gay peoples CHRONICLE

Vol. 2 No. 7

Cleveland, Ohio

GAY PRIDE

PARADE

August 1986

LESBIAN/GAY ANGER RISES NATIONALLY

On

Justice Powell

suggested

June 30 the Supreme Hardwick's case would have

Court ruled, 5 to 4, that states have the legal right to ban homosexual sex.

Hardwick vs. Georgia

been stronger

had he been convicted and sentenced to a long prison term.

Minority Opinion

The case began in 1982, The dissenting opinion was when a Georgia policeman, written by Justice Blackmun entering Michael Hardwick's and concurred in by Justices room to serve a warrant for Brennan, Marshall, and Stevan unrelated matter, found ens. Noting the majority's him engaged in sex with an"almost obsessive focus on other man. He arrested both homosexual activity," "Blackmen, charging them with viomun wrote: lating Georgia's sodomy law. "I can only hope that the The local district attorCourt SOOD will reconsider ney said he would not proseits analysis and conclude cute the case without more that depriving individuals evidence. But Hardwick chalof the right to choose for lenged the Georgia law as a themselves how to conduct violation of his privacy. In their intimate relationships May 1985 a U.S. Court of Apposes a far greater threat peals panel ruled it unconsto the values most deeply titutional. Georgia appealed rooted in our nation's histhe Supreme Court, argutory than tolerance of noning that sodomy is unnaturconformity could ever do. al, violates "the laws of Because I think the Court God and man," and spreads today betrays those values, AIDS, besides threatening I dissent. the "sacred" American family.

to

a

Premature Optimism

Media Reaction

Leading newspapers harshly and scornfully criticized What observors regarded as the ruling. The New York fumbling presentation of Times called it "gratuitous Georgia's arguments before and petty...an offense to the Supreme Court raised exAmerican society's maturing pectations of a victory for standards of individual diggay people. This hope rested nity." Calling White's opinon Justice Lewis Powell. Alion "rigid and hostile," "the though Powell initially votLos Angeles Times endorsed ed that the law was unconBlackmun's hope that the stitutional, he reversed his court will soon reconsider. position before the vote was The Washington Post termed

announced.

laws anachronistic sodomy Majority Opinion and embarrassing, and called The majority opinion was on state legislatures to written by Justice White, strike them down. joined by Justices Burger,

Powell,

Connor.

of

and O'-

The

Gay Anger

Rehnquist, anger immediately exUpholding the right pressed by gay and lesbian

"morality,"

demonstrations

in

a majority to legislate spokespersons quickly eruptit stressed the ed into antiquity of laws against the large cities. On July 1 homosexual sex. over 2,000 gay people staged Chief Justice Burger, in a sit-ins in Greenwich Village concurring opinion based on exceptionally shoddy scholAvenues. arship,

blocked that 7th 6th and July 4 about 9,000 traced the roots of marched down Broadway to the anti-homosexual legislation Statue of Liberty Celebraback to ancient Rome and action in Battery Park, peacetually quoted Blackstone's fully swamping a police line reference to homosexual formed to halt them. Darrell Yates-Rist, of the and Lesbian Alliance Page 11, col. 1

coy

sex as "a crime not be named."

fit to

Gay

In his concurring opinion,

Virginia Apuzzo

APUZZO JOINS NY

AIDS ADVISORY COUNCIL

uzzo

one

On July 2 New York Governor Mario Cuomo announced the appointment of Virginia Apvice chair as of the state AIDS Advisory Council. "As one of the most widely known and respected leaders in the lesbian and gay community, Virginia Apuzzo was of the first in our to country testify before House and Senate Appropriations Committees urging adequate federal funding for research into the cause, treatment, and cure for AIDS. As former Executive Director of the National Gay Task Force, she met with White House representatives and negotiated with top officials of federal agencies

to

secure

#1

disability benefits for persons with AIDS,' Cuomo said.

Cuomo also announced that Apuzzo will function as his liaison to the lesbian gay community.

and

Since April 1985 Apuzzo

has been

Director sümer

Deputy

Executive

Board,

Cona

of the State Protection will position in which she was continue to serve. She Director Executive for the National Gay Task Force from November 1982 through April 1985. 13 served for years on the faculty of lecBrooklyn College as a turer and was the Assistant Commissioner for Operations of the New York City Department of Health.

She