Allan Spear, who became one of the first openly gay state lawmakers in the United States when he came out in 1974, died Oct. 18 of complications following major heart surgery. He was 71.
After his election as president of the Minnesota Senate in 1993, having served in that body since the early 1970s, Spear said in 1996 that he finally felt validated:
“I’m no longer considered kind of a liberal, gay Jewish wacko, as I might have been 10, 15 years ago.”
An associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota from 1964 to 2000, Spear was first elected to the Minnesota Senate in 1972. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party stalwart represented his Minneapolis district until his retirement in 2000.
He was “a cut above most of us,” recalled Spear’s party-mate, Sen. Richard Cohen of St. Paul, Minn., who shared an office suite with Spear for six years. Spear “was the consistent intellectual leader of the Senate for many, many years.”
Spear struggled for 20 years to extend protections under the Minnesota Human Rights Act to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. The passage of those amendments in 1993 was the crowning accomplishment of Spear’s lengthy tenure in the Senate.
He also was a pioneer in legislating for the protection of vulnerable adults, those in nursing homes and with developmental disabilities, as well as actively involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the anti-Vietnam War movement.
As an undergraduate, Spear took off a semester at Oberlin College to attend Fisk, a predominantly black college.
In praising Spear as a pioneer, Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmon-ese said there are now approximately 400 openly LGBT state legislators nationwide.
Spear was an active member and served on the board of Shir Tikvah Congregation in Minneapolis. He often lauded the synagogue’s “inclusiveness.”
Spear is survived by life partner Junjiro Tsuji.