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Gay Peoples Chronicle

NATIONAL NEWS...

GRNL Dissolves

Soon after the National Gay Task Force voted against merging with it into a single organization, the Gay Rights National Lobby agreed

to

the $82,000 bequest that it received last March, and a later pledge by its trustees that each of them would raise $100 per month, GNRL's financial troubles contindissolution it was $40,000 in debt.

January 1986.

BY: Casmir Kuczynski

Election Postscripts

Pro-gay candidates won the two run-off elections for Houston city council seats. Incumbent Judson Robinson, Jr., received 64% of the vote in his contest with the

merger with the Human Rights ued. At the time of its anti-gay Houston's hoCouncil seat. His margin of

Campaign Fund, which had separated from GRNL in 1983. Founded in 1976 as a national organization to lobby Congress for gay rights GRNL experienced occasional friction with NGTF and

eventually Steve Endean's leadership became an issue. Over the past two years it has been plagued by serious financial problems that led to

its demise. In spite of

HRCF is taking over GRNL's membership list and assuming its debts, while expanding its own activities to include GRNL's lobbying functions. It is also hiring one of the three GRNL employees at the time of the

merger.

Boston Breeder

Withdraws Bill

Homophobic Boston City Councillor Albert O'Neil introduced a bill that would require quarantining people with AIDS and make the testing of public service workers mandatory; but withdrew his

measure before it could be voted on. His bill, which the Gay Community News describes as identical in wording with one published by the so-called National Democratic Policy Committee, demanded that food handlers, barbers, eye doctors, and elementary and secondary

school teachers be tested for the HTLV-III virus and fired if their tests are positive.

The well-organized gay and lesbian community in Boston responded immediately by calling city councillors to protest. Knowing he would receive no support in the Council, O'Neill withdrew his bill.

The GCN quotes O'Neil as saying, "The fag sitting next to me [City Councillor David Scondras] got to the other councillors [so] I am withdrawing it."

Dignity Ad Refused

The Washington Blade reports that the weekly newspaper of the Washington, Bager Catholic Archdiocese has refused to carry an ad from the local Dignity chapter. The ad was for the Sunday masses Dignity sponsors.

In an editorial explaining this decision, the executive editor said that after con-

Labor Backs Gay Rights

At its October convention the AFL-CIO passed a resolution opposing the screening of workers for exposure to the HTLV-III virus. It also voted to institute an educational program about AIDS for union members and called for an increase in AIDS funding by the U.S. government.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council passed a policy statement opposing discrimi nation based on sexual orientation and calling for a federal civil rights law protecting gay people.

sulting several archdiocesan authorities he decided that Dignity does not meet the "minimum standards" outlined by Archbishop James Hickey for groups that provide ministries for gay Catholics. Hickey insists that such ministries must advocate "complete abstinence from all sexual activity."

Black Gays Honor Hampton

At its National Conference in St. Louis the National Coalition of Black Gays changed its name to the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays. The organization presented a Life Achievement Award to 83-year-old Mabel Hampton, who has been featured in the gay documentary films Before Stonewall and Silent Pio-

neers.

mophobic Straight Slate who gathered enough votes in the November elections to force an opponent into a run-off. The Washington Blade quotes a press spokeswoman for Mayor Kathy Whitmire as saying the Straight Slate has run out of steam and out of money."

In the second Houston runoff, incumbent Anthony Hall, who sponsored the city gay rights legislation that was later repealed, won with 56% of the vote.

In Rochester, N.Y. the election of Democrat Tim Mains remained in doubt. After a recount, the Board of Elections declared Mains, who is openly gay, the winner of an at-large City victory was 14 votes. His Republican opponent filed suit demanding the opening of 34 technically invalid ballots that were not counted. When a New York court denied her request, she appealed to a higher court.

In New York City,..gay Civil Court Judge William Thom, who narrowly lost in last fall's Democratic primary, was reappointed by Mayor Koch to another oneyear interim term.

Franks Calls Anus an Anus

Republican representative William Dannemeyer, whose California district includes Orange County, is the most outspoken homophobe in the U.S. Congress. He hired discredited psychologist Paul Cameron as a special consultant on AIDS. Recently, his bill about AIDS went into excessively prurient detail about the mechanics of anal intercourse.

Responding to Dannemeyer,

U.S. Representative Barney Franks, Democrat of Massachusetts, commented, "It's all about how people insert the penis into the anus and they insert the fist into the anus, etc., etc. That was all very interesting, but it seemed to me that the most interesting question was how the people of Orange County came to insert an anus into the House of Representatives."

Study Shows Condom Effective

In the Bay Area Reporter, Brian Jones reports a study carried out at the University of California-San Francisco, which shows that condoms are effective protection against transmitting the HTLV-III virus.

Conant said, "This research proves that using condoms...carefully...and every time you have sex, will effectively prevent the transmission of the AIDS virus."

Tim Wolfred, Executive Director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, said that gay men need much more education in the proper use of condoms. Petroleum-based lubricants, such as vaso-

The researchers doing the study, Drs. Marcus Conant and Jay Levy, used five brands of condoms, including those made of latex, natural membrane, and synthetic membrane. They fitted these on-line, to a large syringe filled with a fluid containing the virus. Then they tried to pump this fluid through the condom material using a force similar to that occuring during actual inter-

course.

In no instance did the virus penetrate the material.

chemically break down latex condoms, for which only water-based lubricants, such as K-Y, are safe.

Wolfred explained that, in spite of this study, anal intercourse using condoms will continue to be listed as "possibly unsafe," because the rupture of a condom through poor quality or improper use could permit passage of the virus.

Gay People Protest Post

Film critic and activist Vito Russo led a crowd of gay people estimated to number 800 in the demonstration against the New York Post called by the recently formed Gay and Lesbian AntiDefamation League.

The New York Native reported that Russo told the demonstrators, "The treatment of the gay community by the New York Post has caused

us to suffer from an epidemic far worse than the AIDS crisis. This city deserves better." He urged gay people to make their feelings known to the Post's advertisers.

Other speakers were activist Marty Robinson, City Councillor Ruth Messinger, journalist Marcia Pally, NGTF co-director Rosemary Kuropat, and writer Darrell Yates Rist.