Washington Blade - May 18, 2009
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

An official with the Denver-based Gill Foundation, where McFarlane worked from 2003 to 2007 as executive director, said Monday that McFarlane's body was found by state police in a park in Truth or Consequences, N.M., in a remote desert setting that McFarlane often visited as an avid hiker.

"He was a great lover of the high desert," said Tim Sweeney, current executive director of the Gill Foundation, which provides funding for LGBT and AIDS organizations. "It was a place where he found peace and solitude."

McFarlane, 54, has been credited with helping to transform Gay Men's Health Crisis, known as GMHC, into a highly effective private service agency for people with AIDS that became the model for AIDS organizations throughout the nation.

"The power of Rodger's many personal and professional accomplishments cannot be denied," said a statement prepared by friends and associates and released Monday by the Gill Foundation.

"He was on the forefront of responding to the AIDS epidemic that ravaged our country - and specifically the gay community - in the 1980s," the statement says. "Before HIV even had a name, in 1981, Rodger set up the very first [AIDS] hotline anywhere."

McFarlane served from 1989 to 1994 as executive director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, an AIDS fundraising and grant-making group. He was a founding member along with his domestic partner, Larry Kramer, of ACT UP New York, the protest group that is credited with pressuring the federal government to do more to fight the AIDS epidemic.

During his tenure as head of the Gill Foundation, McFarlane took the lead in creating the group's sister organization, Gill Action, which advocates on behalf of LGBT causes.

A Navy veteran, McFarlane served as a licensed nuclear engineer who worked on strategic missions in the North Atlantic and Arctic regions aboard an attack submarine, according to the statement released by Gill Foundation.

"A gifted athlete, he was a veteran of seven over-ice expeditions to the North Pole," the statement says. "He also competed internationally for many years as a elite tri-athlete, and in 1998 and 2002, competed in the Eco-Challenges in Morocco and Fiji, where he captained an all-gay female-majority team."

He co-authored several books, including one with Larry Kramer, "The Tragedy of Today's Gays." In 1993, he co-produced Kramer's play "The Destiny of Me," which was a sequel to Kramer's internationally acclaimed Broadway play "The Normal Heart."

"In a letter found with his remains, Rodger explained that he was unwilling to allow compounding heart and back problems to become even worse and result in total debilitation," the Gill Foundation statement says.

"We know that Rodger was in a great deal of pain; already disabled in his own mind because he could no longer workout or do all of the outdoor activities he so loved.

"As his friends and family, we thought it was important that we communicate to the world that it has lost an amazingly wonderful individual who contributed so mightily to our humanity," the statement says.

"The HIV/AIDS community, the LGBT community, the progressive community, and all communities touched by Rodger's vibrant life have experienced a tremendous loss," according to a statement provided to the Blade by Ronald S. Johnson, deputy executive director for AIDS Action Council. "Since first meeting him in 1984, Rodger was a hero to me and I am but one of thousands for whom Rodger was a source of limitless inspiration. I am very saddened and extend my condolences to Rodger's family and many, many friends, whose grief may be softened by the legacy of Rodger's life."

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