixner publicly expressed his criticism, and he was so detained while holding a demonstration outside the White House.
His split with Clinton temporarily caused him to become unpopular.
“They made it impossible for me to operate for four years,” Mixner claimed to Variety. “I was expelled from the White House, but interestingly, the LGBT community didn’t really support me. But that is acceptable because I had to do what I believed to be right.”
In the end, Mixner and Clinton reconciled.
This time around, don’t ask, don’t tell was still in place and as bans on same-sex marriage became a key feature of Republican-led campaigns. Mixner continued his activism into the 2000s. Proposition 8 was passed by Californian citizens, but newly elected President Barack Obama was still hesitant to support gay marriage. Mixner organized a protest and march at the Capitol in 2009. Speakers at the National Equality March, including Lady Gaga and the Hair cast, joined Mixner in a demonstration against inequality, and the throng of tens of thousands was mobilized to proceed. He continued, “I promise you on my life that if you fill the jails, that if you work in those congressional districts, I will be able to stand before you and declare, ‘My name is David Mixner.’ I am a gay man who is also free.”
