Bob Kunst is an American gay rights activist and

perennial candidate A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for elected office and rarely, if ever, wins. Perennial candidates' existence lies in the fact that in some countries, there are no laws that limit a number of times a person can ...

Early life

Kunst was born in 1941 in

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and artificial island, man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the ...

. He worked in marketing for the

Miami Toros The Miami Toros was a professional soccer team in the North American Soccer League from 1972 to 1976. The club was founded in 1967 as the Washington Darts, and moved to Miami, where they played the 1972 season in the NASL's Southern Division as ...

professional soccer team in the 1970s.

Gay rights activism

He supported the 1976 Miami-Dade County Ordinance for Gay Rights and was later involved in activism for people with

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

. Kunst opposed

Save Our Children Save Our Children, Inc. was an American political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida, to overturn a recently legislated county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexua ...

, a

Dade County, Florida Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...

voter-approved county initiative supported by singer

Anita Bryant Anita Jane Bryant (born March 25, 1940) is an American singer known for anti-gay activism. She scored four "Top 40" hits in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including "Paper Roses" which reached No. 5 on the charts. She was th ...

and her then-husband Bob Green. The initiative repealed the previous anti-discrimination ordinance Kunst had supported. He helped organize the subsequent pressure campaign on citrus industry corporate sponsors of Bryant. The law was eventually repealed by the state

Supreme Court of Florida The Supreme Court of Florida is the highest court in the U.S. state of Florida. It consists of seven members: the chief justice and six justices. Six members are chosen from six districts around the state to foster geographic diversity, and one ...

in 2010. In 1991, after allegations of financial mismanagement were published in the ''Miami Herald'', Kunst was fired as the executive director of Cure AIDS Now.

Democratic politics

As a

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

politician, Kunst unsuccessfully campaigned in the Democratic primary against

Bob Graham Daniel Robert "Bob" Graham (born November 9, 1936) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 38th governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States senator from Florida from 1987 to 2005. He is a member of the Dem ...

in the

1986 United States Senate elections The 1986 United States Senate elections was an election for the United States Senate in the middle of Ronald Reagan's second presidential term. The Republicans had to defend an unusually large number of freshman Senate incumbents who had been el ...

in Florida. Kunst also ran unsuccessfully in the 2010 United States House of Representatives Election, this time as an unaffiliated independent, against incumbent Representative

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Deborah Wasserman Schultz ( née Wasserman; born September 27, 1966) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative from , first elected to Congress in 2004. A member of the Democratic Party, she is a former chair of the Democra ...

, a Democrat, in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. Kunst volunteered for the

Hillary Rodham Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States senat ...

2008 U.S. presidential campaign in Florida.

Other activism

Kunst was president (1991-2001) of Shalom International, a Jewish group combating global

Neo-Nazism Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...

and

Neo-fascism Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sen ...

movements. And he was a co-founder of the Oral Majority in 1982, the liberal and secular counter-protest group of the Religious Right organizations

Moral Majority Moral Majority was an American political organization associated with the Christian right and Republican Party. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. and associates, and dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in ...

and later the Christian Coalition. In 2018, Kunst protested outside the courthouse where

Noor Salman Omar Mir Seddique Mateen born Omar Mir Seddique; (November 16, 1986 – June 12, 2016) was an American mass murderer and domestic terrorist who murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others in a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Flor ...

Omar Mateen Omar Mir Seddique Mateen born Omar Mir Seddique; (November 16, 1986 – June 12, 2016) was an American mass murderer and domestic terrorist who murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others in a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Flor ...

's widow, was being tried for complicity in her husband's

Pulse nightclub Pulse was a gay bar, dance club, and nightclub in Orlando, Florida, founded in 2004 by Barbara Poma and Ron Legler. On June 12, 2016, the club was the scene of the second worst mass shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history, and the second ...

massacre with a sign reading "'Fry her till she has no 'Pulse'". Noor Salman was found not guilty during a trial that also exposed the fact that she was abused by her husband.

Support of Trump

Kunst supported

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He protested the March 2023

indictment of Donald Trump ''The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump'' is a pending criminal case against Donald Trump, the former president of the United States. On March 30, 2023, Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his alleged role in a ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kunst, Bob 1941 births Living people American LGBT rights activists Activists from Florida HIV/AIDS activists