Bonnie Tinker Papers

Bonnie Jeanne Tinker was born on May 26, 1948 in Boone, Iowa. She was a social activist who campaigned against war and domestic violence, but she is best known for her work for gay and lesbian rights. Her activism started long before her adulthood; her family won the Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines School Board, which reaffirmed students’ rights of free speech and to wear black arm bands in protest of the Vietnam War.

In 1972, Bonnie Tinker worked with Quakers to open the Prescott House, a shelter for women. From 1975 to 1979, she was the founding director of the Bradley-Angle House, a shelter for battered women, and she was the first chairperson of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She was the director of Love Makes a Family, a nonprofit group which she founded in 1992 in Portland, OR, that advocated for non-traditional families, especially gay and lesbian families and transracial families. Bonnie Tinker also produced a video called “Love Makes a Family” in 1992.

Most of her later adult life was focused on her work to combat the marriage inequality and anti-homosexual sentiments within the Quaker and larger community. She and her partner, Sara Graham, had three children: Josh, Connie, and Alex. In 2004, Sara and Bonnie were legally married in a Quaker ceremony before the marriages were revoked. Bonnie Tinker died at the age of 61 in a bicycle accident in Blacksburg, Virginia, while attending Friends General Conference Gathering.