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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE MARCH 11, 1994

Women Needed

Seeking participants for study

"Early family life and adult experiences"

Conducted at the Kent State

University School of Nursing

Women over 18 needed to complete an anonymous, mail questionnaire that addresses some sensitive, but important, issues for women including how positive and negative childhood experiences may continue to influence women's lives as adults. Questionnaire will probably take under an hour to complete.

Any women interested in the project please call Dr. Claire Draucker at 1-800-569-7886

(a confidential, toll free line) for further information or to request a questionnaire. Study results will be available for participants.

***We would appreciate your involvement in this project. Information you provide could help nurses who provide health care for families and women.**

HIV+ people may be able to enter U.S. for Games

Washington-The administration is moving to waive the rule barring people with HIV from entering the United States to allow HIV-positive foreigners to attend the Gay Games in New York in June.

Duke Austin, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said his agency will draw up visa guidelines.

U.S. policy is to deny visas to anyone with a "communicable disease of public health significance," which includes HIV, Austin said.

That restriction has frequently drawn fire from AIDS activists, and it led planners to move the annual International Conference on AIDS from Boston to the Netherlands in 1992. During his campaign for president, Bill Clinton said he would end the policy relating to HIV, but has been unable to get the change through Congress.

The State Department had issued a cable February 23 to "all diplomatic and consular posts" saying that Attorney General Janet Reno used her discretionary authority "to grant a blanket waiver for HIV-afflicted

visa applicants seeking to visit the United States for 30 days or less to attend or participate in this event." A copy of the cable was obtained by the Associated Press.

However, on February 24 Reno said that cable was issued prematurely, adding, “I'm not even aware of the issue."

A State Department official later conceded that the cable was sent out in error.

"It's not policy until INS says it's policy," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They're the ones that authorize waivers, not us."

Austin said he did not know what the terms of the waivers would be-how long the visas would be good for, or whether foreign travelers would have to declare their HIV status.

However, the cable said that applicants would not be required to state their HIV status and that the waiver would be valid for 30 days. It also said visa applicants must show proof, such as tickets, of their intent to attend or participate in the Gay Games IV and Cultural Festival.

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Phelps unable to disrupt Randy Shilts' funeral

San Francisco-Nearly 3,000 people gathered to remember journalist Randy Shilts, who began chronicling the spread of AIDS before the disease had a name. Mourners drove off a small group of antigay demonstrators who threatened to disrupt the service.

Shilts, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle who began covering AIDS in the early 1980s, died of the virus February 16. He was 42.

Inside the church, a crowd of more than 1,200 spilled into the aisles. Outside, a crowd estimated at more than 1,500 listened to the service over loudspeakers.

Many carried signs opposing Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, who had vowed to disrupt

the service.

Phelps has become infamous in the Midwest for picketing funerals of gays who died of AIDS, carrying large signs with anti-gay slurs on them.

About a dozen Phelps supporters arrived soon after the service started, carrying signs bearing such slogans as "Shilts in Hell."

The crowd greeted them with a deafening chorus of boos, and a rain of eggs and pieces of fruit. Moments later, they fled with a police escort.

England compromises in lowering gay consent age

London-Gay rights supporters shouted "Burn the place down!" outside Parliament after lawmakers refused to lower the age of consent for sex between men to 16-the age of consent for heterosexuals and lesbians.

The House of Commons voted February 21 to lower the age of consent for gay men from 21 to 18 but rejected an amendment that would have lowered it to 16.

Prime Minister John Major, seeking compromise on a divisive issue, had backed the proposal to lower the age to 18.

The age of 16 amendment was sponsored by Conservative lawmaker Edwina Currie and backed by the opposition Labor Party and the British Medical Association.

OBFAA

BURGLAR & FIRE ALARM ASSOCIATIO

Sex between men of any age was outlawed in Britain until 1967. Sex between women has never been illegal, supposedly because officials lacked the nerve to explain to Queen Victoria what lesbians did.

Men convicted of violating the age of gay consent can be sentenced to up to five years' imprisonment, but the law is not strictly enforced.

At 21, Britain had the highest age of consent for gay sex in the 12-nation European Union. The age of consent for both heterosexual and homosexual activity is 15 in France, 12 in Spain, and 17 in Ireland. It is 18 in U.S. states, excepting those that have sodomy laws.

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