From: MPetrelis@aol.com
Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 02:33:13 -0400
Subject: Gay lib = 99 years

AMERICANS FOR GAY RIGHTS

For Immediate Release                        Contact: Michael Petrelis
                                
May 12, 1996                                               Ph. (415) 621-6267

                                                                        email
address: MPetrelis@aol.com
        
   99 Rainbow Flags Presented to Helmut Kohl & Trees Planted

       in Israel Commemorating Founding of the World's First 

        Homosexual Emancipation Group by Magnus Hirschfeld

San Francisco, CA -- A press conference will be held at the Goethe Institute
to present officials with ninety-nine desk-size Rainbow Flags, a symbol of
today's gay liberation movement, to be passed on to Chancellor Helmut Kohl,
in commemoration of the founding of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee on
May 15, 1897, in Berlin, by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a homosexual Jew
transvestite.

  WHAT:   News Conference
  WHERE:  Goethe Institute (German Cultural Center)
               530 Bush Street
  WHEN:    May 15, 1996
  TIME:     12 noon

The political advocacy organization Americans for Gay Rights announced the
donation, as part of a year-long effort calling attention to the birth of the
modern homosexual movement in Germany almost a century ago. The group also
wants to honor the pioneering work of Hirschfeld, one of the world's first
serious sex researchers, who was born on May 14, 1868, in Kolbey, Prussia.

Hirschfeld also started the Institute of Sexual Science, which was destroyed
by the Nazis because of his homosexuality, Jewish ancestry and anti-fascist
politics. He demanded repeal of Germany anti-sodomy law Paragraph 175; and
produced what is the world's first gay film: Anders als die Andern (Different
From the Others). After burning the books in Hirschfeld's institute, the
Nazis forced him into exile in France, where he died on May 14, 1935.

"We hope Chancellor Kohl will accept the Rainbow Flags, in an act of
atonement for the ruination of Hirschfeld at the heinous hands of the Nazis,"
said Michael Petrelis, a spokesman for Americans for Gay Rights. "We ask Kohl
to repudiate all forms of present day homophobia, and to remember
Hirschfeld's pleas for equal treatment of gays and lesbians."

In order to honor Hirschfeld's Jewish heritage, Americans for Gay Rights is
additionally planting trees in Israel, through the Jewish National Fund, a
Zionist environmental organization. Gay groups in Germany are currently
organizing for a centenary celebration and symposium to be held in Berlin
next year to memorialize Hirschfeld's life and his political and cultural
activism.
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