On this date in 1930, gay rights activist Richard Walton “Dick” Hewetson was born in Harvey, Ill., to Clara (Larson) and Reginald Hewetson. His paternal grandfather was an Episcopal priest, a vocation he later pursued after growing up and attending public schools in the Chicago area and Minneapolis.
The family struggled financially after his father lost banking jobs during the Great Depression. The family moved to Minneapolis when Hewetson was in second grade. When he was in junior high, his mother decided they should start attending an Episcopal church. Before he graduated from high school in 1948, he had jobs washing dishes in restaurants.
After graduation, he got a job with the Milwaukee Road freight traffic department. A relationship with a girl he’d been dating since high school fizzled. He felt relieved it was over. But while he was unable to succumb to the blandishments of female companionship, he fell prey to his religious impulses and embarked on a journey leading to priesthood in the Episcopal Church, where he had been confirmed and served as an altar boy.
He received a B.A. from the University of Minnesota and an M.Div. from Seabury‑Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill., in 1957. “I now realize that my motives for going into the priesthood were very subliminal. It was a place to ‘hide’ and be considered all right as an unmarried man. I also thought that if I had enough faith, my homosexuality would fade away,” Hewetson said. (Freethought Today, Nov. 9, 2022) His speech to FFRF in 2000 aptly sums up his feelings.
He served parishes in Minnesota and Wisconsin before “awareness of my sexuality led to a mental breakdown in 1967. This led to my leaving the parish ministry and taking a job with the Minnesota Department of Employment Security. I continued to fill in on Sundays for Wisconsin churches when the local clergy were vacationing, or there was a temporary vacancy. Some of these vacancies were because of misbehavior or alleged misbehavior of the local priest. I found the coverup by the church disgusting.” (Ibid.)
Coming to terms with his sexuality had morphed into strong doubts about religion and, while in his early 40s, leaving the church in 1972. As a state employee, he was active in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the first U.S. union with anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people.
“In 1978, I joined the Freedom From Religion Foundation because it worked for the separation of church and state — keeping religion out of government. Most members were atheists, and when I realized what that meant, I realized that I had always been an atheist!” (Ibid.) His familiarity with FFRF started when his partner in life David Irwin saw Anne Gaylor on “The Phil Donahue Show.” They started attending annual national conventions and Hewetson served on the board of directors for years. He and Irvin founded the Quatrefoil Library in St. Paul, Minn., in 1983.
Now in Minneapolis and still operating as of this writing in 2025, Quatrefoil is a member-supported library, cultural center and safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. The library houses over 15,000 books, 7,000 DVDs, collections of first editions and rare books and books in braille. It takes its name from the novel “Quatrefoil: A Modern Novel” by James Fugaté. The library announced the creation in 2019 of a scholarship for LGBTQ+ students attending college in Minnesota.
He moved to San Francisco after retirement in 1992, where he facilitated programs for Elderhostels, FFRF, New Leaf Outreach to Elders, the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy and the Center for Learning in Retirement. FFRF gave its Freethinker of the Year Award that year in San Antonio to the Weisman family, which had just won a Supreme Court case barring prayer at high school graduation. “A clever journalist for the San Antonio paper wrote that atheists were gathering at Christmas time next to a Catholic shrine in a city named for a saint to give an award to three Weismans,” Hewetson quipped. (dickhewetson.net)
He remembers an early convention: “At the banquet we sat at a round table with six other people. When they realized that David and I were partners, they were thrilled to talk with us. None of them had ever had a chance to talk with a gay couple, and they were extremely supportive. Another feeling of belonging swept over me.” Vocalist Kristin Lems looked out over the audience, expressing amazement that this was the first convention she’d ever entertained at on a Saturday night where everyone was sober. “Church conventions were never like this!” (Ibid.)
