Pioneering gay journalist Peter Burton dies, aged 66
This article was corrected at 13:21.
Peter Burton, dubbed the “Godfather of gay journalism” died this week after he was believed to have suffered a heart attack.
In a career which began in 1960s and continued for over forty years, Burton was at the forefront of gay journalism.
Born in 1945, Burton first worked in London at a time when homosexuality was still illegal, writing subsequently for Spartacus and Jeremy, two of the UK’s first gay magazines.
Moving to the Gay News in the 1970s, he became the paper’s literary editor when it famously published the poem “The Love that Dares to Speak Its Name”.
This led to the successful prosecution of the paper’s editor, Denis Lemon, for blasphemous libel in a campaign led by Mary Whitehouse.
During this time, Burton was also handling press interests for Rod Stewart and the Faces on their US tours, and helping Robin Maugham complete his final books.
In the 1980s he became the literary and features editor of Gay Times and remained there until 2003.
The founder of Arcadia Books remembers Peter Burton in the Guardian.
