DCE ANT

ited for Streng

HRCF's Vic Basile and GRNL's Nancy Roth announcing merger of their groups.

causes to which we are committed," Campaign Fund executive director Vic Basile said at the December 5 announcement of the merger.

Under the Campaign Fund, GRNL will be transformed into the Gay Rights National Political Educational Project and, according

to Basile, will "lobby, develop issues, and

expand the work of GRNL's field network."

The field network mobilizes people across

the nation to personally lobby their congressmen on legislation and issues affecting gay men and lesbians.

The Campaign Fund will not pay GRNL's estimated $30,000-$40,000 debt at this time, said spokesperson Eric Rosenthal. "GRNL has a very loyal base of supporters," who the Campaign Fund hopes will donate towards removing the debt.

While describing the end of GRNL's independent existence as "a rather bittersweet occasion," the organization's executive director, Nancy Roth, welcomed the merger. "The goal of both organizations is to encourage members of Congress to support our issues. The Campaign Fund does this through campaign contributions, GRNL through lobbying. It makes sense for these complementary efforts to share a common roof."

Roth, whose job ends when the Campaign Fund formally takes over GRNL in January, will serve as a consultant on the consolidation efforts, according to Rosenthal. Roth said she eventually wishes to return to school and obtain her doctorate in communications.

National Network Planned When announcing the merger, Basile also discussed six goals for the newly enlarged Campaign Fund to accomplish in 1986, a Congressional election year. Besides expanding lobbying efforts and political education activities with the Political Education Project, the organization wants to establish a constituent network in every congressional district in the nation. The Campaign Fund will also attempt to involve itself in at least 100 political races and looks forward to contributing $250,000 in political contributions. Basile said the Campaign Fund would seek to further define both AIDS and its related civil rights issues as our primary focus," and hopes to strengthen the "political voice and muscle" of the national gay and lesbian community.

Congressmen Bill Green and Ted Weiss of New York joined Basile and Roth for the announcement of the merger. "One reason Bill Green and I are here today is to stand alongside these dedicated men and women to tell them and to tell you that they are not fighting this battle alone," Weiss stated, "and that they can count on our support and the support of many of our colleagues in the House and Senate as we continue our fight for the principles of human and civil rights for all Americans."

Basile ended his statement by calling for mutual support and a "unity of purpose" among gay and AIDS-related organizations.

Conference

Explores Many Aspects of AIDS Situation Compared To Nazi Germany

by John A. Fall

AIDS: Should Panic + Prejudice = Policy?, a conference sponsored by the Civil Liberties Crisis Coalition and Lesbian and Gay Law Students of New York University, attracted over 150 participants to NYU December 7. Numerous workshops at the day-long conference addressed the political, social, and medical aspects of the epidemic.

Charles Eisnaugle, project coordinator for the New York State AIDS Discrimination Project, Jay Lipner, counsel to the Gay Men's Health Crisis, and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund outgoing Executive Director Tim Sweeney formed the panel for a discussion of legal issues.

Lipner cited wills, power of attorney, housing, and insurance as the most common areas in which people with AIDS and people perceived as belonging to "high-risk" groups have the most problems protecting their rights. "It is becoming harder not only to get insurance, but once you get it, to keep it," Lipner warned.

Eisnaugle discussed the process by which people with AIDS and others who suffer discrimination because of the epidemic, such as people who test positive for the HTLV-III antibody, can file a complaint with the AIDS Project. The project received six discrimination complaints in the fifteen months before 1985, according to Eisnaugle, and 17 in the first ten months of this year.

Legal protections afforded people with AIDS are much more extensive than those given to gay people in general, Sweeney noted. "AIDS is raising its head in almost every one of our civil rights issues, and we've got to be prepared to fight." He called efforts to use the HTLV-III antibodies test as a screening device for food service and health care workers "political manipulation" aimed at controlling gay people. Groups opposed to gay rights and homosexuality, Sweeney predicted, will soon attempt to discredit the Centers for Disease Control, which has issued guidelines that approve of allowing people with AIDS to work.

When the audience members had an opportunity to question the panelists, one audience member turned the workshop's attention to Peter Drago, Governor Cuomo's liaison to the lesbian and gay community. Drago, who attended the workshop as an observer, was asked what his role had been in the formulation of the state's "high-risk" sex regulation. "I personally am not in supContinued on next page

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