PFLAG's First National President Dies at 90

Adele Starr, who served as PFLAG's first national president and helped turn the group into a nation-wide support organization for the families of GLBT individuals, has died at age 90.

A Dec. 10 press release from Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) National called Starr "one of the pivotal figures in the establishment of the national organization," and recounted how Starr, after being elected president of the group when its various chapters coalesced into a national entity, ran PFLAG from her home for ten years. Eventually, PFLAG's national headquarters were established in Washington, D.C.

The release quoted Starr's comment on what motivated her and others active in the group. "We did it out of love and anger and a sense of injustice, and because we had to tell the world the truth about our children," Starr said at a 10th Anniversary Conference.

"Today, PFLAG has more than 200,000 members across the United States, with a vibrant chapter network that provides support, education, and advocacy to those striving for acceptance and justice for all," the release said. By contrast, Starr had 35 people at her home the day PFLAG National was established and she was elected to its presidency.

"Adele Starr was one of the pioneers of PFLAG," said the executive director of the national group, Jody M. Huckaby. "It is because of her commitment to organizing the many people who were working for the common goal of equality for all into the organization that we now know as PFLAG that we have gained the strength, prominence, and ability to become the voice of parents and allies united for equality."

"May Adele's family be comforted at this time of loss by the history she created and with the knowledge that the struggle for LGBT on a national scale began with her," the group's current president, Rabbi David M. Horowitz, said.

A Dec. 12 Advocate article noted that when Starr founded the Los Angeles chapter of PFLAG in 1976, it was in the wake of her own son's coming out as gay two years earlier. The article said that Starr "overcame her own negative perceptions on homosexuality," and noted the cultural context in which Starr undertook the struggle for her son's dignity and equality: the 1970s were "a time when being gay was widely believed to be a mental illness, possibly caused by poor parenting," the Advocate reported.

Sam Thoron, another of Starr's successors praised her, saying, "Adele Starr was a pioneer; she went where none had ventured before her," a Dec. 12 Examiner article reported. Thoron added, "There were no shoulders for her to stand on. A small and slight person of great humility, she would be truly astonished at how broad and strong we have found her shoulders."

Starr worked for GLBT parity even as history unfolded around her: the AIDS crisis erupted during her tenure as PFLAG president, recalled Terry DeCrescenzo, who in 1984 founded and then headed Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services (GLASS) before that group went bankrupt last year. "In that time," as the AIDS crisis overtook the gay community, "a lot of us lost hope," DeCrescenzo said, the Los Angeles Times reported on Dec. 12. "Not Adele. And PFLAG became enormously important because it was rock solid . . . . She was a good woman. She'll be missed."

More recently, Starr was a proponent of marriage parity for gay and lesbian families. Her gay son, Philip, has been with his life partner since the year he came out to his mother, 1974; the two are fathers to a 19-year-old son.

Writing to the Los Angeles Times in 1998, Starr defended her son and his family, declaring, "We cannot understand those arrogant people who have decided that a heterosexual lifestyle must be imposed on everyone and that they have a monopoly on morality. The American way is respect for diversity with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."