Bill Kraus
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
rights and AIDS activist and congressional aide who served as a liaison between the San Francisco gay community and Congress in the 1980s.
He attended Dartmouth
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
for a semester and then Ohio State, where he received both his undergraduate and master's degree in history. He attended Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
in 1968 and went on to become an aide to US Representatives Phillip
Phillip Burton
Phillip Burton was a United States Representative from California. A Democrat, he was instrumental in creating the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Burton was one of the first members of Congress to acknowledge the need for AIDS research and introduce an AIDS bill. He was the brother of...
and Sala Burton
Sala Burton
Sala Burton was a United States Representative from California. She was born Sala Galante in Białystok, Poland. She attended public schools in San Francisco and University of San Francisco. She was the associate director of the California Public Affairs Institute from 1948 to 1950...
.
Upon arriving in Castro Street in San Francisco, he learned the meticulous nature of politics through Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
, who was the first elected homosexual city supervisor. Bill Kraus would be the president of the Harvey Milk Democratic Club
Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club
Based in San Francisco, California, the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club is a chapter of the Stonewall Democrats, named after LGBT politician and activist Harvey Milk. Believing that the existing Alice B...
. After Milk's assassination, Kraus would aide Harry Britt
Harry Britt
Harry Britt is a political activist and former Supervisor for San Francisco, California. Britt was involved during the late 1960s in the civil rights movement when he was a Methodist minister in Chicago...
to be elected as Milk's successor to city supervisor.
He garnered a job as gay liaison to Congressman Phillip Burton
Phillip Burton
Phillip Burton was a United States Representative from California. A Democrat, he was instrumental in creating the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Burton was one of the first members of Congress to acknowledge the need for AIDS research and introduce an AIDS bill. He was the brother of...
. Together, they worked on legislation and funding to fight "gay cancer", later to be named AIDS. Through the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, Kraus conducted a "safe-sex" campaign, endlessly trying to bring awareness to the gay community of the dangers of unsafe sexual intercourse. Part of their campaign was demanding the closing of San Francisco's gay bathhouse
Gay bathhouse
Gay bathhouses, also known as gay saunas or steam baths, are commercial bathhouses for men to have sex with other men. In gay slang in some regions these venues are also known colloquially as "the baths" or "the tubs," and should not be confused with public bathing.Not all men who visit gay...
s. Kraus was hit back with criticism from the gay community, being called a "sexual Nazi".
After a bitter fight for gay rights, Bill Kraus was diagnosed with AIDS on October 1, 1984. He traveled to Paris to be treated with a drug that at the moment was believed to help AIDS patients boost their immune system called HPA-23, but it proved useless. He was there when actor Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
also traveled to Paris for the same reason. Kraus died from AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
on January 25, 1986.
He also appeared in the documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
The Times of Harvey Milk
The Times of Harvey Milk
The Times of Harvey Milk is an American documentary film that premiered at The Telluride Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and then on November 1, 1984 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco...
. He was also a central person in Randy Shilts
Randy Shilts
Randy Shilts was a pioneering gay American journalist and author. He worked as a freelance reporter for both The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for San Francisco Bay Area television stations....
' book And the Band Played On
And the Band Played On
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic is a nonfiction book written by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts, published in 1987...
. In 1993, the book was adapted as an HBO
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
movie, with Sir Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
playing Kraus.