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SOUTHERN M Debuque VOICE Gays Do It orsyth Style Page 3 | Vol. 1, No. 2 Taking Pride in Our Culture March 15,1988 INSIDE News in Brief Gore courts gays; Britain anti-gay bill passes; gay attorney sues Connecticut Mutual; National Security Agency fires open gay; HRCF and Fairness Fund merge, and more. Page 2 At Odds Media watcher, Peter Dakutis, takes on Jasper Dorsey and the Neighbor Newspapers. Watch for At Odds in each issue and wield that pen! Page 3 Counterculture Different under the microscope; Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square and A Lesbian Photo Album reviewed; Divine dead at 42. Page 7 Calendar It's all right here for you; what to do, where to go in Atlanta. The next two weeks are full of it! Check it out Page 8 Sports It's volleyball, or is it? Sports reporter Michael McMillan's look at Hotlanta Volleyball makes you wonder, folks. Page 11 Keep Refrigerated More bittersweetness from cartoonist, Charles Haver, Nadisa puts her two "sense" in; and Martia Proba reads your planets. Page 14 Two in Twenty The world's first lesbian soap opera. Good fun and good politics. Reviewed in Sojourner: The Women's Forum. Why Two in Twenty ?" Because one in ten sounds so lonely!" Page 11 Score: LEGAL-3, The System-0 Dick Rhodes, Melinda Daniels, Lee Harrington and Paul Garrard Celebrate Victory ■photo by Leigh Connor Gay Man to Run for Ga. House In a surprise election night move, local gay activist, Dick Rhodes, announced his candidacy for the Georgia House of Representatives in District 46. The seat is being vacated by incumbent Rep. Cathey W. Steinberg (D), who has announced her intention to run for the Public Service Commission. In response to charges that his will be a single-issue campaign, Rhodes stressed that he is" a gay man running for political office, ... not a gay candidate. As a gay man, I realize that every issue is important to the gay and lesbian community." Rhodes circulated throughout Atlanta’s gay and lesbian community prior to his announcement assessing the support he might receive as Georgia's first openly gay candidate in recent history. The newcomer to Georgia politics found a "reasonably wide base of support" for his candidacy in the traditionally conservative 46th district District 46 encompasses much of the Lenox Road-Buford Highway area in Dekalb County. The candidate attributes his burst into politics to the efforts of Lee Harrington and Tim Forchet of LEGAL (Legislate Equality for Gays and Lesbians), who backed his successful bid to be a Gore delegate to the Democratic National Convention from the 4th Congressional district. Among the issues that Rhodes will highlight, both during his campaign and the Convention, are drug and alcohol abuse, human rights, anti-lesbian and gay violence and adult illiteracy. During an exclusive interview, Rhodes stressed his viability as a candidate among mainstream heterosexual voters. He proudly points to an award he received for his volunteer work as a member of the Valley Brook Baptist Church. The award, the Rainbow Award for Positive Christian Living, was given for his work organizing fund-raising dinners to send economically disadvantaged young people to summer camp, and a series of lectures on alcoholism and spiritual economics. The award is given for exemplifying a "positive Christian faith in daily life." At press time, Rhodes was planning an organizational meeting for his campaign staff. Interested volunteers may call (404) 636-5410 for information. Contributions may be sent to Lynn Merkle, Treasurer, The Dick Rhodes Campaign Fund, P.O. Box 7636, Atlanta, Ga. 30357. The Atlanta-based Democratic club, LEGAL (Legislate Equality for Gays and Lesbians), hosted an Election Central party the night of the primary elections at Backstreet, a local bar, to track incoming results, and support the hopes of their five delegate candidates to the Democratic National Convention. The five delegate candidates were Gil Robison and Joe Williford from the 5th Congressional district, and Dick Rhodes, Melinda Daniels and Paul Garrard from the 4th Congressional district. All of the five delegates-elect were slated to Senator Albert Gore's (D-TN) campaign, and were pinning their hopes to reach the Party's July convention on Gore's ability to win votes in the metropolitan 4th and 5th districts. As the night progressed, Gore, The Rev. Jesse Jackson (D) and Gov. Michael Dukakis (D-MA) battled back and forth across the state of Georgia for the lion's share of the State's Democratic vote. All of those present at Election Central quickly ceded the 5th district to Jackson, who swept all six of the district's delegates. CBS News Anchorperson, Dan Rather, predicted that Jackson would win as early as 8:00 PM EST. In the 4th district, however, everyone watched with anticipation as Gore, Jackson and Dukakis constantly replaced each other as front-runner in the heated race for delegates. (See SouthernVoice Volume 1,Number 1, for a detailed analysis of the Georgia Democratic Party's system of delegate selection.) When the last votes were tallied, Gore sneaked by Jackson with 21,461 (30.6%) votes. Jackson earned 21,306 (30.4%) votes, and Dukakis finished the night a very close third with 20,036 (28.6%) votes. Due to Gore's winning margin of 155 votes, Rhodes- a gay man, and Daniels- a lesbian, will be going to the Convention, along with Rita Valenti, A Georgia Nursing Association Gore delegate, who promised during the January caucuses to support lesbian/gay rights and AIDS issues at the Convention. Garrard, a gay man, will be attending as an alternate. A jubilant Lee Harrington, President of LEGAL, proclaimed at a press conference, "Aren't bloc voting and slates nice words in Georgia tonight?", referring to a traditional reticence among gay and lesbian voters to band together and vote as one unit, the tactic that enabled blacks to gain politcal power in the early civil rights movement. Continued on Page 3 AIDS Bill Awaits Signature The Georgia House of Representatives and the Georgia Senate overwhelmingly passed the Committee of Conference substitute to HB 1281, the Omnibus AIDS Bill on March 7, the last day of the 1988 General Assembly Session. The bill now awaits Governor Joe Frank Hanris' signature before becoming law. The final version of the bill, which was strongly revised from Representative George Hooks House Health and Ecology Sub-committee's version, was rated a 6 on a scale of 10 by Gil Robison, Lobbyist for the Georgia AIDS Legislative Coalition. Robison reported feeling "satisfied that we got the worst provisions (of the original draft) taken out." This same attitude was mirrored by other AIDS activists and organizations. The bill is extensive in its exercise of the State's police powers, and mentions AIDS prevention- education only in the opening section, which states, "The Department of Human Resources is encouraged to contunue its efforts to educate all Georgians about the disease, it causitive agent, and its means of transmission." Continued on Page 3