A WELL-KNOWN GAY rights lawyer and environmental advocate burned himself to death in New York City yesterday in a grisly protest against ecological destruction.

The charred remains of 60-year-old David Buckel were found by passers-by in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Police said he was pronounced dead at about 6.30am.

Various US media are reporting that they understand the act to be related to humans polluting the planet and risking endangering the planet as a result.

Buckel was the lead attorney in a lawsuit involving Brandon Teena, a transgender man who was murdered in Nebraska. Hilary Swank won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Teena in the 1999 movie Boys Don’t Cry.

Buckel also served as marriage project director at Lambda Legal, a national organisation that fights for LGBT rights, where he was the strategist behind same-sex marriage cases in New Jersey and Iowa.

Susan Sommer, a former Lambda Legal attorney who is now the general counsel for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice in New York City, told the Times that Buckel “was all about justice, but he was also all about what it means to be human”.

Sommer added:

He was a very smart and methodical lawyer. He knew his craft and his trade and was strategic in how to build the blocks toward a sweeping victory.

If you need to talk, please contact:

• Samaritans 116 123 or text 087 2 60 90 90 or email jo@samaritans.ie
• Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
• Pieta House 1800 247 247 or email mary@pieta.ie (suicide, self-harm)
• Teen-Line Ireland 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 19)
• Childline 1800 66 66 66 (for under 18s)