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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE September, 1990

Bush signs landmark AIDS bill

Washington-Standing in the bright morning sun on the south lawn of the White House on July 26, President George Bush signed legislation which will protect people with AIDS and HIV disease from discrimination. The bill, known as the Americans with Disabilities Act, outlaws discrimination against 43 million Americans with disabilities including people with AIDS in employment, transportation and public areas such as restaurants, shops, and theatres.

"This is an immensely important day," the President said before signing the bill. Among the guests at the historic bill signing were five representatives of the Human Rights Campaign Fund (HRCF), the largest national lesbian and gay political organization.

This marked only the second time in American history that a President has invited openly lesbian and gay Americans to the White House for an officia! ceremony. Earlier this year,

NEA acts on gay and lesbian

concerns

At its 1990 annual convention held July 3-8 in Kansas City, the National Education Association (NEA) passed a constitutional amendment expanding non-discriminatory language in the membership article to include new categories, among them sexual orientation.

While many persons held that the organization has long had a policy of nondiscrimination, others argued for use of inclusive language. The vote on the amendment was a decisive seventy-five

President Bush invited several openly lesbian and gay Americans to the signing of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act.

"The Campaign Fund is proud of the work we did on the Americans with Disabilities Act. President Bush deserves great credit for his leadership in pushing for these protections. His outspoken opposition to discrimination against people with AIDS is sending a clear message that discrimination is wrong," Tim McFeeley, executive director of HRCF, said.

"The work to enact these protections into law was done by many people, including tens of thousands of lesbian and gay Americans throughout this country," McFeeley noted. "The President's invitation is a clear expression of his understanding of that involvement. This bill has been one of our highest priorities, and everyone who worked to make it a reality should be extremely proud of their contribution."

percent in favor.

Anxious to speak out against a nationwide rise in hate crimes, delegates held a rally on the convention floor decrying racism, sexism, homophobia, and other bigotry. Speakers cited the violent murder of a Bangor, Maine, gay man in 1989 and the plight of a young man beaten and harassed into dropping out of school because his peers assumed he was gay.

Delegates voted for a recommendation to evaluate community level education programs available to address hate-motivated violence. They also voted to accept the NEA Civil Rights Committee report with a call to assist affiliates to gather information on incidents of bigotry.

Information about the amendment can be obtained by writing NEA-GLC, P.O. Box 314, Roosevelt, NJ 08555. ▼

Polish embassy denies Walesa remarks on gays

by Rex Wockner

The Polish embassy in Washington on August 2 dismissed reports that Solidarity party leader Lech Walesa has promised to eliminate homosexuals and drug addicts from Polish society if he is elected president.Members of the Polish Lambda Association said that at Solidarity's annual convention in April, Walesa promised to "eliminate homosexuals and drug users" from society if he were elected president.

"One of our writers heard it himself; he was there," said Ryszard Kisiel, editor of the four-year-old Gdansk gay magazine Filo.

In a letter faxed to Harry Britt, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, embassy press

secretary Boguslaw Majewski wrote: "All press coverage on this issue is based on an untrue information. What Mr. Walesa had actually stated was the necessity of 'solving the problem of drug using,' and not, as some media rephrased it, 'eliminating drug addicts.' Mr. Walesa had never mentioned anything about homosexuals.”

Majewski wrote that the embassy's statement was based on "confirmation from Warsaw." In a telephone interview, he attributed the denial to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"We can only suspect that such information was confirmed directly with the associates of Mr. Chairman," Majewski said, "but I can't say exactly with whom. We received it from the foreign ministry." ▼

Dallas boycotts Miller Beer

The Dallas Gay Alliance (DGA) boycott of Miller Beer and Marlboro, both owned by Philip Morris, Inc., received a boost when a gay bar owners' association, the Dallas avern Guild, agreed to remove the products from their bars last month. "We appreciate the Guild's awareness of how profits from Miller beer sales flow into the pockets of Jesse Helms through parent Philip Morris' political action committee or contributions to the Jesse Helms Leadership Center in North Carolina,” DGA president Bruce Monroe said.

Miller and Marlboro products are no longer sold in businesses, restaurants and stores supporting the boycott in the heavily gay and lesbian Cedar SpringsOak Lawn area of Dallas. Several bars in the Deep Ellum section of Dallas, where the arts community has a major presence, have agreed to support the boycott as well, Monroe said.

"We asked Miller representatives lots of questions about their self-proclaimed

support of the gay and lesbian community," Monroe said. "But we found that it was not so much a commitment to our community, as it was marketing strategies to sell more beer. We need Miller to stand up to Jesse Helms and let the country know that bigotry and hatred will not be tolerated by corporate America," he said.

Miller, the best selling beer in gay bars, has stated it has a strong commitment to gay rights, but so far has failed to provide any detailed list of corporate contributions from either Miller or its parent, Philip Morris, Inc., to AIDS-related or gay causes.

Miller has tried to avoid a national boycott, saying the Dallas decision was merely a "local service problem,” but activists claim that the incentive to include Miller in the Philip Morris boycott had been brewing for several weeks and that Miller's time had run out.▼

The President's invitations to openly lesbian and gay Americans have caused considerable controversy among members of the far right. One conservative was quoted in July 26th's Washington Times stating that the invitation is “further evidence that the Bush administration gives lip service to social conservatives while making policy decisions in favor of the homosexual

lobby."

While not specifically mentioning AIDS or any other disability included in

Pentagon's institutionalized prejudice

by Congressman Gerry S. Studds

On October 17, 1989, I was handed a Defense Department study entitled "Nonconforming Sexual Orientations and Military Suitability." It was a document I had worked for over six months to obtain.

This report --the entirety of which appears in Gays in Uniform: The Pentagon's secret reports-is a scholarly, dispassionate, clear analysis of whether gays, lesbians and bisexuals are suitable to serve in the U.S. military. The Defense Department has long maintained that homosexuality is somehow patently "incompatible with military service," the exemplary military records of countless lesbian and gay veterans notwithstanding.

The study's finding is simple and unequivocal: that "sexuality is unrelated to job performance in the same way as is being leftor right-handed." While this conclusion may seem obvious to many, the Department of Defense evidently found it disturbing, and immediately tried to suppress the report.

Over five months of calling, writing and cajoling, my office was told variously that the report was “unavailable,” “still under consideration," that it would “be released sometime soon," and on occasion even that “no such report exists." This stonewalling only served to underscore to me the document's importance. Finally, with assistance from House Armed Services Subcommittee chair-

In the letter to Britt, Majewski expressed "hope that this [embassy] statement will reach the public opinion in San Francisco."

"Something which I feel very deeply about," he explained by phone, "is that in recent times what Mr. Walesa says is misinterpreted by the press. I am astonished that the American press is considering such absolutely strange

elements like his alleged attitudes toward this kind of society [gays]. This is a very bad attitude [for the American press]."

the legislation, the President spoke eloquently of the need to end discrimination of all kinds in the United States. He noted that the Americans with Disabilities Act "brings us closer to the day when no American will be denied their basic right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We must not and will not rest until every American man and woman with a dream has a chance to embrace it. We will not accept, we will not excuse, we will not tolerate discrimination in America." ▼

woman Patricia Schroeder, our persistence paid off and the report landed on my desk.

An unanticipated by-product of our struggle came when, three days after we publicly released the report, a second Pentagon study of homosexuality arrived in an unmarked manila envelope. This second report rather startingly suggested that gay men and lesbians display military suitability "that is as good or better than the average heterosexual.” I cannot help but wonder how many more Defense Department studies of this nature await our discovery.

These materials are significant historical documents. They effectively debunk the military's baseless contention that gay men and lesbians are by their very nature unsuitable for military service. they will no doubt play an important role in ending the shameful discrimination and persecution to which our own military daily subjects an entire class of our citizenry.

This Institutionalized prejudice is a national disgrace, and has no place in our armed forces. When it ends-and some day it will-openly gay and lesbians generals, admirals, pilots, and foot-soldiers will stand as proud examples of the depth, breadth, and capabilities of our gay and lesbian community. These men and women will, as visible members of our nation's military, be on the frontlines in the continuing fight to end homophobia wherever it may be found.▼

Excerpted from Gays in Uniform: The Pentagon's Secret Reports, edited by Kate Dyer, introduction by Congressman Gerry S. Studds (Alyson Publications: Boston).

Majewski said that to his knowledge, Walesa “has never stated anything publicly" about homosexuality or about the rapidly growing Polish gay and lesbian moveLent. He provided additional telephone and fax numbers for Walesa's Gdansk office.

Walesa's alleged anti-gay comments were attributed to him in July by seven Poles who attended the 12th World Conference of the International Lesbian and Gay Association in Stockholm.▼

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