Leroy Walker, gay rights activist, at 63
LOS ANGELES -- Leroy S. Walker, an activist and lawyer who led important efforts during the late 1970s and 1980s to protect the rights of gays and lesbians in the workplace, died April 5 of an apparent heart attack at his West Hollywood apartment. He was 63.
Mr. Walker, who was known as Lee, was the driving force behind Governor Jerry Brown's 1979 executive order barring discrimination against gay state employees. His efforts helped pave the way in 1984 for an amendment to the state's hate crimes law to include gays and lesbians under its protections.
He also was the lead attorney in the first California court case to affirm that employers could not discriminate against workers with AIDS. The 1987 case, filed on behalf of a Santa Barbara man with AIDS whose employer refused to allow him to return to work even though he was declared medically fit, was hailed as precedent-setting by national gay rights advocates.
Mr. Walker frequently challenged targets whose legal resources far exceeded those of his small Los Angeles law firm. In one such case, he successfully represented three gay men who alleged that Disneyland had violated their civil rights when a security guard at the amusement park told them that touch dancing was reserved for heterosexuals.
He worked as a consultant for the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing in 1979, when no state laws explicitly protected the rights of gays and lesbians. Mr. Walker successfully pressed Brown to issue the executive order that banned discrimination against state workers on the basis of sexual orientation. He then lobbied the State Personnel Board to create the Sexual Orientation Project to focus attention on bias against homosexual employees.
His efforts also led Brown in 1981 to establish the Commission on Personal Privacy, which brought together diverse constituencies, including women and senior citizens, to recommend steps the state should take to safeguard their rights.
One of the chief outcomes of the commission's study was the adoption in 1984 of an amendment that included violence against the elderly, the disabled, and homosexuals in the state law prohibiting hate crimes. It became the first California law to explicitly protect lesbians and gay men from discrimination.
