ABOUT Our Founder SCOTT HITT
September 28, 1958 - November 8, 2007
In Memoriam: Dr. Scott Hitt
Excerpted from an article by David Mixner
Nov 12 2007
Last Friday, Dr. Scott Hitt passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 49 from cancer. Scott was the former Chairman of President Clinton's Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel in the 1990s. Throughout his short life, he was a vocal and passionate advocate for people with HIV/AIDS and the LGBT community. He was also a personal friend who I shall miss.
In the late 1980s, I met Scott for the first time when I was his patient in West Hollywood, California. He walked into the exam room with a bright smile and made me feel instantly at ease. He was my doctor and he was a good one. He immediately got to the heart of a health problem that I had been plagued with for years. He gained my gratitude and respect from the start.
Scott and I also connected through a shared love of politics. He cared greatly about the HIV/AIDS battle and, as an openly gay man, he detested those who were weak on LGBT issues. In many ways, he was like a pit bull in the face of oppression and discrimination.
I think that most people only saw the political side of Scott, but I was fortunate enough to get to know him as a loyal friend and a giving human being.
In the late 1980s, many people with HIV/AIDS were unable to go home for the holidays either because of health issues or because their families had disowned them. When one of my friends was rejected by his family, I started a small Christmas Eve dinner in my West Hollywood home for those who had no place to go. Scott and his extraordinary partner in life, Alex Koleszar, attended one of these small dinners. The next year, both approached me and indicated they wanted to help with the dinner. We moved the Christmas Eve dinner to their home, which had much more space, and over the next few years it grew enormously. At its peak, we served a full Christmas dinner to more than 300 people with great food, carols and gifts for some who had special needs. Scott thrived on this event and, as only Scott could do, insisted that we start planning it in early August!
From his early days in student government at the University of Arizona, Scott was a political animal. His intensely competitive spirit made him a natural player in our rough and tumble political system.
As a founder of Access Now for Gay and Lesbian Equality (ANGLE), an influential Los Angeles-based political organization, Scott created a platform to express his strongly held beliefs. Within the organization, he and others pioneered an LGBT voter identification program that included mailing a LGBT candidate slate to hundreds of thousands of voters in California. That effort later became a model for many other community-based organizations around the country.
While Scott loved the limelight and served the community in many public positions, he often played crucial roles behind the scenes at times of great stress. There are two instances that stand out in my memory.
For years, the LGBT community had fought for a civil rights bill in California. When we were finally successful in obtaining passage in the California state legislature, Governor Pete Wilson broke our hearts by vetoing the bill. The reaction in the Los Angeles community was rage, and within hours the streets of West Hollywood were filled with literally thousands of demonstrators protesting the veto. Scott and Alex's home, like so many other times, became an impromptu headquarters for the demonstrators. I never will forget seeing Scott in his doctor's coat, holding a handmade sign and chanting "No Justice, No Peace" as he sat with hundreds of others in the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard.
The other moment was an act of real courage. Scott really wanted to be head of the Presidential Advisory Panel on HIV/AIDS. He lobbied hard for it and eventually earned the position because of his work battling the epidemic. However, when President Clinton announced the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell' ban on LGBT people serving in the military, Scott didn't hesitate to take on the President even though it could have cost him the appointment he coveted. With honor and personal sacrifice, he placed principle before politics. He was one of the most vocal people in ANGLE to condemn the horrible proposal, even while others in the community at large stayed silent in the name of political expediency.
When he was appointed by the President, Scott made enormous contributions to the battle against HIV/AIDS. One of his greatest strengths, as a physician who had treated thousands of patients with the disease, was his ability to translate the HIV/AIDS experience into language easily understood by the straight community. At the time, HIV was still stigmatized as a gay disease.
The world is a better place today because Scott was among us. [...] His contributions helped change the course of one [of] the greatest epidemics of our time. While HIV/AIDS still plagues this world and our community, there is hope today thanks in part to the hard work and good life of Dr. Scott Hitt.
Reprinted with permission from David Mixner.
Painting of Dr. Scott Hitt by his partner of 27 years, artist Alex Koleszar
