Jim Kolbe, a Republican congressman who represented a heavily Democratic region of Arizona for more than two decades and was a proponent of gay rights, has died.
PHOENIX — He was 80.
He announced reluctantly in 1996 that he was gay, after learning a national publication planned to out him for his vote against federal recognition of same-sex marriage.“Being gay was not — and is not today — my defining persona,” Kolbe said in 1997 during his first speech to a national gathering of gay and lesbian Republicans.
From 1965 to 1969, he served in the Navy. He was deployed to Vietnam, where he was awarded a congressional medal for valor.
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