Joseph Toy; Instrumental in L.A.’s Gay Pride Festival

Joseph Toy, 44, past president of Christopher Street West, the principal sponsor of the two-decade-old annual Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Pride Festival that last June drew 300,000 people and about 300 participating units to the streets of West Hollywood. The nonprofit group--named for the street in Greenwich Village where 20 years ago police raided a homosexual bar, sparking a demonstration and the birth of the gay rights movement--each year awards more than $100,000 to gay and lesbian support groups. Toy was an administrator for the Automobile Club of Southern California when he died Monday of complications of AIDS at a Long Beach hospital.