Subject: Lambda Responds to Admissions by Michael Bowers

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 16:12:37 -0400

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, June 5, 1997

Contact:  Ruth Harlow, 212-809-8585 x 210
Peg Byron, 212-809-8585 x 230, 888-987-1984

Lambda Responds to Admissions by Former Georgia
Attorney General Michael Bowers

Gubernatorial candidate Bowers, who argued in federal court that no attorney
even perceived to be in violation of Georgia's sex laws could effectively
represent the state, admits to decade-long adultery as Attorney General

(NEW YORK, June 5, 1997)   Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund issued a
statement today in response to the admissions of adultery and hypocrisy this
morning by former Attorney General of Georgia Michael Bowers, who is now a
candidate for governor of that state.

Bowers admitted this morning in an interview with the Associated Press that
he had a decade-long adulterous affair while Attorney General of Georgia.  At
the same time, Bowers fired an attorney on his staff, Robin Shahar, because
she planned to engage in a private religious marriage ceremony with her
female partner.

"Former Attorney General Michael Bowers said it best himself -- he is a
hypocrite.  He also has violated the Constitution by imposing more exacting
standards on Robin Shahar, an honest gay employee in a loving, legal,
monogamous relationship, than he imposed on himself," said Ruth Harlow, now
managing attorney at Lambda's national headquarters and lead counsel for
Robin Shahar since the ACLU's filing of Shahar v. Bowers in 1991.

"We've been saying throughout the litigation that Georgia's antiquated laws
against all kinds of consensual sexual behavior -- including adultery -- are
irrelevant to a state attorney's qualifications.  Given his own behavior,
Michael Bowers would finally have to agree," said Harlow.

"Those laws certainly can't be used to harm gay and lesbian attorneys'
employment chances while being flouted by the Attorney General himself,"
Harlow emphasized.

Bowers's decision to fire Shahar is challenged in a case where the Eleventh
Circuit, three days before his admission, ruled 8-4 in his favor.

Lambda is the nation's oldest and largest legal organization defending the
rights of lesbians, gay men, and people with AIDS and HIV.  In late June, it
will open a Southern Regional Office in Atlanta, the first such office for a
national gay organization.  Headquartered in New York, Lambda has regional
offices in Chicago and Los Angeles.

                              - 30 -