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EI)e Atlanta Journal □ the Atlanta constitution
r SUNDAY, AUGUST
When AIDS
Comes Home
EUGENE, ORE., JULY 11, 1989: in his last moments of life, Tom Fox is surrounded by grieving loved ones at Sacred Heart Hospital His mother, Doris, strokes his head to reassure him,
also with Tom are his father Bob Fox Sr, his older brother, Bob Jr., and his younger brother, John (right)
The Life and Death of Tom Fox
A 16-Page Special Section
Article by Steve SternbergoPhotography by Michael A. Schwarz
ship ordinance, passed by the city council
in May and repealed by referendum in
November, was the first in the U.S. to
confer even minimal legal recognition of
gay couples. In October, six gay couples
registered in Copenhagen when Denmark
became the first nation in the world to do
so.
Karen Thompson at last was permitted
to visit Sharon Kowalski in February. The
New York Times called Karen's struggle
against the court-appointed guardian of
her lover “a cause celebre and important
symbol around the country for groups
who advocate gay rights, rights for the
disabled, and women’s rights.”
In July, a New York judge ruled that a
gay male lover had the same rights as a
spouse in a rent-control case. The
Washington Post called the decision “his
toric,” and readers around the nation were
served essays on the changing legal defi
nition of the family.
But the fascination with gay families
really showed up in a raft of features.
Newspapers and magazines of every
stripe (not to mention TV talk shows) had
something to say about a lesbian “baby
boom.” The Journal-Constitution, for
instance, printed an illustrated feature on
lesbian mothers a week after Valentine's
Day. There was even a mainstream maga
zine cover story on the case for gay mar
riage: The New Republic's “Here Comes
the Groom.”
And gays in the military also got a lot
of attention. Perry Watkins and Miriam
Ben-Shalom won a few rounds in their
legal skirmishes during 1989, though no
resounding victories. (Did you catch them
together on Sally Jesse Raphael?) The
University of Wisconsin faculty voted to
oust ROTC from campus unless the
armed forces stop discriminating against
us.
The big news, though, was the October
leak to the press that a consultant advised
the U.S. Department of Defense to stop
their policies of harassment and exclu
sion. Naturally, DoD rejected and hushed
up these reports - successfully, until
someone sent copies to U.S. Rep. Gerry
Studds.
Group Warns Gays:
Don't Flaunt Your Ways
—Los Angeles Times, 11114189
We took a lot of abuse in 1989, and the
straight press even reported some of it.
Consider the furor over the Mapplethorpe
exhibit. The tremendous, documented
increase in anti-gay violence. The investi
gation of Texas judge Jack Hampton fol
lowing his comments on the insignifi
cance of murdering “queers,” which
ended with him keeping his job. The
speech by William Allen - chairman of
the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, for
God's sake - at a conference hosted by the
California Coalition for Traditional
Values. (The speech was titled, “Blacks?
Animals? Homosexuals? What Is a
Minority?” Other commission members
denounced it. Allen kept his job.)
While some politicians courted the gay
vote, others exploited hatred and fear of
us. The Republican National Committee
even smeared House Speaker Tom Foley
by starting a rumor that Foley was as
queer as Barney Frank.
And did you hear that the backlash is
over? Yes, the the New York Times report
ed in October that a Gallup poll shows
public “tolerance” of homosexual rela
tions between consenting adults has
recovered to its level before 1982,
“before public concern over spread of
AIDS caused a backlash against homo
sexuals.”
Quick, somebody tell Jesse Helms and
the skinheads.
Despite all these observations, I'm
encouraged that the media considers les
bian and gay life, at least sometimes, sim
ply human life. The term “hate crimes”
includes crimes perpetrated against us
because we’re queer. We're not always
dismissed as freaky, irrelevant perverts.
Keith Clark observes that U.S. newspa
pers are getting used to calling us lesbians
and gays; only a few - notably the
Chicago Tribune and USA Today - seem
to cling exclusively to the word “homo
sexuals.”
The resurgence of the pro-choice
stance in politics, which dominated analy
sis and speculation after the November
elections, was good news for us too. The
Wall Street Journal, no less, pointed out
that Georgia's sodomy law “stirs furor
over the role of the state in intimate rela
tions.” The Massachusetts legislature
passed a gay rights bill.
And in one of the great gender-bender
stories of the last year, music reviewers
everywhere noted the huge popularity of
female singers such as Tracy Chapman,
k.d. lang, and Atlanta's own Indigo Girls.
Those “gender-free” love lyrics could be
about a person of the same sex. The per
formers coyly refuse to clarify things,
while their albums go gold and platinum.
Does this signify greater acceptance of
us out there in mainstream America? Or
does it mean that we're acceptable only
when we hide and don’t flaunt our ways?
Keep an eye on the straight press for
clues to the answer.
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February 15,1990 • Southern Voice/5