David Goodstein; Headed Largest Gay News Magazine

David Goodstein, chairman of the board of the Advocate, the largest national gay news magazine in the country and a moving force in establishing legislation decriminalizing homosexuality, is dead of cancer.

He was 53 when he died Saturday in a San Diego hospital.

Goodstein was a criminal defense lawyer, a member of then-New York Mayor John Lindsay’s “brain trust” and a Wall Street investment broker who moved to California in 1971 to work in a bank. He was fired when the bank learned of his relationship with a man. He afterward determined to go public with his sexuality, reasoning that “if they can do this to me what can they do to some poor devil without any clout.”

He told The Times in a 1976 interview that he bought the Advocate to use it as an instrument of social change. The societal remedies he envisioned were laws to protect persecuted homosexuals and lesbians.

The Los Angeles-based magazine had a local flavor when Goodstein paid $300,000 in cash and some long-term notes for it in 1975.

Goodstein changed its scope, shifting its headquarters to San Mateo, near his home, to make the magazine more than a Los Angeles publication.

He published interviews with nationally known homosexuals and noted personalities sympathetic to the gay cause.

Circulation Quadrupled

At his death, the circulation of the semi-monthly magazine, which he moved back to Los Angeles in 1984, had risen from 19,000 to 85,000, and the handful of original employees had grown to 50.

Goodstein was one of the prime lobbyists for the 1974 state legislation that decriminalized homosexual activities between consenting adults. He was also a founder of Concerned Voters in California, one of the groups given credit for the defeat in 1978 of an initiative that would have banned homosexuals from teaching or working in public schools, and a founder of the Gay Rights National Lobby in Washington.

He also formed Advocate Experience, a group of personal growth seminars for homosexuals patterned after Werner Erhard’s est training sessions. About 7,500 people have undergone that training.

Goodstein is survived by a brother, Edward, and his partner in life, David Russell.

Donations are being asked in Goodstein’s name to organizations supporting the victims of AIDS, the usually fatal acquired immune deficiency syndrome that strikes primarily at homosexuals, or to organizations involved in AIDS research.

A memorial service will be held Friday at 5 p.m. at University Synagogue, 11960 Sunset Blvd.