Bob Kunst (born 1941) is an American gay rights activist and

perennial candidate A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for elected office and rarely, if ever, wins. Perennial candidates are most common where there is no limit on the number of times that a person can run for office and little cost ...

Early life

Kunst was born in 1941 in

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean ...

. He worked in marketing for the

Miami Toros The Miami Toros were a professional soccer team in the North American Soccer League (1968–1984), North American Soccer League from 1972 to 1976. The club was founded in 1967 as the Washington Darts, and moved to Miami, where they played the ...

professional soccer team in the 1970s.

Gay rights activism

He supported the 1976 Miami-Dade County Ordinance for Gay Rights and was later involved in activism for people with

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

. Kunst opposed

Save Our Children Save Our Children, Inc. was an American political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida, to overturn a recently legislated county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexua ...

, a

Dade County, Florida Miami-Dade County () is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most-populous count ...

voter-approved county initiative supported by singer

Anita Bryant Anita Jane Bryant (March 25, 1940 – December 16, 2024) was an American singer and anti-gay rights activist. She had three top 20 hits in the United States in the early 1960s. She was the 1958 Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner, and a brand ...

and her then-husband Bob Green. The initiative repealed the previous anti-discrimination ordinance Kunst had supported. He helped organize the subsequent pressure campaign on citrus industry corporate sponsors of Bryant. The law was eventually repealed by the state

Supreme Court of Florida The Supreme Court of Florida is the state supreme court, highest court in the U.S. state of Florida. It consists of seven justices—one of whom serves as Chief Justice. Six members are chosen from six districts around the state to foster geog ...

in 2010. In 1991, after allegations of financial mismanagement were published in the ''Miami Herald'', Kunst was fired as the executive director of Cure AIDS Now.

Political Campaigns

Kunst unsuccessfully made Democratic primary runs for Florida Governor in 1982 and 2002, in the Democratic primary for United States Senator in 1986, and for Congress as an Independent unaffiliated candidate in 2010 against incumbent Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D).

Other activism

Kunst was president (1991-2001) of Shalom International, a Jewish group combating global

Neo-Nazism Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...

and

Neo-fascism Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology which includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, ultraconservatism, racial supremacy, right-wing populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xe ...

movements. And he was a co-founder of the Oral Majority in 1982, the liberal and secular counter-protest group of the Religious Right organizations

Moral Majority The Moral Majority was an American political organization and movement associated with the Christian right and the Republican Party in the United States. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. and associates, and dissolv ...

and later the Christian Coalition. In 2018, Kunst protested outside the courthouse where Noor Salman,

Omar Mateen Omar Mir Seddique Mateen (; born Omar Mir Seddique; November 16, 1986 – June 12, 2016) was an American domestic terrorist and mass murderer who killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub, a gay nightcl ...

's widow, was being tried for complicity in her husband's Pulse nightclub massacre. Kunst held a sign reading: "'Fry her till she has no 'Pulse'". Noor Salman was found not guilty during a trial that also exposed the fact that she was abused by her husband.

Support of Donald Trump

Kunst supported

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

for U.S. president in 2016 2020, and 2024. As of 2019, he said he had attended 150 Trump rallies. He protested the March 2023 indictment of Donald Trump.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kunst, Bob 1941 births Living people American LGBTQ rights activists Activists from Florida American HIV/AIDS activists 21st-century Florida politicians Miami Toros Politicians from Miami Beach, Florida Florida Democrats 20th-century Florida politicians