Gay rights advocate Adele Starr dies at 90

LOS ANGELES - Adele Starr, a Brentwood, Calif. mother of five who overcame dismay at her son's homosexuality to become a leading voice for gay rights and marriage equality, has died. She was 90.

Starr died in her sleep Friday at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, where she had been convalescing after surgery, said her son Philip Starr.

In 1976, Starr founded the Los Angeles chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a gay rights and acceptance organization known then as Parent FLAG, now as PFLAG.

In 1979, she spoke on the steps of the U.S. Capitol at a march for gay rights - a seminal event often credited with uniting a then-nascent movement.

Two years later, she became PFLAG's first national president; she served in that capacity until 1986 and remained a forceful advocate for civil rights and, in later years, for the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Starr served at the helm of PFLAG during the onset of the AIDS crisis, said her longtime friend and collaborator Terry DeCrescenzo, founder of another advocacy group formed to reach out to gay and lesbian youth.

"In that time, a lot of us lost hope," said DeCrescenzo. "Not Adele. And PFLAG became enormously important because it was rock solid . . . . She was a good woman. She'll be missed."

She was born in Brooklyn, on Feb. 10, 1920, as Ida Seltzer, the daughter of an accountant and a homemaker. She never fancied her first name and changed it to Adele as a teenager.

In 1941 she married Lawrence Starr, an accountant. She remained mostly in the New York area through the end of World War II, in which her husband served as an Army translator.

In 1951, the Starrs settled in Brentwood, where Adele Starr helped her husband establish a private accounting practice. She was primarily a stay-at-home mother. The Starrs had four sons and a daughter.

In 1974, Philip Starr, the couple's second son, sat his parents down and told them he was gay. His mother was upset, so Philip Starr directed her to a support group of sorts that eventually evolved into PFLAG.

Two years later, Adele Starr launched the Los Angeles chapter of PFLAG, modeled loosely after an existing group in New York.

"Initially the impulse was that the group was really important to her because she wanted parents not to suffer like she had - not to be isolated, to have a place to go," said Philip Starr, who has been with his now-husband, Michael Simengal, since 1974. The couple has a 19-year-old son.

In the early days, the meetings were "almost like an AA format," Philip Starr said. Some members even declined to reveal their true names. "As she got more involved, she realized how oppressive the environment was. She really became an activist," Philip Starr said.

In 1998, in a letter to the Los Angeles Times, the Starrs wrote that Philip was a devoted father and a successful businessman and taxpayer and deserved the "same rights and freedoms as others," including the right to "legally marry the one he loves."

"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," she wrote. "The American way is respect for diversity with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Over time, Adele Starr's activism eclipsed that of her son; he recalled with a chuckle that she often had to remind him to pay his PFLAG dues.