Newspaper Page Text
Volume 1, Number 1
Taking Pride in Our Culture
March 1,1988
News in Brief
Current and informative,
abbreviated articles to keep y ou
updated on what’s happening locally
and nationally, Pg, 2'
Calendar
Tells you who's where and what's
happening in Atlanta in
entertainment. We also include
dates and times of organizational
meetings if you would like to get
involved, Pg. 8
Featuring arts and entertainment
with an emphasis on local artists. In
this issue, Atlantan Frank Abbott’s
book, New Men, New Minds, and an
. ^ - v - : v;: r "■
a gay musical by Patrick Hutchison
and Dan Pruitt. Also, lane Rules
newest release, Memory Board.
reviewed by local writer Amanda
AIDS Focus
Delivers updated reports on
accounts of PWA’s, PWARCs,
professionals and others involved
with the AIDS crisis in the
continuing series, ’’Living With
Keep Refrigerated
\dmit it, you love to read your
horoscope, you turn first to the
comics, and you can’t keep from
reading advice columns. We’ve got
it all, "Bittersweet’, an original
cartoon strip by local artist Charles
Haver, "Dear Nadisa", the lesbian
advice column you've been waiting
for, and "Star Gays" to help you plot
your next two weeks. Pg 14
Our roving sports reporter takes
you "From Fields to Courts" in
Atlanta sports. Michael McMillan
previews the coming sports season
and provides Atlanta lesbians and
gay men with the ’big picture’. Look
for his amusing accounts in future
issues.
AIM Reunites Mothers & Children
Her story is a break your heart one. HI call
her Sarah. She is a large black woman who
once served two years in Hardwick Prison. Her
son was fourteen years old when she went to
prison. He told her he would just stay in their
apartment until she returned. "He didn't
understand where I was going, how long it
would be before I would come back." Of
course, her son didn't stay in the apartment. He
went to live with his father up north, far from
the prison where his mother was confined.
Sarah and her son had only one contact in those
two years. Sarah became a "bad mother"
because she was doing prison time.
" The past beat me up for eighteen or twenty
years," Sarah says now. "My family didn't ever
talk feelings and I didn't want to have any
feelings." This was why Sarah got so involved
with drugs. She could shoot up and stop
feeling. She and her sot have never talked
about her prison time, have never talked about
her past drug addiction. He's married now, has
children of his own. Sarah is working up to
having that talk with him about her feelings,
about his feelings. She is involved in an AA
program and she is in process of taking
responsibility for having feelings, good ones
and hard ones. "I always thought it was too
painful to feel," she says, "so I dealt with things
by not dealing at all."
Another area that Sarah avoided dealing with
was the fact that she is a lesbian. She says she
denied confronting that for a long time despite
the fact that her family and friends often
referred to her female friends as the ones who
were important to her. "I wasn't even important
to myself," she says, "so drugs and avoiding
feeling, although that was considered selfish,
kept anything or anybody else from being
important." This has changed. Sarah has a long
distance lover who recently came to visit her.
Continued on page 7
Photo by Gerald Jones
10,000 Rally For Homeless
On Saturday, February 27, ten thousand
people rallied and marched through the streets
of Atlanta in support of the homeless.
Sponsored by the National Coalition for the
Homeless, an impressive list of speakers
stepped forward to address the assembled
marchers at pre- and post-march rallies.
Present at the rallies were Democratic National
Chairperson Paul Kirk, and all of the
Democratic presidential candidates: Dukakis,
Gephardt, Gore, Hart, Jackson, and Simon.
Also present at the rally was Dr. Lenora Fulani,
independent presedential candidate for the
New Alliance Party. Noticeably absent were
any of the Republican presidential candidates.
Moderator Tom Houck, of WGST, Atlanta,
urged the people at the march to use their vote
to "defend the homeless." He also repeatedly
jabbed at the Republican candidates, leading
protesters in chanting "Where are they?...
Absent!"
Also present at the march was a vocal crowd
of lesbians and gay men, estimated at 100, who
not only marched as an independent contingent,
but were also scattered throughout other groups
present.
Among the organized lesbian and gay
groups at the march were the MCC, the Atlanta
March Committee, LEGAL, and the Atlanta
Gay Center.
Melinda Daniels, a Gore delegate-elect to
the Democratic National Convention, stated
that she was there "as a Gore supporter, a
lesbian concerned for all people,...and a person
seeking an end to AIDS."
Hie National Coalition for the Homeless has
established a three-point program to provide
short and long term solutions to the homeless
crisis. They are: to establish a national right to
Continued on page 7
AIDS Bill Revised
The most comprehensive AIDS legislation to
;;mc bef -. ,fr.. Georgia General Assembly to
date, the Omnibus AIDS Bill (H.B. 1281), has
come out of Senate committee and will be
considered by the full Senate beginning
Monday, February 29. The bill, originally
drafted by Representative George Hocks and
the House Health and Ecology Subcommittee,
is supported by Governor Joe Frank Harris.
Representative Hook's draft of the bill was
the product of a summer-long series of public
hearings held by the sub-committee. Prompted
by growing public demand for legislative
action on the AIDS epidemic, the House of
Representatives passed what the Georgia ADS
Coalition referral to as the "Ominous"
Omnibus AIDS Bill by a vote of 162 to 11.
Voting against the Bill were Representatives
Lorenzo Benn, Tyrone Brooks, George Brown,
Mary Cummings, Grace Davis, Nan Orrock,
William Randall, LaNett Stanley, Mable
Thomas, Mike Thurmond, and Juanita
Williams.
The House bill contained criminal sanctions
for those who knowingly transmit the virus,
and included perspiration and tears as means of
transmission; mandatory testing provisions for
prison inmates, juvenile delinquents, the
mentally disabled, and those arrested for
"AIDS transmitting crimes" - solicitation for
prostitution, sodomy, and adultery; and
noticeably lacking were any confidentiality
provisions.
The version of HB 1281 passed by the
Senate Human Resources committee, chaired
by Senator Pierre Howard, was recommended
to the full Senate for approval on Friday,
February 26. Hie Senate version of the bill,
however, was substantially changed from the
version passed by the House of
Representatives.
Continued on page 2
