HIV Funding and Bush Administration

I see it has been reported that funding for a federal grant program to help city and states fight rising HIV infection rates within minority communities has been suspended only days before the Center for Disease Control released a report calling for a “heightened response” to the “major health crisis” of HIV/AIDS in African American communities.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Minority_AIDS_initiative_threatened_by_funding_0426.html


But more ominous and not reported anywhere that I can find is the fact that 60 sites of the Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG)* have been de-funded, arguably the organization in which the best research on HIV and AIDS has taken place. That is 60 US sites in Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa and other locations will no longer be able to offer HIV-infected persons the latest drugs and treatment approaches. At 60 sites seasoned HIV researchers, study nurses, and support staff will be left without positions. This is immoral! All because of budget cut-backs due to the Iraq war. Of course gay folks and other minorities, especially gay folks and others with HIV, have always been considered disposible by Republican administrations, beginning the Reagan himself. I would hope that if these cutbacks were more widely known, there might be some outrage expressed!

As many of you know, I previously worked at the HIV Clinic at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha and had 700 patients with HIV and AIDS. Many of them participated in various clinical trials at various stages of the investigative process. Now all those patients on the prairie and upper midwest will need to go to Chicago or Denver for the closest study. This is so wrong!


*From the ACTG website http://aactg.org/index.asp

"The AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), the largest HIV clinical trials organization in the world, plays a major role in setting standards of care for HIV infection and opportunistic diseases related to HIV/AIDS in the United States and the developed world. The ACTG is composed of, and directed by, leading clinical scientists in HIV/AIDS therapeutic research. The ACTG is funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases."

Ellen and Laura Dern remember Ellen's Coming Out Episode

Ellen DeGeneres & Laura Dern Recall 1997 TV Smooch

NEW YORK (AP) - Ten years after they kissed on the "Ellen'' show, Ellen DeGeneres and Laura Dern reunited Monday (4-23-07) on DeGeneres' syndicated talk show to reflect back on the smooch and its aftermath.

DeGeneres, 49, made pop-culture history in 1997 by coming out of the closet in real life while her sitcom character did likewise. In her character's coming-out episode, Dern shared a smooch with the comedian during a guest stint on the ABC series as a lesbian love interest.

Dern, 40, recounted Monday how she couldn't get an acting job for more than a year afterward. "There was certainly backlash, I guess, (that) we all felt from it,'' she told DeGeneres, who said she was sorry and "had no idea'' that Dern was snubbed in Hollywood.

Not getting work felt "awfully terrifying,'' recalled Dern, who said she's grateful for the "extraordinary experience and opportunity'' to be a part of the groundbreaking episode, which also guest starred Oprah Winfrey, Demi Moore and Melissa Etheridge.

May 13 OUUT Movie BEFORE STONEWALL

"Before Stonewall"

This documentary by Greta Schiller takes a look at the sometimes oblique American acknowledgment of homosexuals in the decades before a historical flashpoint in 1969. Late that year, the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village was stormed by police and its patrons arrested -- resulting in two days of rioting. Allen Ginsberg and other celebrities talk about past police tactics, witch-hunts, censorship, and historical "cleansing" operations that violated human rights and civil liberties -- such as routing gays and lesbians out of the State Department. A certain openness about sexual preferences started appearing in the 1920s and accelerated during World War II, eventually culminating in the organized movements of the 1960s and later demanding an end to discrimination. Older and younger generations of gays and lesbians present different viewpoints on a variety of topics, and conflicts or disagreements between gays and lesbians are outlined. The seriousness of the subject of discrimination is balanced with humor, which makes this documentary more accessible to straight audiences unfamiliar with the topic. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Running Time:
87 mins
Complete Cast:
Allen Ginsberg
Barbara Gittings

Oppose Focus of the Family "Love Won Out" Campaign

Several weeks ago, Omaha PFLAG was notified that Focus on the Family’s one-day Love Won Out conference will come to Omaha on April 14.The anti-gay conference goes from city to city, drawing crowds of 1,000 or 1,500. Here, the host is Trinity Church at 156th St. and W. Dodge Rd. A lineup of speakers will try to make the case that, as the Love Won Out web site puts it, change is possible and “you don’t have to be gay.” That message unfortunately is welcomed by many parents who become confused and frightened when their child comes out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The Love Won Out message is wrong, and it is harmful.

In response to Love Won Out -- An ecumenical worship service at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 13, at 1st Central Congregational Church, 36th and Harney Sts., that will be joyful and affirming. Spiritual leaders of at least eight congregations will take part. A young man who went through the agony of “reparative therapy” at Trinity Church in an effort to change his sexuality will give his witness. The River City Mixed Chorus and First United Methodist Church ’s choir will sing.

Please join me at the church!

Link to Omaha PFLAG site: http://www.pflag-omaha.org/president.html

Couple kicked out of IHOP over sapphic smooch

Just one kiss. That’s all it took — to get thrown out of the IHOP in Grandview.
“It was a kiss I would share with my uncle,” Blair Funk told me. Except it wasn’t her uncle she kissed. It was her honey, Eva Sandoval.

Two young women sharing a kiss didn’t seem inappropriate to the other couple in the restaurant booth that night, Jackie Smith and the woman with whom she shares her life, Toni Smith. But someone watching the scene was offended.

So later, the manager confronted them in the lobby and told them to get out. The way Blair tells it, “He said, ‘I have to tell you, we’ve had some complaints about public displays of affection, and we’re a family restaurant. We can’t accept it, and we won’t accept it.’

SNAP Productions "I Am My Own Wife"

See this once in a lifetime performance by Nick Zudina in this Pulitzer Prize winning play! Now playing at SNAP! Productions. You will not be sorry! One of the best productions ever by SNAP!

http://snapproductions.com/Season2007/WIFE/Own_Wife.html

Gay hero dies

A true hero to all gay and lesbian people died of AIDS complications this past week.

Bob Hattoy is dead
--Rick Jacobs

Bob Hattoy died this weekend. He was famous for a few minutes as the Gay Man With AIDS in the run-up to the first Clinton election who spoke at the 1992 Democratic convention. I did not know Bob then, noting only that he was bold to speak publicly about his fight with a disease that the Reagan/Bush-Bush/Quayle administrations had pretended did not exist. (Click on link above for remainder of this story)

Other links to Bob Hattoy

http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2007/03/bob-hattoy-gay-aids-hero-advisor-to.html#links

http://www.towleroad.com/2007/03/gay_activist_bo.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/bob-hattoy-someone-you-should-know.html


Bob's speech to the 1992 Democratic Convention:

(link to YouTube video of the speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUashmbh1zQ


"Presentation on AIDS by Bob Hattoy"

Mr. Hattoy: Thank you. I love you. Thank you, California. Thank you, Gay and Lesbian community. Thank you, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder. Thank you, Aretha Franklin, God.
I am here tonight because of one man's courage and conviction, one man's dedication and daring and yes, one man's true kindness. He's my boss, Bill Clinton. (Applause)


You see, I have AIDS. I could be an African American woman, a Latino man, a 10-year old boy or girl. AIDS has many faces. And AIDS knows no class or gender, race or religion, or sexual orientation. AIDS does not discriminate, but George Bush's White House does. (Applause)
AIDS is a disease of the Reagan-Bush years. The first case was detected in 1981, but it took 40,000 deaths and seven years for Ronald Reagan to say the word "AIDS." It's five years later, 70,000 more dead and George Bush doesn't talk about AIDS, much less do anything about it.
Eight years from now there will be 2 million cases in America. If George Bush wins, we're all at risk in America. It's that simple. It's that serious. It's that terrible. (Applause)
(Chants of "No second term!")

This is hard. I'm a Gay man with AIDS and if there's any honor in having this disease it's because it's an honor being part of the Gay and Lesbian community in America. (Applause)
We have watched our friends and lovers die, but we have not given up hope. Gay men and Lesbians created community health clinics, provided educational materials, opened food kitchens, and held the hands of the dying in hospices. The Gay and Lesbian community is an American family in the best sense of the word. (Applause)

President Bush, we are a million points of light; you are just too morally blind to see us. Mr. President, you don't see AIDS for what it is - it's a crisis in public health that demands medical experts, not moral judges - and it's time to move beyond your politics of denial, division and death. It's time to move George Bush out of the White House. (Applause)

We need a President who will take action, a President strong enough to take on the insurance companies that drop people with the HIV virus, a President courageous enough to take on the drug companies who drive AIDS patients into poverty and deny them lifesaving medicine. And we need a President who isn't terrified of the word "condom." (Applause)

Every single person with AIDS is someone worthy of caring for. After all, we are your sons and daughters, fathers and mothers. We are doctors and lawyers, folks in the military, ministers and priests and rabbis. We are Democrats, and yes, Mr. President, Republicans. We are part of the American family and, Mr. President, your family has AIDS and we're dying and you're doing nothing about it. (Applause)

Listen. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. But I don't want to live in an America where the President sees me as the enemy. I can face dying because of a disease, but not because of politics.

So I stand here tonight in support of Bill Clinton, a man who sees the value in each and every member of the American family. And although I am a person with AIDS, I am a person with hope, because I know how different my life and all our lives could be if I could call my boss Mr. President.

Martin Luther King once said that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Fifty thousands people took to the streets in New York today because they will no longer be silent about AIDS. (Applause)

Their actions give me hope. All of you came here tonight; millions more are watching in America. Obviously, we have hope and hope gives me the chance of life. I think it's really important to understand that this year, more than any other year, we must vote as if our life depends on it. Mine does; your could - and we all have so much to live for. Thank you.
(Standing ovation)


Act Up. Fight Back. Fight AIDS. Thank you.