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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