Editing Harry Hay (section)

===Later years: 1980 to 2002===

[[File:Henry "Harry" Hay Jr1..jpg|thumb|Hay speaking at [[Occidental College]], CA]]
During the 1980s, Hay involved himself in an array of activist causes, campaigning against [[Apartheid|South African apartheid]], Nicaragua's [[Contras]], and the death penalty, while also joining the nuclear disarmament and pro-choice movements, becoming a vocal critic of the administrations of Presidents [[Ronald Reagan]] and [[George H. W. Bush|George Bush]].{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=291}} Hoping for a left-ward turn in U.S. politics, he was involved in the Lavender Caucus of [[Jesse Jackson]]'s [[Rainbow/PUSH|National Rainbow Coalition]].{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=290}} Although pleased with the popular protests in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe that took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was unhappy that those nations abandoned the socialist cause altogether and retained his faith in Marxism.{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=294–295}}

Hay came to be viewed as an elder statesman within the gay community, and was regularly invited to give speeches to LGBT activist and student groups. He was the featured speaker at the [[San Francisco Gay Pride Parade]] in 1982, and Grand Marshal of the [[Long Beach Gay Pride Parade]] in 1986. In 1989, [[West Hollywood]] city council awarded him an honor for his years of activism while that year he was invited to give a lecture at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] in Paris, France, which he turned down.{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|p=293}}

He nevertheless remained highly critical of the mainstream gay rights movement, and took controversial and, at times, divisive positions, including his consistent support of the [[North American Man/Boy Love Association]] (NAMBLA) being included in Pride parades.<ref name="rhh">{{Cite news |last=Bronski |first=Michael |url=http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/02511115.htm |title=The real Harry Hay |date=November 7, 2002 |work=[[The Phoenix (newspaper)|The Phoenix]] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302214758/http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/02511115.htm |archive-date=March 2, 2012 |quote=He was, at times, a serious political embarrassment, as when he consistently advocated the inclusion of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) in gay-pride parades. |author-link=Michael Bronski}}</ref> When speaking at the 1983 [[Gay Academic Union]] forum at [[New York University]], his speech included, "If the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world", as well as highlighting his own relationship with an adult man when he was fourteen, saying "I send to all of you my love and deep affection for what you offer to the boys, in honor of this boy when he was fourteen, and when he needed to know best of all what only another gay man could show him and tell him".<ref name="LGAUfullspeech">[Box 2/folder 21] Lesbian and Gay Academic Union Records, Coll2011-041, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, USC Libraries, University of Southern California</ref><ref name=Spectator/> He continued to speak on panels at NAMBLA events in 1984 and 1986, and at the 1986 
[[Los Angeles Pride|Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade]] he wore two signs; on his front one that read "[[Valerie Terrigno]] walks with me", referring to the politician who agreed to withdraw from the event lest being barred, and on his back "NAMBLA Walks With Me",{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=310}}<ref name="LAPridePhoto" /> after organizers banned the pedophile advocacy group from joining the march. The organizers complained to police and he narrowly avoided arrest.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=295}} In ''Before Stonewall'', biographer [[Vern L. Bullough]] writes, "Getting him to agree to simply wear a sign [supporting NAMBLA] rather than carry a banner took considerable negotiation by the parade organizers, who wanted to distance the gay and lesbian movement from pedophilia, yet wanted Harry to participate."<ref name="Bullough">{{Cite book |last=Vern L. Bullough |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781560231936/page/74 |title=Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-1560231936 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781560231936/page/74 74] |author-link=Vern Bullough}}</ref>

Hay continued to protest NAMBLA being banned from [[Pride parade]]s, in 1994 protesting the Stonewall 25 events exclusion of NAMBLA on the grounds that such exclusions "pandered to heterosexual-dominated society".<ref name= rhh/> Despite the efforts of the vast majority of the LGBT community to distance themselves from pedophiles and pedophilia,<ref name=Bullough/><ref name=NonasLeVay/> Hay and a handful of others who were boycotting Stonewall 25, including NAMBLA, organized an alternative, competing event.<ref name= rhh/>

[[File:Harry Hay in September 2000.jpg|thumb|Harry Hay in September 2000]]
He was also critical of the HIV/AIDS activist group [[ACT UP]], arguing that their confrontational tactics were rooted in the typical [[machismo]] of straight men and thus reflected an assimilationist approach. Hay believed that by adopting these tactics and attitudes, ACT UP was shrinking the space available for diversity of gender roles for gay men, with the gentle and the [[effeminate]] discarded in their favor. He went so far as to condemn the group while at a June 1989 rally in New York's [[Central Park]] where he shared the stage with [[Allen Ginsberg]] and [[Joan Nestle]].{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=293–294}}<ref>Loughery, p. 441</ref> In 1994, Hay refused to participate in the official parade in New York City commemorating the 25th anniversary of the [[Stonewall riots]] because it also refused NAMBLA a place in the event. Instead, he joined an alternate parade called "The Spirit of Stonewall".<ref name = rhh /> As late as 2000, Hay continued to speak out against assimilation saying, "The assimilationist movement is running us into the ground."<ref name = levy />

Hay and Burnside returned to San Francisco in 1999 after concluding that Hay was not receiving proper care in Los Angeles for his serious health concerns, including pneumonia and lung cancer. He served as the Grand Marshal of the San Francisco gay pride parade that same year. While in hospice care, Hay died of lung cancer on October 24, 2002, at age 90. His ashes, mingled with those of his partner John Burnside, were scattered in Nomenus Faerie Sanctuary, [[Wolf Creek, Oregon]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Heredia |first=Christopher |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/10/25/BA142097.DTL&hw=harry+hay&sn=001&sc=1000 |title=Henry 'Harry' Hay – gay rights pioneer; He started Mattachine Society |date=October 25, 2002 |work=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] |access-date=April 21, 2009 |page=A–21}}</ref>