Terry L. Beagle, a political activist who quit a secure job in the late 1970s to devote more time to various liberal causes, died Monday at his home in Tolland.

Mr. Beagle, 47, who was diagnosed in 1989 with the virus that causes AIDS, was vocal on gay-rights issues and attended the Democratic National Convention last summer as an openly gay delegate.

But despite his personal interest in issues related to civil rights and to research into acquired immune deficiency syndrome, he never was a single-minded crusader.

"What I admire most about Terry is he didn't just focus on gay issues or AIDS issues," said his friend Arlene Avery of Stafford Springs. "He was there for [the Equal Rights Amendment], he was there on reproductive freedom. ... "

Perhaps his most passionate pursuit was for legislation that would make it easier for would-be candidates to seek political office.

Friends said he was devastated this spring when a bill that would have made it easier for candidates to qualify for primaries withered in the closing weeks of the legislative session.

"I was so sad this year when it didn't pass, because I knew Terry wouldn't live to see it happen," Avery said.

Mr. Beagle joined the Caucus of Connecticut Democrats in 1968, when the economic and social justice organization formed to support presidential hopeful Eugene McCarthy.

Involvement in town politics, work on political campaigns and leadership posts in organizations such as the League of Women Voters followed.

Mr. Beagle was working for the U.S. Postal Service at the time, and before long, his political moonlighting began to cross the limits prescribed by the Hatch Act, a law barring federal employees from much political activity.

It was time to choose: job security or a long shot at changing the world. He chose the latter.

"I resigned because I thought it was more important to leave my job than to be told you can't be involved in politics," he said in

an interview last year.

Born in Shelbyville, Ind., Mr. Beagle was a 1965 graduate of Pinney High School in East Hartford. U.S. Rep. Sam Gejdenson, D-2nd District, said he met him in 1969 when the two started working as volunteers on various presidential and U.S. Senate campaigns. Mr. Beagle later was an active supporter when Gejdenson ran for office.

"He was someone that never looked for anything in return," Gejdenson said. "He just worked for candidates he believed in."

Mr. Beagle started attending Democratic national conventions in 1976, each time supporting an underdog. In 1992, he was a delegate for former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas.

Between meetings of the Connecticut delegation and the requisite convention parties, he marched at the front of a gay-rights demonstration that drew 50,000 activists into the streets of Manhattan.

Despite blistering heat and a body already weakened by AIDS, Mr. Beagle completed the march, weary but smiling.

Mr. Beagle might never have been a delegate had it not been for his lobbying in 1977 on behalf of a bill requiring that would-be presidential delegates be allowed to run primaries for convention spots, said Margaret Berg, a friend of Mr. Beagle's from Glastonbury.

Asked last year why he devoted so much of his limited time on Earth to the often thankless job of lobbying for social and political justice, Mr. Beagle said this:

"Because as individuals, we can't sit passively by and let the world go by. We have to be agents of change.

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