Resignation and Later Life
He resigned on April 13, 1981, early in his second term. He said that his resignation had been "the most painful and difficult decision of my life." He was succeeded in Congress by Wayne Dowdy, a Democrat, who won the special election held in the summer of 1981.
Soon afterwards, he acknowledged that he was gay and became an activist for gay rights.
He later helped to organize the lobbying group "Virginians for Justice" and fought against the ban on gays in the military. He also was a founding member of the Fairfax Lesbian and Gay Citizens Association in Fairfax County.
He never returned to Mississippi but lived quietly in the Washington area, first in Alexandria, Virginia, and then Silver Spring, Maryland.
Hinson also disclosed that he survived a 1977 fire that killed nine people at the Cinema Follies, a Washington theater that catered to a gay clientele. He was rescued from under a pile of bodies—one of only four men who survived.
Read more about this topic: Jon Hinson
Famous quotes containing the words resignation and/or life:
“How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he’s chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
—Bible: New Testament, Mark 8:34,5.
Jesus.