Subject: GAYS BLAST KEMP
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 12:53:00 -0400

********************************************************
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
PRESS RELEASE
contact:   Robert Bray or Tracey Conaty
pager 800/757-6476       voice 619/595-7949
Gay and Lesbian Media Center, Republican Natl Convention, San Diego
********************************************************

San Diego, August 11, 1996...The following statement on Jack Kemp and the
hard right's influence on the 1996 GOP Convention is by Kerry Lobel, Deputy
Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF).

Former Senator Dole's selection of Jack Kemp as his running mate is one more
attempt to pacify the Christian Coalition and the ultra-right-wing Council
for National Policy.

Kemp is a Trojan Horse candidate.  While he appears to be a mainstream
conservative that offers the ticket a focus on conservative economic
policies, Kemp is, in fact, an extremist out of step with mainstream America.

Over the last fifteen years, Kemp has been part of the leadership of the hard
Right, whose agenda is antithetical to democracy.  His voting record brands
him as a right-winger on such issues as abortion, discrimination against
gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders, and people living with HIV and
AIDS.

Even Kemp's arguably moderate views on affirmative action and immigration can
be called moderate only in the context of the Republican extremism that
surrounds him. 

We must judge this ticket by its platform, its record and its leaders.

The convention platform provides a clue:  a Pat Buchanan inspired platform
 that scapegoats poor people, people of color and immigrants.  The platform
re-writes the GOP's checkered history related to AID and AIDS funding by
falsely claiming its traditional support for funding for AIDS research and
prevention.  It was this GOP that placed serious limits on the efforts of
AIDS educators to speak plainly about sex and sexuality.  This is a platform
that, while it claims to support equal opportunity for all, continues to
perpetuate discrimination against the gay community in the areas of
same-gender marriage and service in the military.

Leadership of the Republican Party is so far to the right that it is
chilling.  The convention's speaker line-up includes some of the right-wing's
most notorious spokespeople:  militia advocate Helen Chenowith, anti-gay and
AIDS-phobic Congressmember Robert Dornan, and Christian Coalition leader
Ralph Reed.

Jack Kemp is the Trojan Horse and America is Troy.   Let's not open the gates
of the country for the Trojan Horse to enter.  We must keep ourselves
defended from the forces of the Right. 
###