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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

MARCH 19, 1993

NEWS BRIEFS

Gay Games meets with old foe

San Francisco--The executive committee of the Federation of Gay Games visited the U.S. Olympic Committee's headquarters recently in an effort to open a dialogue between the two organizations.

The meetings were an informational exchange with several USOC staff members explaining to the group how the USOC operates in a number of areas including event operations, membership, marketing, and administration. The two groups also discussed issues such as HIV in sports and sexual orientation sensitivity.

"The Federation of Gay Games approached us about opening up a line of communication, and we were happy to meet with them," said USOC executive director Harvey W. Schiller. "It was an excellent informational exchange."

The Gay Games are held every four years and have been in existence since 1982. They were originally called the Gay Olympics--the present name results from a bitter lawsuit won by the USOC in 1988. That case resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the word olympics could be copyrighted.

"The meeting was very positive and productive," said Federation of Gay Games Co-President Susan Kennedy and Rick Peterson. "We talked about everything

from HIV in sports to event logistics. We feel this is the beginning of a long, beneficial relationship."

Gay Games IV is scheduled for New York City in 1994 and is expected to attract 15,000 athletes from more than 50 countries. For more information about Gay Games IV, contact New York in '94 at 212-

633-9494.

Gay love in Bible drives Knesset nuts

An Israeli legislator provoked a walkout of the Knesset by religious colleagues when she cited the biblical story of David's love for Jonathan during a debate on gays in the army. In fact, the uproar eclipsed discussion of Yael Dayan's charges that the army discriminates against lesbians and gays.

Angry lawmakers tried to shout down Dayan, daughter of the late soldier-statesman Moshe Dayan, when she quoted David's eulogy for his friend Jonathan, son of King Saul, in II Samuel 1:26:

"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love for me was wonderful, passing the love of women," intoned Ms. Dayan, a member of the governing Labor party.

Members of the ultra-religious Shas party, Labor's coalition partner, stormed out of

Breast cancer found to be higher among lesbians

Continued from Page 1

was the rate of childbearing among lesbians. Having children cuts a woman's risk of breast cancer, but 70 percent of lesbians were childless, according to the data.

That alone makes lesbians 80 percent more likely to develop breast cancer and to die from it, Haynes said.

When she looked at alcohol use, another accepted risk factor, she found that 9.2 percent of lesbians over age 40 were heavy drinkers, compared with 2.4 percent of women in the general population.

"When I added up all the risks--and I don't think there's much overlap between these risks--I came up with between a two and three-fold higher risk of developing breast cancer," Haynes said.

"They are terrifying figures," said Susan Hester, founder of the Mary-Helen

Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer, a patient support group in Washington, D.C. "And I believe them, because I lived through my partner's death from breast cancer."

Haynes did the study for the National Lesbian and Gay Health Foundation. She has not yet submitted it to a scientific journal for publication.

Surveys also showed that lesbians were far less likely to have breast exams, mammograms and other preventive care that is known to cut the risk of breast cancer, Haynes said.

She said lesbians were less likely to examine their own breasts for lumps that could indicate cancer and slightly more likely to be overweight than were heterosexual women, another factor that raises the risk.

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All able-bodied Israelis are drafted into the army, regardless of their sexual orientation. But some gay soldiers say they are discriminated against.

Gay publisher wins award

Alyson Publications has been named winner of the 1993 Award for New England Publishing, to be presented in April by the New England Booksellers Association (NEBA). It is only the fourth publisher to win the award, and the first gay-identified press to receive it.

Rusty Drugan, NEBA's executive director, said that "we wanted to recognize Alyson's long history of going into uncharted territory to meet community needs. We need to see more of this risk-taking and social conscience in the book industry." He cited the company's new line of children's books that feature lesbian and gay parents, and also the book You Can Do Something About AIDS, a non-profit project for which publisher Sasha Alyson had generated industrywide support.

Group says Peace Corps gay rule is watered down

Washington--Lesbian, gay and bisexual veterans of the Peace Corps say the agency's newly-adopted employment policy on sexual orientation is "watered down" and does not reflect the original policy change that had been proposed. On January 19, the Peace Corps adopted a policy statement which states "recognizing that all employees can contribute to the accomplishment of its mission, the Peace Corps has never condoned discrimination based on sexual orientation."

The Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (LGBRPCV) say the statement does not go far enough, and backs away from original language that would hav more directly stated that the agency will not discriminate based on sexual orientation. The final adoption of the policy change comes after a long waiting period, and many promises from Peace Corps. A policy review committee, which included LGBRPCV members, first began working on the policy change in the late summer of 1991.

"We are quite disappointed in the last minute change in language, though we do recognize this as a step in the right direction," said Cynthia Pelak, the group's coordinator.

Texas sodomy law struck down

An appellate court in Texas affirmed a ruling by a lower court striking down the Texas "sodomy" law, and barring the City of Dallas and the Dallas Police Department from using the law as a basis for rejecting lesbian and gay applicants. The February 10 ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal Defense on behalf of Mica England, a Dallas woman denied work as a police officer because of the police department's declared anti-gay hiring policies.

The Texas Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of Judge Larry Fuller of the Travis County District Court, who had declared unconstitutional Section 21.06 ofthe Texas State Penal Code, which criminalizes certain "homosexual conduct." Lambda challenged the law under the Texas state constitution, which guarantees the right to privacy and equal protection. The judge's order thus remains in effect, and means that neither the state nor the city may enforce the "sodomy" law in any way, whether in citizens' bedrooms or as a pretext for denial of employment.

Courts in Michigan and Kentucky have also struck down their sodomy laws.

Gays can be in Boston parade

A Massachusetts state appeals court judge upheld a ruling March 1 allowing a gay and lesbian Irish group to march in the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade through South Boston.

In an impassioned decision, Massachusetts Court of Appeals Judge Frederick L. Brown likened attempts to exclude the gays to bigotry, which he called "an obscenity."

"As a human being, not as a judge, I pray that one day hate and fear as well as discrimination... will, like the dinosaur, be only a distant memory," Brown wrote.

The Irish American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Pride Group of Boston sought to march for the second consecutive year over the objections of the sponsor, the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Hiller Zobel ruled last year--and again in February--that the gay group could march in the 92-year-old parade because it was a public

event.

...but not New York's

Angry that they're banned from the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization organized a protest down Fifth Avenue hours before the march.

On February 26, Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy of Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled that the city's mandating the inclusion of the gay group was "patently unconstitutional."

"Insofar as a parade constitutes protected free speech, it cannot be a public accommodation," the judge wrote in his decision. Duffy's ruling only applied to this year's parade, leaving room for future appeals.

The Ancient Order of Hibernians, which has sponsored the parade almost every year since 1840, picked up their parade permit March 1.

Mayor David Dinkins and many other elected officials last year declined to march in the parade after the Hibernians, which controlled the event, did not allow the gay and lesbian group to march. It was the first time since 1923 that the city's mayor did not participate in the event.

Gov. Mario Cuomo has already said he won't march in the parade this year because of the banning of the gay group.

In 1991, Dinkins marched with ILGO, where he was the target of obscenities and thrown beer cans.

Cleveland Clinic working on new AIDS drug

Joint research by the Cleveland Clinic and the National Institutes of Health indicates that the function of genes causing cancer and viral infections, including AIDS, may be blocked by using a new drug.

The drug, 2-5A-antisense, causes the breakdown of unwanted messenger RNA. Messenger RNA determines the protein that will be made in the cell. When the unwanted RNA is broken down, the gene cannot function.

The study results were published in the February 15 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The research is in its very early stages," said Dr Robert Silverman of the Cleveland Clinic's Cancer Biology Department," but our result are exciting.

Porn star held in murder

Gay porn star Tim Lowe was arrested in February and charged with the murder of a 52-year-old San Francisco man with whom he had been living for several months. ▼

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