Ron Helizon, Chicago’s “Polish Princess,” Dies at 65

Chicago-based civil rights activist Ron Helizon, whose fight for gay equality dates back to the 1960s, died over the weekend at age 65.

Known to locals as "The Polish Princess," Helizon owned a bar, Company, in Chicago's Boystown. He also worked tirelessly with Archdiocese Gay and Lesbian Outreach in his attempts to get the Catholic Church to be more accepting of gay and lesbian parishioners.

"As a young man sitting in Grant Park in the 1960s and dreaming, I dreamed that I could worship, I dreamed that I could go into any place and be treated as equal, and I dreamed that I would be accepted," he told Windy City Times publisher Tracy Baim in 2007.

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