Bob Hattoy

Who was Bob Hattoy?

Bob Hattoy was an American activist on issues related to gay rights, AIDS and the environment.

Robert Hattoy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 1, 1950. His father was a machinist tool and die maker and his mother a school secretary He moved with his family to California as a teenager. He played the cymbals in a local marching band. He attended several colleges without obtaining a degree. He worked for a time at Disneyland and then on the staff of Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky.

Hattoy was California regional director of the Sierra Club from 1981 to 1992. When he heard of a proposal to name a national forest after Ronald Reagan, he compared it to "naming a day-care center after W.C. Fields."

He was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1990. He joined Bill Clinton's presidential campaign during the 1992 primary and then learned that he had AIDS-related lymphoma and began chemotherapy treatments.

In 1992 he was the first person with AIDS to address a national convention. Speaking at the Democratic Convention in New York City he said:

This is difficult. I am a gay man with AIDS. If there is any honor in having this disease, it is the honor of being part of the gay and lesbian community in America. We have watched our friends and lovers die but we have not given up. Gay men and lesbians created community health clinics, provided educational materials, opened food kitchens, and held the hands of the dying in hospices. The gay and lesbian community is a family in the best sense of the word.... Listen, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. But I don't want to live in an America where the president sees me as the enemy. I can face dying because of a disease. But not because of politics.