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SOUTHERN VOICE NOVEMBER17/1994
Patricia Fleming to continue
serving as AIDS czar
Washington, DC—Patricia S. Fleming was
named National AIDS Policy Coordinator on
November 10 in a ceremony in the West Wing
of the White House.
Fleming has served in that position on an
interim basis since August 2, when Kristine
Gebbie stepped down as AIDS czar. Fleming
initially said she intended to stay only a few
months before returning to her job as assistant
to Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Hu
man Services (HHS).
“In her short tenure as interim AIDS Policy
Coordinator, her tremendous performance has
convinced me that she is the best person for
the job,” said President Clinton in making the
announcement.
Clinton stressed that Fleming “will have
direct access to me and to members of the
Cabinet. She will play an important role in
developing our budget and our policy propos
als.”
AIDS activists largely praised Fleming for
her technical knowledge of the subject area
and of Washington politics. But they were
divided on whether she was the right person
and whether the office had been sufficiently
restructured to fulfill the President’s campaign
promise to create a true AIDS czar.
“We are delighted,” said Jeff Richardson,
executive director of Gay Men’s Health Crisis
in New York.
“This is one very highly connected per
son,” added Jim Graham, executive director of
the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington,
D.C. “Shalala and her are like this,” he said,
crossing his fingers. Then he spread his arms
wide apart, saying, “Gebbie and Shalala were
like this.”
Dan Bross, departing executive director of
the national umbrella group AIDS Action
Council, said that Fleming had clarified the
structural issues during her interim tenure in
the office. He believes she agreed to remain in
the job only after those issues were resolved.
Alexander Robinson, lobbyist on gay and
AIDS issues for the American Civil Liberties
Union, was less sanguine. “I’m trying to put
on a happy face,” Robinson said, adding that
he admires Fleming but believes her appoint
ment signifies a less than top priority commit
ment to AIDS by the Clinton administration.
“Symbols and ceremonies like today, with
out meaningful resources, are meaningless ges
tures,” said Bill Freeman, executive director
of the National Association of People With
AIDS. Last spring, the group pushed for
Gebbie’s resignation and a restructuring of the
office.
As for getting funding for AIDS from a
Republican-controlled Congress, Fleming said
she didn’t foresee problems. “I really believe
that AIDS is not a partisan issue whatsoever,”
she stated. “It is not politics, it’s people.”
Fleming noted that likely Senate Appro
priations Committee chair Mark Hatfield (R-
OR) “pushed through very large increases in
AIDS funding” when he led that committee in
the early and mid-1980s.
BOB ROEHR
Murders have Texas gays on edge
Odessa, TX—A string of grisly murders of
gay men has the Texas gay community on
edge. And some say the state’s mentality of
machismo and a burgeoning religious move
ment fosters hostility toward gay men and les
bians. .
“There’s a steady drumbeat out there that
it’s all right to hate, that it’s socially accept
able to hate gays and lesbians,” said openly
gay state Rep. Glen Maxey.
“You do that long enough,” he said, “and
you give permission for somebody to beat
somebody up or give somebody permission to
kill.”
Among the recent killings:
• Paul Quintanilla’s hands were bound be
hind his back when he was stabbed more than
a dozen times, his throat and genitals cut.
• Michael J. Burzinski was beaten, robbed
and shot to death execution-style after being
abducted by a group of teenagers looking for
gays they considered easy marks.
• Tommy Musick was shot four times in
the back of the head by a man who claimed he
panicked after Musick made an advance.
Another man was left for dead after being
impaled with a tree branch outside a gay bar.
Dick Weinhold, chairman of the Texas
Christian Coalition, which considers homo
sexuality immoral, says opponents of anti-dis
crimination laws are not to blame for the vio
lence.
“I just reject flat out any kind of notion
that holding a position opposing special rights
for homosexuals would somehow suggest that
people can become vigilantes and have a lynch
ing,” he said. “That’s ridiculous.”
Gay and lesbian activists say a Dallas
judge’s comment in 1988 reinforced hostility
and encouraged lenient treatment to those who
victimize gay people. Instead of life in prison,
Judge Jack Hampton gave a 30-year sentence
to an 18-year-old who had gone to a gay neigh-
State rep. Glen Maxey said anti-gay vio
lence is “socially acceptable” in Texas.
borhood and shot to death two gay men.
“I put prostitutes and gays at about the
same level,” Hampton said. “And I’d be hard
put to give somebody life for killing a prosti
tute.”
In 1993, the teenager who killed Musick, a
hairdresser, was sentenced by a jury to 12
years in jail. The assailant who speared the
Midland man with a stick received probation.
In August, a high school student and four
former football teammates were charged with
murder in Burzinski’s death.
In addition to Quintanilla, two other gay
men have been found dead with multiple stab
wounds in the Dallas suburb of Irving. Police
have arrested a suspect in one killing but say
leads have been exhausted in the other two.
JULIA PRODIS
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