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Grisly Suicide in New York to Protest Pollution

by VOA News

   A renown gay rights lawyer set himself on fire and burned to death in a
   New York City park to protest what he said is the destruction of the
   environment.

   Joggers and cyclists found the charred body of David Buckel Saturday in
   Brooklyn's Prospect Park. He apparently soaked his body with gasoline.

   A nearby suicide note said he hopes his death will draw attention to
   the need to protect the Earth.

   "Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil
   fuels, and many die early deaths as a result. My early death by fossil
   fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves," the note read, according
   to The New York Times.

   Buckel was 60 years old and one of the preeminent gay rights attorneys
   in the United States. He argued cases in favor of gay marriage and
   against what had been the Boy Scouts' ban on homosexual members.

   Buckel's best-known case was Brandon v. County of Richardson, in which
   the sheriff's office of a Nebraska county was found liable for not
   protecting the life of a young transgender man who was murdered.

   The case became the basis of the Academy Award-winning film "Boys Don't
   Cry."