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In Memoriam:
Eric Rofes, 1954-2006
REFLECTION ON ERIC ROFES' LIFE BY:
The Reverend Dr. G. Penny Nixon, Senior Pastor
Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco
San Francisco, California
The Reverend Elder Jim Mitulski, Denominational Leader
Metropolitan Community Churches
Los Angeles, California
In the weeks to come there will be many tributes to Eric Rofes as political activist, health activist, sex radical, and author and teacher.
We honor him as prophet and spiritual leader, as well.
In the pages of the Bible, prophets are revealed as eccentric characters who exercise powerful voices to bring forth liberation. Prophets are fearless and larger than life. They are people of conscience who often inspire revolutions. Often misunderstood and seen as "before their time," history vindicates them as true leaders during times of need and crisis, when leadership is sorely needed. Eric Rofes embodied all these characteristics.
He lived his spirituality through acts of justice and community organizing was one of his spiritual gifts.
The organizing principle of his work was the realities of gay life. He loved gay people as we really are, not as some externally imposed ideal or stereotype.
He loved men. And he loved women. He invited women as allies in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and he challenged men to be as knowledgeable about and committed to women's health issues as they were about men's health issues.
In the long tradition of prophets, he often did not say what was popular. He said what was true. And in an era when silence equals death, he broke the silence again and again. He spoke truth to power and he empowered the powerless to find their own voices.
Eric Rofes was an avowed feminist and an avowed leftist. He wanted to hear all voices and he worked to ensure that all voices were included: the young as well as the old, the entire gender spectrum, and people of every race.
Like prophets of old, he knew how to draw on tradition, to recover lost or hidden histories. And his analysis, the fruit of his research, was prophecy to our generation.
An astute observer of gay cultural life, Eric's observations shaped an era. He called people forth to speak their truths fearlessly, both in public and in private, from sanctuaries and sex clubs, from health conferences and in public education.
A gifted mentor, Eric is survived in a particular way by his beloved Crispin Hollings, and by a generation of activists, public health workers, educators, and clergy for whom his mentoring is part of his legacy. His life and relationships were sacred texts for others to examine and learn from.
Eric taught us the uselessness of shame and the value of our bodies -- our male and our female bodies, our HIV-positive and our HIV-negative bodies.
As a queer liberation ethicist, his ethical writing modeled the best of theological writing. He willingly drew from the personal when appropriate, while always making the broadest possible social application.
Eric was edgy, creative, prolific. A natural learner, he was always anticipating the next thing while documenting and interpreting the present.
He was a prophet for Metropolitan Community Churches, believing in us in a way that we haven't always believed in ourselves. He called us to be authentic to our calling, to be sex-positive, to be a place in which honest conversations take place, to use the power of community to liberate ourselves. He admired and chronicled MCC's participation in HIV/AIDS history.
Within MCC, we assign Eric's books "Reviving the Tribe" and "Dry Bones Breathe" to each new generation of seminarians. One can't do ministry in the LGBT community without having read Rofes works.
Disdainful of much organized religion, he always felt at home at MCC San Francisco, He led our men's retreats, piloted programs such as Men Talking Sex, consulted with MCC's denominational HIV/AIDS initiatives, and nurtured the dialogue between HIV-positive and HIV-negative persons, and between women and men. He will long be remembered for having filled our pulpit and preaching a sermon that rivaled that of any trained preacher.
On behalf of the international movement of Metropolitan Community Churches, we extend our love to Crispin Hollings, an MCC leader in his own right as a former moderator of the board of directors of Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco.
Following in the tradition of what Eric Rofes taught us, we invite you to do something tangible to honor his life and to memorialize his passing:
- Light a candle in his memory and let the flame burn until your thoughts become actions.
- In his memory and in honor of Eric's Jewish faith and heritage, pray the Kaddish in this or another version:
Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world
which He has created according to His will.
May She establish Her reign in your lifetime and during your days,
and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon;
and say, Amen. May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored,
adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be She,
beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that
are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.. May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.
She who creates peace in her celestial heights,
may She create peace for us and for all Israel;
and say, Amen.
- Exercise solidarity. Come out on behalf of yourself or others. Demonstrate an interest in the dynamics of race, class or gender. Make a donation to an activist cause. Put your body on the line. Take a risk. Engage in life-affirming sex as a prayer of remembrance.
_____________________________
Thank you, Eric, for living your private life in public view, for sharing with us your splendid physical body, your brilliant mind, your vibrant spirit. Your relentless hope and your commitment to the work of liberation live on in all of your lovers and friends, and we are proud to be counted among them.
/signed/
The Reverend Dr. G. Penny Nixon
The Reverend Elder Jim Mitulski
NOTE: A celebration of Eric's life is planned for Saturday, July 15 at 3 PM at MCC San Francisco, 150 Eureka Street San Francisco, California.
For pictures, list of publications and other biographical info go to www.ericrofes.com
The Reverend Dr. G. Penny Nixon is the senior pastor of MCC San Francisco. www.mccsf.org
The Reverend Elder Jim Mitulski serves on the denominational staff of MCC in Los Angeles.
www.mccchurch.org
Theodore Sarbin Dies at 94; Scholar's DoD Research Called on
Pentagon to Repeal Gay Ban in 1988
To: National Desk
Contact: Rebecca Sawyer of the Servicemembers Legal Defense
Network, 202-328-3244 ext. 102 or rasawyer(At)sldn.org
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 -- Theodore Sarbin, a social psychologist
whose 1988 study for the Department of Defense called for the repeal of the
military's gay ban, died on Aug. 31. He was 94. His death was reported in
Wednesday's New York Times.
Sarbin examined the role of lesbians, gays and bisexuals in the Armed Forces
with Kenneth Karols in the 1988 report, "Nonconforming Sexual Orientations and
Military Suitability," for the Defense Personnel Security Research and Education
Center. The report concluded that lesbian, gay and bisexual service members
were as capable of military service as their heterosexual counterparts, and it
called on the Pentagon to reconsider its gay ban.
Sarbin and Karols wrote, "(s)tudies of homosexual veterans make clear that
having a same-gender or an opposite gender orientation is unrelated to job
performance in the same way as being left- or right-handed."
The Pentagon report, one of a handful on the issue of gays in the military,
was kept secret until then Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.) and other Congressional
offices forced its release. It was subsequently made public in the 1990 book,
Gays in Uniform: The Pentagon's Secret Reports, edited by Kate Dyer.
"Our nation has lost an important scholar whose work honored the service of
lesbian, gay and bisexual service members and defended the opportunity for all
Americans to serve, regardless of sexual orientation," stated C. Dixon Osburn,
executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. "Dr. Sarbin's
service to our country and his landmark work in revealing the discriminatory
nature of the military's gay ban made him an irreplaceable ally for our
community. He will be deeply missed."
Sarbin is survived by his companion, Karin Sobeck, a sister, three sons, four
grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. He is predeceased by his wife, the
former Genevieve Donahue Allen.
---
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is a national, non-profit legal
services, watchdog and policy organization dedicated to ending discrimination
against and harassment of military personnel affected by "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
and related forms of intolerance. For more information, visit
http://www.sldn.org.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NLGJA Mourns Roy Aarons, Founder and Pioneering Journalist
To: National Desk, Obituary Writer
Contact: Pamela Strother, Executive Director, 202-588-9888 ext. 11
or 202-486-5990 (cell) or pstrother(At)nlgja.org
or Eric Hegedus, National President, 215-840-3909 (cell)
or erich1228(At)earthlink.net both of the National Lesbian
and Gay Journalists Association
WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The National Lesbian &
Gay Journalists Association today released the following statement
on the death of founder and pioneering journalist Roy Aarons:
Leroy F. Aarons, the former Oakland Tribune executive editor who
founded the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA)
in his living room and grew it into a force in American journalism,
died at 70 late Sunday after a 10-month battle with cancer.
Aarons, who lived with his partner of 24 years, Joshua Boneh, in
Sebastopol, Calif., died of heart failure at Kaiser Permanente
Medical Center in Santa Rosa, Calif. He is also survived by a
brother, Ronald Aarons of Boulder, Colo.
"Today, NLGJA mourns our founder and a pioneering journalist
whose unending dedication has touched all of our lives," NLGJA
Executive Director Pamela Strother said.
An accomplished journalist who spent 14 years as a reporter and
editor at the Washington Post, Aarons sent shockwaves through the
news industry in 1990 when he emotionally acknowledged that he was
gay at a conference of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
That announcement, which came at the end of a speech in which he
also unveiled results of a landmark survey of gay and lesbian
journalists that showed most were unhappy with their professional
treatment and coverage of gay issues, served as the catalyst for
Aarons' formation of the NLGJA. Never before had a top editor of a
major newspaper come out so publicly.
"I had no idea it would be such a big deal until I was at that
podium in New York about to say it," Aarons recalled in an
interview at his home in October. "Other people knew it was a big
deal, but I don't think I got it until The New York Times wrote
about it."
Not only did the Times write about it, but in Aarons' role as
NLGJA founder and president, Aarons had the ear of the most
influential names in journalism. Times Publisher Arthur O.
Sulzberger Jr. called Aarons "an important force in journalism" and
credited Aarons and NLGJA with a sea change in how the media in
general and his newspaper in particular handled gay issues.
"For a while, it's fair to say, the Times and NLGJA were not
close, but we got close as his organization and mine found a common
bond and a common sense of urgency," Sulzberger said. "Roy was not
only a great leader and great spokesman for gays and lesbians in
the journalism game, but he was also a good man and a good friend.
I learned an enormous amount from him about his values and a lot of
that is reflected in the values of The New York Times."
ABC News Senior Vice President Robert Murphy, who is gay, also
recalled Aarons' impact fondly. "Roy was above all a great
journalist whose passion for our profession will always be what
comes to mind first when thinking of him," Murphy said. "Personally
I will remember him as a mentor and friend who taught us the value
of the contribution we could make to our newsrooms as openly gay
journalists. He also provided the leadership that gave many of us
the courage to join our personal and professional lives. For that
we will be forever grateful."
Today, the NLGJA has more than 1,200 members and chapters in 24
regions in the United States as well as affiliates in Canada and
Germany.
Born Dec. 8, 1933, to the children of Jewish Latvian immigrants
in the Bronx, N.Y., Aarons was raised by his postal worker father
and two stepmothers after his birth mother, Sybil, died of stomach
cancer when he was 3. He majored in psychology at Brown University,
but he discovered his flair for writing and earned a graduate
degree in journalism at Columbia University. He was hired as a copy
editor at the Journal-Courier, a morning newspaper in New Haven,
Conn., and moved on to covering news. By age 27, he was city
editor.
Aarons was hired at the Post in June 1962, where he covered
several of the most significant stories of the time. He recalled
being the reporter who informed Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of the death
of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. while covering Kennedy's
presidential campaign. Months later, Aarons would also cover
Kennedy's funeral. He was known as an exacting editor, as reflected
by a Washington Post nameplate he kept in his home office in
Sebastopol that referred to him as the "Silver Slasher" for his
editing style and his trademark shock of white hair.
Aarons' first brush with gay life was visiting a bar called
Maxine's in Philadelphia while on leave from the Navy in 1955.
"I walked in and it was like Dorothy coming from sepia-tone
Kansas to the Land of Oz, all of a sudden it was Technicolor,"
recalled Aarons in the October interview. "There were these
gorgeous men. In those days, everyone went out in jackets and ties.
There was a piano bar and a guy singing show tunes and I thought,
'Oh my God, there are other people, not just me!' And that started
me off. I was a gay in the military."
The issue of his sexuality was one that would bother Aarons for
years, however, as he concealed it throughout much of his
journalism career and had no significant love affairs.
He met Boneh, an Israeli national, in 1981 at a gay Jewish mixer
at the Jewish Community Center in Washington D.C., and followed
Boneh to Israel in 1982, where he freelanced for Time magazine. The
couple held a commitment ceremony at the Jewish Community Center in
2000 to mark their 20th anniversary.
Aarons and Boneh, a computer consultant, moved to Piedmont,
Calif., in 1983 when his friend and longtime colleague Robert
Maynard hired him as features editor of the Oakland Tribune, which
Maynard had recently purchased. Aarons, who became executive editor
and later senior vice president for news at the Tribune, led the
paper to a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for its photojournalism during
the October 1989 earthquake in the Bay Area. His sexual orientation
was known to the staff, and he and Boneh frequently entertained
other journalists from the paper at their home.
Still, the attention garnered by the ASNE announcement in 1990
altered Aarons' career dramatically. In the late 1970s, he had
co-founded with Maynard the Maynard Institute for Journalism
Education, a center dedicated to encouraging more people of color
to enter journalism, so he viewed the NLGJA as an extension of that
work.
"The NLGJA did for gays and lesbians what (Maynard was) doing
for people of color," Aarons said in the October 2004 interview.
"It was the same mission."
Others at that first NLGJA meeting in Aarons' home in Piedmont
recalled that his coming out at the ASNE meeting was a watershed
for many.
"His coming out in a major public way was frightening for him,"
said Elaine Herscher, then a reporter for The San Francisco
Chronicle. "But he did it, and it was to the good of all of us.
He was a visionary, way ahead of the curve, an absolute dynamo."
NLGJA President Eric Hegedus agreed. "I don't think anyone can
properly quantify the enormous difference Roy made in the
journalism world," said Hegedus, a page designer for The
Philadelphia Inquirer. "Through work in the NLGJA and as a founding
board member of the Maynard Institute, he also helped bring
together the minority journalism groups to tackle some of the most
important diversity issues on the broadest scales possible. Roy's
behind-the-scenes work had such a profound and far-reaching impact
on so many people."
Aarons' creative endeavors spanned far beyond journalism. He
wrote "Prayers for Bobby," a 1995 nonfiction book about a mother's
grief over her gay son's suicide. In 1991, he co-authored a
docudrama about the Pentagon Papers that won the coveted
Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Gold Award for best live
entertainment program on public radio.
He also wrote the libretto for the 2000 opera "Monticello,"
about the affair between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and
more recently wrote "Sarah's Diary," a fictional opera about woman
who lost her husband in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. At
the time of his death, Aarons was working on a play about South
Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for which he and
Boneh spent a month in South Africa earlier this year.
Aarons remained at the helm of the NLGJA until 1998 and remained
on the board until his death. In recent years, his focus for NLGJA
work turned to a successful crusade for journalism schools to
include gay issues in diversity training. Aarons himself founded a
landmark course at the University of Southern California's
Annenberg School for Communications on gay issues in the media.
In fact, former NLGJA President Robert Dodge noted that Aarons
remained up until a few weeks ago involved in work on this topic as
the NLGJA representative to the Accrediting Council on Education in
Journalism and Mass Communication.
"Here's a man who was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation
therapy and was fighting for his life and yet still intellectually
engaged, still had the energy to call and let me know I hadn't
gotten my work done," said Dodge, a Washington, D.C., correspondent
for the Dallas Morning News.
That tenacity was precisely what garnered the respect of the
leaders of the journalism world who now credit him for the fair way
gay-related news is handled in the American media.
"Roy Aarons was one of those largely unsung heroes who really
did as much as anyone I can think of to advance understanding and
equality," said Andrew Tobias, treasurer of the Democratic National
Committee and author of a best-selling memoir about his own coming
out. "Long before there were budgets or fundraisers for his
National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, he went from
newsroom to newsroom, editorial board to editorial board and at the
highest levels, opened eyes and minds to what had, up until then,
been a largely invisible issue."
The NLGJA also was good for Aarons, said Medill School of
Journalism Dean Loren Ghiglione, a friend whose copy Aarons edited
when Ghiglione was a Washington Post intern in 1963 and who later
was the ASNE president to commission the survey of gays and
lesbians in the newsroom.
"With NLGJA, Roy became out front," Ghiglione said. "He would be
at table at lunch with (former Washington Post Executive Editor)
Ben Bradlee and other people and it seemed to me that he was one of
the guys but not the person you looked to at the table. Later, he
became somebody people looked to. He was a leader."
Still, Aarons was humble about his own accomplishments with
NLGJA, Dodge said. "Like a good parent, Roy never bragged about
what he did," Dodge said. "He bragged about his kids, and we were
his kids."
-- by Steve Friess on behalf of the National Lesbian and
Gay Journalists Association
------
Memorial Service Information
Roy's memorial is scheduled to take place 2 p.m. on Saturday,
Dec. 4, at the main sanctuary of the Center For Spiritual Living,
Santa Rosa, 2075 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa, CA 95401;
707-546-4543
The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association is an
organization of journalists, online media professionals, and
students that works from within the journalism industry to foster
fair and accurate coverage of lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender issues. NLGJA opposes workplace bias against all
minorities and provides professional development for its members.
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NLGJA currently has more than
1,200 members and 24 chapters in the U.S., with affiliates in
Canada and Germany.
Contact:
Cindy L. Abel, bizvox Marketing Communications:
404.247.6716, cabel@bizvox.cc
ATLANTA PRIDE MOURNS LOSS OF HONORABLE MAYNARD JACKSON
Mayor Jackson Opened Dialogue, Paved the Way for Inclusive City
Leadership
Atlanta, 26 June 2003 - - The Atlanta Pride Committee has issued the
following statement in remembrance of former Mayor Maynard Jackson:
At this time of celebration during Atlanta Pride weekend, the Atlanta
Pride Committee is saddened by the loss of the Honorable Maynard
Jackson.
As Mayor, Maynard Jackson had the personal and political courage to open
a dialogue and embrace Atlanta’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgendered (“GLBT”) community. His actions set a permanent “place at
the table” for Atlanta’s GLBT citizens, allowing us to fully participate
in our city’s government.
He was the first mayor of Atlanta to:
- sign a proclamation acknowledging Atlanta’s Gay Pride Weekend
- attend and speak at the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival
- recognize the GLBT community as an important constituency with real
issues that should be the concern of city government
- establish a platform of issues of concern to the GLBT community
- appoint openly gay and lesbian citizens to his transition team when he
returned to the mayor’s office
- appoint a liaison between the mayor’s office and the GLBT community
The relationship between Mayor Jackson and the Atlanta GLBT community
was a work in progress and resulted in meaningful change. Mayor Jackson
had the courage to turn the pages of history forward to make Atlanta a
better place for all her citizens. His leadership paved the way for the
inclusive city, Mayor and administration we know today. We thank you,
Mr. Mayor.
For this and so much more, the Atlanta Pride Committee honors his memory
and expresses its deepest sympathy to the Jackson family.
Atlanta Pride Committee
The Atlanta Pride Committee produces the annual festival and parade,
commemorating the STONEWALL Riots in NYC that launched the modern GLBT
rights movement. Held this year on June 27–29 at Piedmont Park, the
festival attracts as many as 300,000 participants from the greater
Atlanta area and neighboring states. It is the largest festival of its
kind in the southeast and one of the largest in the country. More
information regarding the event can be found at www.atlantapride.org.
# # #
Cindy L. Abel
bizvox Marketing Communications
PO Box 3369
Atlanta, Georgia 30302
404.816.2024 / office
678.731.1645 / fax
cabel@bizvox.cc
www.bizvox.cc
JOHN MONAHAN 1945-2002
John Monahan, a founding Board member of Triangle Foundation, died in the
early morning hours of New Year's Day.
A memorial celebration of John Monahan's life will be held at 2:00 pm on
Sunday 20 January 2002, at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 4605 Cass
Avenue, Detroit.
John served as President and Chair of Triangle's Board of Trustees and was
instrumental in shepherding the early growth of the Foundation. John was a
long time civil rights activist, devoting much of his time to the gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. He had also been on the Board
of
Advisors of Men of Color.
Memorial contributions may be made in John's name to Triangle Foundation,
19641 West Seven Mile, Detroit, Michigan 48219.
********************************************************************
JOHN MONAHAN, GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST, DIES AT 56
John Monahan, a founding Board Member of Triangle Foundation, died in the
early morning hours of 2002. He served as President and Chair of Triangle's
Board of Trustees and was instrumental in shepherding the early growth of
the Foundation. Mr. Monahan died in Henry Ford Hospital after an extended
illness.
Mr. Monahan was a long time civil rights activist, devoting much of his time
to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. Prior to his
involvement with Triangle, he had been active in gay rights efforts in the
mid-Michigan area, especially in Saginaw. In the 1980s, Mr. Monahan was a
Board Member of the Michigan Organization for Human Rights (MOHR), a
statewide gay and lesbian political organization, as well as its educational
offshoot, the MOHR Foundation. He had also been on the Board of Advisors of
Men of Color. He was 56.
"John was one of the risk-takers in the gay rights movement, having come
fully out of the closet at a young age and taking leadership roles in the
early days of efforts toward equality," said Jeffrey Montgomery, a close
friend of Mr. Monahan's and Executive Director of Triangle Foundation. "His
guidance when Triangle was coming together was invaluable."
"John saw the importance of bringing diverse elements of the GLBT community
together," said James Lessenberry, current Chair of Triangle's Board of
Trustees. "He was frequently the behind-the-scenes bridge builder."
Mr. Monahan was a past president of Michigan's association of Rehabilitation
Agencies, serving as an international consultant for the development of
rehabilitation services, Vice Chair of the Saginaw, Michigan Human Relations
Commission, and, numerous other professional and civic organization boards.
He served on several community boards, worked actively in political
campaigns, and served as a consultant in program and resource development
for non-profit organizations.
A memorial celebration of John Monahan's life will be held at 2:00 pm on
Sunday 20 January 2002, at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 4605 Cass
Avenue, Detroit. Memorial contributions may be made in John's name to
Triangle Foundation; 19641 West Seven Mile; Detroit, Michigan; 48219.
ED CERVONE (1945-2001)
Ed Cervone, an internationally famous artist, died of lung cancer in New York City, 3 December 2001.
His homoerotic work occurred in such magazines as Machismo, Torso, All Man, Mandate, Honcho, Advocate Men, Playguy, and Black Inches. Janssen Verlag in 1995 published ?Ed Cervone: Der Mann In Der Kunst? (Men in Art). Cervone also is featured in "Phantasies of Gay Sex."
Cerone, whose mother was Latvian, his father German, and his step-father Italian-American, also erotically depicted the female in Over Fifty.
In the final weeks of his life, he labored furiously to sign original works of art shown on the Web at
per
Warren Allen Smith
31 Jane Street (10-D)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 366-6481
wasm@nyc.rr.com
SOURCE: SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, May 6, 1999
750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose,CA,95190
(Fax 408-471-3792 ) (E-MAIL: letters@sjmercury.com )
( http://www.mercurycenter.com/ )
Oreste F. Pucciani, 83, existentialist professor
By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times.
LOS ANGELES – Oreste F. Pucciani, a pioneering foreign-language
professor who was instrumental in introducing the ideas of French
existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre to American academics, has died.
Mr. Pucciani, who taught French at the University of California-Los
Angeles for 31 years and chaired its French department from 1961 to 1966,
was 83. He died April 28 of heart disease.
He was a champion of the "direct method" of language teaching, which
banned English from the classroom from the first day and called for all
instruction
to take place in the target language.
Although such immersion is standard practice today, it engendered much
skepticism in the 1950s, when foreign language instruction in the United
States depended heavily on English translation and repetition of foreign
words and phrases as the primary mode of teaching. Mr. Pucciani popularized
the method in which he was taught language at Cleveland's Western Reserve
University.
"Oreste formed generations of scholars and was the leading proponent of
existentialism in the United States and France," said Alain Cohen, a
colleague and professor of comparative literature at the University of
California-San Diego.
The French chose Mr. Pucciani to write the entry on Sartre for the
encyclopedia Histoire de la Philsophie. He was a frequent speaker at French
Sartrean conventions, lectured at the Sorbonne and was recently honored for
his contributions to Sartrean scholarship by the North American Sartre
Society.
His dedication to French philosophy, language and culture earned him the
Knight's Cross of the French Legion of Honor in 1965.
Mr. Pucciani left no survivors. But he lived for more than 30 years with
the fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, the creator of the topless bathing suit
who died in 1985.
Although both were discreet about their relationship, it became an open
secret in 1993 with the establishment of the Gernreich-Pucciani Endowment
Fund for gay and lesbian rights for the American Civil Liberties Union of
Southern California.
Seattle Times, March 14, 1999
P. O. Box 70,Seattle,WA,98111
(Fax 206-382-6760 ) (E-MAIL: opinion@seatimes.com )
( http://www.seattletimes.com )
Obituary: Margaret Regan, 81, gave help to others
by Carole Beers, Seattle Times staff reporter.
Margaret "Muggs" Regan, a retired Army colonel and nursing administrator
who joined the Peace Corps at age 70 and who campaigned for gay and lesbian
rights, lived with joy and purpose.
Growing up among six siblings, she learned to stand up for herself while
keeping a caring heart.
That showed in her work as a nursing-services director at Group Health
Central Hospital in Seattle and Providence Seattle Medical Center. It also
showed in her community involvement. She counseled young people, was a
founding member of the Northwest AIDS Foundation, and helped Dignity / USA
affirm the right of gay and lesbian Catholics to be active in their faith
community.
She iced her efforts with high good humor.
"For her family, Muggs was the spark and the sparkle," said her sister
Kathleen Burgy of Mill Valley, Calif. "Just a few days ago in her house, I
spotted her five harmonicas in the corner of one of the bookshelves. I
thought: 'Well, St. Peter, you better throw out the harps and old hymns;
Muggs has arrived with her harmonicas. She'll be orchestrating all the
celestial choirs in a round of old campfire songs.' "
Miss Regan died Tuesday (March 9) of cancer. She was 81.
Born in Boise, she moved with her family to San Francisco and graduated
from a Catholic school. She enlisted in the Army, then remained in the
reserves.
In 1944, she earned a bachelor's degree in nursing at San Francisco's St.
Joseph's School of Nursing and later received a master's degree in nursing-
services administration at the University of Washington.
While working in Seattle hospitals, she was president of the Washington
State Nursing Association.
Following her retirement in 1980, she helped found Gay Republicans of
Washington and assisted people living with HIV and AIDS.
Miss Regan co-chaired the 1983 Seattle convention for Dignity / USA, a
faith group of gay and lesbian Catholics, their families and friends.
In 1988, she went to Liberia in Africa with the Peace Corps to help set
up a medical clinic. She returned to Seattle with a three-legged basenji dog
and a refugee boy who lived with her while going to school.
"Muggs had the ability to make everyone she met feel valued, unique,
important and cherished," said Pat Roche, Dignity / USA past national
president. "She spotted talents in others and often got people to do things
they thought they were incapable of doing."
On the last night of the Dignity convention, she brandished a liturgical
banner and led a procession down the aisle of St. James Cathedral to the songs
of the Seattle Men's Chorus as 1,000 people watched, Roche said.
Miss Regan also loved sports.
"Even when she was very ill, we would call each other and sit and hold
the phones to our ear and watch a game together, cheering or making comments
as if we were in the same room together," said her niece Guillemette Regan of
Seattle.
Also surviving are her brothers, John Regan of San Mateo, Calif.; Tim
Regan, Burlingame, Calif.; and Bill Regan, Menlo Park, Calif.; and sister,
Rosemary Ferree, San Jose, Calif.
Memorial Mass is at 5 p.m. March 22 at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, 732
18th Ave. E., Seattle.
Carole Beers' phone-message number is 206-464-2391.
Her e-mail address is: cbeers@seattletimes.com
Former South Australian Premier
Donald Allan Dunstan
Born: 21 September 1926,
Fiji
Died: 6 February 1999,
South Australia
Don Dunstan memorial service live on 5AN (Realaudio)
Don Dunstan, former South Australian Labor Premier, died 6 February 1999
after a long battle with cancer.
His government's reign was marked by radical social change.
"I've often been described as a congenital rebel," Mr Dunstan said.
"In fact my headmaster at Saint Peter's [College] repeated that phrase on
more than one occasion."
Laws were tranformed, ranging from consumer protection to establishing land
rights for Aborigines and homosexual law reform.
"I moved the removal of the words "white Australia" from the policy at the
1965 federal conference in Sydney".
"I didn't go out to be a populist," he said.
"I didn't go out to do nothing, to get politics off the front page and get
popular support."
The Dunstan era actually began with a loss.
After taking over as Premier in 1967, he led Labor to defeat in the 1968
South Australian election.
Then after significant boundary reform, he took labor to four successive
wins during the 1970s.
Born in Fiji, he studied in Adelaide and was admitted to the bar in Fiji in
1949 and in South Australia a year later.
"Somebody once said to me, well, you were a member of the Adelaide
establishment.
"I said, well, I'm a refugee from it and thank God for somewhere honest to
flee to!"
"This is my place," he said, referring to South Australia in a Stateline
interview.
"The fact that I disturbed it in some way is part of our tradition and I
don't feel outside at all.
Don Dunstan was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1993 and more recently was
found to have in-operable lung cancer.
He was 72.
TRIBUTES
Tributes to the former premier have come from both sides of politics, from
friends and former foes.
They describe a man of intense will and unswerving faith in the ability of
government to change lives ofordinary people for the better.
Don Dunstan was determined to be the architect of his final days.
Knowing since last year, his cancer was inoperable, Mr Dunstan spent most of
his remaining time at the home he built 30 years ago in Norwood.
Today, the house that served as an informal centre for the social and
cultural revolution of the Dunstan decade, became the centre of both grief
and tribute.
Unquestionably a man for the people, Don Dunstan was never of the people.
The classically educated scholar believed gifted people had an obiligation
of service to their community.
In his last interview, the former premier showed he still believed the best
place to serve was in a socially progressive government.
"We've had an abberation in social policy which has affected both parties in
Australia," he said.
"Then there's this nonsense of the Chicago school with which we've been
beset - economic rationalism."
But his faith in government was, at times, to lead Don Dunstan into
criticism of a Labor Party that increasingly put its trust in the free market.
From fellow trailblazer and the woman Don Dunstan made Australia's first
female Supreme Court judge, an acknowledgement of debt.
"I doubt anybody else in those days would have pushed for a woman," Dame
Roma Mitchell said.
"He, I think, liked the big gesture too.
"He liked the fact that he was the one who was bringing equality.
"And Don Dunstan was determined equality would be his legacy," she said.
Hear Dame Roma Mitchell's tribute
in RealAudio
LEGACY
"What we need is a concentration on the kind of agenda which I followed and
I hope that my death will be useful in this," Don Dunstan said at his
foundation establishment ceremony.
He spent the last months overseeing the establishment of the Don Dunstan
foundation at the University of Adelaide.
Don Dunstan will be buried in a private funeral.
He is survived by his partner Steven Cheng, by his first wife Gretel and
their three children, Bronwyn, Andrew and Paul and by 1.5 million South
Australians, whose state was transformed during his premiership.
Hear Don Dunstan - in his own words
in RealAudio
ENDS.
SOURCE:
CHICAGO SUN TIMES, January 13, 1999
401 N. Wabash Avenue,Chicago,IL,60611
(Fax 312-321-2120 ) (E-MAIL: Letters@suntimes.com )
( http://www.suntimes.com )
• John Hamlin Peters; headed Lyric's costume department
By Gary Wisby, Staff Reporter.
John Hamlin Peters, costume director for the Lyric Opera of Chicago for 36
years until 1996, fell in love with music while listening to Metropolitan
Opera broadcasts with his mother.
"He never had interest in anything else — opera was truly his life," said
Hugh Pruett, his companion of 38 years and successor when Mr. Peters retired.
"He always used to say, 'It may be Carol Fox's company, but they're my
costumes.' He loved this opera company more than anything in his life."
Mr. Peters, 67, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at Rush-Presbyterian-St.
Luke's Medical Center.
He was born at the Texas Children's Home and Aid Society in Fort Worth,
an adoption home for the children of unwed mothers. At five months, he was
adopted by Ernest and Mattie Peters of Palestine, Texas.
His mother bought him the librettos for various operas. "He would then
build miniature sets, take matches and make armies and all the chorus, make
complete scenery and costumes," Pruett said.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin and taking
graduate studies in scenic and costume design at the Art Institute of Chicago
and Yale University, Mr. Peters found work in 1956 at the newly formed Lyric
Theatre of Chicago, later to become the Lyric Opera. After four years as an
assistant to the resident scenic designer, he was named to head the costume
department.
In the late 1950s and the '60s, he designed scenery and costumes for the
Interlochen (Mich.) Music Camp.
A memorial service was being planned.
SOURCE:
TIMES newspaper,
London.
January 6 1999
• OBITUARIES
• HIS HONOUR MICHAEL ARGYLE
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/01/06/TTM061912.111x153.jpg?1553843
His Honour Major Michael Argyle, QC, MC, a circuit
judge from 1970 to 1988, died on January 4 aged 83. He
was born on August 31, 1915.
FOR ALL the colourful controversy that frequently
surrounded him, Michael Argyle was at heart a plain man's
judge. He said what he thought, even if it did sometimes
attract accusations of prejudice and once earned him a
reprimand from the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Havers.
Judges are frequently criticised for being remote from
everyday life. Michael Argyle was all too often heavily
involved in it, remembered by staff at the Central Criminal
Court for his daily patronage of the bookmaker's shop
outside the court and for his insistence on always having a
television set in his robing room in order to keep abreast of
sports, especially those on which money was riding. He
owned and bred racehorses, was a chess and amateur
boxing fan and a breeder of whippets. However, he never
learnt one crucial lesson of the ring and was always ready to
lead with his chin.
He was a gift to newspapers which loved to reprint the
remarks for which he became famous. He freed one woman,
saying: "You have caught me on a good day because I
became a grandfather this morning." He told a black
defendant accused of assault: "Get out and go back to
Jamaica." A sex attacker was told: "You come from Derby,
which is my part of the country. Now off you go. And don't
come before my court again." Any real consistency would be
difficult to find in his sentencing, except that he did what was
within his power to deter crime. He observed in 1987:
"Quite simply law and order do not exist in this country at
present."
Educated at Shardlow Hall, Derbyshire, Westminster School
and Trinity College, Cambridge, he served in the Second
World War in India, the Middle East and Italy with the 7th
Queen's Own Hussars. He won an immediate Military Cross
for organising a tank crossing of the Po. He had been called
to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn, in 1938, becoming a bencher in
1967 and treasurer in 1984. He resumed his practice in
1947 on the Midland Circuit. He first came to public
attention when he defended Ronald Biggs in the Great Train
Robbery trial, but in a spontaneous gesture of generosity he
later sent a cheque to the Driver Jack Mills appeal fund. He
was later still to put up a personal reward of £100 for
information leading to the arrest of muggers who attacked a
woman usher at the Central Criminal Court.
Argyle became Recorder of Northampton from 1962 to
1965 and then of Birmingham from 1965 to 1970. He was
never afraid to admit that he needed more knowledge and
went to night school, run by Loughborough University, to
learn more about penology. Later he attended a 15-shilling
course on drug addiction. He was all for spreading
knowledge around and launched an experiment in citizenship
with teenagers sitting beside him, though they took no part in
cases. He was ahead of his time in wanting a proper place
for victims in the criminal justice system, calling in 1965 for
reports on them before passing sentence.
Some of his views were what one would expect from a
former Conservative candidate, who stood unsuccessfully in
Belper in 1950 and in Loughborough in 1955. He put into
practice his belief that tougher sentencing could deter crime.
As a result of his offensive in Birmingham against telephone
vandals, jailing them for up to three years, he claimed a
virtual cessation of offences involving kiosks and the
restoration of effectively a 100 per cent call-box service in
the city. He then threatened life imprisonment for burglars.
The Court of Criminal Appeal was said to have called for a
transcript of his remarks. However, in the next fortnight
reported crime in Birmingham was stated to have fallen by
40 per cent.
Appointed an occasional judge of the Central Criminal Court
in 1970, he relinquished his recordership of Birmingham, and
found himself in the headlines over the Oz trial. He imposed
prison sentences, subsequently quashed, on the three
editors of the magazine in 1971. Police guarded his home
after an anonymous bomb threat. The New Law Journal
said the sentences on the three editors were "indefensibly
severe".
Yet it was impossible to pigeonhole him: he was too
maverick to be regarded as a safe member of the
Establishment. He won a reputation for trying to find work
for unemployed defendants and earned himself the title of
"the jobhunters' judge".
He tangled with the Establishment once too often, though,
when he made a speech to law students in Nottingham which
he evidently thought would not be reported. He said judges
should be empowered to impose death sentences in cases
carrying penalties of more than 15 years, and suggested that
there were more than five million illegal immigrants in Britain.
Lord Havers, the Lord Chancellor, severely reprimanded
him in July 1987 and in October Argyle announced that he
would retire the following July.
He was proud of his membership of the Carlton, Cavalry
and Guards, and Kennel Clubs. He was Master of the
Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards from
1984 to 1985.
His wife, Ann, predeceased him; he is survived by their three
daughters.
From: Mazibuko K. Jara
Subject: The passing away of Simon Tseko Nkoli (26 November 1957 - 30
November 1998)
Date: Monday, November 30, 1998 10:05 PM
30 November 1998
Friends and comrades
It is with great sadness that the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the
Witwatersrand (GLOW) and the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian
Equality (NCGLE) have to inform you that comrade Simon Tseko Nkoli passed
away peacefully, this afternoon at 13H50; South African time, at the
Johannesburg General Hospital.
We mourn the loss of an important Anti Apartheid activist, Gay and
Lesbian rights activist and HIV/AIDS activist. Simon was a courageous person who
dared to declare his sexual orientation and his HIV status at a time when
few were prepared to do. Through these acts he defied the notion that
being gay is unAfrican. As a founding member, of both GLOW and the NCGLE,
Simon played an important role in ensuring that equality for Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual and Transgender persons has been entrenched in the South African
Constitution as an unalienable right. Simon played and important role in
putting Lesbian and Gay issues on the agenda of the African National
Congress (ANC).
At the time of his death, Simon was GLOW's life president, a member of
the Board of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), a member
of the 1999 ILGA World Conference Organising Committee and a member of the
African National Congress. He was also in the first National Executive
Committee of the NCGLE. Many people in the international lgbt community
mourn the loss of this remarkable comrade.
In Johannesburg, a memorial service will be held for Simon on Friday 4
December 1998. More details about this memorial service, other memorial
services and his funeral will be announced in due course. GLOW and the
NCGLE will also release full press stattements and an obituary in due
course.
Our thoughts are with his family, his lover and partner Roderick Sharp,
is close friend Peter Mohlahledi and his other friends and comrades.
For further details please contact the Simon Nkoli Memorial Committee,
c/o GLOW and the NCGLE on (telephone) + 27 11 487 3810/1/2, (fax) + 27 11 487
1670 or email jonathan@ncgle.org.za
Sincerely
Karin Koen and Mazibuko Jara
Dear friends,
It is with great sorrow that I inform you Stephen J. Smith passed away due to
complications from AIDS early Monday morning, November 16 at GW University
Hospital in Washington, DC. At the time of his death his dear friends and
fellow activists, William Clemson and Cheryl Spector, were at his deathbed.
His parents were also present.
Stephen was the founder of ACT UP/DC, during the Bush administration when
Washington desperately needed a chapter of the activist group. On his agenda
were needle exchange programs, condoms in the high schools, more federal
funding for treatment, and he started America's first Cannabis Buyer's Club.
He also helped launch the DC chapter of Queer Nation and was involved in
numerous demonstrations and press conferences.
Plans are underway for a party to celebrate Stephen's life. I hope to write a
fuller remembrance about Stephen in the next few days, after the news really
sink in that he has died at such an early age. Losing both Stephen J. Smith
and Steve Michael in the past six months is doing an emotional number on my
head, but I feel it is important to share on the Internet thoughts about the
life and work of Stephen since losing him means an activist era is being
snuffed out. If we don't remember our departed friends and their activism,
who will?
If you wish to make a contribution in memory of Stephen, and help continue his
ideals, please send a check to ACT UP/Washington, 409 H Street, Washington, DC
20002. This chapter, especially Wayne Turner, was responsible for getting the
pro-medical marijuana Initiative 59 on the Washington, DC, ballot this year.
You can also simply light a candle for Stephen, as I have done. My thoughts
are with him and the extended queer family he leaves behind.
--Michael Petrelis
'Elegy for Matt'
by John Aravosis
Matthew Shepard Online Resources
October 23, 1998
http://www.wiredstrategies.com/shepardx.html#elegy
For ten days in October, the world came out. In a global electronic
epiphany, a light was turned on as millions tapped into an awareness, an
understanding, and an empathy of gayness that before October 9 most had
never known.
We held vigils, sent emails, shared our grief, and demanded change. Many
found a new drive to live - and others, a spirit-to-fight long forgotten.
From Zimbabwe to Australia, and from Portland Oregon to Portland Maine, our
love knew no borders, we cast aside our prejudices, and tended the bedside
of a dying young man.
"Thank you John, I am thousands of miles away here in Zimbabwe. But I feel
so deeply that I cannot put this in words!! Of course us gays here are
totally taboo, but one day we too shall win. It is my fervent belief that
God has a special place for us, and indeed a special purpose. Thank you my
friend, Brian." - email, October 18, 1998.
We came out to loved ones:
"I was afraid of what would happen to me if I came out. But, this secret was
tearing me up inside. I told my best friend that I was gay. Thankfully, she
accepted me for WHO I am not WHAT I am. Yesterday, I told another friend.
Matt Shepard's death must mean something. Even though he died because of
irresponsible hatred, I will not let that deter me. I am gay. It is the way
that God made me. He made me this way for a purpose. What that purpose is, I
do not know. But I will not hide behind the shame and hatred that I have
lived behind for so long. Matt Shepard may have died, but his strength lives
on in each of us." - email, October 20, 1998.
We took a stand:
"This isn't just a gay thing anymore. This is really about humanity and
decency. Let every ounce of bigotry and hatred be met with equal measure of
determination to end it. We can do it. I've taken the gloves off. I just
fuckin' dare one idiot to cross my path at this point. I'm not looking for a
fight but I sure as hell won't tolerate a fool." - email, October 20, 1998.
We demanded an accounting:
"I am certain that the homosexual population of Mississippi, and their
families and friends would like to know why you, Senator Lott, consider the
length of Duck Hunting Season [a last-minute addition to the budget bill by
Sen. Lott] more worthy of your efforts than the safety of your voters. Or
are you putting you gay/lesbian constituents on the same level with ducks,
open season on both?"- email to Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott's
office, October 21, 1998.
We rekindled our spirit:
"For 35 years I've been a happy gay guy living with my lover in nice houses,
but 35 years ago we - he and I - stood outside the Stonewall and
participated, not violently, very young then, but, upheld our fellows
feelings. It was a good feeling: one we can look back on with pride. I will
begin to pick up the banner again. We've hidden, happy, and complacent. [The
Shepard case has] revive[d] a spirit I thought I didn't need anymore."-
email, October 20, 1998.
And we vowed to fight back:
"I have always voted for the person not the party - but now after what the
Republicans are doing and have done I cannot vote for even ONE of them. I
will vote along straight Democratic party lines!!!! Urge everyone to do the
same and tell Lott and his ilk that that is what we are doing!"- email,
October 20, 1998.
Yet in spite of our renewal, and restraint, others choose to hate. They make
monsters of gay men and lesbians, while cloaking their message in hope, in
love, and in God.
Kill the gays:
" 'Lesbian love, sodomy are viewed by God as being detestable and
abominable. . . . Civil magistrates are to put people to death who practice
these things,' said Rich Agozino, host of [Christian radio show] 'Crosstalk'
on radio station KBRT-AM (740) in Costa Mesa, urging callers to write to
their state legislators asking them to enact laws that would punish
homosexuality according to biblical law, meaning capital punishment,
according to a transcript of the Aug. 29 show." - Los Angeles Times,
September 5, 1997.
Rape the lesbians:
"It's not too late to try and be STRAIGHT. Give up your homo lifestyle or
more fags will die and lesbians raped and impregnated and forced to bear
straight children. This is war against you homo perverts!!" - Posted on
October 20, 1998 to the Matthew Shepard Online Resources bulletin board
http://www.wiredstrategies.com/wwwboard
Because we're dishonest:
" 'These people are intellectually dishonest in just about everything they
do or say,' the Congressional Quarterly quoted Helms as saying when asked
about the documentary. He added, 'They start by pretending that it is just
another form of love. It's sickening.' " - Senator Jess Helms, Variety, June
30, 1998.
Because we're liars:
" 'Homosexuality is a decision, it's not a race,' White said. 'People from
all different ethnic backgrounds live in this lifestyle. But people from all
different ethnic backgrounds also are liars and cheaters and malicious and
back-stabbing.' " - Reggie White, Associated Press, March 25, 1998.
Because we're pedophiles:
"There is a strong undercurrent of pedophilia in the homosexual subculture.
Homosexual activists want to promote the flouting of traditional sexual
prohibitions at the earliest possible age....they want to encourage a
promiscuous society - and the best place to start is with a young and
credulous captive audience in the public schools." - Family Research
Council, http://www.frc.org/insight/is93f1hs.html
Because we're sinners:
"It is [a sin]....You should try to show them a way to deal with that
problem, just like alcohol...or sex addiction...or kleptomaniacs." - Senate
Republican Leader Trent Lott, Associated Press, June 15, 1998.
Because we should be arrested:
"Bob Jones University has a message for gay alumni: Stay away or be
arrested. The Christian fundamentalist school threatened Thursday to arrest
all gay graduates who return to campus. Wayne Mouritzen, a retired minister
and Bob Jones graduate, got a letter banning him from campus because
officials discovered he is gay. The letter, signed by Bob Jones' dean of
students, said: 'With grief we must tell you that as long as you are living
as a homosexual, you, of course, would not be welcome on the campus and
would be arrested for trespassing if you did visit.' " - Associated Press,
October 23, 1998.
Because we're going to hell:
"In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, homosexuals are included in a list of sinners,
who, if unrepentant, will not inherit the kingdom of God." - Family Research
Council press release on the day of Matthew's funeral, October 16, 1998.
Religious extremists vilify us. Call us diseased, perverted, immoral, and
abomination. They say on TV and radio that we deserve to lose our jobs, our
children, our families and our homes. They prepare studies for Congress
"proving" we are unfit teachers, parents, ambassadors, and soldiers. They
liken us to adulterers, murderers, kleptomaniacs, and alcoholics. And they
accuse us of being anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-God, and anti-America.
This is not love. It is a blasphemy of Christianity that makes one yearn
less to be an ex-gay than an ex-Christian. It pollutes the word of God, and
wrongly tells America that people of faith are crazy, backward, and bitter.
And worst of all, it teaches our young that to love God one must hate man.
Their hate killed Matt.
But "no," they protest, words don't kill people - people kill people.
"Don't blame AA because a drunk was beat up," said Heather Farish of the
Family Research Council, responding to charges that her organization's
anti-gay rhetoric gives license to anti-gay violence. Dallas Morning News,
October 17, 1998.
But how do they explain the religiously-justified hatred pervading our
youth?
"I was talking to a group of high school students that I teach about
Matthew's death, and what I heard shocked me. Not only did they think he
deserved what he got, but they wanted to go and defend his killers because
it was a 'Holy Killing.'" - email, October 16, 1998.
It is simply not possible to preach the inhumanity of man, then blithely
skulk away when principle meets practice. It is simply not moral to give a
child a gun, then feign ignorance when someone gets hurt.
If words do not inspire actions, then why did they spend $500,000 on an ad
campaign to inspire gays to 'convert'? They know words have consequences,
and their words are nothing less than the subjugation and dehumanization of
gay and lesbian Americans. It is no wonder that decades of disdain
eventually led to violence.
"We knew there would be a Matthew Shepard, we just didn't know who it would
be." Wayne Besen of the Human Rights Campaign, The [Bergen Co., N.J.]
Record, October 21, 1998.
Last week a part of us died, but another was reborn. And while we didn't win
the hearts of Congress, we captured the soul of America, and the world. Many
of us are no longer afraid. No longer alone. And no longer complacent in the
face of evil. While angry, sad and dispirited, we finally fought back for
one of our own. And it felt good, and just.
For me, October 9 will always be Matt Shepard day.
The day we cast aside our shame.
The day we declared our humanity.
The day we challenged their lies and their hate.
The day we defended our brothers and sisters, and ourselves, publicly and
proudly.
And the day we paused to honor an unknown friend, whose soul inspired a
revolution he will never see.
So let this be our call to arms. Our call to action. OUR call to reclaim
America.
If Matt could survive alone in the cold - bound, beaten and broken - then we
can find the strength to fight on in his name, and put a stop to this
nonsense once and for all.
SOURCE: The Australian newspaper.
9th September, 1998.
Doctor steered response to AIDS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
OBITUARY: Dr Johnathan Mann - Epidemiologist and human rights activist.
Born Boston, Massachusetts, July 30,1947.
Died in the Swissair crash on September 2, aged 51.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
JONATHAN Mann was a leading figure in the study of the impact of AIDS and in
the politics of the pan-demic. Although not principally involved in the
search for a cure, he helped to mould official attitudes, working at the
intersection of
medicine and ethics.
In particular, he fought against the idea that because homosexuals and
drug-users were particularly at risk, others could ignore the issue. He
played a significant role in promoting AIDS towards the top of the list of
global medical priorities, despite considerable opposition.
Jonathan Max Mann was born In Boston, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard
and Washington universities. He worked at the Centres for Disease Control in
Atlanta and Santa Fle, from 1975 to 1977, when he became chief medical
officer in New Mexico.
He then moved to Zaire, as director of an AIDS research program, until 1986,
when he became the World Health Organisation's leading AIDS adviser. In
1987, he claimed the world had vastly underestimated the numbers infected
with HIV. He emphasised the need for better preventative measures, but was a
vehement critic of draconian programs to isolate the virus. Soon he became
as much concerned with alleged breaches of human rights as with the syndrome
itself.
In 1988, more than 6000 doctors and scientists gathered in Stockholm for a
conference, only to be confronted by news stories about a former mental home
that had been set aside by the Swedish government to detain AIDS patients
deemed likely to infect others through their promiscuity. Other countries
were considering or carrying out compulsory tests, particularly on
immigrants and prisoners. Mann commented: "You can't stop AIDS by building
walls around it." He was instrumental in forcing the US government to drop
its restrictions on people with HIV entering the country.
He argued that people with the virus must not be stigmatised, for this would
jeopardise attempts to prevent infection. "The protection of the uninfected
majority depends precisely upon the protection of the rights and dignity of
infected persons." All around the world he galvanised governments into
setting up blood-screening schemes, educational and propaganda programs, and
epidemiological studies.
After falling out with the director-general of the WHO over the global AIDS
strategy, Mann left in disgust in 1990. In four years he had built up the
AIDS program staff from two to 200 and had acquired for it a budget of A$70
million. WHO was subsequently said to have removed Mann from its documents
and videos.
In 1991, Mann spoke at an AIDS conference that drew attention to medical
inequalities between rich and poor, pointing out that many of the most
affected groups were unable to afford treatment. One speaker said: "Poverty
is denying us the right to live." And Mann caued for the establishment of a
global human-rights organisation for people discriminated against because of
AIDS.
By this time, he had been appointed to a chair in the school of public
health at Harvard, where he went on to found the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud
Centre for Health and Human Rights. He also established the international
journal Health and Human Rights, and continued to campaign. "The injustice
is stark," he said.
"Drugs are available - at best - to the less than 10 per cent of the world's
people with HIV in the industrialised world."
Mann was co-editor of AIDS in the World (1992), an 800-page assessment of
the biology, sociology and politics of AIDS, which also offered a blueprint
for effective control. Masses of information were marshalled, and the book
concluded - perhaps inevitably - that world leaders were not taking the
threat sufficiently seriously or spending enough.
At the end of last year, Mann left Harvard to become dean of the school of
Public health at Allegheny University of the Health Sciences. He contributed
to numerous public-health journals and received many commendations and awards.
Mann was married twice. His second wife, Mary-Lou Clements-Mann, was also
killed in the crash. He had a son and two daughters with his first wife.
The Times.
THE AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE
DR Jonathan Mann understood that the spread of HIV-AIDS could not be
controlled by traditional public health methods - sanction, isolation and
quarantine. Responsible in the rnid-1980s for shaping World Health
Organisation policies on the disease, Mann recognised that plans to fight
AIDS had to be laid with community groups dealing with the savage impact of
the virus as well as government health bureaucracies.
He believed in policies that relied on education, advocacy and respect for
human rights as the foundations of behavioural change and promoted individual
responsibility as the surest way of containing the spread of AIDS. Mann
embraced the emerging Australian model for tackling the difficult medical
social and political challenges posed by the disease. Under his inspired
leadership, WHO pressured overnments and bureaucracies, while HIV-AIDS
community organisations worked from the bottom up to form a sort of pincer
movement, challenging and defeating those who wished to make moral judgments
about how AIDS could be contained.
Mann combined a vast scientific knowledge of the origins and spread of the
AIDS virus with a deep political and strategic understanding of how to deal
with often recalcitrant health bureaucracies and, most importantly, the
diverse range of groups affected by HIV.
Mann was a great friend of Australia and of the many Australians who devoted
themselves to the remarkably successful bid to contain AIDS. When the
political pressures on these enlightened policies were intense, especially
in Australia he could always be counted upon to speak up for those who could
not speak for themselves.
Mann's legacy will include the many millions of people who, thanks in large
part to his influence on public health policies, will not be infected by the
virus.
BILL BOWTELL
Bill Bowtell was an adviser to Dr Neal Blewett, federal health minister, 1983-90
The life and career of Britain's first and only openly-gay
professional footballer, Justin Fashanu, will be commemorated at a
Memorial Service in Washington DC on Sunday, 13th September, 1998.
At the time of his suicide in May, Fashanu, aged 37, had embarked
on a new career, coaching the U.S. football team Maryland Mania.
His success was cut short by charges that he sexually assaulted
a 17-year-old youth. Justin denied the charges, claiming that he was
being blackmailed by his accuser.
Fashanu had the double distinction of being Britain's first
million-pound (US $ 1.6 million) black footballer, and he remains
the only prominent British black public figure to come out as gay.
The Memorial Service will be held at All Souls' Unitarian Church,
16th and Harvard Streets NW, Washington DC, Sunday, 13th September, 7-9 p.m..
Keynote speakers will include the British gay rights campaigner,
Peter Tatchell of OutRage!, who was a close friend of Fashanu's from 1981.
Tatchell said:
"Justin was dragged down by the homophobia of Christian
fundamentalism and the football profession. Despite his mistakes,
he was basically a good, kind, talented and courageous person.
"We met at the London gay nightclub 'Heaven' in 1981,
soon after I had been selected as the Labour candidate for Bermondsey
and he had signed with Nottingham Forest football club for £1 million.
We became close friends.
"Justin would often phone me to discuss the homophobic pressure
he was under at Nottingham Forest and his difficulties in coping with
being gay.
"Although I helped him come to terms with his homosexuality,
it was only a temporary respite. When his football career later went
on the slide, he turned to evangelical Christianity. That caused him
immense grief.
"Justin was distressed by his treatment at Nottingham Forest.
The manager, Brian Clough, was virulently homophobic.
He abused Fashanu as a 'bloody poof'. Not surprisingly, Justin's
on-the-pitch peformance nose-dived.
"Becoming a born-again Christian screwed up Fashanu's life.
He became very confused and unhappy about his sexuality. While publicly
proclaiming Christian celibacy, he resorted to furtive gay sex.
That made it impossible for him to have a stable gay relationship.
"He was devastated when the black press and his brother John
publicly denounced him after he came out in 1990. Justin never got over
that rejection and betrayal."
Further information: Peter Tatchell
until 31st August +44-171-403 1790
from 1st September +1-202-462 5133
SOURCE: Daily Mirror
September 3
FASH'S DYING WORDS
I wish that I was more of a good son, brother,
uncle and friend. This seems to be a really hard
world. But I tried my best.
Because of my homosexuality, I wouldn't get a fair
trial. I want to die rather than put my friends and
family through any more unhappiness! I hope the
Jesus I love welcomes me home - I will at last find
peace
THE tear-stained suicide note of gay footballer Justin
Fashanu was revealed for the first time last night.
In it the 37-year-old ex-England B international -
accused of sexually assaulting a young boy - tells his
TV presenter brother John that he killed himself "rather
than put my friends and family through any more
unhappiness". He explains:
Well, if anyone finds this note hopefully I won't be
around to see it. But let's begin at the beginning. What
a start, everything going so well then I felt I was
abandoned, left alone, without anybody to turn to.
Being gay and a personality is so hard but everybody
has it hard at the moment so I can't complain about
that.
I want to say I didn't sexually assault the young boy. He
willingly had sex with me and then the next day asked
for money. When I said no he said 'you wait and see'.
If that is the case, I hear you say, why did I run? Well
justice isn't always fair. I felt I wouldn't get a fair trial
because of my homosexuality.
Silly thing really but you know what happens when you
panic. I want to die rather than put my friends and family
through any more unhappiness!
I wish I was more of a good son, brother, uncle and
friend. But I tried my best. This seems to be a really
hard world.
I hope the Jesus I love welcomes me home. I will at last
find peace.
Justin hanged himself in a London garage last May. His
suicide note is revealed on BBC1's Inside Story at
9.35pm tonight.
In the documentary the boy who accused Justin - a
17-year-old known as DJ - insists he was attacked after
a drink and drugs binge.
He claims he woke to find the £1million former Norwich
and Nottingham Forest striker having oral sex with him.
And he denies attempting to blackmail Justin, who was
scouting for football talent in Maryland, USA.
DJ says: "There was a party going on in Justin's house
and I got there about 6 or 7pm. There was alcohol and
marijuana there.
"I walked into a bedroom to call my girlfriend Laura and
Justin followed. He sat behind me on the bed and while I
was talking to Laura he reached around and started
fondling me.
"I got up, turned around and told Justin I wasn't gay and
I preferred women. He said he was sorry and 'nothing
would happen again. Can we let the night go on as it
was?'
"I said that was fine by me. I was having a good time,
I'm not afraid to admit it. I did want to stay and keep
partying.
"We were still sitting there drinking, dancing, having a
good time. I was starting to get tired but I was still
drinking up until about midnight when I fell asleep.
"I remember falling asleep on the couch. The next thing I
remember is waking up in the bedroom with him.
"I looked down and my clothing wasn't on me and Justin
was performing oral sex on me.
"I got my clothes and left. I didn't want to stay around, I
didn't want to ask questions.
"Mum kept telling me I'd better call the cops. Or she
better call the cops. I started thinking more and more.
Has he ever done it to anybody before? Is he wanted?"
Justin was arrested but released on bail and fled to
Britain. He later sought solace at Mount St Bernard
Abbey in Leicestershire.
One priest recalls: "I picked up strongly that he
regretted quite a lot of things in the past.
"He was aware he had been given a lot, that he was a
gifted person. He recognised that his brother John had
been trying to save him from the wrong type of publicity
and he regretted he'd gone down the road without much
guidance."
Millionaire John - an ex-Wimbledon and Aston Villa
player - tells Inside Story: "Justin had said the days of
all these controversial things were over and he didn't
want to bring the family down any more.
"I think taking his own life was his way of saying 'look,
no more'."
His mother Pearl adds: "I couldn't believe he had the
courage to really commit suicide. I kept asking why,
why, why?"
SOURCE: New York Times, September 3, 1998
229 W. 43rd Street, New York,NY,10036
(Fax 212-556-3622 ) (E-MAIL: letters@nytimes.com )
( http://www.nytimes.com )
Obituary: Allen Drury, 80, Novelist Who Wrote 'Advise and Consent'
By DINITIA SMITH
Allen Drury, the quintessential Washington novelist and author of "Advise
and Consent," died Wednesday at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco.
He was 80 and lived in Tiburon, Calif.
He suffered a cardiac arrest, said his nephew Kenneth Killiany.
"Advise and Consent," for which Drury won a Pulitzer Prize in 1960, is
about a nominee for secretary of state who during his confirmation hearing is
found to have had communist sympathies. It is a big, sprawling work of
betrayal and intrigue, packed with details and insider knowledge of Congress;
the novel includes the blackmailing of a senator with a homosexual past who as
a consequence commits suicide.
Drury, a former reporter in the Washington Bureau of The New York Times,
was a prolific author of 19 novels and 5 books of nonfiction. As a novelist,
he was in the tradition of Galsworthy, Dickens and Thackeray, and not
incidentally, of Henry Adams. Drury was fond of complicated plots and
larger-than-life characters, and wrote trilogies and series of books about
the same characters.
But judgments of the literary merit of his work were often based on the
political sympathies of the reviewer. "Rarely has a political tale been told
with such vivid realism," Richard L. Neuberger wrote in The New York Times
Book Review in 1959 when "Advise and Consent" was published. The book, said
Neuberger, was "one of the finest and most gripping political novels of our
era."
But other critics saw Drury's work differently. Pamela Hansford Johnson
wrote in The New Statesman that the book was "politically repellent and
artistically null with a steady hysterical undertone."
Drury was born in Houston, the son of Alden Monteith Drury, a real estate
broker and insurance agent, and Flora Allen, a legislative representative
for the California Parent-Teacher Association from whom he learned a love of
politics. He grew up in California, and graduated from Stanford University
in 1939. His experiences at Stanford formed the core of his intellectual and
emotional life, and provided the basis for his novels "Toward What Bright
Glory" and "Into What Far Harbor."
In 1940, he went on to work for The Tulare California Bee, where he won a
Sigma Delta Chi citation for editorial writing. During World War II, Drury was
a Senate reporter for United Press International in Washington. "They were
big men in the Senate then," Drury once said in an interview. "And they
didn't have the phalanx of aides then they have now. They wrote their own
speeches, staked out their own positions."
The New York Times hired Drury as a reporter in 1954. During the early
morning hours before going to Capitol Hill, Drury wrote "Advise and Consent,"
bringing to bear the knowledge he had gleaned as a reporter on the Hill. As
soon as it was published, the book became a best seller, and Drury quit the
newspaper to become a political correspondent for the Reader's Digest.
He wrote six sequels to "Advise and Consent," including "Preserve and
Protect," and "A Shade of Difference," following a group of Washington
characters through a series of political crises.
"He was concerned with moral ambiguity," said his nephew, Killiany. "He
always called his characters 'fallible people in difficult situations who
were called on to solve great problems."'
"Advise and Consent" became a Broadway play, and was made into a movie
in 1962 with Charles Laughton as a senator from the Deep South, and Walter
Pidgeon as the Senate majority leader. Henry Fonda played the nominee for
secretary of state, who eventually fails to achieve the office. Franchot Tone
was the dying president.
"He unapologetically insisted on the gravity of the stakes in the Cold
War, and he did so without joining any particular faction," said Killiany.
While his uncle, he said, "appreciated the good feelings of many at the end of
the Cold War, he watched the recent course of world affairs and changes in
Washington with growing concern and found little comfort in them."
But Drury's writing was not just confined to Washington politics. He also
wrote novels and nonfiction books ancient about Egypt, a country whose
political struggles, he said, resembled those of Washington.
Since 1964, Drury lived in Tiburon. His passions were reading and travel,
said his nephew. He was an intensely private man, who never married, and lived
quietly.
In addition to his nephew Kenneth, of Washington, Drury is survived by a
sister, Anne Drury Killiany of Hampstead, N.C.; another nephew, Kevin Killiany
of Wilmington, N.C., and three grandnieces and nephews.
Drury's most recent published book was "A Thing of State," in 1995, a
novel about a Mideast crisis and how the State Department responds to it.
Two weeks ago, Drury completed his 20th novel, "Public Men," which is
scheduled for publication by Scribner's in November. The novel completes his
trilogy about Stanford and young men caught up in the events of World War II.
Homosexual Pastor Dies at 70
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) July 21, 1998 --- A former pastor and past president of a conservative Lutheran denomination who resigned amid scandal about his homosexuality has died at the age of 70.
Richard Snipstead was head of the Association of Free Lutheran
Congregations in 1992 when he announced that he had been secretly having
anonymous homosexual sex for two decades and had given the AIDS virus to his
wife. He then resigned.
The cause of Snipstead's death Thursday was not immediately available. He
was buried Monday in Minneapolis, where his wife, Leone, and a son are buried.
Mrs. Snipstead died of an AIDS-related illness within a month of her husband's
announcement.
Snipstead helped establish the denomination 36 years ago and was president
from 1978 through 1992. The denomination, which believes homosexuality is a
sin, was formed in response to what its leaders saw as liberal trends within
mainstream Lutheran groups. It is based in the Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth.
In his 1992 letter to church leaders, and in another letter written
published a few weeks ago in the association's magazine, Snipstead asked for
forgiveness.
The Rev. Bob Lee, who replaced Snipstead as president, and other church
leaders joined family members at the burial service Monday.
For Immediate Release: July 3, 1998
25th Anniversary of New Orleans Fire Remembered
32 Lives Lost in Gay Bar Fire... 12 Members of UFMCC
Event Galvanized the National Gay Community in U.S.
New Orleans -- The June 1973 fire which claimed 32 lives in a predominantly
gay bar in New Orleans was remembered this past week with public events,
worship services and recognition by elected officials.
The fire at the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans French Quarter was the most
lethal fire in the city's history -- and served to galvanize the national gay
community in the U.S.
Participating in last week's events were the Rev. Troy D. Perry, founder and
moderator of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a
predominantly gay Christian denomination with more than 300 congregations in
15 countries, and the Rev. Dexter Brecht, pastor of Vieux Carre Metropolitan
Community Church. Twelve members of the New Orleans MCC congregation died in
the fire, including the church's pastor and associate pastor. Before moving
into new quarters, the church had used a back room of the Upstairs Lounge to
hold worship services for the gay community, said Perry.
The blaze "was definitely arson," said New Orleans Fire Chief William J.
McCrossen, "but no one was ever convicted of the crime."
"The fire was devastating to the local community," said Perry, "but it also
served to galvanize the national movement for gay equality."
"Within hours of the fire, I flew to New Orleans to offer spiritual care to
the gay community," recalled Perry. "I was joined by Morris Kight, then
director of the Los Angeles Gay Community Services Center, Morty Manford,
president of the Gay Activists Alliance, and other leaders."
"The events in the following days helped to pull the community together and
actually strengthened the resolve of the national gay equality movement. We
called press conferences. We demanded investigations and apologies from the
police department. With one voice we called for asistance from both the mayor
and governor. Out of this terrible, terrible tragedy grew a sense of
empowerment for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons," Perry
added.
Participants in last week's observances noted, too, how much times had
changed. The City of New Orleans has approved the location for a public
commemorative plaque and greetings and flowers were sent by U. S.
Congressperson William Jefferson (D-LA).
The Louisiana State Museum hosted a panel discussion and presented a panel
discussion on the Upstairs Lounge fire. "The most important thing to us in
organizing this program is to remind people that it happened," said Wayne
Phillips, curator of education for the museum.
The full story of the events surrounding the 1973 New Orlean's fire is
recalled in detail in the Rev. Troy D. Perry's book, "Don't Be Afraid
Anymore," published by St. Martin's Press.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT:
James N. Birkitt, Jr., Director of Communications
UFMCC
8704 Santa Monica Blvd., 2nd Floor
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 360-8640
Fax: (310) 360-8680
E-mail: UFMCCHQ@aol.com
website: http://www.ufmcc.com
Service remembers Upstairs Fire Victims
By Bruce Nolan, Staff Writer
New Orleans Times-Picayune (c)
June 25, 1998
At that very moment 25 years earlier, the street corner where the little
crowd gathered Wednesday had been a hell of fire engines and tangled hoses, of
grim or weeping spectators and, worst of all, emergency lights illuminating a
ghastly corpse jammed in the barred window of the burned-out bar where other
bodies lay fused on the floor.
A quarter century later more than 100 men and women marched to the same
French Quarter corner Wednesday night, having prayed, read Scripture and sung
"Amazing Grace" at a nearby hotel.
Led by a brass band playing a dirge-like "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," the
mourners walked from the Royal Sonesta Hotel to Chartres and Iberville
streets.
They bore 32 placards bearing the names of the fire's victims, and flowers
for each. And at the sidewalk below what had once been the Upstairs Lounge
they dropped their flowers on the spot where they hope one day to embed a
memorial plaque in the sidewalk.
That done, they headed back to the hotel. "Let's go back now and celebrate
our community," said the Rev. Dexter Brecht, pastor of the Metropolitan
Community Church.'‘For if Wednesday's service was remembrance for the 32 who
died in the most lethal fire in the city's history, mourners also gave the
event its due as a turning point for New Orleans' gay and lesbian community --
the Upstairs was a gay bar.
And if, as speakers remembered Wednesday, the fire provoked a train of
delayed injuries -- lost jobs, public ridicule, severed families -- for those
outed by its trauma, the changed public climate today put City Councilman Troy
Carter and a representative of Mayor Marc Morial's office at the head of the
march.
"Before the fire it was OK to be gay on Bourbon Street, but go two blocks in
either direction and you could get your head bashed in," said the Rev. Troy
Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches,
a family of churches for gay Christians.
Investigators cam to believe the fire was set by a vengeful patron who had
been thrown out hours earlier.
And though not atypical of much violence against gay men and lesbians, the
fire helped galvanize even the national gay rights movement, he said. The
change was measured partly by the flowers and greetings sent by U.S. Rep.
William Jefferson, D-LA.
The memorial itself was largely coordinated by Brecht's church, one of 300
churches in a fellowship of gay and lesbian Christians who differ from more
orthodox brethren only in their views of sexuality, said Perry, the
Californian who founded the denomination.
The 1973 fire nearly wiped out the embryonic MCC congregation in New Orleans, he said, killing its pastor, assistant pastor and 10 of its 22 members.
Another tragedy after the event, he said, was the way other churches shunned
him in his search for a place to hold a memorial service in the days after he
fire.
George Episcopal and St. Mark's United Methodist risked criticism to offer
their churches, said Perry, who remembered them as heroes.
As worshipers prepared to leave the hotel for the street corner, Brecht
thanked them not only for their prayers for the dead, but their solidarity for
others in their community, "so that another Upstairs fire can never go
unnoticed again."
DEATH OF CONSERVATIVE ICON BARRY GOLDWATER MOURNED BY HRC
Goldwater Represented A Conservatism That Respects Equal Rights For All
People
WASHINGTON -- The Human Rights Campaign mourned the death today of former
U.S. senator and Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, a
staunch defender of individual liberty and equality for gay Americans.
"Barry Goldwater envisioned an America where equal rights and
liberty extend to all people. He exemplified honorable conservative
principles such as respecting individual rights. Many of today's right-wing
politicians, who mistakenly call themselves conservatives, can learn a lot
about true conservatism by studying Barry Goldwater," said HRC Executive
Director Elizabeth Birch.
In 1993, Barry Goldwater came out in support of allowing openly gay
people to serve in the military. He believed all Americans who wanted to
serve their country honorably should have that right.
Goldwater, whose grandson is gay, continued his support for equal
rights by publishing a July 1994 Washington Post op-ed, asking Congress to
pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would protect gay
Americans from job discrimination.
"It's time America realized that there was no gay exemption in the
right to `life, liberty and the pursuit to happiness' in the Declaration of
Independence. Job discrimination against gays -- or anybody else -- is
contrary to each of these founding principles," Goldwater wrote in his
op-ed.
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest national
lesbian and gay political organization, with members throughout the
country, effectively lobbies Congress, provides campaign support, and
educates the public to ensure that lesbian and gay Americans can be open,
honest, and safe at home, at work, and in the community.
- 30 -
(dear friends,
per the instructions of wayne turner i am sending our this official death
notice about aids warrior steve michael's death from aids. further
announcements from wayne will be forthcoming from him directly, as soon as his
computer system is hooked up. --mp)
Steve Michael, age 42, founder of ACT UP/Washington, DC, the AIDS Coaliton To
Unleash Power, died on Monday, May 25 at 11:12 a.m., of AIDS. Michael's
partner of seven years, Wayne Turner, gave the order to disconnect Michael
from life support after his condition severly worsened early Monday morning.
Michael had spent almost four weeks in the intensive care unit at Washington
Hospital Center for treatment of AIDS related pneumonia.
A political funeral will be held on Thursday, June 4, in Layfaytte Park in
front of the White House at 12:30 p.m. Turner has made arrangments with
federal authorities to hold Michael's funeral, which will be his last White
House protest. All media calls should be directed to the ACT UP/Washington
office number, 202-547-9404. Only Turner is permitted to explain the details
of the Michael's funeral to reporters. Visit ACT UP/Washngton's web site at
www.actupdc.org. In lieu of flowers, donations and condolences, which are
much appreciated, should be sent to ACT UP/Washington, 408 "H" Sttreet, NE,
Washington, DC 20002. Turner asks that all DC area activists who wish to
carry on our work, gather signatures for the medical marijuana ballot
initiative number 59.
The AIDS crisis is not over. ACT UP! FIGHT BACK! FIGHT AIDS.
Activist Battling AIDS Becomes Rallying Point
By Julie Makinen Bowles
Washington Post
May 25, 1998
In a city of buttoned-down lobbyists and big-money campaigns, Steve
Michael has waged his political wars with an $800 truck and a seedy one-room
storefront that doubles as an apartment.
His style has been pickets and petitions, not power lunches. Loud,
indignant, even offensive, he has routinely refused to follow Washington's
rules of decorous negotiation. Still, in the last five years, he has won
begrudging respect for his passionate advocacy on issues including AIDS
funding, health care, the medical use of marijuana and the return of power to
elected D.C. officials.
"He's the quintessential activist," said D.C. Council member Carol
Schwartz (R-At Large). "He always goes where he sees problems, and he follows
through on them."
For the last four weeks, though, Michael has not been the rallier but the
rallying point, as he battles severe complications from AIDS at Washington
Hospital Center. Politicians and community leaders from across Washington and
even the White House have been saying prayers and sending words of
encouragement, hoping he can beat back the disease and resume his work as a
full-time thorn in their sides.
"He can be a real pain," said Donna Brazile, press secretary for Del.
Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.). "He's a tenacious fighter. I know, because
I've been on opposite sides from him at times, and I've been on the same side
with him. Of course, I'd much rather have him with me than against me."
Michael, 42, and his partner, Wayne Turner, 33, moved to Washington from
Seattle in 1993 after following President Clinton on the '92 campaign circuit
and heckling him persistently over his record on funding for AIDS programs.
As members of the militant group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power),
they came to the capital to keep pressuring the president to commit more
federal resources to fighting the disease.
But once here, they found themselves incensed by the problems in local
government. Michael started turning up at D.C. Council hearings, testifying
on health care issues and troubles with the city bureaucracy. He and Turner
staged sit-ins at financial control board meetings, calling it the "out-of-
control board." When members of Congress began stripping power from locally
elected officials, the two men stormed their offices in protest and got
arrested on numerous occasions.
Michael's confrontational tactics at times have irritated and angered more
established activist groups, who say his renegade, moralizing style can hurt
more than it helps. D.C. council member Sharon Ambrose (D), one of Michael's
competitors in last year's Ward 6 council race, said he was "extraordinarily
unpleasant in an extremely ad hominem way."
But others say the city needs more people like him.
Anise Jenkins, who has lived in Washington more than 40 years, said
Michael inspired her to become active in the community. In August, she heard
on the radio that a North Carolina senator wanted to take away most of Mayor
Marion Berry's powers. The announcer said some residents were planning a
demonstration at the White House.
"I went down there, and I saw three men standing on the fence. One was
Steve
Michael," Jenkins said. "I was just compelled. So I got up on the fence. He
was just such a vibrant, physical force. Fearless."
She ended up going to jail--"first time in my life that I've done anything
like that"--and has since become active in the Stand Up for Democracy
movement, which is fighting for the restoration of home rule. She also has
joined the battle against plans to put the city's new convention center in her
Shaw neighborhood.
Jim Graham, executive director of the Whitman-walker Clinic, the city's
largest provider of AIDS-related services, said Michael is one of those
"vanguard people" whose methods can be distasteful but who effectively "clear
the land, pointing out problems and bringing drama to bear. That, in turn,
makes it easier for others who come in their wake."
In the last nine months, Michael has been working to put a measure on the
D.C. ballot that would legalize the possession, use, cultivation and
distribution of marijuana by people suffering from illnesses such as cancer,
AIDS and glaucoma.
When the first petition drive fell short of the more than 17,000
signatures needed to put the measure on the ballot, Michael started yet
another drive.
Work on the marijuana measure--known as Initiative 59--continued from
Michael's hospital bedside until he was put on a respirator. Turner has
officially taken over the drive and has vowed to continue should Michael not
pull through.
"We've spent our whole lives together trying to get people to do something
about
AIDS, battling greed, fighting for democracy," Turner said. "The work will go
on, even if we lose this warrior. Steve wouldn't have it any other way."
HRC MOURNS PASSING OF BELLA ABZUG, LESBIAN AND GAY CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER
Former New York Congresswoman First to Introduce Bill to Add Sexual Orientation
to Federal Civil Rights Law
WASHINGTON -- The Human Rights Campaign mourned the death today former U.S. Rep.
Bella Abzug, the New York Democrat who introduced the first federal lesbian and
gay civil rights bill in 1975.
"Bella Abzug was a brave and dedicated advocate of fairness for lesbian and
gay Americans," said Elizabeth Birch, HRC's executive director. "We all owe her
an enormous debt as the pioneer who tried against enormous odds to extend civil
rights protections on the basis of sexual orientation. We will carry on that
work in her name."
In 1975, Abzug introduced a bill to extend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to
lesbians and gays. The measure would have outlawed discrimination based on
sexual orientation in housing, employment and public accommodations. Although
it has never moved out of committee, the bill has been reintroduced every
Congress since.
"Bella Abzug was light years ahead of her time when it came to advocating
for lesbian and gay equality," Birch said. "She laid the groundwork for what has
become the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill to outlaw job
discrimination based on sexual orientation."
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbian and gay political
organization, with members throughout the country, effectively lobbies Congress,
provides campaign support, and educates the public to ensure that lesbian and
gay Americans can be open, honest, and safe at home, at work, and in the
community.
HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN LAMENTS PASSING OF DAVID BELL
Gay Community Loses Leader Whose `Life Was a Tribute to Civic Responsibility'
WASHINGTON Monday, Dec. 8, 1997 --- The Human Rights Campaign mourns the loss of David Bell, a former HRC board member from San Francisco and longtime leader in the lesbian and gay community's fight against discrimination and HIV/AIDS. Bell
died from AIDS-related complications Nov. 29, at age 52.
"David's life was a tribute to civic responsibility, compassion and
human decency
," said Mary Breslauer, co-chair of HRC's board of directors.
"We will miss both his leadership and his friendship."
Bell was active in numerous gay and HIV/AIDS groups. His volunteer
leadership for the Human Rights Campaign dates to 1986, when he joined
HRC's San Francisco steering committee. He served on the organization's
board of governors from 1992-1994 and on its board of directors from
1995-1996. As co-chair of the finance committee of the board of directors,
he played a leadership role in developing and approving the organization's
annual budget, shepherding HRC through a period of tremendous growth. In
1997, he served as an emeritus board member.
During the 1996 campaign season, Bell was northern co-chair for
HRC's California Project, the organization's first effort to directly
support statewide political candidates. With his guidance, the project
helped restore a fair-minded majority in the California Legislature --
wresting control from anti-gay extremists who had prevailed in the previous
election.
"David Bell was deeply committed to our organization and our
movement for equality," said Elizabeth Birch, HRC's executive director.
"His longstanding leadership made a tremendous difference for HRC and our
community, and we are deeply saddened at his passing."
A memorial service honoring Bell's life is set for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 12, at Delancey Street Foundation's town hall, at 600 The
Embarcadero in San Francisco.
The Human Rights Campaign is the largest national lesbian and gay
political organization, with members throughout the country. It effectively
lobbies Congress, provides campaign support and educates the public to
ensure that lesbian and gay Americans can be open, honest and safe at home,
at work and in the community.
Former gay activist found dead in friend's garage
By JOHNNY DIAZ and CONNIE PILOTO, Herald Staff Writers
MIAMI HERALD, December 3, 1997 --- In the early '90s, Brad Buchman championed gay rights in South Florida
and catapulted himself into the spotlight as a local and national spokesman
for the movement.
But in recent years, the young man with the passionate voice became a
recluse, battling AIDS behind closed doors and turning to crack cocaine and
alcohol for solace.
Now, detectives are investigating whether drugs are to blame for his
death.
The 31-year-old charismatic community leader was found dead in the garage
of a Victoria Park townhouse Monday night.
He had been staying at the townhouse with retired Fort Lauderdale lawyer
Richard Alan Marcus, police said.
"I had no idea he was there," Marcus said. "He's not supposed to be in my
house."
Marcus had been friends with Buchman for about a year and let him stay at
his townhouse on and off, Marcus said Tuesday afternoon.
But, before leaving town for Thanksgiving, Marcus asked Buchman to move
out.
On Monday night, Marcus made a horrific discovery.
He backed his car out of the garage and heard a loud thump. It was
Buchman, already dead under his silver 1994 Toyota Camry, police said.
"He lived a bright life and died on the cutting edge," said longtime
friend and lawyer Norm Kent. "Even shooting stars can disappear after an
extremely bright life."
Recently, Buchman seemed to be spiraling downward.
On Oct. 16, Fort Lauderdale Police arrested him for possession of cocaine
and drug paraphernalia.
Investigators caught a bony Buchman with a crack pipe and a metal rod with
drug residue under his car seat, police said.
When the officer held the crack pipe in his hand, Buchman curtly answered
"That's mine."
As a leader, Buchman's style was often aggressive and combative.
`He couldn't handle having HIV'
Those qualities caught the attention of Alan Schubert, founding president
of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in Fort Lauderdale.
Schubert hired Buchman as his assistant when Schubert began making his
dream of a gay center a reality.
"He was a brilliant guy. He was my right arm. He was very aggressive at
fund-raising," said Schubert who launched the gay community center off
Oakland Park Boulevard about three years ago. "But he was not a well man. He
couldn't handle having HIV."
After graduating from high school in 1984 in his native Ohio, Buchman
moved to Fort Lauderdale with friends.
Less than a year later, he was diagnosed with HIV.
Feeling like time was running out, the 19-year-old said he wanted to make
a difference.
He joined the Dolphin Democratic Club, one of Broward's oldest and largest
gay-oriented organizations, and became an active member in Broward politics.
"For me, being gay is not a fad or a vice that I chose when I was growing
up. It is something in my heart, in my soul, that defines me and moves me,"
Buchman told The Herald five years ago.
Buchman shone brightly in Broward's gay and political circles. He was
dubbed Mr. Human Rights, making his crusade everyone else's.
A grass-roots activist
In 1990, Buchman, barely 24, led a group of activists to make politicians
aware of gay rights.
He set up tables to register voters at gay bars. He culled support from
grass-roots organizations and black, Jewish and Hispanic leaders. He spoke at
rallies. He promoted the cause on radio.
Buchman wooed candidates with the promise of getting gay votes and secured
endorsements from the American Legion Post 220, the American Bar Association,
the Broward Teachers' Union and the Broward chapter of the NAACP for his
fight.
"He was a spokesperson for human rights. He played an instrumental role in
getting the gay-rights movement off from ground zero," Kent said.
Soon, though, Buchman "was burned out, eaten up and chewed out by the
politics," Kent said.
In 1994, Buchman stepped down from his position as president of the
Dolphin Democratic Club after being arrested on grand theft charges in Fort
Lauderdale.
Police said he withdrew $2,500 using a credit card that belonged to an
ex-lover, Gary Steinsmith.
"Brad turned inward," Kent said. "He was a very motivated and energetic
guy but maybe he needed a little bit more self discipline."
Behind closed doors, he tried coping with AIDS. He turned to drugs and
lived off his Social Security check.
Addicted, short on cash, he found himself sleeping in the homes of
friends. That's how he wound up with Marcus .
A gruesome discovery
When Marcus walked into his home at 837 NE 17th Way Monday night, after
taking a taxi from the airport, he found some things missing. He suspected
Buchman had taken them.
Marcus went to the garage and hopped in his car. When he backed out, he
drove over Buchman's chest.
"Police said he had been dead for a while," Marcus said.
Investigators are awaiting the results of toxicology tests to determine
the cause of death, said Detective Clinton Ward, spokesman for the Fort
Lauderdale Police Department.
Buchman, found shirtless and barefoot, had several injuries on his body
apparently caused when he was run over by Marcus' silver Toyota.
No one has been charged in Buchman's death, Ward said.
"Brad had a very serious drug problem. I hope its a message how dangerous
drug abuse can be," Kent said. "You have a talented energetic individual who
may have caused his demise by drug abuse. He couldn't overcome his drug
abuse."
Memorial Service for Jim Kepner
in West Hollywood
3 pm. Sunday, December 14, 1997
Metropolitan Community Church
8714 Santa Monica Blvd.
parking available for service in MTA lot.
William Burrough's Dead at 83
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) July 31, 1997 --- William S. Burroughs, the stone-faced
godfather of the ``Beat generation'' whose experimental novel ``Naked
Lunch'' unleashed an underground world that defied narration, died
Saturday. He was 83.
Published in 1959, ``The Naked Lunch'' used unconventional writing
techniques to depict an underground world fighting a technological
society that was self destructing.
``The Naked Lunch'' was both praised as literary genius and
dismissed as indecipherable garbage because Burroughs wrote it without
standard narrative prose, used abrupt transitions, placed the chapters in
random order and wrote in a stream-of-conciousness style.
The book also was the subject of a precedent-setting obscenity
trial because of its violence and explicit sex. Publishers eventually won
an appeal in Boston, and the book was published in the United States in
1962.
``Naked Lunch,'' which prompted Norman Mailer to say Burroughs was
possibly the most talented writer in America, made Burroughs famous as a
spokesman for the Beat generation.
Burroughs continued his unconventional style by using a technique
called cut-ups in subsequent books, including ``The Soft Machine''
(1961), ``The Ticket that Exploded'' (1962), and ``Nova Express'' (1964).
Cut-ups involved random cutting and pasting and folding into his own
writing quotations from other authors, newspapers and other media.
Burroughs was an important influence on other Beat writers such as
Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, who were fledging writers when they met
Burroughs in New York in the 1940s.
The three are now considered the core of the Beat movement, which
flourished in the 1950s by condemning middle-class life and praising
individualism. Kerouac's ``On the Road,'' Ginsberg's ``Howl'' and
Burroughs' ``The Naked Lunch,'' are generally considered the most
important works to come out of the movement.
```Naked Lunch' was pretty much the essence of his work,'' said
Morris Dickstein, a professor of English at City University of New York.
``It came out when writers were trying to do something new to explore the
irrational side of the mind, to try and get away from conventional
techniques.''
Born in 1914 in St. Louis, Burroughs was the grandson and namesake
of the inventor of the adding machine, but he said that his parents were
not wealthy and were rejected by the city's elite.
Burroughs was educated at the John Burroughs School and Taylor
School, both in St. Louis, and at a prep school in Los Alamos, N.M. He
received a bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University in 1936
and did some graduate work in ethnology and archeology.
After moving to New York City, Burroughs developed a heroin
addiction and was a junkie for about 15 years. During this period he
lived in Texas, New Orleans, Mexico City, South America, Northern Africa,
Paris and London. He did little writing at the time, but his experiences
were the fodder for many of his books.
He married a German-Jewish refugee, but only to enable the woman to
emigrate to the United States. They were divorced in 1946. The same year,
Burroughs entered into a common law marriage with Joan Vollmer.
In later years, Burroughs acknowledged he was homosexual and said
Vollmer was the only woman with whom he ever had a serious relationship.
Burroughs' life was changed forever in 1951 when, after a day of
drinking and drugs, he accidentally shot and killed Vollmer. Burroughs,
who always had a penchant for guns, said he was trying to shoot a glass
off his wife's head and instead shot her in the forehead.
In a biography published in 1982, ``Literary Outlaw,'' Burroughs
said that shooting led to his becoming a serious writer.
``I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have
become a writer but for Joan's death, and to a realization of the extent
to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing. I live with
the constant threat of possession, and a constant need to escape from
possession, from Control. So the death of Joan brought me in contact with
the invader, the Ugly Spirit and maneuvered me into a lifelong struggle,
in which I have had no choice except to write my way out.''
Burroughs was charged with the equivalent of involuntary
manslaughter and fled Mexico.
The couple had a son, Bill Jr., in 1947. He was an alcoholic and
drug addict who died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1981.
Burroughs essentially disappeared from the literary scene while
living in London in the early 1970s. His influence began to grow again
when, at Ginsberg's urging, he returned to New York City in 1974.
Shortly after his return, Burroughs met James Grauerholz, who
became his secretary and began renewing Burroughs' career by scheduling
readings across the country and in Europe.
Burroughs continued to influence artists and musicians through the
hippies of the 1960s and the punks of the 1970s. Musicians such as David
Bowie, Lou Reed and Patti Smith have cited Burroughs as an important
influence.
``He gave them techniques to get inside the dark side of the
mind,'' said Dickstein, who wrote a book on the 1960s called ``Gates of
Eden.'' ``He explored the fantastic, the irrational, so he freed them
from a pretty rational form of literary narration.''
Burroughs began using drugs again and Grauerholz, who went to
school at the University of Kansas, persuaded Burroughs to move to
Lawrence, Kan., in 1981.
Burroughs began to write more conventional narratives after his
move to Kansas, including ``Place of the Dead Roads,'' in 1984, and ``The
Western Lands,'' in 1987.
He also began a second career as a visual artist, as well as
writing screenplays, appearing in films (``Drugstore Cowboy'' and
``Twister''), writing an opera text, and even appearing in a Nike
television ad.
``In the last few years, he became a figure that people looked
up to as a pioneer of the avant garde,'' said Dickstein. ``He became an
elder statesman for a lot of people.'
Marvin Liebman, Gay Conservative Dies
Washington, D.C. April 1, 1997 --- Marvin Liebman, a well-known author and political activist for anti-Communist and gay rights causes, died March 31, 1997, in Washington, D.C. He was 73.
The cause of death was heart failure.
Liebman first achieved renown in the 1950s as the organizer and leader of
several organization dedicated to fighting communism and to promoting
conservative policies and candidates. He is widely identified as a founder of
the modern conservative movement in America.
In 1957, with the financial backing of his friend and mentor Charles Edison,
Liebman launched his own public relations and consulting firm, Marvin Liebman
Associates, which raised money for conservative causes.
Among the groups he helped create are Young Americans for Freedom, the
American Conservative Union, and the Committee of One Million Against the
Admission of Communist China to the United Nations.
In the 1960s, Liebman was integrally involved in the campaigns of Barry
Goldwater for President and the emerging national ambitions of Ronald Reagan.
During a stint in London from 1969 to 1975, Liebman put his creative talents
and fundraising prowess to work in theater and film as a playwright and
producer. Among the films he produced was "Miss Julie," starring Helen Mirren
and performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Upon returning to the United States, Liebman once more became engaged in
conservative politics. Unsuccessful in his efforts to secure the reelection
of Sen. Jim Buckley (R-N.Y.) in 1976, Liebman later aided Reagan in his
successful bid for chief executive in 1980. In the Reagan Administration, he
accepted a post with the National Endowment for the Arts and proceeded to a
career slot with the Federal Trade Commission, from which he retired in 1994.
In 1990, at the age of 67, Liebman came out publicly as a gay man in an
announcement that appeared simultaneously in The Advocate, a national gay
news magazine, and the National Review, the publication edited by his
longtime friend William F. Buckley Jr.
"I feel that our cause might sink back into the ooze in which so much of it
rested in its pre-National Review days," Liebman wrote to Buckley then. "In
that dark age, the American right was heavily, perhaps dominantly, made up of
bigots, anti-Semites, anti-Catholics, the KKK, red-necks, Know-Nothings, a
sorry lot of public hucksters, and religious medicine men....Now times are
changing. There is no longer the anti-Communist cement to hold the edifice
together. The great enterprise [anti-Communism] is in danger of sinking back
into an aggregation of bigotries."
In 1992, Liebman published a memoir, Coming Out Conservative: The Founder of
the Modern Conservative Movement Speaks Out on Personal Freedom, Homophobia,
and Hate Politics (Chronicle Books, San Francisco). He became an outspoken
advocate for gay rights in speeches and monthly columns, which were
syndicated nationwide.
Liebman was born July 21, 1923, in New York City. He is survived by his
sister Eleanor Lidofsky of Brooklyn and a large adopted family of friends in
Washington, D.C., and across the country. At Liebman's request, there will be
no funeral service.
Thomas B. Stoddard, Civil Rights Advocate and Former Executive
Director for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Dies of AIDS
NEW YORK, February 13, 1997 --- Thomas B. Stoddard died of AIDS on Wednesday, February 12 at his home in Manhattan. He was 48.
He was executive director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund from 1986 to 1992, tackling civil rights work that ranged from fighting AIDS-related discrimination to the military's anti-gay ban. An eloquent and forceful spokesman, Stoddard was one of the earliest proponents of civil marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples. He and
his lover Walter Rieman exchanged vows in 1993.
Under Stoddard's leadership, the New York-based Lambda grew from a staff of six to 22 and began its national expansion by creating regional offices to serve lesbians, gay men. and people with HIV and AIDS around the country. During Stoddard's tenure, Lambda opened a Western Regional Office in Los Angeles.
The oldest and largest lesbian and gay legal organization, Lambda now maintains its National Headquarters in New York, the Los Angeles of office, a Midwest Regional Office in Chicago, and plans to open a Southern Regional Office in Atlanta later this year.
Stoddard, who also co-authored New York City's lesbian and gay civil rights law, still pursued his public role on behalf of lesbian and gay civil rights after leaving Lambda. He continued to be an active advocate for people with AIDS and HIV and served as director of the Campaign for Military Service in the effort to force the Clinton Administration to keep its promise to end discrimination against lesbians and gay men.
Lambda said in a statement following Stoddard's death, "To lesbians, gay men, people with HIV and AIDS, and Lambda in particular, Tom was not just a part of our civil rights struggle, he was an irreplaceable leader and friend.
As Lambda's executive director from 1986 to 1992, when the country rarely saw such a persuasive. and confident gay activist demanding public attention and respect, Tom tauaht us the power of pride, dedication, and even humor. He was another of the great leaders of our civil rights struggle who kept fighting until death stopped him in the battlefield.
"The force of Tom's eloquence and intellect. and his determination to continue the fight for justice even in the face of his own illness with AIDS, inspires Lambda and many others for the future."
Stoddard was born in Seattle and raised in Glenview, IL., near Chicago. He graduated from Georgetown University and the New York University School of Law, where he was a fellow in the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program and from 1981, was an adjunct professor of law. Prior to joining Lambda in 1986, Stoddard was legislative director for the New York Civil Liberties Union after first serving as counsel to that position. Lambda honored Stoddard for his civil rights work with a Liberty Award in 1993. The Tom Stoddard Fellowship was established at New York University in 1996, to be awarded to third-year law students to work on lesbian and gay civil rights with public-interest organizations.
Stoddard is survived by his spouse Walter Rieman. his mother, Meta, of Conroe, Texas, a brother John of Seattle, and a sister Linda Leonard of Henderson Harbor. N.Y.
Arrangements for a memorial service are pending.
Paul Tsongas Mourned by Gays & Lesbians
SUMMARY: Paul Tsongas, the first U.S. Senator to introduce
legislation to prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians, has
died. Tsongas' support and empathy for people with AIDS led one
activist to say he "will always be a 'Tsissy for Tsongas.'"
Paul Tsongas, former U.S. Senator from Massachussetts and a leading
candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination early in the 1992
campaign, died January 18 of pneumonia after 2 weeks' hospitalization
for a liver problem. In 1979, Tsongas became the first U.S. Senator to
introduce legislation to prohibit discrimination against gays and
lesbians, in the form of a proposed amendment to add sexual
orientation as a protected category under the Civil Rights Act of
1964. As a Presidential candidate, Tsongas specifically sought support
from gays and lesbians for his gay-friendly policies.
Tsongas even won posthumous praise from Steve Michael of ACT
UP/Washington, DC (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), who rarely
has words of praise for mainstream politicians. Michael said, "Paul
Tsongas was unwavering in his commitment to people with AIDS and the
struggle for the equal rights and liberation of gay and lesbian
Americans. He will be missed. He was a true friend to all of us with
HIV and AIDS. I will always be a 'Tsissy for Tsongas.'"
Tsongas' empathy for people with AIDS was heartfelt. His own career
was interrupted in 1984 by life-threatening liver cancer, for which an
experimental treatment provided a cure. His final hospitalization
reportedly resulted from complications from that treatment, although
he was said to have been cancer-free at the time of his death. His run
for the Presidency was stimulated partly by a drive to make the most
of his survival.
Gerry Crane Dies, Gay Band Director Fighting for His Job
Many of you may remember , the Byron Center (Michigan) High School
band director who's job was threatened when the public school he worked for
learned he was gay. A few days ago he had what they thought was a heart
attack and he slipped into a coma, though they found no traces of any heart
damage. They then suspected it was an allergic reation. Tonight I received
the following letter from a friend of mine informing me that Gerry has passed
away.
Please widly distribute this post. Many people around the world responded to
support Gerry when he was threatened by the school board and I know they
would want to know this information.
Please pray for Randy, Gerry's partner. He was steadfast during the whole
scandal and is one of the sweetest men I've ever had the pleasure of meeting,
along with Gerry. I'm sure he'll be devastated. I'll provide updates as I
get them.
Brad Bergman LstRmantic@aol.com (formerly BBergman01@aol.com)
Dear friends,
It is 3:50 am Friday morning, and I have just returned from St. Mary's
Hospital. About a half an hour ago Gerry Crane died. I had the tremendous
privilege of being there in the room. Afterward, one friend described it as
a holy moment. I can think of no better way to describe the experience.
Gerry is now at peace. Randy faces a difficult road of grieving. Actually,
many of us do, but especially Randy. Please pray.
Earlier in the evening we held a prayer vigil at the chapel at Westminster
Church. It was a beautiful weaving of God's Spirit through the words,
prayers, and songs of many people. What most impressed me was how Gerry
touched the lives of so many people. What a gift he was to us! We thank
God for that gift!
January 3, 1997
TO: All GLSTN Members and Supporters
FROM: Kevin Jennings
It is with tremendous sadness that I write to inform you that one of our
members, Gerry Crane, died this morning. Gerry suffered a heart attack
on Friday December 27 and lapsed into a coma, from which he never
awakened prior to his death this morning. He was 32 years old.
Many of you will remember Gerry's story, and perhaps you met him at our
Midwestern Conference last March in Chicago.. An outstanding teacher who
had revived the nearly-defunct music program in the Byron Center (MI)
Schools, Gerry answered a student's question about his commitment ring
with the truth about his marriage to his husband, Randy Block, in the
fall of 1995. Gerry then faced relentless harassment for the remainder
of the school year, including a full school board meeting where it was
voted that homosexuals were "unfit role models" as well as the sending of
anti-gay hate videotapes to all of his students' families by a colleague.
At year's end, he accepted a one-year severance package rather than
return and continue to face this harassment. This fall, he was involved
in the fledgling GLSTN/Kalamazoo chapter, which was formed in the wake of
the Byron Center controversy.
I have just spoken with Gerry's husband, Randy Block, who has asked me to
inform you that, in lieu of flowers, the family will welcome gifts to a
scholarship established in Gerry's memory. Please direct gifts to:
The Gerald M. Crane Memorial Music Scholarship Fund
c/o The Grand Rapids Foundation
161 Ottawa Ave. Suite 209-C
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
Gerry's death leaves me deeply sad as well as deeply angry. While Gerry
was not directly assassinated by bigots (as were leaders such as Medger
Evers or Harvey Milk), he may as well have been. My heart goes out to
Randy and their friends in this time of enormous pain and loss.
May we all recommit ourselves to our work so that I never have to write a
memo of this nature again.
New York Times
229 W. 43rd Street
New York,NY,10036
FAX: 212-556-3622,
E-MAIL: letters@nytimes.com
November 22, 1996
Evelyn Hooker, 89, Researcher on Homosexuality
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Dr. Evelyn Hooker, a psychologist who defied conventional
wisdom and greatly emboldened the fledgling homosexual rights movement in
the 1950s by finding there was no measurable psychological difference
between homosexual and heterosexual men, died on Monday at her home in Santa
Monica, Calif. She was 89.
Dr. Hooker, who spent 30 years teaching at the University of California at
Los Angeles, began studying homosexual men in the late 1940s, a period in
which they were considered maladjusted -- at best -- and generally ignored
or anathematized by the medical and mental health professions.
"She never treated us like some strange tribe," recalled the writer
Christopher Isherwood, who knew her at the time, "so we told her things we
never told anyone before."
Her most significant work was a paper delivered in 1956 to the American
Psychological Association in Chicago and published the next year as "The
Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual" in The Journal of Projective
Techniques.
Dr. Hooker administered three standard personality tests, including the
Rorschach ink-blot test, to two groups of 30 men, one heterosexual, one
homosexual, who had been matched in IQs, age, and education levels.
She then asked a panel of expert clinicians to assess the results without
knowing the subjects' sexual orientation. To their surprise, the judges were
unable to discern between the two groups on the basis of the test.
"The most striking finding of the three judges," Dr. Hooker wrote, "was
that many of the homosexuals were very well adjusted. In fact, the three
judges agreed on two-thirds of the group as being average to superior in
adjustment. Not only do all homosexuals not have strong feminine
identification, nor are they all 'somewhat paranoid,' but, according to the
judges, some may not be characterized by any demonstrable pathology."
Her study was criticized in many quarters, not least because it upended
psychological orthodoxy. Among other objections was that she recruited her
homosexual subjects through the assistance of "homophile" groups like the
Mattachine Society, meaning that the men might be more content with their
lives than the average homosexual and eager to prove that they were well
adjusted.
Moreover, the study was published in a journal that did not reach a wide
public audience. Nonetheless, it was considered a precursor to the decision
17 years later by the American Psychiatric Association to remove
homosexuality from its list of disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual.
"Her work in the 1950s really provided the framework within which the
American Psychiatric Association could rethink its viewpoint," said Dr.
Richard A. Isay, clinical professor of psychiatry at the Cornell University
Medical College.
And 36 years after Dr. Hooker addressed the American Psychological
Association, the organization gave her its award for distinguished
contribution to psychology in the public interest, saying: "This
revolutionary study provided empirical evidence that normal homosexuals
existed and supported the radical idea then emerging that homosexuality is
within the normal range of human behavior."
Evelyn Gentry was born in North Platte, Neb., in 1907 and grew up in
northeastern Colorado. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at the
University of Colorado and her Ph.D., in 1932, from Johns Hopkins University.
Her exposure to the rise of Nazism while in Berlin on a fellowship in the
late 1930s intensified her desire to make "her life count in helping to
correct social injustice," said a 1992 article in American Psychologist.
She joined the faculty at UCLA in 1939 and, outside of one year at Bryn
Mawr, remained there until 1970. It was at UCLA in the 1940s that she
befriended a homosexual student, Sam From, who introduced her in turn to his
circle of friends. It was From who said: "We have let you see us as we are,
and now, it is your scientific duty to make a study of people like us."
At the peak of the McCarthy period, in 1953, she applied for and received a
grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. "They talk about all
this courage I'm supposed to have had," she recalled four decades later, in
an interview with The Los Angeles Times. "I don't get that. Curiosity and
empathy were what compelled me to do my study."
In 1967, Dr. Hooker was appointed to head a study group on homosexuality
for the National Institute of Mental Health. That panel recommended a repeal
of sodomy laws and better public education about homosexuality.
After retiring from UCLA, Dr. Hooker had a private practice until the late
1970s. She reviewed articles for professional journals and helped establish
the Placek Fund of the American Psychological Foundation, which provides
money for research