Obituary: The Rev. Bruce Hilton, 77, was a social justice champion

The Rev. Bruce Hilton, a United Methodist minister who preached social justice as a civil rights activist, author, journalist and pioneering medical ethicist, died Friday. He was 77.

The Rev. Hilton had diabetes for many years and died of kidney failure, his family said.

Guided by moral convictions and compassion for others, the Rev. Hilton was a steadfast advocate for human rights. He joined civil rights marches in the 1960s, championed gays and lesbians in the church and was an early advocate for medical patients' rights.

In books, interviews and lectures, he urged change through education, respect and peaceful resistance. Meanwhile, he supported his family as a journalist and wrote a column on bioethical issues that was syndicated in The Bee and other newspapers.

He began his ministry in the 1950s as a fair-housing activist in segregated neighborhoods in Dayton, Ohio. In 1965, he moved his family to Greenville, Miss., to work for Delta Ministry, a civil rights group that registered black voters, trained black political candidates and organized Head Start committees. He wrote a 1969 book, "The Delta Ministry," about the group and the opposition it met in the segregated South.

"He said that evil in life is usually in shades of gray, but this was the first time people had faced a clear and present evil," said his son, Paul Hilton. "They were threatened by Klansmen."

The Rev. Hilton was strengthened by a family tradition of social activism. His father was an Evangelical United Brethren preacher who opposed mobsters trying to open a distillery during Prohibition. His wife, Virginia, who died in October, was a pioneering United Methodist clergywoman.

Another calling emerged after one of the Hiltons' sons came out as a gay man. The couple co-founded Parents Reconciling Network – a national support group for United Methodist parents of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people – and joined a group of 67 pastors who risked being defrocked for blessing a 1999 union of two Sacramento lesbians. The Rev. Hilton also wrote a book, "Can Homophobia Be Cured?" and marched in gay pride parades in Sacramento and San Francisco.

In 1971, he began exploring bioethical issues as an editor at the Hastings Center, a medical ethics think tank in New York. Bucking the conventional view that doctors know best, he argued for greater control by patients over their medical care and founded the National Center for Bioethics. He lectured widely for more than 30 years and served on ethics boards at six Northern California hospitals.

"He was a pioneer in bioethics and never faltered in his contributions," said Derek Humphry, a right-to-die expert and founder of the Hemlock Society. "He was a very decent person, and it was that decency that brought him to bioethics."

Bruce Hilton was born in 1930 in Plymouth, Wis., one of three sons reared by a preacher and homemaker. He married Virginia Young, a pastor's daughter, in 1952.

He earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from Indiana Central University in 1953 and a master's degree in divinity from United Theological Seminary in 1956. He received a doctorate in divinity from Indiana Central University in 1975 and an honorary doctorate from Westmar College.

He began in journalism at the Indianapolis News in college and rose to assistant city editor. He worked as a reporter or editor at several publications, including the Dayton Journal Herald; Friends, a national Evangelical United Brethren publication; and the Hastings Center Report.

In 1976, he joined the San Francisco Examiner as a part-time copy editor and started the paper's columns on AIDS and bioethics. He also wrote columns for Scripps Howard News Service and authored two books on bioethical issues. He retired and moved in 1989 to Sacramento, where his wife was named a pastor at Faith United Methodist Church.

The Rev. Hilton was an outgoing man who enjoyed telling jokes and writing puns in newspaper headlines. He organized and played for 27 years with the Joyful Noise Jazz Band at music festivals, churches and parties. "He played the tuba," said his son, Steve Hilton. "It was an instrument his father played."

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