John Burnside (right) with Harry Hay in 2002.

A pioneering gay rights activist who co-founded a worldwide gay spirituality movement has died.

John Burnside, who helped found the Radical Faeries with his partner of 39 years, Harry Hay, died at his San Francisco home on Sunday, September 14. He was 91.

British-born Hay, who died in 2002, was already a pioneering gay rights activist when he met the then-married Burnside in 1963.

A communist, Hay founded America's first gay rights organisation, The Mattachine Society, in Los Angeles in 1950.

Burnside divorced after meeting Hay, and together they formed another gay rights group, the Circle of Loving Companions.

The pair’s interest in gay spirituality found voice in 1965 when they formed the Southern California Council on Religion and the Homophile.

And in 1966 in Los Angeles, Burnside and Hay planned of the world’s first gay parades, a 15 car motorcade, to protest the exclusion of gays from the US military.

In 1979, they co-founded, with Don Kilhefner, the Radical Faeries gay spirituality movement, now worldwide.

Speaking from their sanctuary near Nimbin in NSW, a spokesperson for the Australian Radical Faeries told Queensland Pride the group was saddened by the recent death of one of its founders.

“The Faeries were called into being in Arizona in 1979 by visionary gay activists such as Harry Hay and his long-term partner John, and have since spread around the globe,” Spider-cutie said.

“The Radical Faeries seek to develop the artistic, spiritual, magical and community aspects of being gay. John and Harry’s insights and radical philosophies continue to inspire us.”

Burnside was also a scientist and inventor, having created kaleidoscope-like devices such as the teleidoscope and the Symmetricon, which was used in the 1976 film, Logan’s Run.

Burnside had been diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer.

Donations in Burnside's memory to continue his and Hay's activist work may be made to the Harry Hay Fund, c/o Chas Nol, 174 1/2 Hartford St., San Francisco, CA 94114.

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