Hinson, Jon Clifton, 1942-1995

Jon Clifton Hinson (March 16, 1942 – July 21, 1995) was an American legislative assistant, gay rights activist, and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the U.S. Representative from Mississippi's 4th congressional district from 1979 to 1981.

Born in Tylertown, Walthall County, Mississippi, he attended public schools in Walthall County before earning a B.A. degree from the University of Mississippi at Oxford. He joined the United States Marine Corps Reserve after graduation, serving from 1964 to 1970. Hinson worked on the U.S. House staff as a doorman in 1967, and then served on the staffs of representatives Charles H. Griffin, a Democrat, and Thad Cochran, a Republican. After Cochran's election to the Senate, Hinson was elected to his House seat.

Prior to his 1978 candidacy for the U.S. House, Hinson survived a fire on October 24, 1977, at the Washington, D.C., Gay Cinema Follies. Firefighters found him under a pile of bodies; he was one of only four men rescued. In 1980, Hinson admitted that in 1976, while an aide to Cochran, he had been arrested for committing an obscene act after he exposed himself to an undercover policeman at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. Hinson then denied that he was homosexual and blamed his problems on alcoholism. He also said that he had reformed and refused to yield to demands that he resign. He won re-election on November 4, 1980, with a plurality of 39 percent of the vote.

Hinson, who was married, was arrested again on February 4, 1981, and charged with attempted sodomy for performing oral sex on a male employee of the Library of Congress in a restroom of the House of Representatives. After the investigation, he was charged with sodomy. At the time, homosexual acts, even between consenting adults, were a criminal offense. Since both parties were consenting adults (and social attitudes were changing), the United States attorney's office reduced the charge to a misdemeanor. Facing a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $1,000 fine, Hinson pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted sodomy the following day and was released without bail pending a trial scheduled for May 4, 1981. Soon thereafter, he checked himself into a District of Columbia–area hospital for professional care. Hinson later received a 30-day jail sentence, which was suspended, and a year's probation, on condition that he continue counseling and treatment.

Hinson resigned on April 13, 1981, just three months into his second term in the House. Soon afterward, Hinson acknowledged that he was homosexual and became an activist for gay rights. He later helped to organize the lobbying group "Virginians for Justice" and fought against the ban on gays in the military. He also was a founding member of the Fairfax Lesbian and Gay Citizens Association in Fairfax County, Virginia. He never returned to Mississippi but lived in the Washington area, first in Alexandria, Virginia, and then Silver Spring, Maryland. Hinson died of respiratory failure resulting from AIDS in Silver Spring. His body was cremated and his ashes were buried in Tylertown, Mississippi.