Rodger McFarlane was bigger than life, a tyro of an organizer in AIDS and the LGBT community who never lost his human touch, the quiet ability to soothe and comfort.
He took his own life on May 15 at the age of 54, ironically enough in the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. As he explained in a letter left behind, the increasingly disabling heart and back pain he experienced were more than he chose to endure.
McFarlane was a towering presence at 6'6", with jug ears made even more prominent by his bald head. He grew up on a farm near the small town of Theodore, Alabama where sports were king.
"In high school I was big enough to get past the gay thing," he told the New York Times in a 2002 interview. "Freshman football, I went out to hurt people. I found the biggest redneck and went for his knees sideways, stomped his face when he was down. I was a monster, a legend. And then I could go jump rope with the girls."
And that captured the essence of Rodger McFarlane; the ability to go for the jugular, the whimsy of the unexpected, and a good humor that was often self-deprecating, albeit laced with expletives. His life would be filled by all those traits.
He joined the Navy in 1974, serving on a nuclear attack submarine and trekked across the arctic snows on still secret missions. Civilian life would prove to be no less arduous.
McFarlane was at ground zero in Manhattan when an unknown plague began striking down gay men. He set up the first hotline, on his own phone. He was a volunteer and then the first paid executive director of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, that landmark AIDS services organization.
He managed the merger of Broadway Cares and Equity Fights AIDS, and pioneered new ways to raise desperately needed money. And he was a founding member of ACT UP, which made a lethargic government more responsive to the needs of its citizens.
He left his beloved Manhattan for Denver to serve as executive director of the Gill Foundation where he helped to revamp and refocus the mission of the organization backed by one of the largest patrons of LGBT community groups.
McFarlane would write books, co-produce Larry Kramer's play The Destin of Me, compete in the Eco-Challenges in Morocco and Fiji, and serve as a nurturing caregiver to too many family and friends as they face major, often terminal illness.
He crammed the vitality and experience of a handful of men into his singular life.
Noted author and activist Larry Kramer's first thought was of the personal. "He was my best friend for so many years that I do not know yet how life goes on without him," he wrote in an email.
Kramer would later add, "I think that Rodger McFarlane has probably done more for the gay world than any other single person has ever done. The gay world may not know it; I hope someday it will."
San Francisco AIDS activist Michael Petrelis said he knew McFarlane from "the early ACT UP/NYC days, when he was such a rock of calm amid all the anger and heat and depression and madness."
"On a smaller level, less visible level, he was strong backer of PWAC [ People With AIDS Coalition ] and Michael Callen, especially when Michael started his 'get laid' social Saturday teas at their old office at St Johns in the Village. I think Rodger quietly helped PWAC get that space," Petrelis said.
For Gill Foundation benefactor Tim Gill, "I knew Rodger for almost thirty years. He was not just a friend, he was also a professional mentor to me and countless others. He used his amazing intellect and strategic vision to further the LGBT, HIV/AIDS, and other social justice movements. We will be eternally in his debt."
"Rodger dedicated his life to being a visible and vocal advocate for social justice. His work propelled our movement toward full equality in tremendous ways, his compassion and unique humor will be missed and never matched," said Neil G. Giuliano, President of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation ( GLAAD ) .
