AIDS Victims Mourned at Vigil : Memorial: More than 1,000 county residents are remembered, among them a prominent leader of the local gay community who succumbed to the disease only the night before.

Gay activists and relatives of AIDS patients held a candlelight vigil Monday evening to mourn the more than 1,000 Orange County residents who have died from the illness, including an Orange County gay leader who succumbed on the eve of the ceremony.

Werner P. Kuhn, one of the most prominent leaders of Orange County’s gay community during the 1980s and a noted advocate of AIDS patients statewide, died Sunday of complications arising from the disease. He was 47.

Kuhn was among those eulogized Monday night by more than 100 gay activists and relatives of AIDS patients during the vigil held in front of the Orange County Hall of Administration to commemorate Orange County residents who have died from the illness over the past decade.

The county’s AIDS death toll reached 1,003 at the end of August, said Dr. Penny Weismuller, disease control manager for the county’s Health Care Agency.

Kuhn served as executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Service Center of Orange County from 1985 until late last year, when he resigned for personal reasons and moved to Santa Monica. He became ill while attending the Santa Fe Opera Festival last month and was hospitalized shortly thereafter, according to a statement released by his companion, Charles Hankins.

He died Sunday at UCLA Medical Center.

“Werner was one of the strongest leaders of the gay and lesbian communities in Orange County,” said Laguna Beach Councilman Robert F. Gentry, the county’s only openly gay elected official. “He came to Orange County from the East Coast with a style that was no-nonsense, upfront and tell-it-like-it-was.”

Born in Rye, N.Y., to German immigrant parents, Kuhn graduated from Dartmouth College and earned law and business degrees at Columbia University. He lived in Albany, N.Y., from 1973 to 1985 and helped found that city’s Lesbian and Gay Community Center.

Monday’s candlelight vigil was designed not only to remember those who died but also to send a message to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, said Jeff LeTourneau, co-chairman of the Orange County Visibility League, the lesbian and gay civil rights organization that sponsored the event.

“We want the county to be aware of the prevalence of this disease,” LeTourneau said. “We also want to create political awareness and pressure the Board of Supervisors to pass an AIDS anti-discrimination measure.”

The proposed measure, which would have banned discrimination against AIDS patients, was defeated 3 to 2 by the board in June, 1989, leaving Orange County the only urban area in California without such a measure.

Kuhn led the fight for the measure--over the objections of other gay leaders, who feared that the gay community would be hurt by its failure, said Gentry.

“Werner would not take no for an answer,” Gentry said. “It failed, but we all learned something about the needs of people with AIDS.”

Members of the Visibility League will ask the supervisors to reintroduce the anti-discrimination measure at today’s board meeting. They said the measure will encourage AIDS testing and help reduce the number of AIDS cases in Orange County.

Pearl Jemison-Smith, AIDS coordinator at UCI Medical Center, said the number of AIDS patients in the county is increasing, with about 42 new cases being diagnosed each month.

“What a difference 10 years makes,” Jemison-Smith said in a speech at the memorial. “Who would have dreamed 10 years ago that we would be here this evening mourning 1,000 friends?”