Gerry Studds

Gerry Studds (May 12, 1937 – October 14, 2006) was an American Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts who served from 1973 until 1997. He was the first openly gay national politician in the U.S. Studds was a central figure in the 1983 Congressional page sex scandal, when he and Representative Dan Crane were censured by the House of Representatives for separate sexual relationships with minors — in Studds' case, a 1973 sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male congressional page. During the course of the House Ethics Committee's investigation, Studds publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, a disclosure that, according to a Washington Post article, "apparently was not news to many of his constituents." Studds defended his sexual relationship with the minor as a "consensual relationship with a young adult." Studds was re-elected to the House six more times after the 1983 censure. Studds and partner Dean T. Hara (his companion since 1991) were married in Boston on May 24, 2004, one week after same-sex marriages became legal in Massachusetts. [Source: Wikipedia]