Larry Dean Norton, the current Secretary of the Fresno Stonewall Democrat Club, was born in Bakersfield, California, August 1948. He has long been an activist American citizen promoting basic human and civil rights, within his family, church, high school and college as well as post-college. Larry credits his experiences as contributing to developing his gifts of leadership, expressions of visionary concepts in many different situations, and with very different people and within diverse human groupings.

In 1975, at California State University, Fresno, he was the founder of the GAY PEOPLES UNION, the first openly gay group on campus. Before that in 1971, he founded, with twelve others, the first Metropolitan Community Church in Fresno, especially to serve Gay Christians.  And in 1975-76, he spent a year as manager of Fresno's first gay bath house called Glen's For Men Turkish Bath. He is the first student of Social Work at California State University, Fresno to be placed by The School of Social Work, in 1976-77, earning university credits working in the Peer Counseling Program he developed at the first Fresno Gay Community Center on Belmont Ave. In the fall of 1977, he was a founding member of the Fresno Human Rights Coalition, a community-wide grouping whose first task was to inform Fresno of the inhumane discrimination toward teachers that would occur with the adoption of the "Briggs" California ballot initiative.  Other promotions of human rights in Fresno did not materialize as this coalition broke apart in 1979.  This however, did not end his determination to continue the struggle for justice.  

To highlight his focus on education and communication, these other stunning achievements should be mentioned: Larry was the creator, editor and distributor of the first means of-out-of the-closet Gay Liberation Communication Vehicles in Fresno, such as the MCC Grape Vine Newsletter, the Gay People's Union Newsletter, and the Fresno Human Rights Coalition's FRESNO INFORMER. These preceded all other gay liberation publicly distributed information papers. He also was a Founder of Fresno's first gay Democrat club, The Wilde-Stein Democrat Club.

Larry Norton had the unenviable experience of being the first openly gay person to be discriminated against by the Fresno County Welfare Department. He took the case to the Civil Service Commission of Fresno County and was denied even a full hearing. This was because the City Attorney interpreted the State Law as saying that sex discrimination does not apply unless the term "sexual orientation" was specifically spelled out in the law. Of course, it did not.

Larry has had many Letters to the Editor published in The Fresno Bee involving gay and human rights causes, and has the distinction of having had his own Valley Voices column printed in The Fresno Bee speaking out against the military discriminatory policy against gays.

Larry is very passionate about his beliefs and his vision for the Democrat political party.  He has a partner of nearly eleven years. Larry hopes that he can serve the gay community as a useful and effective voice for many years to come.