Famed Gay Rights Lawyer Sets Himself On Fire At Prospect Park In Protest Suicide Against Fossil Fuels

Officials investigate the scene and carry away the man’s body inside Prospect Park. (THEODORE PARISIENNE/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

A nationally known gay rights attorney and green activist set himself on fire and burned to death in Prospect Park early Saturday in a bizarre ecological protest suicide.

The charred remains of David Buckel, 60, were discovered shortly after sunrise when firefighters responded to a report of a fire in the southwest corner of the sprawling Brooklyn park, police sources said.

A suicide note indicated Buckel used “fossil fuel” in the gruesome suicide as a metaphor for the self-destruction of the planet.

“My name is David Buckel and I just killed myself by fire as a protest suicide,” read a hand-written message left at the scene. “I apologize to you for the mess.”

Buckel, who lived near the park, was a renowned lawyer and activist who worked with the Marriage Project for the gay civil rights group Lambda Legal.

He was also a well-known ecological activist, working with the NYC Compost Project, funded by the city Sanitation Department and based at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

He stapled his business card to the note and left behind a longer, neatly typed explanation of his self-immolation.

“My early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves,” he wrote. “A lifetime of service may best be preserved by giving a life … Honorable purpose in life invites honorable purchase in death.

“I hope it is an honorable death that might serve others.”

Buckel famously served as lead attorney in a lawsuit involving transgender murder victim Brandon Teena, who was raped and then killed in 1993. Her story was later told in the movie “Boys Don’t Cry,” starring Hilary Swank as Teena.

A county sheriff was found negligent in the killing for his failure to protect Teena from her rapists — who returned and killer her once she went to authorities.

Buckel’s suicide notes were left inside an envelope labeled “for the police” placed inside a garbage bag left inside a shopping cart near the body.

In his note, Buckel invoked the images of protesters setting themselves afire to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

“This is not new, as many have chose to give a life based on the view that no other action can most meaningfully address the harm they see,” he wrote.

“Here is a hope that giving a life might bring some attention to the need for expanded actions, and help others give a voice to our home, and Earth is heard.”

The Brooklyn man was burned from head to toe by the time the FDNY arrived.

“We were a little freaked out,” said a jogger who stumbled across the gruesome remains before the victim’s body was covered with a tarp by first responders. “It took us a little while to process it.”

Police closed off a large patch of lawn as bewildered parkgoers began to stream into the park.

As a proponent of community composting Buckel worked at the Added Value Red Hook Community Farm and served as senior Organics Recovery Coordinator for the NYC Compost Project.

The 1987 Cornell Law School graduate, argued during his career against the Boy Scout ban on gays and for the establishment of a gay student club at a Utah high school.

He also helped a Pennsylvania woman win a lawsuit allowing her to place the epitaph “beloved life partner” on the headstone of her gay partner.