Eigil Axgil; Gay Activist

Eigil Axgil, 71, whose lifelong crusade for gay rights made Denmark the first country in the world to allow same-sex marriages. On Oct. 1, 1989, he and Axel Axgil became the first gay men to take marriage vows legally. That was the same day a law took effect in Denmark that allowed homosexuals to register marriages. In 1948, the men--at the time using their original names Eigil Eskildsen and Axel Lundahl-Madsen--founded the National Homosexual Assn., one of the oldest gay rights groups in Europe. In the late 1950s, both were sentenced on pornography charges to short prison terms for running an international gay modeling agency, said Kai Erik Nielsen, a gay historian. Shortly after their arrest, the men melded their first names into a new surname, Axgil, and had used it ever since in a public show of defiance. Six years ago, Danish legislators approved a law giving homosexuals all the rights and obligations of marriage, except adopting a child or obtaining semen for conception. On Sept. 22 in Copenhagen.