From: MPetrelis@aol.com
Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 19:19:05 EDT
Subject: Demo at SF Chronicle over straight lies about gays


For Immediate Release                                                         
    
May 24, 1999
Contact: David Pasquarelli
415-751-7457

                GAYS ANGRY WITH STRAIGHT LIES IN S.F. CHRONICLE;

           Activists Demand Newspaper End Crusade Demonizing Homo-sex

(San Francisco, CA) - A coalition of gay and AIDS activist groups is upset 
with a campaign by the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper to demonize gay male 
sex -- assisted in large part by heterosexual HIV-negative bureaucrats who 
operate the SF AIDS Foundation.

	WHAT:      News conference

	WHERE:    SF Chronicle, 
                       901 Mission Street (at Fifth Street)

	DATE:        Tuesday, May 25

	TIME:         12:00 noon

"The May 24 Open Forum column by Pat Christen, the straight AIDS Foundation 
executive director, claimed a pervasive silence about HIV exists in the gay 
community, especially among sexually active gays, without citing hard 
scientific proof," said Michael Petrelis, member of the Magnus Hirschfeld 
Society, a gay activist group. "Lois Kazakoff, editor of the opinion page, 
admitted she had not seen any 'research' showing this alleged silence. So 
much for the Chronicle's standard of fact checking."

David Pasquarelli, member of ACT UP/San Francisco, similarly criticized an 
April 26 front page Chronicle story asserting the same refusal by gays to 
discuss HIV. In that story, Rene Durazzo, heterosexual director of programs 
for the AIDS Foundation said, "It's the silence right now that's the most 
dangerous characteristic in this city."

Pasquarelli rejected such unfounded claims made by straights against gays and 
accused the Chronicle of launching its anti-gay campaign with a January 29 
article entitled "Russian Roulette: Sex Parties."

"What is behind these accusations of gay male silence around HIV? We have 
been talking about AIDS for nearly two decades now and we know how to protect 
ourselves and each other," said Pasquarelli, a gay man. "The most deafening 
silence is at the Chronicle, a paper that refuses to report about people with 
AIDS who are deeply dissatisfied with the outrageous six-figure salaries of 
the heterosexuals at the AIDS Foundation"

Pasquarelli pointed out the front page article in the May 20 Bay Area 
Reporter gay weekly detailing excessive raises at the AIDS charity. This 
paper will be distributed at the news conference along with the latest IRS 
990 tax returns for the AIDS Foundation.

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