Jon Hinson
| Jon Hinson | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi's 4th district |
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In office January 3, 1979 – April 13, 1981 |
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| Preceded by | Thad Cochran |
| Succeeded by | Wayne Dowdy |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
March 16, 1942 Tylertown, Walthall County Mississippi |
| Died | July 21, 1995 (aged 53) Silver Spring, Maryland |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Cynthia Hinson (divorced) |
| Children | No children |
| Alma mater | University of Mississippi |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | United States Marine Corps Reserve |
Jon Clifton Hinson (March 16, 1942 – July 21, 1995) was a politician from the U.S. state of Mississippi. He served in the United States Congress as a representative from 1979. Following his 1981 resignation for a homosexual act, Hinson became an activist for gay and lesbian rights, living in the Washington metropolitan area.
Born in Tylertown in Walthall County in southwestern Mississippi in 1942, Hinson attended local schools. In 1959 he worked as a page for Congressman John Bell Williams.
He graduated from the University of Mississippi at Oxford in 1964, and joined the United States Marine Corps Reserve, in which he served until 1970.
Hinson worked on the U.S. House staff as doorman in 1967, and then served on the staffs of Representatives Charles H. Griffin, a Democrat, and Thad Cochran, a Republican.
In 1978, Cochran ran successfully for the United States Senate. Hinson was elected to succeed him, winning the U.S. House seat with 51.6 percent of the vote. Democrat John Hampton Stennis, the son of U.S. Senator John C. Stennis, polled 26.4 percent of the vote, and the remaining ballots were cast for independent candidates.
Hinson survived a 24 October 1977 fire at Washington, DC's gay Cinema Follies. Firefighters found him under a pile of bodies; he was one of only four men rescued.
In 1980, Hinson admitted that in 1976, while an aide to Cochran, he had been arrested for committing an obscene act after he exposed himself to an undercover policeman at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. Hinson denied that he was homosexual and blamed his problems on alcoholism. He also said that he had reformed and refused to yield to demands that he resign. He won re-election with a plurality of 38.97 percent of the vote (Independent Leslie B. McLemore polled 29.8 percent, and Democrat Britt Singletary received 29.4 percent).
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