LGBT POV

It’s hard to describe to young LGBT activists what it was like 20 years ago when our friends and lovers were dying every week, slipping like water through our desperate clenched fists. There were no HIV/AIDS meds and no one cared – especially not the federal government. But we found ways to take care of ourselves and to love bravely as if dancing in a minefield, as Paul Monette used to say.

Paul Serchia was one of those who refused to give up on life, who gave to and honored others, even as cancer added to his burden of living with HIV/AIDS. Indeed, he had hoped to ride as a “Positive Pedaler” in the 2010 AIDS/LifeCycle8. Paul died last Tuesday, March 2. He was 52.

Please click inside to read remembrances from ACT UP/LA’s Peter Cashman, Jim Key from the LA Gay and Lesbian Center, and a blog post by Paul about his struggle with cancer.

Andrew Ogilvie, a Los Angeles-based board member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, attended the recent Creating Change conference in Dallas with his husband, Cary Davidson, chair of the board of Equality California. At a recent reception in West Hollywood, we chatted about how individuals don’t need to wait to be rallied by organizations – if they see a need, they just step up and pitch in. As an illustration, Andrew told the story of one Creating Change session where two gay Iraqis explained how they had asylum – but how badly they were being treated by Catholic Charities. A bunch of people immediately asked how they could help.

But the story also raised another significant, but hidden issue – the involvement of antigay faith-based institutions such as Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army in doing aid work through government contracts – in 1991 60% of the Catholic Charities’ budget came from government contracts. But, as Andrew’s story shows – and recent history points out (here, here and here) – Catholic Charities is a powerful force with apparently little governmental oversight as to how their religious views impact services to LGBT people and people with HIV/AIDS.

Please click inside for more on Catholic Charities and Andrew’s story.

I have not been reticent about criticizing Barack Obama, especially when it comes to his failure to move quickly on HIV/AIDS. But now we may be turning a corner. The final draft of a National Strategy on AIDS – crafted by a diverse group of 34 experts and stakeholders – is expected to be released Friday.

This follows the first meeting of the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS convened on Feb. 2 – see the 90 minute video of the meeting post on the White House’s Office of National AIDS Policy webpage.

That was followed five days later with the release of the President’s Budget on HIV/AIDS. And that was followed three days later – on Feb. 10 – by an announcement that Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) was rescinding enforcement of its 24-month cumulative cap on short-term and emergency housing assistance under the Ryan White program – the first step in a broader review of Ryan White housing policies. Please click inside for more on all of this.

Longtime LGBT ally Congressmember Diane E. Watson (D-CA) formally announced Thursday that she is not seeking re-election. She wants Karen Bass, the outgoing Speaker of the California Assembly and another pro-LGBT ally, to replace her representing California’s 33^rd Congressional District.

Please click inside to read Watson’s openly gay legislative deputy Charles Stewart’s description of how his boss told her staff she was retiring and some recollections from me about Watson going to the matt for people with HIV/AIDS.

Health and Human Services’ Secretary Sebelius announced the members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and included are Mario Pérez, Director of the LA County’s Office of AIDS Programs and Policy (OAPP), Phill Wison, founder and Executive Director of the Black AIDS Institute, and actor Rosie Perez.

Click inside to find out who else is on the council.

BIENESTAR, the Latino HIV/AIDS and social services organization, is collecting life-saving medications to be sent to earthquake-devastated Haiti. This collection will take place February 1st. through February 5th at all BIENESTAR centers.

The medications can be donated and dropped off at a BIENESTAR center near you (see the list below). These medications should be unexpired, not require refrigeration and preferably sealed.

Medications needed more urgently: Antiretrovirals, Medications to treat Opportunistic Infections, Antifungals, Antivirals, Antibiotics, Antiparasite drugs, Antiallergics and Pediatrics.

Monetary donations can be made through AIDS Healthcare Foundation – click on DONATIONS, and in honor of HAITI. Please click inside to see the drop-off locations and more ways to donate.

The California storms, the Prop 8 trial and me

By Gloria Nieto

I just had to turn Twitter off. I cannot read one more Prop 8 tweet. Maybe I can read something on Facebook or I will check later today with all the updates. It has just become too hard for me to watch and listen.

There is thunder and lighting and rain outside. The dogs are out in back with me, playing around, making it seem as if nothing is wrong if I stay out in my office and turn off the world.

What the hell kind of activist am I to do this? Hiding in my backyard away from the rest of the world is not something I usually seek out. I finally figured it out this past weekend while driving to Oregon. The Prop 8 election severely wounded my soul.

Please click inside to read the rest of Gloria’s insightful personal essay.

Okay, time out. It’s understandable that we’re all getting a little overwhelmed here: the federal Prop 8 trial; a conservative Republican winning Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts senate seat; the horror in Haiti; torrential rains in SoCal hitting the fire-areas hard; and for good measure – the Yes on 8 folks are absurdly suing the Courage Campaign over their farcical Prop8TrialTracker logo – which Calitics just dubbed “Logogate.”

But one of the stories we’re missing in this constant barrage of news is this one: a scientific model based on transmission of HIV among men in San Francisco predicts a coming surge of drug-resistant strains of HIV over the next five years, according to NewScientist.com.

What can you do? Well, a group called Artists Give Back is hosting a screening of the haunting Oscar-winning film Philadelphia Thursday night, with screenwriter Ron Nyswaner planning on being in attendance. If you’re an old ACT UPer, you might remember that Michael Callen and the Flirtations sang in the film and one of Tom Hanks’ friends was David Drake of “The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me.” If you are young and have NO IDEA what the big deal is/was about HIV/AIDS – this is a pre-drug cocktail mainstream version of a real-life incident. Or if you’re a fan of Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young, you might remember how these straight men captured so profoundly the grief of being a gay dead man walking, clinging to a life wasting away. And you might understand why we promised never to forget. Click inside for more info on the event, on the UCLA study and a concern about ADAP funding cuts to jails.

“Light a candle for these souls and for Haiti. Lord help us” – Steve La Guerre, leader of SEROvie

HIV/AIDS Clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Hit Hard by Earthquake; How You Can Help
By Myles Helfand

A quick note on some HIV/AIDS-related news trickling out of Haiti in the aftermath of this week’s devastating earthquake: A key HIV/AIDS clinic in Haiti, the GHESKIO facility in Port-au-Prince, has been severely damaged but most of its staff is accounted for and OK, according to a message from Jean W. Pape, M.D., the director of the facility. Please click inside to read this cross-post from an HIV positive-focused publication called The Body.

UPDATE: THE ADVOCATE IS REPORTING THAT THE AIDS GROUP SEROVIE LOST 14 PEOPLE. THE INTERNATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION HAS SET UP A SPECIAL PAGE HERE WHERE YOU CAN GET INFORMATION AND HELP.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger submitted his proposed budget for 2010-11 on Friday, designed to close a $19.9 billion gap over the next 18 months. His budget called for revenues and budget cuts, and a re-definition of the state’s relationship with the federal government – the Wall Street Journal says Schwarzenegger is looking for a federal bailout.

Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency and called the legislature into a focused special session to prevent the shortfall from growing and to avoid further cuts. However – the governor not only spared the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), but gave an $87.5 million increase from the general fund.

Here’s the video – and inside find more about ADAP and the full transcript of Schwarzenegger’s remarks with a Q& A with reporters.

In 1984, before Rock Hudson came out as a gay man with AIDS, actress Zelda Rubinstein was the poster-mother for HIV/AIDS awareness.

Literally. An Los Angeles County AIDS awareness campaign featured her as “mother” in an LA Cares billboard campaign with Rubinsteain warning her Village People-wanna be son, “Don’t forget your rubbers” as he made his way into a world where it was “raining men.” Those billboards were ubiquitous all over the unincorporated portion of LA County where gays, seniors and renters were campaigning to become the new city of West Hollywood.

Rubinstein was best known as the eccentric spiritual medium Tangina Barrons who played a key minor role in the Steven Spielberg-co-written, co-produced movie Poltergeist in 1982. There was something very comforting about her presence as “mother” during those very difficult times when AIDS was snatching away gay men like the creepy Beast in that film.

RadarOnline.com reported today “the sad news that Rubinstein, 76, has been taken off of life support following the failure of two of her major organs.” Please click inside for more on Rubinstein. But here’s a short video – shot in 2007 at a screening of the film Poltergeist that illustrates her wonderful sense of humor.