David Mixner, Fierce Fighter for Gay Rights, Is Dead at 77
David B. Mixner, a political strategist who played prominent roles in the anti-Vietnam War movement and in the arduous fight for gay rights, and whose decades-long influence with Bill Clinton spanned both eras, died on Monday at his home in Midtown Manhattan.
He was 77. The cause was complications of long-term Covid, said Steven Guy, a close friend. Mr. Mixner, born three days apart from Mr.
Clinton and raised in similar rural privation, met the future president when they were in their early 20s. He later arranged for Mr.
Clinton to make the first public address by a major presidential candidate to a gay and lesbian audience, in 1992. His political savvy was such that he was able to persuade California’s foremost conservative, Ronald Reagan, to oppose a 1978 state initiative to ban gay schoolteachers.
