Michael Brown, who has died aged 82, was an active gay rights campaigner across six decades. He joined the Homosexual Law Reform Society in 1958, the year it was formed, and had been writing letters campaigning for the legalisation of homosexuality under a pseudonym since 1954. The anonymity was necessary because it was not until 1967 that homosexuality was decriminalised and he would otherwise have risked his own safety.
Michael's activism was inspired by his anger at the injustice gay men faced at the time; his sense of impotence at living a double life in fear of being discovered; and the hope that change would benefit others too.
Michael was born in London. His parents divorced when he was very young. During the second world war he went to an orthodox Jewish boarding school in Wales, then later went to Christ's college in Finchley, north London. He practised as a dentist until the late 1970s and then worked as a market research interviewer.
After 1967, Michael became disillusioned with the mainstream Albany Trust and Campaign for Homosexual Equality. In 1970, he found a new direction when he discovered the nascent Gay Liberation Front (GLF), which radicalised him with its brand of publicity stunts for maximum impact. Though never in the public eye in the way of some of his colleagues, he saw himself as planting ideas in the minds of others as opposed to being an organiser. This was typically modest as he co-founded various organisations including the Jewish Gay and Lesbian Group and the Jewish Aids Trust.
I first met Michael in Bolton in 2008. We had both just completed the annual Walt Whitman walk, an informal celebration of the American poet in which walkers follow a route around the town, reciting his poetry and sharing wine. (For some gay men Whitman is very special as the "dear love of comrades" from his Leaves of Grass has clear implications for same-sex attachments.)
Michael told me he wasn't sure where the gay community was headed 41 years after legalisation, and felt there was still much to be done. Michael reminded me that the GLF was not about law reform, but about liberation – both sexually and in the wider ways people treated each other. In 2011, he was honoured with the Oyston award, presented by the campaign for homosexual equality for his achievements in the advancement of LGBT issues.