Rhode Island

Gay Rights Pioneer

b. November 1, 1950
d. March 4, 2007

“Mr. President, your family has AIDS … and you are doing nothing about it.”

Bob Hattoy was a pioneering HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights and environmental activist. The New York Times called him “the first gay man with AIDS many Americans had knowingly laid eyes on.” His arresting speech at the 1992 Democratic convention brought national attention to the AIDS epidemic, when the government was sweeping it under the rug.

Robert Keith Hattoy was born in Providence, Rhode Island. His family moved to Long Beach, California, when he was a teenager. Despite an abusive father and an otherwise difficult home life, Hattoy grew into a witty, outgoing and influential young man.

Though he never completed a degree, Hattoy attended several colleges and universities. Motivated by his passion for the environment, he turned his talents toward public policy. He worked under Zev Yaroslavsky, a Los Angeles city councilman, where he focused on environmental initiatives and rent control.

In 1981, after a stint on Yaroslavsky’s staff, Hattoy took a job with the Sierra Club, where he remained for the next decade. Founded by the naturalist John Muir, the Sierra Club was reputedly run by “an austere bunch of mountaineers.” Hattoy breathed new life into the organization with his charisma and the power of his convictions.

In 1992 Hattoy joined Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. Shortly thereafter, he discovered a lump under his arm and was diagnosed with AIDS-related lymphoma. Hattoy told Clinton, and Clinton urged him to speak publicly about the epidemic.

Ten days later, still shell-shocked by his diagnosis, Hattoy addressed the Democratic National Convention in a nationally televised speech. Calling out the presidential incumbent, George H. W. Bush, Hattoy declared the gay community “part of the American family.” “Mr. President,” he said, “your family has AIDS, and we are dying, and you are doing nothing about it.”

After Bill Clinton’s election, Hattoy served in the White House Office of Personnel. He was an outspoken critic of the environmental policies of previous administrations and found Clinton’s policies similarly lacking. In 1994 the Clinton administration moved Hattoy to the Interior Department as White House liaison on environmental matters. He remained there for five years. He also served as the research committee chairman of the Presidential Commission on HIV/AIDS.

In 2002 Hattoy took a position with the California Fish and Game Commission. He became its president in 2007, shortly before his death.

Hattoy died at age 56 in Sacramento, California, from complications of AIDS.

U.S. Congressman

b. July 15, 1961

“The American people deserve to know who will stand up and speak out for those on the margins of society.”

David N. Cicilline is a Democrat representing Rhode Island’s 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Previously, he served two terms as the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, and four terms in the Rhode Island House of Representatives. He was the first openly gay mayor of an American state capital and the fourth openly gay member of Congress.

A native of Providence, Cicilline is the son of a Jewish mother and an Italian Catholic father. Cicilline regards himself as a practicing Jew. His father was a well-known attorney who had been an aide to Mayor Joseph Doorley Jr. and defended members of the mafia.

As an undergraduate at Brown University, Cicilline started a political club, the College Democrats, with fellow student John F. Kennedy Jr. Cicilline received his B.A. in political science in 1983. He earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, then worked as an attorney for the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C.

In 1996, after a failed senatorial bid, Cicilline won a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives. He came out publicly in 1999, insisting his sexuality was irrelevant to the campaign. He described himself as a “candidate who happens to be gay rather than a gay candidate.”

In 2002 Cicilline ran for mayor of Providence and won by landslide, carrying 84% of the vote. He became the city’s first openly gay mayor and the country’s first openly gay mayor of a state capital. He won reelection in 2006 by nearly an identical margin. As mayor, he cofounded a bipartisan gun-control coalition, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Cicilline was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. He became the fourth openly gay member of Congress.

Throughout his political career, Cicilline has championed the rights of the middle class, vulnerable populations and the LGBTQ+ community. He has worked to ensure affordable health-care access and to protect social security and Medicare. Among countless other initiatives, he has authored the Assault Weapons Ban, introduced the Automatic Voter Registration Act and co-sponsored multiple pieces of environmental legislation.

After the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, Cicilline proposed the Equality Act to prohibit LGBT discrimination nationwide. In 2018 he co-authored the Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act to prevent lawyers from using victims’ LGBTQ+ identity to justify crimes against them.

Cicilline serves as chair of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee and vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. In January 2021 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named Cicilline a co-manager of the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump.