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SOUTHERN VOCE What to Do When Shit Happens Page 13 Vol. 2, No. 2 Taking Pride in Our Culture March 16,1989 Anti-Abortion Groups Try New Tack Billboards Seek to Spawn Lawsuits Hate Crimes Bill Goes to Congress; Local Police Await "Instructions" Ar/anra-Pro-Choice forces in the city face a new threat from anti-abortion groups, as a well-funded organization is dotting the city with billboards asking women if they are "Hurting after an abortion" and offering a toll-free number to call for help. The billboards, according to abortion answering service in Chattanooga. ARC has sought and received funding from local churches, most notably the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, and Mt. Vernon Baptist In Atlanta, a steering committee made up of seven businessmen whose names have not been released, heads the after an abortion? MEDICAL ♦ LEGAL * EMOTIONAL HELP rights activists, are part of an effort to bring lawsuits against the clinics and force them to close. The 60 billboards that have appeared since last November are rented by the Tennessee-based American Rights Coalition, an organization with close ties to right-wing evangelists, working for an end to abortion. The 800 number reaches an effort. According to Melanie Vencion, assistant to the president of ARC, Charlie Wysong, the billboards are going up in several cities, although Atlanta is the main target of the campaign. When women call the number, says Cont'd Page 6 Georgia General Assembly Update The Genera! Assembly was scrambling madly to finish its 40 days of work as Southern Voice went to press prior to the constitutionally mandated end of session. Funding for many projects of concern to the gay/lesbian and AIDS-affected communities appeared to be in better shape after ; the two Houses reached a compromise agreement on an increase in the sales tax. • A housecleaning bill to provide Durable Power o,f Attorney for Health Care Purposes (HB 999) as an addition to the current laws concerning durable power of attorney was introduced by Rep. Jim Martin (D-Fulton). The purpose of the medical power of attorney, according to Georgia AIDS Legislative Coalition lobbyist Gil Robison, is to specifically appoint one person to make all medical decisions for an individual in the event of incapacitation. Although it is unlikely that HB 999 will be passed this session, Robison said he thought it would have a "good chance" during next year's session. • The "Resaca Pest House Bill" (HB 974) would allow county Boards of Health to regulate hospices and nursing homes that house terminally ill people with communicable diseases. The bill is, of course, AIDS motivated, and stems from a dispute between a landowner in the Northwest Georgia town of Resaca and the Monastery of the Glorious Ascencion, which wants to care for people with AIDS, Grady Stanley, the landowner, reportedly feared contamination of the air, the ground, and the water with the AIDS virus, and induced Reps. Griffin and Foster (both Democrats from Whitfield) and Meadows (D-Mcriwether) to introduce HB 974. Although the bill can not be passed as new legislation in this session, Robison and others are watching closely to see that it does not get attached to another bill at an amendment • The Department of Human Resources (DHR) budget for FY 90 appeals to be in good position to benefit from the new sales tax. A compromise on the DHR budget was reached before the sales tax was announced, in which the budget amount is doubled from last year's figure of $660,000. DHR requested $3.5 million at the beginning of the session, however, and many legislative watchers feel that they might receive something closer to that amount before the session is over. A "hate crimes" bill, which would require the Justice Department to collect comprehensive national data on crimes of prejudice committed because of race, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity, was reintroduced last month in the U.S. Congress. The legislation, known as the Hate Crimes Statistics Bill, was overwhelmingly approved in the House during last year's congressional session. However, it was stalled in the Senate because of threats made by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) to attach anti homosexual amendments, despite unanimous approval for the measure by the Senate's judiciary committee. If enacted, the bill would require state and local law enforcement jurisdictions to forward bias-related crime data to the Justice Department. The Atlanta police department is apparently awaiting passage of the bill before they are willing to absorb the cost of updating report forms and computer information-gathering THE HATE CRIMES STATISTICS ACT programs. A spokesperson said that the department cannot justify the cost-estimated at several hundreds of thousands of dollars-of changing existing crime reporting systems now, if these systems will have to be changed later to comply with provisions of any new legislation. The Atlanta Gay Center, in response to what it believes is a growing number of crimes committed because of anti-gay bias, announced March 1 that it will undertake its own survey of hate-related crimes against gays and lesbians in metro Atlanta. "The police say they have no statistics on the number of attacks against gays," said AGC Anti-Gay Violence Task Force chair, William Gripp, "because their reports don’t have any space for listing the cause of the attack." The results of the survey are expected to require as much as a year to compile. "We have people driving to the Midtown area for the express purpose of attacking gays," Gripp said, referring to the arrest of two Douglas County men for the murder of a Tucker woman February 7 in the Buckhead district. Police said that the men drove into Atlanta to beat and rob homosexuals. Meanwhile, Police Chief Morris Redding has directed police intelligence units to begin submitting monthly analysis reports of hate-related crimes, in an attempt to provide data that could reveal the extent of crimes of prejudice committed in Atlanta. Public Safety Commissioner George Napper initiated the action in late February, a spokesperson said. Redding's first report, due by mid-March, could reveal the extent of crimes of prejudice committed in the city, even though crime report forms officers currently use are not set up to determine if crimes are specifically prejudice-related. "Both Commission Napper and Police Chief Redding are sensitive to this issue, particularly as it relates to the gay and lesbian community," the source said. Last September the deputy chief of police for criminal investigations asked zone commanders to forward reports of suspected hate crimes to intelligence units for study. Gay and lesbian groups predict floor votes on the Hate Statistics Bill in both the House and Senate within the next few montlis. In 1987,7,008 reported cases of verbal or physical abuse aimed at the gay and lesbian community could be documented from random surveys compiled nation-wide by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, up from 4,946 reported incidents in 1986. - Matt Moline