Gerry Studds; Gay Pioneer in Congress

Gerry Eastman Studds was born May 12, 1937, in Mineola, N.Y., the son of a Long Island architect. He grew up in Cohasset, Mass., in the district he would later represent. He graduated from Yale University and received his master's degree in teaching there in 1961.

Shortly after, he came to Washington and joined the State Department as a Foreign Service officer. By 1962, he was working as a congressional liaison for President John F. Kennedy's domestic Peace Corps task force, and two years later he was a legislative assistant to Sen. Harrison A. Williams Jr. (D-N.J.).

Leaving Washington in the mid-1960s, he became a history teacher at St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., until his opposition to the Vietnam War propelled him back into politics. In 1968, the young teacher and peace activist joined the presidential primary campaign of Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.) as a coordinator in New Hampshire, where his political acumen developed.

In the book "1968 in America" (1988), author Charles Kaiser recounted how Mr. Studds and David Hoeh, a political strategist, helped to orchestrate McCarthy's victory in New Hampshire.

"Studds had spent the Thanksgiving recess at home doing some basic statistical research on New Hampshire presidential primaries, and he came to Chicago armed with an analysis of the vote, its percentage in each town and each congressional district," Kaiser wrote. "He presented McCarthy with a twelve-day schedule of campaigning with which the candidate could hit 75 percent of the voters."

The analysis, combined with Hoeh's experience, proved successful. "This would be the hallmark of the New Hampshire campaign: so-called amateurs who turned out to be much better informed about the local electorate than their most entrenched opponents," Kaiser wrote.

Fully engaged in the politics of the day, Mr. Studds went on to serve as a delegate to the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Two years later, at age 33 and while a student at the Harvard School of Education, he first ran for Congress but lost to the Republican incumbent in a close election.

He spent the next two years studying issues related to the fishing industry and Portuguese, the language of a community in his district of considerable size. In 1972, he won his second bid and became the first Democrat in 50 years to win what was considered a safe Republican seat.

Mr. Studds, who lived in Provincetown, Mass., retired from Congress in 1997 and became a lobbyist for the fishing industry and environmental causes.

In 1996, Congress named the 842-square-mile Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary for him.

In addition to Hara, his partner since 1991, survivors include a brother and a sister.