Pioneering journalist and scholar, Donald R. Slater, who, in the 1950's-dawn of gay American activism, established an undeniable place for himself, is dead at 78. He died Valentines Day at the Veterans Hospital in Westwood, a Los Angeles-area locale. Slater, the editor of ONE magazine in 1954, pushed forward victoriously with ONE's landmark Supreme Court case when the staid little magazine fought for its right to publish against post office censors attempting to hamstring bold published examinations of same-sex affection.

Suing on behalf of ONE, and proud winner of this major legal battle, Slater actually helped establish the right of same-sex love to speak its name. Rodger Streitmatter, Ph.D. a professor of journalism at the American University and author of the definitive study of gay/lesbian journalism, Unspeakable, says the FBI sent investigators to harass ONE's editor and writers, making FBI investigations known to non-gay employers and to Los Angeles police, among the most homophobic in the nation.

In his well-researched gay journalism history, Dr. Streitmatter quotes strong arguments by Slater, making clear the importance of ONE as it figured in the earliest struggles by American liberationists. "These early publications," said Slater, "were not a forerunner of anything. They were the start of the homosexual movement in America." In the 1960's Slater was editor of Tangents, a magazine that was similar in size and content to ONE.

Don Slater preferred to use the term "homosexual," to either "gay" or "lesbian." He was a sexual integrationist who saw no reason to make pointed distinctions between same-sex and opposite-sex lovers. "It is as individual human beings--as individuals" he taught, "that we win battles for free expression and free assembly." In another definitive journalism history, Edward Alwood's Straight News, (about the mainstream's treatment of gays) Slater is quoted as saying that he and other founders of ONE "certainly didn't want to institutionalize homosexuality, a la heterosexuality, or make ourselves into a special class or culture group."

After the opening of Slater's Homosexual Information Center in Los Angeles, the feisty scholar and collector of avant garde homosexually-inclined manuscripts said he saw room in his worldview for every different kind of individual, but as individuals, not as members of a class. "Is there room in your movement for all types of homosexuals, from the very straight to the drag queen?" asked Ken Gaul, a reporter for the Manhattan-based weekly, GAY. "Sure," replied Slater, "let them all come. I like to treat everybody as an individual, from drag queen to hustler." GAY's reporter asked if Slater opposed male prostitution and he replied, "I'm not against hustlers. If a man wants to pay that's his business....Frankly I'm domesticated. I don't pay. I don't like the idea of going to bed with somebody for money, but some people, that's all they have." Don Slater is survived by his long-time companion, Tony Reyes.