Arnie Kantrowitz, a literature professor and author who was an early champion of gay rights and an indefatigable campaigner for fairer treatment of gay people by the media, died on Jan. 21 at a rehabilitation center in Manhattan. He was 81.
The cause was complications of Covid-19, his life partner, Dr. Lawrence D. Mass, said.
The gay rights movement was ignited in mid-1969 by the uprising provoked by a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, which led to the founding several months later of the Gay Activists Alliance. Mr. Kantrowitz became the organization’s vice president in 1970, which was also the year he came to grips with his own homosexuality.
In 1985, he was a founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (now known as GLAAD), which was established to counter negative media coverage generated by the AIDS crisis.
His memoir, “Under the Rainbow: Growing Up Gay” (1977), exposed to a wide audience the difficulties he and his gay contemporaries faced in the 1950s and ’60s and recalled how he had confronted them — including two suicide attempts. The book also chronicled historical events in the movement, including what was called the first Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day Parade, held in New York City in 1969. » | Sam Roberts | Thursday, February 3, 2022
