Subject: Your Humanitarian of the Year is Killing Us!!!
From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 14:19:53 -0500

Open letter to PeTA from ACT UP WASHINGTON

PeTA's Humanitarian of the Year:
Senator Bob Smith...
Dedicated to the death of Gays, Lesbians and People with AIDS

Last June when several ACT UP chapters around the country confronted your
organization's opposition to AIDS research, you worked overtime to create a
cover up of Watergate proportions.

Instead of answering our charges, you hid behind red ribbons, and people with
AIDS.  You spoke of the need for increased funding for HIV prevention
efforts.  You talked about the importance of housing for people with AIDS.
 You spoke of the need to increase funding for the care and treatment of
people with AIDS.  In other words, you lied. We knew you could care less.
 Your leadership has never, I repeat never done anything to advance the quest
for an AIDS cure. 

You also pulled out PeTA staffers, calling them"Gay" animal rights activists
to create an illusion to America and the media that you had the support of
Gay and Lesbian community.

You marginalized the Gay and Lesbian struggle for equal rights and
liberation, as well as the civil rights movement and women's rights issues by
comparing our movements and the Holocaust with chicken ranching.  You
challenged us by asking us how we, an oppressed people could support the
continued "oppression" of lab rats and roaches.

Yours words and deeds in response to the ACT UP protest at your June, 1996
World Animal Congress, and it's associated fundraising events are now coming
back to haunt you.

This Saturday, December 14th, your organization is giving a "Humanitarian of
the Year" award to United States Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire. Smith is
one of the most consistent opponents of AIDS care, treatment, research and
prevention to ever cast his shadow in the Halls of Congress.

When I first heard that you were going to give an award to Smith, I couldn't
believe it possible.  I asked myself if it were possible for an organization
that regularly submits press releases, photos and celebrity commentaries to
the Gay media would be foolish enough to give an award to one of the Senate's
staunchest opponents to AIDS funding?  I was sure it was a mistake.  Would
Dan Mathews, PeTA's self described "AIDS activist" homosexual spokesmodel
catch this faux pas?  If he were really an "AIDS activist," he would.  After
all, we don't call Bob Smith "The Jesse Helms of the North" for nothing.
 Well, we now know that Dan Mathews and his fellow PeTA house homosexuals are
not AIDS activists. 

Last September, my lover of five years, Wayne Turner and I were in the
Gallery of the United States Senate during the debates over DOMA (Defense of
Marriage Act) and ENDA (Employment Nondiscrimination Act).  It was then that
I saw PeTA's "Humanitarian of the Year," Bob Smith's eyes light up as he took
to the floor and openly attacked Gay and Lesbian Americans. 

Bob Smith's record is so bad on AIDS that he was one of only three members of
the United States Senate to oppose the reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE
Act.  Perhaps your organization does not know what the Ryan White CARE Act
means to people with AIDS.    Let me enlighten you.  Here in Washington.,
D.C., we receive about $8,000,000 from Ryan White.  We use the money to
provide poor people with AIDS access to doctors, drugs, food, housing, dental
and home health care, drug treatment---in other words the basic survival
needs of life.  As a member of the local Ryan White Planning Council and the
chair of it's Fiscal Oversight Committee, I can tell you this with
certainty--- If your "Humanitarian of the Year" had his way, many of us
living with HIV and AIDS would die faster, poorer and hungrier.  Bob Smith is
no humanitarian.  I have doubts that he is even human.  Your support of him
forever associates your organization to opposition to the basics of life for
people with AIDS.  You should be ashamed of yourselves. 

Where is your compassion for the millions of Gays and Lesbians across
America, including Smith's daughter?  How dare you honor a man who puts the
life of a lab rat above the dignity and honor of his own child?

Your organization's alleged "Gay, AIDS activists" are sitting by and watching
PeTA honor a man that agrees with Pat Buchanan's homophobic contention that
AIDS is somehow "God's punishment."   Unless you immediatly withdraw this
award, you will find that neither they, nor anyone in any way associated with
PeTA will have any credibility with the Gay and Lesbian community.

During our June actions against your movement's opposition to the use of
animal models in AIDS research, you accused ACT UP of being "tools" and
"dupes" of the pharmaceutical industry.  That charge, of course fell on deaf
ears.  The media, both Gay and "mainstream" knew the truth. The first ACT UP
protest was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange against the obscene
profit margins of the drug companies.  

Several years ago, your "Humanitarian of the Year" had a bit of a public
relations problem.  His consistent record against civil rights, civil
liberties, health care, Gay and Lesbian rights, AIDS funding, HIV prevention,
as well as housing programs made people believe that Bob Smith was a cold,
heartless, shallow, small-minded bigot.  In order to solve that public
relations problem, a member of the Smith staff came upon the idea of making
Jesse's twin a champion of animal rights. So the cover up began.  A vote
here, a speech there, an article some place else, and all of a sudden Bob
Smith becomes a champion of the animal rights movement---all at the expense
of Gay men, Lesbians, immigrants, people of color, women, people with AIDS,
Americans with disabilities, and the poor.  I cannot comprehend how your
organization, an organization that pretends to be concerned about the
oppression of all species, both human and non-human, would ignore the Smith
record on issues of concern to progressives.  Do you really believe that Bob
Smith cares about laboratory mice and monkeys? This is a man who has
exploited what he thought was a "safe" issue to cloak his record.
Unfortunately, it seems thatPeTA sees no problem is assisting the Smith
charade. 

I challenge you to withdraw your "Humanitarian of the Year" award to Bob
Smith---the Jesse Helms of the North.

Until there is a cure available to all
We will ACT UP!  Fight Back! and Fight AIDS!

Steve Michael
for ACT UP Washington

The number for PETA is (757) 622-7382.