Miami Herald - August 21, 2007
Amy Sherman, asherman@MiamiHerald.com

"That phrase stuck with the club," said Dean Trantalis, a former Dolphin Democratic club president and former Fort Lauderdale city commissioner.

Steinsmith's political power and organizing in the gay community waned by the late 1990s as he grew increasingly ill with AIDS. But activists say his influence continues as one of the pioneers who fought for the rights of people with HIV and members of the gay community.

On Friday, the 50-year-old Fort Lauderdale resident died at Broward General Medical Center from an embolism, according to his friend, Norman Kent. He was buried in New York on Sunday.

Steinsmith was a zealous advocate, serving on several boards for people with AIDS and HIV, including the county's HIV Health Services Planning Council. In the early 1990s, he also was president of Center One, then the county's largest agency for people with AIDS. The community knew him in part through a column in the gay press called "Positively Speaking."

"If a gay and lesbian project needed money he would pick up the phone and raise $10,000 in five minutes by just leaning on his vast amount of contacts," said Shane Gunderson, a former president of the Dolphin Democrats.

As president of the Dolphin Democratic Club in the 1990s, Steinsmith attracted members and made the club a bigger draw for politicians and candidates.

Steinsmith was born in Brooklyn and got his degree in banking and finance at Hofstra University. He moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1981 -- the same year he became infected with HIV.

"Very few people in the early 1980s in Broward County or anywhere were openly gay and advocated for gay rights," said Mitch Ceasar, chairman of the Democratic Party in Broward and a friend of Steinsmith's.

Two decades ago, residents with HIV faced a very different political and professional world. In 1984, county budget analyst Todd Shuttleworth was fired after his boss learned he had AIDS. Since then, Broward County has established a domestic partnership ordinance and gay candidates have won seats in Wilton Manors, Fort Lauderdale and on the county commission.

Once a vice president at a brokerage firm, Steinsmith's life later unraveled as AIDS destroyed his body and mind. In 2001, he was the victim of bitter irony: he was turned away by organizations he once advocated for.

After a trespassing charge landed him in jail, Broward General's psychiatric unit wouldn't keep him, claiming he wasn't sufficiently mentally ill. Broward House rejected him because he was too mentally ill and broke.

County Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren ordered Broward House to treat him. "They ultimately provided treatment and care for him," Lerner-Wren said Monday. "He deserved so much better."

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